The Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship
If Victoria Hartell could write a letter to her younger self, stressed over starting a new business, it would read something like this: “Just chill out. Relax, enjoy what you’re doing, enjoy the process, and remember that no one is perfect.”
Victoria Hartell is a wife, a mom, a believer, and a photographer. She was born, raised, attended college, got married, became a mom, and started her business all in the little southeast corner of Virginia. Victoria is a wedding and portrait photographer for couples who are full of love and laughter. She’s passionate about creating images that feel like memories already for them.
I had the pleasure of first being introduced to Victoria when she came to BrandWell for help with her website. After designing a full brand and website for this talented Virginia Beach photographer, we became fast friends as we faced the highs and lows of entrepreneurship together.
Where Victoria’s Story Began
“What prompted me to start my photography business is actually kind of funny,” Victoria started to explain. “At the college I went to, I was actually required to take an art class and I really, really put it off until almost the end. I was a junior in the spring of my junior year and I found that digital photography was one of the course options. So I thought, awesome, I will do that. The class was great. I learned the ins and outs of shooting and manual editing and Lightroom all sorts of tips about composition and lighting. After that class though, I just put my camera on a shelf. I really would only pull it out for important life events, parties, birthdays, that sort of thing.”
Fast forward three years, Victoria was at what she thought would be her dream job at an amazing nonprofit but came to realize it was very emotionally draining for her. She found herself scrolling through Instagram often drawn to the beautiful photography on her explore page. Victoria shared, “it inspired me so much to break my camera back out and start documenting beauty again because I wanted to put beauty back out there when on a daily basis, I was facing so much kind of hardship and despair.”
Over the course of that summer, Victoria actually took a few more online classes and enrolled in some Skillshare courses, and sharpened her skills back up. She noticed she was particularly drawn to wedding and couples photos because of how happy and in love the couples were. That was the pivotal point when she decided to start building her own portfolio, get her business license, and decided to do this for real.
Terminated to Determined
Victoria definitely did not intend on going full-time as quickly as she did. “It was really up until this point, it was a fun side thing for me that I was learning and growing in, but really didn't have the confidence or the belief in myself to ever think that it would be a full-time job.”
In October of 2019, she received a phone call from her boss, letting her know that unfortunately her entire department had been terminated due to budget cuts. The real kicker was that she was eight months pregnant at the time. “I did realize that it was also a now or never type of opportunity and that I could either really wallow in how unfair this situation was or just kind of throw all of my energy full-throttle into booking more sessions and weddings.”
Looking at it now, Victoria is extremely confident that had she not been given that unfortunate situation, she would have never moved forward with being a full-time wedding photographer. She wouldn't have believed in herself enough. She wasn't confident in her abilities.
“And, I didn't allow room for, frankly, God to step in and kind of change that course and or at least in my head because that is what happened and so really quickly. I did have a little bit of time to wallow and be frustrated and sad. But really quickly, the decision was in front of me of we're doing this. You're not going back to a full-time office job. You're going to be your own business. And it's going to. Well, I already did, but you're going to make a livelihood off of it,” Victoria explained.
Three Highs of Entrepreneurship
The decision to take on jobs that bring her joy and say no thank you to the ones that don't. This allows her to refer out to others and focus more on the things that she loves.
2. Being able to decide on how much she is going to make. “I'm not limited by a salary or an hourly wage,” she explains. “The better I get in my craft, the more that I can reasonably charge and I can choose to take on as many bookings or as few as I want that work for my schedule.” (Which takes us to the next high.)
3. Having great flexibility in our jobs. “I can beg Drew, my husband, enough that he will take the day off and just come to the beach for the day.”
Three Lows of Entrepreneurship
Taxes. No one else takes them out for you. It's on you to find out what you owe and when.
2. Sacrifices that we do have to make sometimes. For other people, it might look like taking a day off. “Normally for us, it just means working till maybe 11 or 12 at night to make up for it.”
3. Imposter syndrome. We all have a hard time looking forward and planning for ourselves and not looking to the left or to the right and seeing what other people are doing with their own businesses.
More Insights from Victoria
When Victoria and I first connected, at the time, Victoria was booked out for a full year in her photography business. I asked her what her secret sauce was to being so booked out and so far in advance. Her reply was, “I think it's really good marketing. I don't have a zillion followers on Instagram, but the people that are there are consistently the ones that have turned into friends and then clients over the years. So the vast majority of my bookings, about 90 percent, are from Instagram. The rest are generally just word of mouth that has come from my other previous clients that are the ones I booked on Instagram. So really, it just all goes back to Instagram.”
Victoria shows up and tries to be real as she can. “I do my best to post regularly, be there regularly, build community and connections and then honestly just deliver over under-promise, over-deliver,” she shares.
Recently, Victoria noticed a unique opportunity to fill in an educational gap in the market. She saw that not many new photographers knew the back end of the business. With her husband, Drew, they created a mentorship program to help new photographers transition from having a hobby to creating a business by teaching things like niche marketing, pricing and contracts, and honing their skills.
Victoria shares so much more about her journey of highs and lows in entrepreneurship in this episode. Find Victoria on Instagram @victoriahartellphoto and online at victoriahartell.com.
KEEP BRANDING WELL,
Victoria
