Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kirk Elliott, Founder of St. Lucia Photo Tours, located in Castries, Saint Lucia.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I create amazing personalized private experiences that immerse visitors in authentic St. Lucia culture, history, and cuisine in my unique Kirk Elliott style.
My customers are vacationers who wish to have more than just another cookie-cutter vacation. Vacationers who instead wish to have a vacation experience that touches them to the core and leaves them invigorated, rejuvenated, revitalized, and inspired like no other vacation has ever done to them before.
Tell us about yourself
While many people in St. Lucia think of me as just a photographer, photography just happens to be one of the vehicles through which I express myself and through which I earn a living. However, I am passionate about the mystical magic of living life to its limit. This can be taking long morning walks along the beach and simply communing with nature while most of my peers are busy working at the "peanut farm"! It can be shooting the breeze with the ladies who keep the beach clean as I walk by or stopping for fresh coconut water from the roadside vendor after my walk.
It was this passion for life and a recognition that happiness is the ultimate wealth that got me started in business, and while the road has been rough and rugged at times, I couldn't dream of doing it any other way. I am motivated each day by the uncertainty of what may never be but still often ends up being. I may have no bookings waiting in the wings, then in the middle of my beach walk, my phone goes ping, and I see a message from someone who says they read up on me somewhere and they'd like to learn more.
So I send a quick response explaining that I'm currently communing with nature, and I'll set up a Zoom when I'm back home in about 2 hours. Then for the tease, I shoot a quick pic of the ocean and send it to them with a little note saying this is what they'll be coming to. It's the joy of being able to share this slice of my Paradise with visitors that fuels my passion to keep on keeping on when the going gets tough and I have no idea how I might pay the bills. But somehow, it always seems to work out, and I stopped worrying about 263 beach walks ago!
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My biggest accomplishment as a business owner is being sufficiently comfortable in my skin to spend time giving back - actually make that "giving forward"!
I recently adopted a school deep in the Saint Lucian countryside. It is refreshingly heartwarming to visit the school and learn of their challenges and their needs, and then get visitors to bring over school supplies and for us to visit the school and engage with the young students.
Supporting these young leaders in training today so they can meaningfully impact the world tomorrow gives me the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. So I would have to consider that being able to do this is my greatest accomplishment as a business owner.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
For me, it has been having faith and not losing hope when the going gets tough. I have seen days of plenty and days of very little, and I have sometimes felt that I have done so much with so little for so long that I am preeminently qualified to do just about anything with practically nothing at all!
Ironically, embracing this fear of failure and telling it to step aside while I do my thing has been supremely empowering, and today it has become the wind beneath my wings.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Love what you do, as that love will shine through, and it will see you through.
- Give. Give your time. Give your effort. Give your money if you are able to do so. It is often said that it is better to give than to receive, and I have discovered that the magic of giving is that it forces you to view the world through a different lens. And very often, in giving, I have found answers that I didn't even know I was looking for.
- Learn to laugh at yourself, for some of our greatest lessons are to be found in our mess-ups and mistakes, and if we can make light of them and laugh at ourselves, we can quickly find the diamonds that are often hidden in the daylight.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://stluciaphototours.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StLuciaByKirk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/StLuciaByKirk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KirkElliott
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KirkElliott/
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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