022. Davey & Krista Jones: How a side-hustle became the vehicle for financial freedom.

Newlyweds, $100k in student loan debt, and entry-level jobs, how this couple used their side hustle to get debt free and gave themselves the gift of time freedom. Now, more than ten years later they share all the ups and downs of working together, and how two people with very different money mindsets learned to find common ground in their finances. Meet Davey & Krista. 

WILDFLOWER SHOWNOTES : shannaskidmore.com/davey-and-krista

Transcript

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Davey Jones (00:00):

I've definitely fell into the error of thinking like, oh, more money is going to make me more happy. And it's so interesting cuz if I am anxious about something related with the business, Krista is the first to point out and be like, Davey, think about 10 years ago when we first graduated school. If I told you this is what you were doing, yeah you would freak out. You wouldn't believe it

Krista Jones (00:24):

Is like what you're making and the flexibility in your life. You were so tied into this entry level, we were both tied into entry level jobs, so we had to be there from nine to five every day and we got two weeks of vacation. Like no flexibility.

Shanna Skidmore (00:37):

You are listening to Consider the Wildflowers the podcast episode 22. "It's a write off!" -- the four words every entrepreneur loves to hear but may be the exact mindset keeping us from financial freedom. It's pretty easy these days to find resources on how to make money, but much harder to learn how to then manage it well. Hello. That's why I totally have a job and love it. <laugh>, it's easy to believe that making more money is the answer to wealth and financial freedom. But making money paired with some great financial habits is actually the key to financial success. Today's guests are case and point. Newlyweds a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt and entry level jobs. How this couple used their side hustle to get debt free and gave themselves the gift of time and financial freedom. Now more than 10 years later, they share all the ups and downs of working together and how two people with very different money mindsets learn to find common ground in their finances. Meet Davy and Krista. Husband and wife team, high school sweethearts, but not in that Nicholas Sparks kind of way. If you dig professional bios, here it goes. Krista Jones is a brand and website designer. She is the creative director for all design projects at Davey and Krista. Davey is a marketer, content strategist and relationship builder. He's co-founded two agencies, Davey and Krista, which is a brand and website design agency and The Till Agency, which is a paid advertising company. Davey and his wife Krista specialize in helping people create brands that book through custom branding and website design and consulting. Over at The Till Agency, Davey and his team specialize in helping businesses scale through paid advertising. Formal introductions over, let's talk to Davey and Krista.

(02:27)
Hey, it's Shanna and this is Consider the Wildflowers, the podcast. For the past 15 plus years, I've had the honor to hear thousands of stories from entrepreneurs around the world. As a former Fortune 100 financial advisor, turned business consultant, I have a unique opportunity to see the real behind the highlight reel. I'm talking profit and loss statements, unpaid taxes, moments of burnout, and those of utter victory. Or as my husband says, the content everyone is wondering but not many are talking about. And now I'm bringing these private conversations to you. Hear the untold stories of how industry leaders, founders, and up and coming entrepreneurs got their start, the experiences that shaped them and the journey to building the brands they have today. Stories that will inspire and reignite encourage to redefine success and build a life and business on your own terms. Welcome Wildflower. I'm so glad you're here.

(03:21)
Davey and Krista, I'm so excited to have you both on the podcast today sharing your business journey. We're going to talk life and all the good things, so welcome to the show.

Davey Jones (03:30):

Likewise. Yeah, we're excited to be here.

Krista Jones (03:32):

Yeah, thank you so much for having us. It's been a while since we've done an interview together. Normally it's like one or the other.

Davey Jones (03:37):

Yeah, we'll see how sharing the mic goes. Yeah,

Shanna Skidmore (03:40):

And I'm really excited. So we have had one other couple on the show and it's just such a fun perspective where one is like, oh I was super nervous and the other was like, oh I got this. So it's just fun to have a couple's perspective.

Krista Jones (03:54):

I think you had the Campbell's right? I listened to that episode and they're good friends of ours.

Shanna Skidmore (03:58):

Oh they are? You guys are in, you're not in similar places. Are you guys close by?

Davey Jones (04:02):

We are now, yeah.

Krista Jones (04:02):

We're two hours apart and then we've done a lot of design work for Becca and Chad.

Shanna Skidmore (04:08):

Okay. Oh my goodness. They were hilarious and so much fun. I haven't had the opportunity to meet them in person, but we did get to work together so they're wonderful. Yeah, the Campbells. That's so fun. Okay, so second couple on the show. Welcome. This will be fun. All right, so just let's kick it off and just tell everybody who you guys are and we're going to throw it all the way back to life before business. But if you just wanna say, hey, this is who we are and what we're up to in life in general right now.

Davey Jones (04:37):

Yeah, for sure. So we are Davey and Krista <laugh>, both in real life and in business. And we run a brand and website design agency specifically serving creative entrepreneurs. We work with a lot of service-based business but in the last few years have done a lot of e-commerce for businesses as well.

Krista Jones (04:55):

And life before business, honestly, there wasn't a lot of life before business. I started this business at the very end of college. I went to school for graphic design and I also interned at a wedding invitation studio. And at that time I just fell in love with the design process and the wedding aesthetic and taking pictures and I was like, I wanna do more of this. So I started taking pictures of all of my friends and then at the same time I started learning how to build websites and so that I kind of all started at the end of college, but meanwhile it wasn't very big yet. So I had to get a full-time job and I worked at a nonprofit as a website designer while I built the business. And so that was about a four year process before I was able to leave and focus entirely on this business.

Shanna Skidmore (05:44):

Oh wow. So that's so fun. I had no idea, I knew your history with photography, but you've been doing design and websites it sounds like. From the beginning.

Krista Jones (05:56):

Yeah. That wasn't ever my plan. I thought I would do wedding invitations, but another photographer, Natalie Frank, saw that I could fix websites. I think her website went down and she didn't know how to fix it and I could do some code and I could design and so I fixed her website, helped her figure that out. And then from there other people just heard and I was the website girl.

Shanna Skidmore (06:18):

Yeah, that's so funny. Okay, so gimme a reference point year wise, when were you in school and graduating and then on the side working on your website design business?

Krista Jones (06:28):

All of this was 2010. So that's when we got married. That's when we graduated from undergrad. I didn't go to grad school but Davey did and that's when all of this started building and then four years later is when it was at the point where I could make this my full-time job.

Shanna Skidmore (06:43):

Okay. I love that. Good reference. So I'm assuming you guys met in college then?

Davey Jones (06:49):

Nah, actually we met in high school.

Shanna Skidmore (06:51):

Oh wow, okay.

Davey Jones (06:52):

Freshman year.

Shanna Skidmore (06:53):

Freshman year of high school.

Krista Jones (06:55):

We hate saying that we're high school sweethearts cuz we didn't start dating until the end of high school. We were very different.

Davey Jones (07:02):

We met in an honors level, English class. Krista should have been there.

Krista Jones (07:07):

Davey was never actually in class. It was amazing.

Shanna Skidmore (07:11):

And still did fine smarty

Davey Jones (07:13):

And still, yeah, still got there somehow. Yeah. But yeah, so we met freshman year English but didn't start dating until our senior year and then we dated through college and we went to colleges that were pretty close to each other.

Shanna Skidmore (07:27):

So not high school sweethearts but just senior year sweethearts.

Davey Jones (07:31):

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And high school sweethearts makes it high school I feel like sound more romantic than it was. Yeah,

Krista Jones (07:39):

I feel like we laugh cuz we feel like we've grown so much as people since then we're so different from who we were when we started dating in a good way.

Shanna Skidmore (07:47):

Yeah. Yeah. That's so fun though. I mean I think in all marriage you have to grow together in so many different seasons, but you guys have done a lot of seasons together. High school, college, life, business, babies, all the things. Yes.

Davey Jones (08:02):

Yeah, it's hard to believe that all of that. It's over a decade.

Krista Jones (08:06):

I think it's 17 years this year. Which just seems so long. I don't even know how we're old enough to have been together for 17 years.

Shanna Skidmore (08:13):

Oh my goodness. That's so fun. Were you friends like all through high school?

Krista Jones (08:19):

No, definitely not.

Davey Jones (08:21):

No. I was what one would call a delinquent <laugh>

Shanna Skidmore (08:25):

Skipping class. Davey. Would not have pegged you that way

Davey Jones (08:28):

Oh I know by the time I hit senior year I fell in with a better group of friends and started dating Krista. Of course she has been nothing but a good influence. <laugh> since we met.

Krista Jones (08:41):

And then in college he studied theology. He ended up becoming a high school teacher for a few years. So it's just kind of funny.

Davey Jones (08:48):

Yeah. So I mean by the time I hit senior year, I feel like I had turned things around on that front. And then I took college actually really seriously. Never missed class in college. But yeah, my story's a little bit different. I studied theology as an undergraduate and thought I would go into ministry or thought maybe I'd pursue higher education in theology and perhaps teach that. And then a few things changed my senior year of college, which is always good for things to change Senior year of college after you've spent

Shanna Skidmore (09:13):

Yeah, exactly. <laugh>

Davey Jones (09:15):

Spending money on a particular degree. And so I sort of changed course and I was working with Young Life as a volunteer leader and I was coaching a high school lacrosse team and the administration seemed to really like me and they encouraged me actually to pursue my teaching certificate. So I had a accrued enough credits that got me most of the way towards being able to teach social studies in English. Sort of changed course did a master's program that also got me a teaching certificate, which eventually led to teaching high school for a few years. And I kind of noticed Krista is doing this photography thing and I thought that's all well and good, but it wasn't really until I was like, oh wow, you're making, you're making more money on this side hustle than I am as a teacher that I think I really started to pay attention. Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (10:02):

So Krista, you were doing websites and photography and is that right? Okay.

Krista Jones (10:07):

Yeah, it was a lot. And back then it was all on the same website too. So I feel like it was really confusing. It wasn't until later in the process that we split them off into two separate businesses and I think each one thrived even more when we did that.

Davey Jones (10:20):

But at the beginning it was the website design was to a certain extent a side hustle. I mean that's what you had been formally trained to do, but it was something that you wanted to do in the off season for weddings in order to have some revenue coming in during the winter months.

Krista Jones (10:36):

And it was also just something that a lot of people seemed to need help with. Definitely a need in the market. Showit was not a thing back then and if it was still flash-based. So a lot of people had these complicated WordPress sites and they needed help make them work.

Shanna Skidmore (10:52):

Yes, I would be the one who needed help so bad you guys know it. All things technology, that would be, I'm glad I started later so that it was easier. Okay. That's interesting. Did you know or think that you wanted to be an entrepreneur or was that just how it happened?

Krista Jones (11:11):

I think it was just kind of how it happened. I knew that I loved that design static way more than the corporate design aesthetic. I was working at a nonprofit and some of the design prompts that we would get would say you have to make it a certain amount of ugly with bright gradient orange buttons because that could

Davey Jones (11:28):

Is that what it said on the paper? You have to make it a certain amount of ugly.

Krista Jones (11:31):

No, but that was how I read it. That is how it converted better, especially among certain demographics. We had a lot of direct mail, it was just not my favorite thing, but I learned a lot. I learned to code there, which was huge in my design development website learning because while we learned some basics of building websites at school, they taught us flash and they taught us a Adobe Dream Weaver. And then I got to this first job and they all laughed and they're like, you can't build a website that way. That's 10 years dated and it's going to crash. It's not going to do anything. So I learned so much there. And we also haven't mentioned this, but when we graduated we had a lot of student loan debt, we had car debt and we had pretty entry level jobs and so I realized we

Davey Jones (12:17):

We were probably close to a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

Krista Jones (12:19):

Yes. It was a lot of debt. And so we realized well if I keep up with the side hustle and I do this full-time job for a bit, we can pay off our student loans and pay off our debt and buy a house and hopefully set ourselves up better for the future.

Shanna Skidmore (12:33):

Yeah. Did you get married right after college?

Davey Jones (12:37):

We got married I guess I had just graduated and you technically had a semester left but

Krista Jones (12:44):

We were a little ahead in college so we kind of finished college early and got married.

Davey Jones (12:46):

I finished a semester early and then Krista had one class left her senior year fall semester and spring semester. You know how some you have to take in order, you actually had to take

Krista Jones (12:56):

Yeah, I was a year ahead in school. I entered as a sophomore because of all my AP credits. But the way that they did your program, it just ended up that I had three hours left each semester, but my school let me make them independent studies. I didn't have to go to class. And so I started working full-time like a year earlier than most people, which at the time this was 2009 in the middle of the recession. So that felt like a huge win and I think my teachers were just really excited that somebody got a job.

Shanna Skidmore (13:23):

Exactly. Yeah, that's so true. Okay, so you're newly wes a hundred thousand dollars in school debt, you both have jobs, it doesn't sound like you're making bank. I would love to hear some of your finance conversations back then and it sounds like you're seeing this money coming in from the side hustle and hey this could be something. Will you just walk through those early days and money conversations you're having and then deciding sounds like four years later to take your business full-time? Krista,

Krista Jones (13:55):

I don't know if there as much conversations as they were.

Davey Jones (13:58):

Were a lot of tense discussions.

Shanna Skidmore (14:00):

<laugh>, tell me more.

Krista Jones (14:04):

Yeah, I mean I think that a big turning point for us was learning about Dave Ramsey and realizing that we could slowly pay off these debt and that it wasn't normal to be that or I mean maybe it is normal, but it didn't have to be normal to be that far in debt and realizing how much that debt was going to hold us back. So we also had a car loan, the student loans felt overwhelming and for a while we just put all of the extra income into those loans

Davey Jones (14:29):

And I think for me, I was under the impression that there was such a thing as good debt and that it was normal and we were just going to deal with this sort of reality for a long time. And fortunately Krista, I think really pushed us to take on side hustles and really take the extra money that we are earning and not spend it on more things but actually to put it away. And so I don't know how quickly we paid off that debt, but within

Krista Jones (14:51):

Probably a couple, it wasn't that long.

Davey Jones (14:52):

Yeah, I mean it was certainly within five years but I don't wanna say it was closer to maybe three years. Yeah. Wow. That makes a huge difference. That's a huge weight. I think that was lifted off our shoulders, but I think there was for a long time a lot of tense discussions around finances.

Krista Jones (15:09):

I would say things didn't really feel like they weren't as tense until we had an emergency, like a six month emergency fund for both our personal accounts and for the business. And once we got to that point, I felt safe leaving my full-time job cuz I think I had a year's worth of weddings booked. I had six months of salary in an account. We had person, we had no debt personally. And so it just felt a lot safer leaving the steady job with the benefits and striking out on my own.

Davey Jones (15:37):

And I think for us too, I mean I'm just trying to think back to those days. It's funny, I think I was never really had to be a good saver I guess. And Krista was a very good saver. So I'm trying to think back to those early conversations and how they went. But I remember just being like, why did we have to do this? And Krista having to take a lot of time to explain.

Shanna Skidmore (16:00):

Yeah,

Krista Jones (16:01):

I like the Jeep Wrangler discussion. Davey really wanted a Jeep Wrangler around the time that we heard about Dave Ramsey. And so it was a big discussion for a long time and we decided not to buy the car and I think you just stayed with what you had previously. These days. He actually has a wrangler now, but for a long train

Shanna Skidmore (16:20):

Dreams come true Davey.

Davey Jones (16:22):

Right. But just grateful for that conversation. I just wonder how many husband and wife teams are listening and how many relationships out there where there is one person who feels very strongly about maybe saving investing and Dave Ramsey and all those things and another one who's not. So I'm trying to dig into how those conversations went.

Krista Jones (16:43):

I feel like you have been really helpful though because I would just wanna hold on to all of our money, never spend it, but you have helped me to figure out some things are worth investing in. And so it's been a good balance. Yeah,

Shanna Skidmore (16:53):

Yeah. I'm so interested. If you wouldn't mind sharing, what was the mindset shift? I mean I don't know if the debt that was accrued was kind of 50/50 or if maybe one of you had more of the debt, but there seems to be this mindset shift or even maybe you kind of mentioned when you're in college or you think, oh this is fine, this is just student loan debt, it's fine, we can take it on. I hear that a ton from people. They think, oh I can take on this debt. It's just student loan debt. And then they get out and they're like, wait, how did I get here? And I don't know if there was a moment or something that happened that shifted your mindset from accumulating debt to aggressively, it sounds like paying off debt, what happened?

Davey Jones (17:37):

Krista's very stubborn. So it that that's part of it. But I think another part of it was I, it was probably 60/40, I probably had a little bit more debt than Krista did as we graduated from school. Krista was working this side hustle and she was starting to put money very aggressively towards this debt. And I think for me, once I saw sort of the snowball effect of paying off debt because once you pay off one loan it you can take that money and start paying more off of the second loan and so on and so forth. I think that momentum was inspiring to me. So I think seeing that and then feeling the burden that I don't even know if I recognized what's there sort of being lifted off our shoulders as that debt was being paid and then all of a sudden financial freedom as Dave Ramsey would put, it becomes a possibility. And I think that for me early on I was like, well this is just, I had friends that for a full decade plus after school, were still paying off their student loans. And I think my mindset back then was, oh, this is just reality.

Krista Jones (18:39):

We also knew how much more we could accomplish if we started putting money away for retirement. And that wasn't something that we could even fathom when we first graduated because we weren't making very much. We had all that debt and we started to realize thank through Dave Ramsey and through other friends how we could set ourselves up for success in the future if we paid off this debt and started putting money away. And so that became a big part of it too, because

Davey Jones (19:03):

We just want that flexibility, especially as we raised kids. Yeah,

Shanna Skidmore (19:07):

I mean the lessons you guys learned, I mean this is in your early twenties, I feel like these are 30 year old lessons, so that's so good. You got 10 extra years.

Davey Jones (19:18):

Yeah, we had good friends, I think Michael Alsop for instance, he was very much Davey telling Krista, Davey or don't let him get the Wrangler. And I think he was the one that introduced us to Dave Ramsey the Demoses as well. Big Dave Ramsey proponents. So a lot of good friends too that set good examples and encouraged us along the way.

Shanna Skidmore (19:39):

And I know we're deviated a little bit from your business story, but I'm so intrigued by this and I think it's really going to be helpful for others to hear. How has doing that work early to pay off debt in your marriage and get more freed up from those debt obligations changed how you view money over the last 10 years,

Davey Jones (20:00):

I think for you? Definitely. And this served us well, I think early on definitely had more of a scarcity mindset though. And I feel like that shifted a lot. But I would say being able to put money away, I'm just thinking about big events, COVID for instance. And when the world shut down, we didn't have as much anxiety. I mean there's still plenty of anxiety for all sorts of reasons, but not as much anxiety around the state of the business. We had savings and we set ourselves up not necessarily to weather that kind of storm, no one can have seen that coming, but to weather a storm.

Krista Jones (20:37):

And I think that it's also given us the flexibility to pivot within the business. So to drop wedding photography and just focus on web design, that was kind of a risk because I think at the time that we were stopping weddings, that was half of our income more than that. More than that. So knowing that we had that backup savings and that we could pick up weddings again if we needed to, that allowed us to focus on what we've really wanted to do. It's allowed us to build a team, it's allowed us to make investments. It's given us peace of mind when some months are slower than others because we know that there is a balance in our bank account, we're set in the next few months, it's going to be okay.

Davey Jones (21:16):

And for me, I didn't have as much of a scarcity mindset, but now I think I'm much more cognizant of the money going in and out. And I'm a better saver because of it because I've seen the flexibility that it's provided us over the past decade.

Shanna Skidmore (21:31):

So good guys. And I, I've sometimes feel like I'm on an island over here because I am such an advocate of building your business really lean and for what you guys said to be nimble and pivot and shift. And if you're carrying a big overhead or which sometimes we have to do, I understand, but just allowing yourself the flexibility either with, it sounds like with you having a lot of money saved or not taking on a ton of obligations in the overhead. That's the same for our story. Very similarly, we paid off all of our debt quickly because I didn't want the business to have that burden. You've gotta make a ton of money to cover just your personal expenses. So that has allowed us to make a lot of shifts and pivots as we've needed as well, and take a year off. As we talked about before we hit record in 2020, I took the whole year off because we just were able to do that. We saved. And so I love hearing how this has changed just your business growth even.

Davey Jones (22:28):

Yeah, and I'm excited to chat with you about the year you took off on our podcast on Thursday. We're in a few days from now, so I'm excited to chat more about that.

Shanna Skidmore (22:38):

I know mean we have so much to catch up on. Just so many good things. Okay, let's rerun back. Ooh, this is so good. Wait, before we do, I was curious to hear, are there certain kind of milestones or benchmarks that you have in your business in the sense of we always keep or we try to, I know nobody's perfect three months of expenses or six months of, are there one to two things that you feel like, okay, these are our benchmarks that we always have that you feel like you would be willing to share? I think that would be helpful for people listening.

Krista Jones (23:11):

In the early days it was six months that was easier to do. These days we have a higher payroll cuz we have a team now, and so it's closer to three months. But I would feel safer having it six. But I know that that's probably a somewhat unnecessarily high amount.

Davey Jones (23:26):

Yeah. So I'd say anywhere between three and six months is always what we've fallen into.

Shanna Skidmore (23:32):

And so even before you hire or add more overhead, you're kind of looking at could we cover that for three months?

Krista Jones (23:40):

Because when we first brought on team members, it took a while for them to have an ROI, right? It took a few months to train them and for them to get used to us and their work was slower back then because everything was new and we were learning how to communicate. So we wanted to make sure that we could pay them consistently for a few months before there was an ROI on their job.

Davey Jones (24:00):

And I think back when we brought on our first designers that month or maybe two months was the first months that we saw maybe a loss. And in that moment I think it's like, oh, did we make a mistake? Should we stick with this? And I'm so grateful that we had a buffer because then we could be patient and we could take the time to train them and see how that played out. And of course we ended up keeping them and it ended up being one of the best things we've ever done for our business.

Krista Jones (24:27):

So our business has only grown since bringing on more people.

Shanna Skidmore (24:31):

Okay. That is so helpful to hear. Thank you. Because I don't know if you all hear this, but in my work, of course I do. And there's sometimes this pressure to take on expenses, whether it's a team or overhead, before really you have the funds to do that and there's this balancing act of I need help, but I can't afford help. So that's just good to hear the freedom it gave you all to wait until you had that buffer saved. I know for me, I'm just super conservative over here too. I'm like, I just wanna know I can pay them if something happens. So

Krista Jones (25:08):

I would feel so crushed if I agreed to bring somebody on and then couldn't pay them and had to let them go. Yeah, that's a horrible experience for everyone. So I didn't want that to happen, so that's why we made sure we could cover their salaries.

Shanna Skidmore (25:21):

Yeah, that's so good. Okay. Whoa, that's so good. All right, Well, quickly, will you just walk me through those first, first five years of business? What were your offers? How did you create your pricing? I just wanna hear about those early days. And then I would love to hear about Davey when you decided to quit your job as well. So we all just walk me through, I would say five years and five minutes, let's go

Krista Jones (25:46):

I shot my first wedding for $400. And it probably took me 40 hours to edit it. And I very quickly learned that that was way too low to charge even for somebody just getting started. And then at the same time, I also figured out how to batch edit photos and save myself a lot of time. And over the years as we gained more experience in both websites and photos, we just slowly increased our prices over time. We figured out the sweet spot for a number of clients we could take at a time. One year I shot 40 weddings and that was horrible. I could hardly remember who anybody was at that point. And we raised our prices and I think we ended with our wedding photography prices being around 5k. And this was several years ago now?

Davey Jones (26:26):

No, we ended with our,

Krista Jones (26:27):

Oh sorry. 10 K.

Davey Jones (26:28):

Yeah, so most, yeah, a little different. But I mean that's the thing I, I think one of the biggest things that we learned from running a few different businesses now is that I like to think of what the offer is versus what the price of a product, product or services. And I think it's a little bit of a mental nuance basically. I think a lot of people think of their core product or service and then they tie a price to that core product or service as if when we send over, for instance, prices for web design, as we're crafting those prices, we're thinking about the offer around that service. So when somebody comes to us, they're coming for a website, hopefully that's what they walk away with, something that they love. But what they're getting is actually much more than a website. I mean, they're getting access to our expertise and guidance. They're getting access to a team that understands not only how to make something beautiful, but then also how to build something with conversion in mind. They're getting access to a team that has some technical expertise in addition to being designers. So one of the things that I think separates our team from others out there is that we have team members who really know how to get into the technical weeds and troubleshoot and troubleshoot issues. Same thing with search engine optimization. We do basic 0n page optimization for everybody who comes to us and SEO's not, not only something that we're competent in but proficient in as well. And so all of those things make our offer. And so I think one mistake that people make when thinking about pricing in particular is that somebody might come to us and they might say, ah, I don't want the full website, I just want a page of a website. Like how much does it cost to do that? And it may be in a scarcity mindset or worry to turn work away. And we definitely made this mistake early on. We're like, okay, well we're going to take the normal amount of pages you get in a website and we're going to divide that by however many pages you want and we're going to come up with the price and we're going to do that. Not realizing that there's so much more that goes into that product or service, just the time it takes to talk to that person. If we take on that, we can't take on something else

Krista Jones (28:31):

To gather their content to help them launch. Even if it was just a one page website, there's a lot that goes into it. It's not all that different from a five page website. Yeah, that makes sense.

Davey Jones (28:41):

I think that's one area we really evolved. I mean I'm just thinking about Till Agency as well. We do content creation for people over there and sometimes people come to us, well it's like I just want, how much would it cost just to do 1000 word article a month? And it's like, well it's not that we can't write a 1000 word article for you, but for us from a business perspective that's not really profitable for us. One, to do things on a one-off basis like that and the time and resources that it's still going to take us to produce that article and do a good job with it. So instead we have collections. So we'll do no less than two articles per month. And we don't focus so much on the word count, although that might be a feature of the collection that we put together. But again, the offer includes so much more than that. It's the search engine optimization research that goes into it. The content and keyword research that goes into it, having somebody actually set it up in your website, that sort of thing.

Krista Jones (29:32):

And the same was true as photographers. We realized pretty quickly that it probably wasn't very profitable to shoot a two hour wedding because of all of the work that goes up to that wedding as opposed to an eight hour wedding, which was our standard.

Shanna Skidmore (29:44):

That is so good. That makes so much sense. And I think so often when we, especially in those early days, we're just comparing prices to the market and not always realizing what we're getting into. Or I always say, you could be comparing apples to oranges. We don't know what their package includes or all of their expertise, like you mentioned Davey and what all they truly are offering. So I just think that's so helpful. What an amazing lesson to learn, especially in those early days. So I would love to hear, it sounds like it took four years, Krista, for you to leave, your full-time job. Was it around the same for you Davye, and did you guys know that you would work together? How did Davey and Krista come to be?

Davey Jones (30:28):

Yeah, I really like teaching and I still really teaching. I feel like teaching is something that I definitely brought with me into my entrepreneurial journey. For me, when I left teaching to go join Krista, what I was fascinated with was the flexibility that she had in her life as a teacher too. And her being a wedding photographer, she was busy during the summers and I was busy during the school year, which didn't make for much of a good life, <laugh> living together. So there were all sorts of reasons why I wanted to go and join her in business. I was also very much intrigued by the earning potential. Her side hustle was making more than I was making in a year teaching and that's what she was doing on the side. And so I really enjoyed the marketing aspect of her business and helping her with those sorts of things. I joined her I think in 2014, no 15?

Krista Jones (31:14):

I think 15. And you also joined at the same time we were starting the Rising Tide Society because that ended up being a pretty big project and we needed your help with it.

Davey Jones (31:22):

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So that all was kind of happening at about the same time. I think I probably spent a year, I think at the beginning of the school year in 2014 or the year before I joined you full-time. We had decided I was going to see if I could do both. I was just going to see if I could manage both. And by the end of the year I was so miserable. And so it was clear that I was going to have to pick one and go from there. And so it's so funny, I never thought that I would be an entrepreneur. I didn't grow up thinking like, oh, I wanna start my own business. But now looking back, I can't imagine doing anything different. I can't imagine not being an entrepreneur and not running my own businesses.

Krista Jones (31:59):

And it's funny cause you started several other businesses since then. So

Shanna Skidmore (32:03):

Yeah, I know I love being an entrepreneur and it's definitely not for everybody, but I am just so grateful for the life it allows us. And I mean it comes with a lot of work of course, but I'm just so grateful. I would choose this clearly every single day. Was there any fear in leaving your full-time jobs, each of you individually or because you financially had saved and you both felt comfortable?

Davey Jones (32:32):

Oh there was definitely fear for sure. And I would say we had saved at that point. We had at least a six month emergency fund. There wasn't as much fear because like I said, Krista was actually making more in her wedding photography business.

Krista Jones (32:47):

We did lose health benefits, which was a little scary. We had to figure that out on our own. But it's not actually as complicated as it seems before you get into it.

Davey Jones (32:55):

Yeah, exactly. But there was definitely fear. And I would say there was definitely insecurities too. I remember we got in a fair amount of arguments around finances. If the month wasn't shaping up like we hoped it would be Krista would. Sometimes

Krista Jones (33:08):

You didn't handle it well.

Davey Jones (33:08):

And so there was this for a while I think this sort of ebb and flow of one second, everything was fine and the second next second it felt like Krista was freaking out on me because the month wasn't shaping up how it we thought it might be. But I mean all that to say, I mean grew a lot through those early years now have a better sense of business rhythms. And like I said, I mean this kind of just ties into the earlier part of the conversation For me it was learning to be more responsible with money and to take what's going in and what's going out more seriously. Just being more attentive to it. And for Krista realizing or not operating out of a scarcity mindset, really not looking at things at such granular detail where she's comparing this day to that day, this month to that day last month and stepping back from it a little bit,

Krista Jones (33:58):

Just realizing that there are ebbs and flows in the business and that just cause one month doesn't look as great as the next month doesn't mean that we're failing.

Davey Jones (34:06):

It doesn't mean that a month from now we're going to be homeless. Yeah,

Shanna Skidmore (34:10):

I'm right there with you. I'm the same exact. I'm like, ugh, panic. And so I know for me sometimes cause I operate from more so from scarcity or fear, it causes me not to take some risks maybe that I could have or should have, but I am the same. Cause I do think or can you tie that back to something of a way you were raised or it's just personality?

Krista Jones (34:36):

Yeah, I mean I'm sure it comes back to the way I was raised. My parents had no problem being in debt and they were not as careful with their money as I am. And so I know that it comes back from also just not knowing enough. I feel like we didn't learn a lot about finance, especially personal finance in school. And I wish I had learned more about debt and compound interest and all of those things at even younger age than I did because I think that I would've felt more empowered as I ended in college and started this career.

Davey Jones (35:06):

Yeah, I mean I think finances is one the of the glaring holes in education just in general let alone for those who want to go and start businesses. All of us are very competent usually in what it is that we want and go to do. But then actually balancing a bank account,

Shanna Skidmore (35:25):

That's why I have a job. No, that's so true. I'm just like, gosh. Anyways, we could get really on a tangent there, but I 100% agree. And I am the same. If something is unknown to me, instead of being like, Ooh, possibilities, I'm like, ah, no thank you <laugh>. Like fear is how I feel. So it sounds like both the two of you are such a great team. Same with Kyle and I. He is, we're both dreamers, but he is just like, we can do it. He gets so excited and I'm over here, I don't know, biting my nails. So what a good balance of each other. I want to know so much more and I would be so interested about your healthcare solution. I don't know if that's a quick answer, but I know so many people struggle with that, if that's something you would share.

Krista Jones (36:16):

When we lived in Maryland, Maryland had a health place or

Davey Jones (36:20):

Marketplace.

Krista Jones (36:20):

Marketplace. I think if you go to healthcare.gov it'll connect you to your state marketplace and then it gives you your options from there. And so we just got it through the state, but it was like Blue Cross Blue Shield or something like that, the equivalent. They just have all the plans listed and so we just paid for it ourselves that way. Now we get our insurance through Gusto, which is our payroll system

Davey Jones (36:41):

And they shop better. Similar, yeah, it's very set, a very similar experience and they shop probably better rates than we would be able to get otherwise. I'll say just kind of a few things. We have a lot of friends who do I think Medi-Share or some of these different

Krista Jones (36:55):

Christian Health share network, those things that we

Shanna Skidmore (36:57):

We do the CHM.

Davey Jones (36:59):

And so for a lot of people that's I think a great alternative and makes more sense financially for us.

Krista Jones (37:06):

I have a preexisting condition. I'm going to probably need heart surgery one day. So that kind of excludes me from all of those kinds of systems

Davey Jones (37:14):

And we find maybe a little bit more peace of mind in having more traditional insurance for that specific case.

Shanna Skidmore (37:21):

Yeah, thank you for sharing. Actually, healthcare is one of, I think the bigger fears of stepping out on your own and not knowing where to begin and making sure you have coverage there. So thank you so much for sharing. There are a lot of different options and it can be helpful to hear how other people are doing it because it can feel kind of overwhelming. So thank you for sharing that. Okay, so you've both left your full-time jobs, you're doing web design, it sounds like about 40% of your income photography, a bigger chunk of it, and then Rising Tide Society. Will you quickly just talk through how that project came to be and then how it moved the trajectory of your business forward?

Davey Jones (38:05):

So Rising Tide Society in particular?

Shanna Skidmore (38:07):

Yeah, I would love to hear that season

Davey Jones (38:09):

For sure. It feels like a lifetime ago. It did. And so Krista could probably tell this a little bit better than I could, but basically her and Natalie felt like the entrepreneurial journey was relatively lonely. I think you're starting to see a really, the rise of the gig economy and people working from home alone. Typically a lot of solo-preneurs out there

Krista Jones (38:30):

There were some networking groups in Annapolis and they didn't wanna admit Natalie and I into them. And we were kind of like, well, okay, we'll just go start our own and we'll let everybody's welcome. And other friends saw what we had started building in Annapolis and we were like, well we want that in our city. And so one city turned into 10 cities, turned into 300 cities around the world and it just kind of grew from there <laugh>

Shanna Skidmore (38:51):

Quickly, so fast. Yeah,

Davey Jones (38:53):

It really was kind of wild. And then HoneyBook took note and that turned into partnering with HoneyBook, which led us to working for HoneyBook for a season. And during that season we were still running the wedding photography business. They wanted us out in San Francisco a week out of every month. And I think after just a time working for them which we were super grateful for. I mean we learned a ton. We just felt like that wasn't what we were called to do. And so at that point we decided we wanted to make what is now Davey and Krista, the website design business, brand new website design business, the thing that we do. I mean that's where we were finding a lot of joy. That's where we felt like we could really make an impact for other creative entrepreneurs. And so we decided that we were going to step away from HoneyBook and RTS and pursue that full time.

Krista Jones (39:41):

So still helping business owners just in a different way. Cuz I have always loved design and I wanted to be able to do more of that.

Shanna Skidmore (39:48):

And I love, thank you for sharing about that because I think Rising Tide Society is a very well known project that you all had a hand in creating and growing from the ground up and also knowing that it's okay that that's a season and that your passions, and I think so often pivots or change feels, and I don't wanna put words in your own mouth, but it can be a tension point or is it okay? And I was like, that's what entrepreneurship's all about. Hey, if you love something, go pursue it. So it sounds like web design became your passion moving forward.

Davey Jones (40:29):

And that's one of the hardest lessons to learn I think, is that there's all sorts of good things that you can pursue but just because it's good doesn't mean you have to go and do it. Right. And so for us, I mean it was just looking at the life that we wanted to live in that year, three years from now, five years from now, and what that included and you, we went from there. Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (40:47):

Yeah. Okay. So tell me year wise, when Daviey and Krista and the website business became your main focus, and then I would love to hear when you added your little people into the equation,

Krista Jones (41:00):

It was all pretty similar. So we left RTS in the fall of 2016 and we really started to focus on Davey and Krista. We had also met Jen Olmsted and Todd of Showit at that point, and they were like, Krista Showit is brand new and you have to do website templates. So our templates shop started in that time and we slowly started phasing out weddings and really focusing on the design and marketing aspect of our business. Once our first child came along in 2018, we also realized just how hard it was going to be for both of us to be away all day on a Saturday, maybe multiple Saturdays in a row to shoot weddings. And so we stopped taking on weddings and just focused on the marketing, branding, web design part of our business.

Davey Jones (41:43):

And there's so many things that happen in between. I mean there's so many mistakes too, even in starting Davey and Krista. And it's so funny, when you start a new business after running a successful business, you just kind of think, oh yeah, things are going to fall into place. Yeah, you just think, oh, things are going to rev up real quick. And I remember with Davey and Krista when we started that we had actually started it out as this sort of full service agency. We were doing brand design, website design, copywriting, search engine optimization, and we called it

Krista Jones (42:09):

The Palm Shop.

Davey Jones (42:10):

And at the time it was the Palm Shop, not Davey and Krista, which was the name of Krista's Design, or design side of the business back when she was doing wedding photography. And so it was so interesting just as that ramped up nicheing down into brand and website design specifically and realizing that we had to get clear about our message and our offer and that there was actually going to have to be real hustle involved. It's not like you can just magically take the success you had in another area and then pick it up and bring it with you to another area. And that's not to say that there's not certain benefits of having built a reputation in one area or that you've learned nothing that you learned in another area. Can you bring into your new project or endeavor. But it just requires a lot of hustle. So I remember that being sort of a scary time as well. But yeah,

Shanna Skidmore (43:02):

I think that's such a good, thank you for sharing that. If it doesn't take off as quickly as you thought, it can be scary. It can be like, whoa, what are we doing? When did you start seeing traction happening or what are a couple things that you feel like you did well to get Davey and Krista really moving forward?

Davey Jones (43:23):

Yeah, I think niching Down was a big one, and just focusing on brand website design at the time, SEO is something that we always sort of taught about, but we hadn't launched any course I think until a while later, later. So we got really clear about, okay, brand website design is going to be our thing, even though I feel like I'm a capable copywriter, it's something that I can do. But it just was taking time away from other things that would make our brand website design offer better. So niching down I think was big. Again, just refining our messaging at the time. Creatives is such an interesting audience because I think a lot of people would identify them themselves as a creative, but what does it actually mean? I think in recent years it's taken on a more definitive meaning, but I think back then it's like, and still now today, no one introduces themselves as a creative. We say, I'm Davey and Krista, we're brand new website designers or whatever. So trying to get a little clearer with our messaging and trying to figure out a little bit more clearly who our audience is and speaking directly to them and just sticking with it and iterating on things that worked and throwing away things that didn't.

Krista Jones (44:28):

I would say also realizing that the easier we made it for our clients and customers, the more likely they were going to be to buy from us. So one of those big switches was switching to Showit because it was so much easier for them to edit a show at site than to edit a custom coded WordPress website, which was what I had been doing in the past. We also, with our shop started packaging logo files with our designs so that if somebody was coming to us and had no brand, they could have something that they could put elsewhere other than their website. We started doing things like including launch graphics for our custom clients. We wrote starter copy for all of our website templates, and then we made products like our wedding guide and our album guide, which pretty much have everything that somebody needs to get started and they could really just add it to their website, flip, put in a few of their images and go. And those have become our top selling products because we've just made it so much easier for people to use them in their business.

Shanna Skidmore (45:19):

And I would just love to hear how your business looks like today and how, if you wouldn't mind talking through just how it's shifted and changed even since having and growing your family.

Davey Jones (45:31):

Yeah, I mean you think we hired our first team members shortly after Jack was born, right?

Krista Jones (45:35):

I mean, before having kids, I think we probably worked 50 to 60 hours a week. It was pretty crazy. And then Jack came along when we realized this isn't going to work anymore. We need help.

Davey Jones (45:45):

Well, I think it's funny too. I mean Krista has always been a very hard worker. And I remember before Jack was born, she was like, well, what's really going to change? We're going to have this kid. We've always been relatively disciplined people just in how we structured our day. And so it was kind of this idea of like, oh yeah, Jack's just going to fit into <laugh> our life. And so when he naps I'll work and when he is not so on and so forth. And also I think just having a kid, I think it just changes everything. And so it was interesting from my perspective, watching your mindset shift too to all of a sudden, work isn't the most important thing in the world and it's not even close and Jack becomes the most important thing in the world. And I think in that fall, that's when we realized we really need to bring on help. We really need to build a team so that not as much pressure as just on your shoulders. And I'm not a designer, I think most people probably know that by now, but it's so funny. I'll run into people and they're like, oh, Davey, I love your designs. And I'm like, you love Krista's designs. So what that meant is I'm pretty good at booking work, but when the work had to be done, it was all Krista doing it. It wasn't like I was jumping in there and designing with her. I can give her feedback on the user experience. That's something I feel very proficient in, but I'm not actually designing a website. So at that point, we felt like we needed to bring people on

Krista Jones (47:04):

And that was just, I think that applied to our life too. That was when we started outsourcing cleaning and lawn care and just everything that we could get off of our shoulders so that we could focus really hard on work when we needed to work, and then spend quality time with Jack when we were going to spend time with him.

Davey Jones (47:21):

And I remember cleaning, it's so funny to think about now is something that you did not want to give up. You're like, I can vacuum.

Krista Jones (47:27):

I can, I'm really, really good at this. No one is going to be better than me at this. And that I learned very quickly that it's not true. Most professional cleaners are way better at cleaning than I am

Davey Jones (47:36):

That and, even if they weren't just this idea that they get you 90% of the way there and it's one less thing that you have to do. And again, it's going back with kids, all that free time it's spent with them. And so if you can get an hour or two back a week, that's huge.

Krista Jones (47:51):

Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (47:52):

Oh my goodness. This whole conversation, I'm just over here. Yes, yes, yes. And yes. And the thought of having tiny people fit into our schedule just is laughable now.

Davey Jones (48:04):

Oh, it is. It's so laughable. And yet what we thought like, oh yeah, this is totally how it's going to work.

Shanna Skidmore (48:08):

Yeah. I love though. I think for us it has made us get extremely focused even on and strategic about what's working and what isn't working. And when you have limited time to work, you just have to maximize that time with things that truly, truly matter. Would you say that's the case for you all as well?

Krista Jones (48:30):

Yeah, especially because we tried to sign off of work at 3:00 PM when we picked the kids up from school. And we don't wanna work at night or on weekends. There have been seasons where before kids, we worked all day or even a few with Jack, where we would work until we got him, and then we would work after he went to bed. But we realized that that didn't work for us. And so we've learned how to be very focused and maximize the hours where we are at work. We don't take unnecessary meetings. We aren't on our phones during that time. And we figured out what are the best things for us to be doing in that time.

Shanna Skidmore (49:03):

And I'm so privileged. I mean, I feel so grateful that you're on this call because I know how precious even an hour is, so thank you so much.

Davey Jones (49:15):

Oh, well we're happy to be here.

Krista Jones (49:17):

We are, yeah.

Davey Jones (49:17):

But yeah, I mean, for me, I've always been kind of a morning person. And so we start our day I start my day at four, Krista starts our day at five. But the idea is when the kids wake up and then we get to spend time with them, and then when they go to school, we work. And then Krista has said at three o'clock when we pick 'em up, it's hopefully laptops off for the day.

Shanna Skidmore (49:36):

So I just wanna I have so many more questions, but I wanna kind of get us into a wrap up. But years ago I had, we did a series on the blog, and I will link it in the show notes called "The Best Thing That You've Learned About Money" and I had you guys share and I'm excited to revisit that. But I always love to end these conversations with what is the best thing that you've learned about money. So I'm going to let you answer that and then I would love to tie it into the season and in business and life with kids and growing it together as a couple, we're right there with you. Do you ever feel like that has shifted how you've had to think about money as well and growth?

Krista Jones (50:18):

So best thing I've learned about money is probably that it doesn't belong to us and that we are stewards of our money. I think that's made it easier to handle the ebbs and flows of business. It's made it easier to give and be generous both of our time and our resources. And it's definitely helped me with my scarcity mentality.

Davey Jones (50:38):

Yeah, I mean for me it's something similar that money is not actually a good measure of success and certainly doesn't correlate with happiness. But I think time, how you spend your time is much better metric of how successful you are, at least in my mind. I mean, I want to have a day where I can have the flexibility to spend it with Jack and the kids and Krista, I like being able to go and get a workout in the middle of the day. I like being able to, if a friend wants to go get lunch, go and get lunch in the middle of the day. So I try to organize everything around my calendar and where I'm spending my time and then money is sort of secondary. It's like what sort of money do I need to make in order to be able to do those things? But I've definitely fell into the error of thinking, oh, more money is going to make me more happy. And it's so interesting cuz if I am anxious about something related with the business, Krista is the first to point out and be Davey. Think about 10 years ago when we first graduated school, if I told you this is what you were doing, you would freak out. You wouldn't believe it.

Krista Jones (51:46):

Which is what you're making and the flexibility in your life. Yeah. You were so tied into this entry level. We were both tied into entry level jobs where we had to be there from nine to five every day and we got two weeks of vacation. No flexibility.

Shanna Skidmore (51:59):

Yeah, I think that's so true. And thank you for sharing because I know for us it's all about values and naming your values and I teach all my students this. What do you value? We have to create our plan around what I value. But I have found, and I'm not even on social media so <laugh>, that there's still this tension and pressure of making more money, like you said, Davey. And when you name your value as time, especially in this season with tiny people or whatever, for anybody listening, whatever season you might be in, if you're working full-time still, just knowing that the way we can spend our time and tying that to an amount of money we need to make, that's what's given me a lot of peace in this season. And it sounds like for you all as well, knowing what you need so that you can live the life that you really wanna live right now.

Davey Jones (52:54):

Exactly.

Shanna Skidmore (52:54):

Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you all for sharing. I wanna go into kind of a quick fire round as we wrap up just with some fun questions.

Krista Jones (53:04):

Okay.

Shanna Skidmore (53:05):

And you both can answer or one of you can answer. The first one I'd be interested to hear from both of you, but totally your call. What would you say is one thing you would be embarrassed if people knew?

Krista Jones (53:16):

<laugh>? This doesn't embarrass me, but Davey said I should be embarrassed.

Davey Jones (53:19):

This embarrasses me. So this can count, I guess. For both of us.

Krista Jones (53:23):

I don't like bacon. He says that's like not. Everybody likes bacon, but

Davey Jones (53:28):

Certainly not American.

Shanna Skidmore (53:30):

Or Southern,

Krista Jones (53:31):

If it's on something I normally won't take it off. But

Davey Jones (53:33):

We live on a, we farm,

Krista Jones (53:35):

We have our own pigs and we have fresh bacon. But I would never cook up bacon for myself and just eat it.

Shanna Skidmore (53:41):

I'm just over here like hy? But why? <laugh>

Krista Jones (53:44):

I just don't love it

Shanna Skidmore (53:46):

You're allowed to have your dislikes, but it's bacon. That is hilarious. And I love bacon and I have to limit it. Have you guys heard of Benton's Bacon?

Krista Jones (54:00):

No.

Shanna Skidmore (54:00):

Famous. It's what they, the French laundry? Yeah, it's like down the street from where I grew up. So Okay. That's Knoxville's claim to fame and white lily flower. We're going to go real southern on you, gotta go with the White Lily. So all these things. I bought this book called S is for Southern because I just moved back from Minnesota, so I'm just like, come on, let's get to the south. And Minnesota was wonderful, but it's so funny cuz Kyle grew up in Ohio, so I'm still teaching him how to be Southern. And so I love this book cause it's all like Benton's Bacon, white lily flower, and I'm like, yes, this is the thing. So

Krista Jones (54:35):

We're new southerners. We just moved to the south two years ago

Davey Jones (54:39):

From Maryland? From Maryland. I mean it's a, but

Shanna Skidmore (54:41):

It's like, I feel

Davey Jones (54:43):

Like we moved more

Krista Jones (54:44):

Southwest.

Davey Jones (54:45):

Yeah, more west than South.

Shanna Skidmore (54:47):

Yeah. Where you guys are in Virginia, right?

Davey Jones (54:50):

Yeah, we're in Lexington.

Krista Jones (54:51):

Southwestern Virginia.

Shanna Skidmore (54:52):

Okay. Yeah, so, oh, I love it. Okay. S is for Southern. Look it up. You'll love it. Okay. Second. Any kind of wish you could do over moments?

Krista Jones (55:02):

Part of me still wishes that I went to a different college because it was so expensive and I was definitely the person who was drawn to the cuteness of my school. I don't know if it was necessarily the best fit for me. And it definitely contributed to us starting our marriage with so much debt. I also wish that we'd hired help sooner because if I had set myself up before Jack came to have help, I think that having him would not have resulted in just so many tearful stressed moments when he was here.

Davey Jones (55:32):

For me, I think that I wish that I learned to just get things out and published and not focus so much on making it perfect or wondering exactly how it's going to be received. I think one of the things that started changing in our business for the better was when I just started pushing content out and we produce a lot of content now, but I've just learned that it's like to get to good words, you have to write a lot of bad words first. And so I've published a lot of really bad blog posts in the past,

Krista Jones (56:02):

But they're not that bad. You're just overly critical.

Davey Jones (56:04):

Well, when I look at 'em, but to get to content that I feel like, oh, this is good and this is helpful. And I think that's just kind of looking weird just at the Spark Conference and so many people I think struggle with the same thing where they just feel like, okay, why am I doing this? But they don't realize that in doing the work, they're getting better at it and they're getting, they're going to get to that place where they feel really confident in their content sooner. Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (56:25):

Oh, that's so good. And side note, is content a main form of marketing for you guys?

Davey Jones (56:31):

Yeah, I would say it is the form of marketing for us. We do,

Krista Jones (56:35):

But we run ads too,

Davey Jones (56:36):

But it's all to me. Yeah, it, it's all marketing is content to me. Any information you put out there, it's content. So yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (56:43):

Yeah. So blogs and your podcast and

Davey Jones (56:47):

Social posts. Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (56:49):

All of that you feel like is leading into, because I need to get you to my membership on SEO, but all of that to you is building brand awareness and that is where you're putting your time and attention.

Davey Jones (57:00):

Exactly. Yep.

Shanna Skidmore (57:01):

Okay. See, I'm soaking up your knowledge as I interview <laugh>. So good. You know what's so true? I have always struggled with consistency with content blogging until I love the podcast. I had to find my medium and I love this so much, but I always am. I'm a slow writer and YouTube video takes a lot of production, so I was just like, I'm so inconsistent and I have really challenged myself this year to show up consistently. And I will say exactly what you said, I feel like I'm getting faster and better at it with practice. And so it's just so funny. I'm a perfectionist and it's like, why do we expect ourselves to be perfect at all the things without practice? So it's such a good insight, Davey, thank you for sharing. Yeah, yeah. And I love what you said Krista too, about Kyle always laughs at me. I'm like, the aesthetic matters. I mean <laugh>, sorry, but it does. Okay, next question. What is a big win or a pinch me moment?

Krista Jones (58:00):

I think that Davey leaving teaching and us doing this together full-time was a big huge win and pinch me moment cuz it just allowed us to spend so much more time together. I hear about couples who hardly see each other at all, and I just think like, wow, we're so fortunate that we get to do this together. We literally spend our entire day together. So that feels like a big win. Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (58:23):

I feel the exact same way.

Davey Jones (58:24):

Yeah. I think for me it's similar. We got to go to Italy. It was our first big trip since the pandemic.

Krista Jones (58:30):

We took both kids.

Davey Jones (58:31):

We both took both kids. We met some of our best friends out there. And there's just, while we are there, a lot of feeling really grateful that we're able to do this. Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (58:42):

Oh, I love that. That's a huge pinch me moment. I love that. All right. What is best advice or just really good advice that you have received?

Davey Jones (58:51):

Yeah, for me, I think it's around time. Time is a fixed limit. We can't add an hour to our day. We can't take away an hour. We can't add hours to our life. And so I think learning to really figure out, I guess to your early point, what I value, and then organizing my time around that and then creating a business that respects those things. I think that has been a total game changer for me. And again, just a good reminder in the rhythm of business, how grateful I am for the businesses that we get to run that allow me to really organize my calendar however I'd like. Yeah,

Krista Jones (59:29):

I would say that success is a moving target. Davey kind of talked about this earlier, but when it's so easy to think that what you have and what you're doing is not enough and constantly, I said, I think if most business owners would probably say the same thing, that you keep reevaluating your goals and setting bigger goals as your business grows. But if we look back to where we were when we first started, if we told 10 years ago, Krista, where we would be right now, I never would've believed you. And so I love what you talk about Shanna, which is knowing what is enough for you. And I think that really helps with the contentment and being okay with slower growth, especially in seasons where growth is harder. When Bennett was born a year ago, I wanted him home with me for the first year, and so that meant slower growth in that season, but even in being content with where I was.

Shanna Skidmore (01:00:21):

Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Thank you both for sharing. Yeah. I am such an achiever that is built into my DNA <laugh> that and perfectionist and all of those wonderful joys that naming our values and knowing even financially, getting to the nitty gritty of the number allows me to slow down and be like, it's okay. I don't have to build all of that today. And that's hard. That's a hard mindset to be in and not think, oh, I'm being lazy, or I'm just settling. So thank you for sharing. I love that word. Contentment. Okay, last quickfire question. What are you working on now and or what is one resource you would like to share?

Krista Jones (01:01:01):

Well, our fall line is debuting this week as we record. So that has been a really fun project for me and the other designers on the team. And to go along with that, we have free Canva graphics that people can download to share about their projects or their new website or their blog posts, and that's been another fun thing to put together

Shanna Skidmore (01:01:21):

And we will link all the links in the show notes for you.

Krista Jones (01:01:24):

Awesome.

Shanna Skidmore (01:01:24):

Okay. Thank you all so much for being on the podcast today. I think it's just such a joy for me to get to host the show and hear amazing stories. And I would love for you to send us off just going all the way back individually to the days that you started this journey of entrepreneurship and what you would tell yourself on day one.

Davey Jones (01:01:48):

Yeah, I would say I would tell people just to create, just to get out there and do it and because by doing it, you're going to get better at what it is that you're doing and you're going to get to where you want to go sooner. And it might not even be the place that you thought you were going to end up, but you're going to get there. But it requires going out and getting it done, and whether that's actually committing to writing a blog post a week for a year or going the podcasting route or whatever it is, but it just go out and do it and nothing's ever wasted. We're going to take everything that we learn along the way, even those things that we do and don't turn out how we want them to, and we're going to make it better in the future.

Shanna Skidmore (01:02:23):

Guys, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your story. It is just a joy and I'm excited to chat with you again, Davey on Thursday, just a couple days, and hopefully we can see each other in real life sooner than later.

Davey Jones (01:02:38):

Yeah, that'd be great. It's been a long time. Too long.

Shanna Skidmore (01:02:40):

All right. Thank you all.

(01:02:43)
Hey, wildflower, you just finished another episode of Consider the Wildflowers the podcast. Head over to considerthewildflowerspodcast.com for show notes, resource links, and to learn how you can connect with Davey and Krista. One final thought for today. This is my favorite quote from Dave Ramsey. "Tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went". As always, thank you for listening. I'll see you next time.