She knew she had to knock it out of the park with every client for her business to grow. That’s why she partnered with the leading client relationship platform for independents.

“I’m all about the experience,” says Seattle-based photographer Jessica Whitaker. Knowing that thriving in today’s market requires more than just delivering great images, Whitaker has built her business by giving clients an exceptional experience from the moment they contact her. Her essential partner in making it happen: HoneyBook. 

Whitaker has been shooting personal branding, portraiture, couples, and families since she was a student, and took her business full time in 2017. Not long after, she decided to stop managing her communications with Gmail. She integrated the HoneyBook contact form into her website and hasn’t looked back. “Once I set up the HoneyBook workflow, it just looked so much more professional to clients,” she says.

Now when potential clients contact her, that kicks off a series of communications giving them an in-depth look at what she offers and letting them schedule a discovery call. HoneyBook follows through with clients who book a shoot by automatically sending out contracts, invoices, reminders, Whitaker’s pre-shoot tips and summaries after calls, and pre-session questionnaires.

“They’ll click into an email and instead of it being plain text, it will have my branding colors and a button that will bring them into their project,” Whitaker explains. “The project is like a portal where they can find their invoice, their contract, and all of their previous communication with me.” The whole process gives her business a consistent and professional experience with every interaction. 

Whitaker doesn’t rely on HoneyBook because she hates handling the business side of things. In fact, she says she loves operating a business. But like every business owner, she acknowledges there are tasks she doesn’t love. HoneyBook‘s customization and automation options allow her to capitalize on her strengths. 

“I value consistent communication with my clients because it makes them feel taken care of,” says Whitaker. “So I love building PDFs for them and plugging them into HoneyBook and writing an email that goes with them.” But she hates nudging clients to pay invoices and sign contracts. “I like that HoneyBook can be the middleman for those business tasks,” she says. “It eliminates the awkwardness. And then for the client only the fun stuff is with me.” 

HoneyBook makes things more fun for her too, giving her an organized, customized view of all of her active projects to make sure she stays on top of each day’s work. Most importantly, the time saved on routine tasks allows her to pursue her passion projects. 

Whitaker runs free workshops with Build + Bloom, an organization she founded to help photographers develop their own businesses, especially young women who are doing photography on the side as she once did. One piece of advice she has for people who want their business to grow: “You hit a wall where you can’t raise your prices if the experience you’re giving to clients doesn’t evolve.” 

Whitaker’s own business continues to grow, along with Build + Bloom, thanks to her smart platform choice. “I wouldn’t be able to spend time on the nonprofit side and also make the experience amazing for my clients if I didn’t use HoneyBook to have everything laid out, organized, and automated for me,” she says.  “And I love to make the experience as amazing as possible.”

You can hear from Jessica Whitaker in person at WPPI 2025, March 16-20 at The Rio at booth #730. Stop by and get all the details on how HoneyBook can make you love building a business as much as she does – and make every one of your clients love what you do. Visit the booth for a 30% discount on your first year of HoneyBook and a chance to win $1,500 in prizes from HoneyBook, Imagen, and Pic-Time.

Register for WPPI 2025, here.