National Small Business Week 2026

In honor of National Small Business Week, I’ve been thinking about what running this thing for two decades has actually taught me. Spoiler: it’s a lot of unlearning.

Here’s the honest truth about how I built my photography business for the first 20 years. I showed up. I met people. I connected, I talked, I built relationships, and then I delivered really good work. And when it worked, it felt like magic. Referrals would come in and then those clients would send more clients and the train just kept going.

But here’s what I didn’t fully understand until things got quiet: I was always the one making it happen. The magic wasn’t random. It was me, in person, connecting with actual humans. The more I got out there, the more the business grew. And the moment I stopped doing that? The referral train slowed down.

My referral network was living and breathing. Turns out it was also aging. And I wasn’t adding anyone new.

So I started showing up online. Which sounds simple. It is not simple. At least it wasn’t for me, because I am very comfortable behind the camera and very uncomfortable in front of it. The irony isn’t lost on me. I photograph people for a living and help them feel relaxed and like themselves, and then I’d go to post a photo of myself and completely freeze up.

I started posting, but I was stiff. “Shy Krista” (yes, she exists in few and far moments) showed up instead of actual Krista. A friend saw it and basically said, “Hey, that’s not you. You’re being weird.” And she was right. Because the me that shows up in person, the one who’s always laughing and making clients feel at ease and genuinely having a good time, she was completely missing from my online presence.

The big unlearning was this: I had believed for a long time that my work would speak for itself. And honestly that’s a lesson I’m still working through. Because yes, the work matters. But people don’t just hire a portfolio. They hire the human attached to the business. They want to know who’s actually going to show up on shoot day. That person is me. So I had to learn to stop hiding behind my camera and just… be me.

People resonate with me more than they resonate with photos of other people. It took me way too long to figure that out.

Once I leaned into that, things started to shift. I posted more of myself, my actual life, my personality, the cocktails I’m making, the behind-the-scenes stuff, the real things. And a client booked me not long after because she’d seen my posts about cocktails and her brand launch was all about cocktails and pilates. She felt like she already knew me. She booked me because of me, not because of a gallery of someone else’s photos.

That was proof enough for me.

I’m still learning. I’m still pushing myself to post the real me, the funny, the warm, the occasionally cringy versions of Krista that my inner-perfectionist would really prefer to keep private. That perfectionist is still very much in me, sometimes she’s loud and sometimes she just says fuck it. But I’m getting better at posting before she talks me out of it or has me do 30 retakes.

I’ll be honest, I’m still figuring out some of this. The line between client and friend is something I’m still learning to navigate, because it turns out you actually can mix business and personal and it works out fine, which is the opposite of what I always told myself. Old habits.

The biggest shift has been this: I stopped assuming people would just find me and book me because my work is good. I started actually asking for the business. Showing up. Saying hey, I have availability, here’s what I do, here’s who I am. That part felt uncomfortable at first. Now it just feels like connecting, which is what I was always good at anyway.

If you’re a woman in business and any of this sounds familiar, I see you. You’ve probably built something real and wonderful on relationships and hard work. And maybe it’s time to let more people actually see it. Not just the polished version. The real one.

If you’re ready to show up visually in a way that actually feels like you, I’d love to help make that happen. Brand photography sessions are booking now and I promise I will make you feel like yourself in front of the camera. That part I’m really good at. Let’s chat!