In todays world of glorified entrepreneurs, small business owners and collaborative work spaces, secret sauce is no longer just the hushed, untold ingredients Aunt Marge puts in her spaghetti, but its the question that keeps us, entrepreneurs, up at night and gets us out of bed early. What makes me different? What makes my company, my business, my brand, unique… What makes my clients connect with me? And what exactly is my secret sauce?

This question, this quest to find my secret sauce has been weighing on my mind a lot lately. Here I am, a 20something year old woman who loves her work, her clients and the energy that photography brings to the world. All I want to do is reach more people, photograph more beautiful events and help others document the most cherished moments of their lives. All I want is to capture emotion and love; but what is my secret sauce? What makes me the person who should do it? What makes me stand out and how, exactly do I figure what my thing is?

For weeks, months, even years, I have been trying to find the secret ingredient to the YPP’s Secret Sauce. I have asked my friends, gone on retreats, listened to seminars, read book after book, and I still cannot pinpoint what exactly it is that makes my brand unique. I couldn’t even begin to count the amount of times I have asked Robert to describe the YPP brand in three words or the amount of times I have texted Danielle with my latest perfect tagline.

As small business owners, we expect ourselves to have all the answers. I mean, it’s our own business right? We should know what’s best. But let me fill you in on a little secret… it doesn’t come easy. We spend hours upon hours researching, we seek out advice, we enlist our friends for help and we even figure out what we need to outsource. In the end of the day, owning a small business is an endless cycle of trial and error.

Today, as I was sitting in a seminar, listening to fellow entrepreneurs talk about their inspiring ventures, the question was asked… “So, Amy, what exactly is your secret sauce?” That’s when it hit me… Like all good recipes, you can’t rush it. You can’t force it. You have to keep trying different things, mixing in different ingredients and eventually, you will figure it out. Eventually, it will feel like you just stumbled upon gold. Eventually you will find the secret ingredient to your very, very secret sauce.

Happy searching my friends!