Tell Your Stories Authentically

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Jamie Kincaid, Owner of JK Photos, located in Kennewick, WA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I own JK Photos and Empower You Retreats. With JK Photos, I am a lifestyle and branding photographer, and my clients are primarily female entrepreneurs who are ready to tell their business stories through a beautiful, fluid set of professional images. My retreat clients are also women, and they’re the women who have spent their whole lives taking care of other people, giving more of themselves than they have to give, and making sure everyone around them is healthy and happy. They’re women who are ready to start a self-care practice that works for them, create community with other women instead of competing with them, and begin to live a life of self-love, joy, and fulfillment.

Tell us about yourself

I’ve had a passion for photography since I was a child, but my business was born out of a need for creative release while working a corporate desk job. It started out as a side hustle, an extra little bit of income for my family, and a chance for me to do the thing I loved. Then it became bigger, and I realized I was most fulfilled when I was working with photography clients. Everything I do in my business is to lift up my clients and followers, from creating a full story planning guide for branding clients to personalizing every one of my sessions to my clients' specific personalities and vibes.

Eventually, I began to notice a trend in the women I photographed: they were self-conscious, felt unworthy of spending money on themselves or their businesses, and were overall unfulfilled. I had just started offering self-love portraits – personalized portrait sessions for women – and realized I could bring this joyful experience to more women if I did it in a group setting. I brought in some other women to help me create a day focused on self-care, self-love, and connection, and together we created my first-ever retreat in the fall of 2021. It really took off, and I am now planning my third annual self-love women’s retreat.

I’m all about connecting people and connecting with people, and helping women feel seen. My work enables me to do all of this and more.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I was able to quit my day job in the summer of 2022, and since then, I have taken on more clients and planned more events. My biggest personal accomplishment is that I’ve created a business that continues to grow, brings me immense joy, and helps provide for my family. My biggest professional accomplishment is that I’ve changed women’s lives with my work, and I receive messages from clients all the time about how much my images or my retreats have helped them improve their own lives.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

For me, the hardest part is the unknown. Not knowing whether my messaging will resonate with the right people and putting myself and my work out there for the whole world to see, it can get nerve-wracking sometimes.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Don’t try to be perfect. If you spend all your time perfecting your offer or your messaging or anything else, you’ll never put it out into the world. Just start, make mistakes, and start again. Give yourself grace every step of the way, and be proud of yourself for taking the leap.
Ignore the experts. What I mean by this is that there are thousands of “experts” out there telling you what to do, what not to do, what you’re doing wrong, what you need to change… it’s exhausting, and most of them disagree with each other. Find someone whose message resonates with you and work with them, or follow them and take in their advice. If you try to follow all the experts, it’ll just make you feel defeated.
Create systems and automate where you can. There are a lot of resources out there for systems management. Take advantage of them and create systems early. Automation can save you a ton of time and heartache, and you can create automated messaging that still sounds like you and not like a robot.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.jkphotoswa.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JKPhotosWA/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jkphotoswa/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-kincaid-35996546/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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