Sarah and I go way back to the days I was living in her city, attending law school. We connected over our mutual love for concerts, and I encouraged her to pursue love for photography professionally. Now she runs a successful wedding photography business, and we are still BFFs. This week’s episode is a casual peek at our businesses. It’s just friends chatting about business girl talk. We take a look at how much our businesses have changed amidst a global pandemic and the challenges we all face as small business owners. It’s like entrepreneur girl talk, and it was so fun to record! Enjoy.

Listen to this episode now:

Listen on your favorite platform: APPLE, SPOTIFY, and STITCHER.

How Sarah Got Her Start

It was 2019, and Sarah had tried pursuing photography off and on in the past. She didn’t believe there was a place for her in the “saturated” market. That’s when I came into the picture. After connecting and becoming fast friends, I encouraged Sarah to pursue photography professionally and give it a go! From there, she attended a photography workshop and started shadowing me at weddings. Now she has a successful wedding photography business. Check out her website HERE. She is a talented dar and moody photographer for the “infatuated with life romantics.”

Nichole’s Facebook Flashback

After recently quitting my 9-5 job, I was going to post for some business advice in a group on Facebook. As I was searching in the group, I found a post from me back in 2015 at the start of my business. It made me emotional to read. This business has sustained me and grown me through almost a decade of my life. I look back on that 20-year-old girl, and I’m so proud of what she’s accomplished! It was so cool to have this full-circle moment. Now I am following my dreams of owning my business FULL TIME!

“What is really important? The little squares on Instagram or our souls and relationships with people.”

When our businesses started, the squares on Instagram were carefully curated. The comparison was real, and it was so easy to feed into this filtered view of life and out businesses. During the pandemic, our worlds were turned upside down. I went on IGTV and tried to shift to showing my face more in videos on social media. I noticed a tension in myself that I could now be an object other people could just consume. The vulnerability, though, ended up shifting social media entirely for us. I don’t look to it for the validation I once did. It’s not as self-focused anymore. And there is a much healthier balance for what we share and what we don’t. We recognize and appreciate the shift now to more casual and entertaining content and notice it as a strategic business tool.

Introducing- Southern Creative Collective!

If you like our business girl talk episode, you’ll love connecting with us further on this new venture! Sarah and I are creating an intentional community for creatives like us to benefit from teaching, workshops, online guide, resources, and more. Follow along on INSTAGRAM to stay up to date on upcoming events and news.

Links Mentioned:

Take me to the SHOW NOTES (on the blog).

Follow Nichole on INSTAGRAM.

Free Resources and Tools HERE.

Shoot with Nichole at The Styled Event.

**Attend the HUGE workshop- The Styled Event: Wedding Walkthrough. I hope to see you there!**

Shop Nichole’s Amazon Favorites (including gear, biz books, and more!).