We are so excited to have been featured on the CanvasRebel/Voyage magazine! We were invited to share our story and answer several questions about ourselves as both people and a business! As a married couple and business partners, we shared a lot about both sides of our lives. We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to share a little bit more about ourselves to people! Thanks again Canvas Rebel for inviting us over to converse and featuring us in the magazine! ♡
Below we’ll share our conversation with CanvasRebel so that you guys can see what we talked about:
CanvasRebel: Mike & Jenn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
“Experience The Difference with Mike & Jenn. What does that mean? When someone is looking for a photographer or videographer for a wedding, corporate event, marketing content for their business or even family photos, they typically are looking at price. But they don’t know what they should be looking for. They don’t know what is missing until they’ve had it or know it’s possible. That is where we come in. Mike and I work in tandem. Mike is great behind the camera and I am great at details. And boy do details matter!! There is so much that goes into the Mike & Jenn Experience…. You just have to experience it! :)”
CanvasRebel: Mike & Jenn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
“We just celebrated 12 years of marriage and 10 years in business this past September and it’s awesome because it’s the two things we love most. Marriage and business. We hope to be an example of a healthy and thriving marriage as well as help other businesses succeed in everything they do.
It’s taken lots of hours, lots of learning, lots of figuring out how to work together. We had to figure out which lane each of us needed to be in. That was a game changer for our business. Mike is better behind the camera and I’m better running the business side of things and interacting with all our clients. And it works!!
We are professional problem solvers. We always say there are multiple solutions to every problem. Problems aren’t problems for us, they don’t frustrate us. They simply give us an opportunity to make things better, ultimately overall making us better as people and business owners.
To us, photography and video is way more than just taking images. We want your time spent with us to be better and even more memorable because we are there serving you and capturing all of the memories that are being made.
We are proud of what we built. Not just in business but in our marriage. We love spending time together, doing life together and becoming the best version of ourselves every day. We’d love to share our life with you!!”
CanvasRebel: What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
“Building relationships!! Building relationships is absolutely key to any kind of business. If all you care about is making money and getting everything out of someone rather than pouring into others, it will not last. Sustainability starts with building relationships. Caring about people. Serving others. Giving. Not taking. We don’t just get hired by our clients, we build relationships with them. If it’s a bride and groom, let’s go have lunch together. Corporate event? We want to learn about your business. We want to be able to capture the essence of your culture during our time together. Marketing content for your business? What is your vision, who is your ideal client? Not only can we capture the best side of you so you can effectively market your business, we might know someone or meet someone in the future that would benefit from your product or services and we would love to introduce you! We are all in this together. This builds each other up and gives! Give of our services, give the best side of ourselves so that we can all rise to the top together!”
CanvasRebel: What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
“Yes! Mike and I always had a passion for photography when we were younger. It wasn’t until after we were married that the passion was renewed again in Mike during a family trip to Panama. We both had full time careers. Mike was a scientist and I worked in insurance and retail fraud investigations. So when Mike said “babe, do you think we could start a photography business together?” I was like “heck yes!” We can do whatever we put our minds to. So the side hustle began. It was tough! I was already working a very full and demanding career with very little extra time. Mike began studying. Everything he now knows he learned on YouTube University 🙂 He then taught me. But we figured out I was better with the business side of things, talking with clients and the details! We built a pretty good clientele and began to get more and more involved in the business. It was stretching us in all areas. But we pushed through. Then we moved to San Diego and started over!! YES! I know it’s crazy right? We knew it was something we wanted to do and if it meant starting over, then we would. Once here, I began focusing on the business 100% of the time, leaving my career of 25 years. After about 3 years in San Diego, Mike left his science career. And the rest is history!! Every year our business increases and gets better and better. We now have a support team so Mike and I can focus on what only we can do, which is be Mike & Jenn. :)”
To read our magazine feature from CanvaRebel’s website, click here. To explore other people that were also featured on CanvasRebel, click here. Also, don’t forget to check out CanvasRebel on social media! To check out their Instagram, click here!
