We had the good fortune of connecting with Nichole Gibbons and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Nichole, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I really wanted to do something that would allow me to work from home around my kid’s schedule. I also wanted a job that would allow me to do what I love on my own terms.
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The thing we love most about doing wedding and commercial photography and video is the people we get to meet and work with along the way. It’s not easy being a freelance business owner, but working with great clients and forming meaningful connections with other creatives and business owners, makes it so much fun.
We have had some amazing opportunities in our business such as traveling to places like Sweden and Australia to shoot weddings and shooting videos for the USGA and Masters golf tournaments. The big stuff is fun, but we also really love helping small businesses grow by providing and managing their content.
There are always challenges when it comes to owning your own business, but persistence and getting the right people in your corner are what have helped us get where we are.
I think that learning how to say no to opportunities that don’t fit our goals for our business is one of the most important lessons we’ve learned over the years. As small business owners, it’s easy to feel like we have to say yes to every opportunity. But the problem with that is that those jobs are most often the ones that drain us the most, pay us the least, and keep us from having time or energy to do the jobs we really want to do. We’ve learned that it’s important to have goals and set boundaries so that we can get the work we actually want to be doing and connect with clients and projects that will fill us up creatively and open doors for more great opportunities.
Our brand is really all about connection and telling stories. We want to tell the stories of our clients, whether that is their love story or their business story. The important thing to us is that we capture that story in the most honest and creative way we can, so they can then share it with the world.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We love showing people around. We live in the East Valley, so most of the places we go are on the East side. There are too many great places to name, but some places we often take people are:
Hiking: South Mountain, Hole In The Rock, Superstitions.
Coffee: Mythical, Light Heart, Gypsy Cup, Piexoto, Valentine.
Food: Culinary Dropout, Caldwell County Mexi-Q, Fire and Brimstone Pizza, The Henry, Farm and Craft, Linden Organics, Uprooted Kitchen, Barrio Queen, Junya Ramen Bar, Flower Child, Chico Malo, Novel Ice Cream, Liberty Market, The Churchill.
Activities and Attractions: Downtown PHX, Oldtown Scottsdale, Scottsdale Quarter, Fashion Square, Cham Pang Lanes, PHX Zoo and Botanical gardens, Barnone.
We also love taking short trips to Flagstaff, Sedona, and Prescott.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My husband has been my biggest supporter. He’s worked a full-time job while we worked to build our dream business.
Website: www.nicholejordan.com
Instagram: @thehoneycreative