Featured Mompreneur: Loren Jackson Photography

This week, we are so excited to feature mompreneur Loren Jackson of Loren Jackson Photography.

Watch the Interview Here!

https://fb.watch/aSOISO1lO9/

Meet Loren of Loren Jackson Photography

Loren is a wife, momma, and business owner.  For the last decade, she has photographed hundreds of couples on one of the biggest days of their lives – their wedding day.  Recently, Loren launched a boudoir brand to empower women and allow them to remember who they are outside of motherhood and being a spouse.  For couples planning their weddings, Loren has built a directory to ensure their day is stress-free, allowing them to be fully present in their wedding day.

Interview Transcript

Introduction

Amy: Hello Newsymom community! My name is Amy Traugh. I am a content contributor for Newsymom, Founder of Moms on a Mission, and owner of Simplify Me by AT. Moms on a Mission has teamed up with Newsymom to bring you this exciting series featuring local mom owned businesses. With me today, I have Loren Jackson of Loren Jackson Photography.

Hi Loren. Thank you so much for joining me today! 

Loren: Hi, Amy. Thanks for letting me tag along for the ride. 

Amy: So tell us a little bit about yourself. We want to hear your story. 

About Loren

Loren: So I have a husband, two little girls, and two dogs. We don’t know how to sit still. So we’re currently in the process of building our second home, which will be our forever home.

We broke ground in November and I’m crossing my fingers that we get to move in in May before my wedding season kicks off. I am a wedding photographer and I have been photographing weddings for 10 years. I actually went to school to be a high school history teacher and I taught high school for three years.

When my photography shifted and my gross more than covered my teaching, I stepped away from the classroom and my heart was led to helping couples. To create a stress free wedding day that results in heirloom photos that they are proud to show off. 

I have been photographing weddings full-time now for five years. 2016. May 2016 was my last day in the classroom. Since then, I have been full-time in my business. Two babies, a move, and then two home builds all within that five-year span. So it’s been quite the journey. 

Amy: What a whirlwind, but that’s so cool that you took your passion and turn it into a full-time job. It’s crazy how you started out thinking, okay, I want to do this, but then really pivoted and went completely another direction. So that’s amazing that you took that and ran with it. You’re wildly successful. 

Loren: It’s been such an amazing journey.

Loren Jackson Photography

Amy: Tell me a little bit more about your business and how you do everything you do.

Loren: So I like to tell everybody that I am type A, OCD. I make a list for everything and have a system to keep the backend of my business super organized. I have taken that drive to be organized and put an emphasis on my couples experience with their wedding day and also leading up to the day.

My big thing is that I want, is my couples to be in the moment enjoying their wedding instead of being stressed out and overwhelmed. I have built a lot of education that helps them plan for the unexpected, and maybe even the expected, on their wedding day that allows them to be in the moment. When they’re looking at their wedding photos, six months down the road, five years down the road, they look at those and think, best date ever, instead of looking at their photos going, oh my God, do you remember how stressed out we were?

That’s not how I want my couples to remember their wedding day. When they look at their wedding photos, I want them to remember that excitement, that joy, that overwhelming love and gratitude for the people who spent the day with them.

Educating Couples Before the Wedding

So I put a huge emphasis on making sure the education leading up to the wedding day which gives them that opportunity. Photographing weddings for 10 years, I’ve been around the block of time or two, and I can anticipate the unexpected more than anyone else can because, nine times out of 10, they’ve never planned a wedding.

They don’t understand what goes into it. There’s a lot on a wedding day, but the big thing for my couples is building them a custom wedding day, timeline, and planning for that and the unexpected. Giving them the opportunity to take in the moment, be with one another, but also have beautiful wedding photos at the end of the day.

Launching A New Adventure

On top of my weddings, I’m also branching out into boudoir and launching a boudoir brand that I have been slowly building the last two months. So life is a bit crazy, but I just don’t know how to slow it down.

Amy: So for those people that aren’t familiar, what is, boudoir photography? Explain a little bit more about this because I think there’s a lot of misconceptions out there about what it is and what it entails.

Learn about Boudoir

Loren: A lot of the misconception that I’m getting, is that it’s, X-rated, or you’ve gotta be nude for boudoir, and that’s just not the truth at all.

A boudoir session is empowerment for a woman. I know myself, being a mom of two littles, and a wife, and a business owner, that I forget who I am at my core. So the purpose of the boudoir session is for my clients is to bring them back to remember who they are as a person. How powerful they are, how beautiful they are, and just to give them an opportunity to be pampered.

And then they get to look at their photographs and think, I am a bad-ass. I am this person that I have had to put on the back burner for the last five years because of all the other hats I’m wearing. So the boudoir session, it’s an empowerment session. You absolutely are not nude for it. You can wear whatever you feel sexy in. 

I include professional hair and makeup for every one of my clients. So they get pampered and, just like my wedding clients, they’re getting emails to help them prepare for their session to be overly prepared. 

There’s no unknowns. I want everyone to be comfortable and to know what the expectation level is going into it. So wedding clients and boudoir clients have an abundance of education to help prepare for either their wedding day or boudoir session. 

Challenges and Obstacles as a Mompreneur

Amy: As mompreneurs, we tend to face some unique challenges that other business owners may not experience. What challenges and obstacles have you overcome to get to where you are?

Loren: So I would like to say that I am still learning how to overcome the challenges, but my biggest challenge is just finding the balance between being a mom and being a business owner. My youngest is just turned 11 months old. So I’m coming out of that newborn infant stage where she needed all of my time and attention.

It’s hard for me because I love my business. My business was my first born and having to step back and not focus on my business for really like the last 18 months. When I’m pregnant, I have zero motivation there. It just drops and what I do is the bare bones minimum.

There’s no room for growth in my business when I’m pregnant. Then when there’s a newborn in the house, who you’re nursing 24/7, you list your priorities and you have to figure out what comes first. Honestly, keeping a newborn alive comes first.

Balance as a Mompreneur

So I would say, my biggest challenge in my business, is that balance of my business needs me, but my baby needs me. It’s a lot of late nights, a lot of asking for help, a lot of her spending time with my parents who own a horse farm. There for a while she was going like every other week. I joked with my mom that I had shared custody because she spent so much time with my parents. 

But she’s getting one-on-one attention, she gets to go play with the horses. She’s building her immunity cause we’re playing in dirt. I choose not to feel guilty about how much time she’s spending with grandpa.

Asking for help, late nights, and having a babysitter. I would not survive if I did not have my babysitter three days a week. It just wouldn’t happen. 

Getting past Guilt

Amy: Getting past that guilt is a huge thing. I think that’s something we all struggle with. When you look on social media, you see these images of these women that look like they’re juggling it all effortlessly.

You have to keep in mind, that you don’t know what’s going on on the other side of that camera. You mentioned that one way or another, we all struggle with balance and guilt. It’s hard to ask for help. 

Loren: I’m not going to lie last night was probably the first time I took a shower in three days because I knew I had this zoom call with you today. I put on makeup 10 minutes before I hopped on this Zoom call with you, just to make myself look presentable. 

When I think back to college, as a life triangle, you have good grades, social life, and sleep. So motherhood and running a business, what are my three things I care about? Well, my hair and my makeup are not one of them.

I freak out if I don’t have a clean house. So there’s a little bit of that triangle has to go to a clean house, but then it’s family time, and running a successful business. One has to give you can’t have all three. There are days when it just takes everything and you just to keep those babies alive.

Advice for Mompreneurs

Amy: We have all been there and we totally get it. What type of resources have you utilized to help you as a business owner and a mom?

Loren: I would say having a group of moms that you can text and be like, “Oh my God, I’m going to pull my hair out. These kids are driving me nuts today.” You know that they’re not going to judge you. I have one friend who I can just pick up my phone and I’m like, Brittany, I’m going to lose my mind and she talks me off the edge. She’s like, “girl, listen to this story.” 

Planners and Workflows

I’m type A, so lists really help me. I write down my list in my planner. I have my to do list and I’m starting to work on a monthly list. What are things that I need to do monthly? That if I don’t do, they’re going to pile up and they’re going to overwhelm me because I’m struggling with postpartum anxiety? My baby is 11 months old and between her birth and having a three-year-old, a lot of childhood trauma came through and really amplified postpartum anxiety that I didn’t experience with my first.

So I’m finding ways to kind of keep that anxiety at bay. Workflows are a huge thing for me and just staying organized. Having workflows for my business that I can follow for each client that don’t need brain power for me to implement. 

Outsourcing

Then as a wedding photographer, I have an editor and I have someone who’s designing my wedding albums for me. Outsourcing things that take up my time away from the kids away and from building my business further.

Amy: I’m such a list-maker too, so I totally get that. I also have workflows for everything. It just takes that thought process out of it. I’ve automated what I can and it’s just so much easier. Yes, it’s a lot of work at the beginning, but then you can really start to figure out what you need to be doing versus what you can outsource.

It’s hard to outsource at first, but when you find that person, it is just amazing. It’s a godsend and it lets you pour more into your family. This provides the time to free yourself up for what’s important, because there’s only 24 hours in a day.

Loren: For moms who are considering outsourcing and not knowing what to outsource, there’s a process. I think it’s called four levels of productivity. It’s listing what you’re good at and only what you can do.

So that’s column one. Then columns two through four, are what you absolutely do not need to do to move your business forward. Those tasks in the fourth column are what you start outsourcing. So for photographers, editing.

Empower other Moms

Someone is out there, another mom who wants to quit her job, that is not fulfilling her life would love to edit for you. This would allow her to be home with her babies. Let someone else edit those photos and schedule your social media and pin to Pinterest. Or do the packaging for your product. There is someone out there who would love to step away from their nine to five, that is not fulfilling their life, to help another mother build her business and be a part of that story. 

So figure out what you absolutely do not need to do in your business and allow someone the opportunity to start their own business and provide for their family in ways that they never could before. 

Amy: Oh my gosh, that’s absolutely amazing advice.

How to Find Loren

Lauren thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share your story with our community. So how can viewers find you? 

Loren: On Instagram @boudoirbyloren, @_lorenjackson, and lorenjacksonphotography.com, https://bit.ly/theweddingpack

Follow Along

Amy: Thank you everyone so much for joining us. Be sure watch our other mompreneur features on Newsymom.com. Follow along @Themomsonamission on Instagram and follow the Newsymom Stark County Facebook Group!