**all images and video in this post are copyright SarahQ**

Next Week: Stephanie Roberts

Welcome, Sarah Q. I'm so excited to have you Women and Business series! Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. 

(So many people are reading this post!  Please let SarahQ know that you appreciate her time and her sharing so openly by leaving her a note in the comments!  Thanks!)

What 5 things you do that have helped you the keep your sanity while being a mom, photographer and business woman?

That's a funny question since most of the time I feel like my sanity is nowhere to be found :) Trying to balance family time, work time and me time is so much harder than I ever thought it would be. There are a few things I've learned and done that have made things easier, though ...

1. Renting a studio space! As hard as it is to be away from the kids, it's so so so much easier to focus and get my work done in a clean, quiet environment. When I first started my business I thought working from home would be so perfect. I'd wake up, have breakfast with the kids, sit and get a little work done, take a break for playtime, watch Dr. Phil, work a little more and then spend a nice evening relaxing with my hubby. HA!! The reality was me at the computer with one toddler crying and hanging on my legs wanting to sit in my lap and the other one asking every five minutes how much longer I was going to have to work. I'd have to get up every couple of minutes to clean up spilled juice boxes, find missing shoes, kiss bumped knees and make snacks. All the distractions made it hard to get anything done so I was at the computer longer and longer every day, trying to catch up. It turned into an awful cycle - me working more hours meant the kids were even more restless, leaving me frustrated and exhausted, making all those hours of work less and less efficient. I finally broke down and said "THIS ISN'T WORKING!!!!" and found a studio space that I share with a photographer friend of mine. Since moving in, getting my work done has been so much easier! Even though it's tough saying goodbye to the kids for a few hours every day, it's been better for all of us. I feel more organized and more focused and get my work done in a fraction of the time it used to take. It's really nice to be able to come home and actually BE home, too. When I'm at the studio, I'm a businessperson. When I'm home, I'm a mom. Being a "supermom" doesn't mean you have to juggle everything at once. Sometimes it means having split personalities :)

2. Not saying yes to every single job. I have a hard time saying no sometimes. Okay, I have a hard time saying no ALL the time. I'm a people person and absolutely LOVE the shooting part of my job. Being at a wedding or a portrait session is so much fun for me that sometimes it's hard for me to turn work down. I'm a naturally positive person, so all I think about is how much fun it would be. I tend to forget about all the extra work that goes along with every single session. Drive time, planning time, shoot time, editing time, backup time, time, time, time, time, time! The first year I was in business I spent sooooo much time working that I got seriously overwhelmed and beyond frustrated, making life less than fun. Now I've learned how much I can handle and only book shoots when I have time for everything that goes along with them.

3. Charging more. #3 has a lot to do with #2. Another reason I felt I had to take every single job when I first started out was because we really needed the money. Even when I was exhausted and overwhelmed, when someone was ready to book, with checkbook in hand, it was hard to turn them away. I started shooting weddings just three years ago. My first year in business I shot more than 40 weddings! That sounds awesome and exciting, but in reality, it was insanity! I was actually LOSING money by giving away prints and albums and CDs and not charging nearly what I should have been. At the end of that first year, I was broke and tired and ready for a change. I doubled my pricing. A few months later, I doubled it again. By the end of my second year I had raised my rates enough and booked enough jobs to let my husband quit his regular full time job and start staying home with the kids. Deciding to never sell myself short has made the ABSOLUTE biggest difference in my life and business. All women should read this book : "Secrets of Six Figure Women" by Barbara Stanney. It's not a book about money as much as it's a book about our relationship with money and how women naturally shy away from their full potential to earn what they're worth. I highly recommend it!

4. Going with the flow and embracing organized chaos :) If you've ever seen Super Nanny you know she's a big believer in sheddjuells (that's british for schedules - ha!) She whips out her magic markers and sections off every hour of the day for each family she works with. I've always wanted to do that for our family but every time I've tried, it just doesn't work. Every day is different here at the Q house! My husband is a freelance artist and I'm a photographer so our work schedules change constantly depending on my shooting schedule and his art show schedules. For a while I was really frustrated that I couldn't work out a schedule that we could stick to. Now I know schedules just aren't for us! When we're busy, we trade off kid time and work time. When we're not so busy, we fill our days with fun stuff. It's definitely chaotic sometimes, but I wouldn't trade our crazy lives for anything else!

5. Outsourcing. The biggest thing I've learned since starting my own business is that trying to do everything myself is just disaster waiting to happen. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. For a while I thought I could juggle everything. Then I read a GREAT book - "The E-Myth Revisited" - and realized that in order to take my business to the next level, I HAD to have help. I started outsourcing all of my wedding album design and some of my editing. This year I plan to outsource a few more things to free up more of my time. And instead of filling all of my newly freed time with more work, I plan to work on myself, my health and my family.

What is life like for you on a daily basis?

Chaotic, but fun! I have a 3 year old and a 4 year old so every moment is filled with some kind of noise, some kind of drama and some kind of happiness. It's hard to even say what an average day is like in our house because every day really is different. Pretty much the only things I know every morning is that at some point 1) I'll have to get some work done, 2) The kids will make some sort of mess 3) My hubby will tell me that the kids are driving him crazy 4) One of the kids will need a bandaid 5) Whatever I'm wearing will end up with dirt, snot, pee, poop, puke or chocolate milk on it.

What do you think are the most important things you do as a mom and wife every day?

Every day I spend one-on-one time with each of the kids, even if it's just for 5 minutes each. My three year old is such a mama's boy. Sometimes I think he would crawl back into my womb if I'd let him. He loves to cuddle and be close and tells me I'm his best friend every day. Lately he's been wanting to do "Eskimo" stuff with me all the time. He'll crawl into my lap and say "Eskimo noses!" and we'll rub our noses together. Then he'll say "Eskimo cheeks!" and we'll rub our cheeks. After Eskimo eyes, ears, hair, chins and sometimes even teeth (ha!) he jumps down and runs off back into his room to play. Those two or three minutes we spent just being silly and close mean the world to me and I know they mean the world to him, too. I think all our kids need to know to be happy is that we're there for them and that we love them. All they really want from us is a tiny bit of attention. Those few minutes of love are more important than all the other hours spent cleaning up the house or washing their clothes. The same goes for being a good wife. I'm so lucky to have a wonderful, sweet, supportive and loving husband who tells me every single day how much he loves me. The few minutes we spend every day just talking one-on-one and being close to each other make all the hectic and frustrating parts of life more bearable.

What do you think are the top three things you must do as a business woman every day?

1. Stay on top of emails! I'm actually terrible at this and it's on my list of things to improve upon in '09. I think good communication with new and current clients is one of the most important things you can do to maintain good relationships. In the past, I've gotten so busy that I've taken days to respond to even the simplest questions from clients. I know it was frustrating for them and made them worry, so I'm making a conscious effort this year to respond to emails quicker and not leave people hanging.

2. Work a little bit on bigger projects. I used to be bad about putting off bigger projects (like editing entire weddings) until I had time to do the entire job at once. Now I try to do bigger jobs in smaller chunks. An hour of editing every night for a week is so much easier than finding 5 or 6 hours to sit and do everything at once. I'm working right now on a new kids photography website. In the past I would have stayed up three or four nights in a row, tweaking and playing with it until it was just right. Then I would have been grouchy and tired and behind on my other work because of all the time I put into that one big project. This time I'm working on it a little bit every day.

3. Tell people about your business! Advertising is expensive, but word of mouth is free! Every chance I get, I tell people I'm a wedding and family photographer. I don't do it in a pushy, annoying, salesperson kinda way - just in a casual conversation kinda way. That way the next time they need photos, they think of me. Even if they end up not hiring me, they might visit my site and show it to a friend who will.


Your branding is wonderful. I love it (and wish I would have thought of it!). What process did you go through to get something so perfect for your personality?

Thanks!!! I'm a naturally happy, easy going person. I've always been very positive and upbeat and silly. When I first started shooting weddings, I did what most newbies do and bought a template website to fill with photos. It was nice and clean and did an okay job, but it had absolutely NONE of my personality. I wanted something fun and cute and colorful that would weed out all the people looking for more traditional, old school style photographers. When ShowItSites launched, I was SO excited! Since I have a graphic design background it was easy for me to customize a site that was EXACTLY me. My slogan "Photography for Happy People" was such a no-brainer. I knew I only wanted to work with happy, fun, silly, quirky people like me so I decided to include the word "happy" in my logo. It's worked out exactly like I hoped ... nearly every inquiry I get says "I love your site! It's so much fun!" How cool is that!?


Is there anything you wish you would have done differently over the years as a mom/business woman? If so, what? and how would you do it if you had another chance at it?

I think if I could change anything I'd have not taken on so much work right from the beginning. I never expected business to boom as quickly as it did and the excitement of people really loving my work was intoxicating. It felt great to be in such high demand! I was seriously overworked, though, and didn't spend nearly as much quality time with my family as I should have. My baby boy had just been born when I started shooting weddings and now when I think back to him being a baby, all I remember is how busy I was all the time. I wish I had taken things a little slower and balanced life and work better. Then again, living is learning and if I hadn't messed up at first I might not be where I am now.

To see more of SarahQ's work, go to:

http://www.sarah-q.com
http://www.sarah-q-photo.blogspot.com

**all images and video in this post are copyright SarahQ**

The DeYoung Family from SarahQ on Vimeo.

The Nichols Family! from SarahQ on Vimeo.