540: Katie Donnelly – How to partner with influencers to grow your photography business

540: Katie Donnelly - How to partner with influencers to grow your photography

 
Andrew Hellmich: When I introduce a guest for the podcast, I usually pickle together a bunch of tidbits that I learn about them online. And while I was doing that for today's guest, I read a pinned post on her Instagram feed that I felt was the perfect introduction. And here's what she says. I'm picking out the parts I think you should hear."10 years ago, I moved to France from New York, I moved for love and adventure. I married that same French guy who I came over for. Life is normal, but in 2020 everything was so clearly put into perspective, when simultaneously, the world shut down, and I was told I had stage four cancer, and my dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer as well, the world came through. I lived, but sadly, my dad died. What got me through? Well, modern medicine and luck, but also my family. I now know what is most important in life, time and memories with the ones you love. Our work, making family portraits has a real meaning now, and it's important to have portraits and art with your loved ones. I know it deeply." She goes on to say that "In 2021 after chemo ended, I gave myself two options. One, quit, close down shop, or, number two, build a team, because I couldn't do it alone. So I started building. It's been so much work. Building on your own is easy, building something for others to grow with is so much more complex and always, always with the client being the center of it all." So that post was by Katie Donnelly of Katie Donnelly Photography, who has been voted Best Paris Portrait Photographer. I am really about to say that Katie is with us now. Katie, welcome.

Katie Donnelly: I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you get much feedback on that pin post on Instagram?

Katie Donnelly: I think people do connect with my story when they read it. And you know, like a lot of us have, that you know, cancer is not like a solo thing that only I've gone through. It's so universal, unfortunately, but also there's so many other things that kind of puts your life in perspective. And it doesn't have to be a major diagnosis, it could be just many things. Could be the birth of a child, it could be a new job, it could be a conversation you have with a friend. But yeah, I always knew family was important before, I'm family oriented. But yeah..

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, of course, of course.

Katie Donnelly: I mean, everything changes,

Andrew Hellmich: Absolutely. I want to ask you a little bit more about that, but I want you to take me back to before you had cancer. What was the business like then? Was it you in Paris working alone?

Katie Donnelly: Yes, it was pretty much a solo business. I did have a few times where I had, you know, I was trying to add people to my team, and it just didn't always work out. And not because of them, it just logistics, or I didn't have the right systems to support them because, you know, like, or maybe I wasn't there mentally ready to let go enough. I think I was forced to let go just, you know, so that, yeah, it takes a while. It's hard. It's your baby. I mean..

Andrew Hellmich: I hate it.

Katie Donnelly: This is my passion. I've grown it. I've I love it deeply. It's also hard to trust other people with clients, just because, not that you don't think they're going to do a good job. But you know, the whole, "No one does it like you", but until, like, I had changed that mantra of like, "Oh, no one could do it like me, but maybe they can do it better or differently. Maybe they can bring their own magic." Until I was able to kind of let that in, and that has been unfolded in a beautiful, beautiful way, into a team now that I'm just grateful every day, grateful for.

Andrew Hellmich: So I'm going to refer back to some of the reviews I read on Google about your team members, and everyone seems as delighted with them at their sessions as they are with you. So let's leave that for just a minute. But you mentioned clients. Before you had cancer when you're working on your own, did you have the same target client, the same ideal client then, as you do now?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah. So when I first came to Paris, I started my business. In New York I was a professional photographer as well, but I worked for a portrait studio. We did mainly family portraits, and then I did my own like weddings and events on the side. When I came here, I was kind of juggling between the two, but I always knew that I just, I love, I love family portraits. I love relationship portraits. Just, you know, could be best friends. It could be someone and their dog. It could be someone who's solo here, just in Paris, and their relationship with adventure or with travel or with the city. And so, like, I knew that I wanted to some way, find a way to only do that. And so I stopped doing events at some point, like many years ago, a few years into starting my business here, and I just purely focused on family portraits and family clients. At the beginning, it was very much like a shoot and burn situation. And then, even though I had done in person sales in New York for this other portrait studio, and then I just started emailing my clients, like, after it would be, like, six months later, or whatever, like, "Hey, like, what did you end up doing? Can you just send me a picture of your wall? I'd love to see it." Because, you know you're, you're having these intimate moment with your clients. And often, we have a lot of repeat clients, so you create these beautiful relationships with them and with their kids and you see them in these, like, not even big life moments, just life moments. And I just got so many responses like, "Oh, I haven't done anything. Like, oh, it's gonna happen. I'm gonna do the album, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that." And I was just like, gosh, like, these are childhoods that are getting lost on a hard drive. Like, you know, I just, I remember, you know, all of our childhood we like to go into our Auntie's home, you sit down, you like, take the photo album that is always to your left or to your right on the end table, and you flip through and you laugh at all the hairstyles and like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you", you know, and that, you know, this family history. And I'm like, 'Are we losing ours? Am I part of that?' And it was definitely a reckoning, you know, way before cancer of like, "No, I just, I want to start, you know, we need to start doing in person sales, because I need, I need our clients to see themselves on the wall. I need their like the kids, to see themselves on the wall and in this family unit", whatever that unit is. So that kind of, I started, I would say, got my first studio space in like, 20. What was it, 2017?, or like, and then I got this our current space in 2018 so or yeah, before it was 2017, maybe it was as early as 2015 I honestly, it's been such a whirlwind.

Andrew Hellmich: So tell me about those clients before you brought on the team, before cancer.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Were they expats? Because it looks like you're targeting mainly expats as clients, or were you targeting Paris locals?

Katie Donnelly: I did have some local clients. I had a lot of expat clients who did live here, or lived here first, you know, a certain number of years when you're an expat, it's like three to five years that you can normally stay in a place. And then, yeah, I have a lot of tourist clients, a lot of people who come here. They, some of our clients come every year, like to Paris, or every six months to Paris.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal. So your main clients today are Americans? Is that right?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, I would say a majority of them. But we have Australians, we have South Africans. We have a lot of English speakers. But even, you know, we have a lot of some clients who come from the Middle East. We have clients who come from all over Asia. We have, like, a, we're kind of like a worldwide. Paris is such a big destination that it is easy to get that worldwide clientele because they're already coming here. It's a beautiful place to photograph. And then they want these, they're sharing these really important moments with you know their loved ones.

Andrew Hellmich: Amazing. I can't think of a better city to have family photos. I mean, I love Paris. I love France.

Katie Donnelly: We're so lucky. Yeah. Oh my gosh. We are so lucky.

Andrew Hellmich: I don't know if you saw that. Did you see the t shirt that I'm wearing? Do you recognize..

Katie Donnelly: Perfect!

Andrew Hellmich: So for the listener, you can't see what I'm wearing, but I'm wearing my Galibier t-shirt, one of the famous mountains in France. So like so with the business, then I'm going to come back to how you attract your clients shortly, but give us an idea of the revenue that you're doing today.

Katie Donnelly: Okay, well, I told you before, but I've never seen it publicly. Today, which just has blown us out of the water. We've had almost 700,000 for the year so far.

Andrew Hellmich: And we're talking about euros?

Katie Donnelly: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: Absolutely incredible. I mean, has it been a steady growth? Or are you pinching yourself, thinking, "Wow, what a business."

Katie Donnelly: Both and I don't know, I hesitate to say it's been like, there's definitely been like, years now, in the last few years that it's just doubled or tripled or quadrupled, but all of the years like, I put in my 10,000 hours and those, like those, it shows, I think, because all the systems that we've created that, you know, all of our, you know, helpful info and content and stuff that we've created has been years and years and years. And this is this foundation. I didn't just wake up one morning and then walk into a business. And so, yeah, but I would say since having the team, it has been exponential. And so, yeah, for the last two years. And but I had big, I mean, I don't know, I broke 100 consistently before having a team. So which is not a bad, you know, like, which is already very good. I feel like I was very proud of it, and I'm you know, and super proud of that's where I was before. But yeah, there's something also about when you have to pay other people, you're like, you just have to do it. And so you just work so much harder and smarter, and you have to figure it out. Because I'm like, "There's no way." I'm not gonna, you know someone's gonna work and then not get paid like you know.

Andrew Hellmich: For sure. So if you shut down in wintertime, because I imagine there's gonna be a lot less tourists in winter, you're shaking your head.

Katie Donnelly: No. No, where you around? We have, because we're three photographers, we really try and always have someone who's available, other than there's certain points where, you know, there's just no one available, like holidays, there's, we're a family studio, and it's family time for us as well. And so we do, you know, we have pretty limited availability. Like in August, a lot of times, you know, in France, a lot of things shut down. And so that's another time of year that, even though it would be like, quite busy, you know, people need time off, and so do I, and you have to, like, anytime you come back from that, you always come back so much more creative and inspired. Like, I don't know, I don't know how it is for everyone else, but I feel like, anytime I'm just like, have a moment to sit by myself, out of my normal, like, environment, I just have all of these ideas that come there's, you know, I'm constantly writing notes on my phone or on, like, scraps of paper, and my, you know, my wallet and like, just to and I think that's important for everyone to have. So, yeah, but winter, no, it does slow down. But then we lean in really heavily to our local clients, and we do in studio portraits as well. And that's mainly our French clients.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay, got it. Got it. Because I imagine most people are going to want to have the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, things like that, those iconic images.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah. But we still do that, you know, like, Paris is all year round. You have just millions of people coming all, you know, like to the city. So, I mean, even in the dead of winter, you're gonna have people visiting for the first time, or couples celebrating their 50th anniversary, or, you know, someone who gets a cheap ticket and comes with their dog.

Andrew Hellmich: Amazing. I mean, what a place you're working. One of the things that I did look a little bit into this myself quite a while ago, because I would have I was talking about the idea of going to France for six months of the year, or maybe three months of the year, and working from there, but it appeared to me that the French government was very protective of its citizens. So was it difficult for you to actually set up a business in Paris?

Katie Donnelly: So when I was originally here, I came on a student visa because I studied French. I did an intensive French course for the first year. And so, you know, every day for five hours a day, I was at, you know, university for that. And so I had a visa with that. And then, so when you have a visa, you can set up a business. You can set up, kind of like a sole proprietorship, you know, just like a freelance thing. And so I did that because I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I knew that I, you know, wanted to be a photographer here, and I'd figure out how to do it. And, you know, started with friends to build my portfolio, and then got a few clients through that, and then just read every single SEO blog on the internet at that point, and then started trying to, yeah, just create content and get Google to like me.

Andrew Hellmich: And so really, it was pretty seamless. You could set up a business as an expat.

Katie Donnelly: Yes, I mean, I don't know. I don't know the legalities of setting up a business if you're not currently living here legally, you know, if you're like, outside, you know, say, like, I'm living in back, I move back into the US. I'm not sure if, then I could also easily set up a business, because I wouldn't have a French address, I would like, I don't know how that works. I'm sure it's possible, but I have no idea. That wasn't the route that I took, and I've been on, like, a long term visa for a long time through my husband.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So I guess that's where I was leading. Was it the fact that you have a French husband, did that make it easy for you then to set up a business there in Paris?

Katie Donnelly: Not legally, not like just because I had a visa, I was here legally, whether it's, you know, through school or through wherever that I think, and I had an address, and I had a bank account, and like, you know, you're settled here, and then, and my husband also is, he definitely has helped me with a lot of things, like, if I don't understand certain paperwork or vocabulary, especially when I was learning French, I mean, you think of all like the stuff you have to sign and fill out, even just to open a bank account or to but yeah, to open a business, you do have to understand what you're signing.

Andrew Hellmich: Absolutely

Katie Donnelly: How to pay taxes, which I made a lot of mistakes.

Andrew Hellmich: What's your husband's name?

Katie Donnelly: My husband's so I call him Peak. It's his initials, but his name is Pierre Eve.

Andrew Hellmich: Pierre Eve, and you call him Peak.

Katie Donnelly: Peak, because it says P-Y, and then his, our last name is..

Andrew Hellmich: So nice, so nice. So does Peak work in the business too, or he does his own thing?

Katie Donnelly: He definitely help. He's a consultant in IT. That's his main job. But, yeah, he definitely does do help with, like, big picture things.

Andrew Hellmich: Got it, got it.

Katie Donnelly: And also tricking out Google Spreadsheets, not because, like, three years ago, I like, freaked out one day was like, everything's gone, what's happening. And I'm like, calling him. He's like, "You literally just have a filter on this." So now I'm way better at Google Spreadsheets, but he's the one making my, you know, big formulas and graphs and all that.

Andrew Hellmich: So does that mean you don't use a CRM? You just using Google Sheets.

Katie Donnelly: I do use a CRM, but I use Keap we use it for, like, pipelining clients and, like, organizing clients and where they are.

Andrew Hellmich: More project.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, we do some automations with them, but we don't automate our, like, contact emails with them. So like, you know, like, their first contact, we have, you know, a template, because we want all our clients to have the same information, obviously, and then we change it up for, you know what they're asking for, if they're a family, if you know dates and stuff like that. But, yeah, so. But we organize it all through Keap and then obviously all the client information, I'm sure I could use it way, way better. And we have done some automated campaigns with them through there. But no for my, like, really big data, for like, are you can't really do that, like, you'd have to do a lot of tags you couldn't get in Keap basically, it's not like a spreadsheet, and we're a spreadsheet where I can see averages. I can see everyone's weekly average. I can see the averages of a certain grouping of clients, couples, family. You know, like, all the data that we put in there is just really easy to, like, take it and get what I want out of it. I can see what our averages are on Wednesdays, you know, like, getting all of the really nitty gritty information that for most people isn't interesting and was totally uninteresting and really scary for me before, like, yeah, like, two years ago, but, and now I'm like, "Oh, it's, it's very cool."

Andrew Hellmich: It's exciting. It is, like, look at the numbers. So what does a family or what does one of your clients spend on average? Like, what can you bank on when you get a booking?

Katie Donnelly: Okay, so our goal is that every family has a family portrait on the wall. So there's that and, like, our main thing is, like, a client pretty much comes in, gets a portrait for the wall and gets an album. Most of our clients spend, I would say, anywhere between like 15, 120, 500. We have clients who spend over 10k we have clients who spend 100 bucks. You know, it all comes out to be an average. And, you know, we don't have minimums. We have a really low kind of entry fee. Because I don't mind that some clients just come in and can only get a five by seven. It just still means that they have this beautiful experience. And so we're still very much in that like trying to serve, and if that brings down our averages a little bit. I mean, maybe I'll change that in the future.

Andrew Hellmich: I can see that. I mean, surely you don't want too many, just five by seven sales.

Katie Donnelly: Oh, and we really, truly don't have it. I would say our sale for this year, or average sale maybe is around. I could look at the exact number, but I think it's 2000 it's not as good as Mary Beth. Oh my gosh, 7100 because I like, listened to some podcasts before I was like, when you were saying really good average. I'm like, "Okay, I need to talk to her".

Andrew Hellmich: But I think it's totally different, like you're doing, I mean, I would call yours a higher volume business than what Mary Beth is doing. Oh, we're way higher volume. She's doing two sessions a week.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. No, we've done like 300 sessions this year. So, I mean, it's yeah, or maybe not, 300 sessions, but yes.

Andrew Hellmich: You've got an incredible business so, and I love that you listen to Mary Beth interview. That's so cool.

Katie Donnelly: Oh my gosh, she was so good.

Andrew Hellmich: She's amazing.

Katie Donnelly: I loved her and her website. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta hear the rest of this."

Andrew Hellmich: Let me take you back to just post cancer, so you get the all clear, you're in remission. And I said in the intro there that you were thinking about quitting, closing down shop, or bringing on a team. Like, why not just do photography for fun, spend more time at home and don't worry about a business?

Katie Donnelly: I mean, there's the financial aspect for a two income household.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, yes, but let me embarrass.

Katie Donnelly: So that would have been a big conversation to have with my husband. "Hey, babe, I don't want to bring in anything this month or ever." I think I love, I love what I do. I love working with clients. I love working with families. I think it's important. I would have loved to have a family portrait like this of my family. I don't know if I you know why my parents divorced when I was young. I would have loved that. I would love to have that now, even though, you know my parents were divorced, like, I would have loved to see like this was the four of us. I came from that because it's yeah. And then I think also I knew that I would regret it if I didn't try. I was like, I have and all the things too. Like, I was so scared before cancer. I was so scared and anxious, and I thought a lot about, like, if I do this and I fail, or like, if I do this and like clients, what if clients hate it and, you know, and you're like, and you think your life is going to be ruined, and if they think bad of you or whatever. And you know, even if it's not, even if all of your intentions were good. But I think that, yeah, I just couldn't, I couldn't live my life regretting, like, what if I did that? What if I had done that? Would my life be different? Yeah, I wanted to, I don't know I needed to see and if I failed, I would fail spectacularly, and I would know that I gave it my all, and I just wasn't meant for it. I was meant for something else. But, yeah, I think also taking the fear, taking the fear out, really helped me. It sounds terrible to say this, and it's going to be like a total downer. So, but I'm not really scared of anything except for dying and having my kids grow up not remembering me. So everything, everything becomes way less important. But the importance of what we're doing also is very clear, because we have a lot of families who are just like me, who are just like ours, who are, you know, battling with whatever they have going on or and way worse, like we just got lucky, you know. So I think it's important to keep doing this.

Andrew Hellmich: So this was a couple of years ago. You're all clear, business is going great. The family sounds amazing. You live in an incredible part of the world that life is pretty damn good by the sound of it.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Do you still think about the cancer every day? Do you look at life differently? I know you said you look at life differently now as far as the family is concerned, but do you wake up happier now having gone through that? Or do you let the little things not bother you anymore? Or are you the same person that you were before?

Katie Donnelly: Haha, that's a lot of questions. I wish I never had to go through that to be the person who I am today. But, you know, like there were things that I took out of it and that changed me. Anything big will change you. Having a child will change you. I changed when I became a mother for the first time. You know, everything changes. Yeah, having cancer absolutely made me look at life differently. It made me, yeah, just a different person, and sometimes in a way that I didn't love. And that took a lot of, you know, therapy and taking care of myself to become that person who was happy again. Because, yeah, it's but I do think about it every day. It's hard to not think about it's, I don't go through like, PTSD tunnels anymore, which is, you know, good, which happens to a lot of people. But yeah, it's, I mean, it affects my every day. I wake up every morning I've really got like, joint pain in my hands. I can't hold a camera as long as I could before. Like, there's a physical aspect of, like, just the toll that treatment that cancer takes, but also then that treatment takes on your body and recovering. And so I'm still going through that, and I think it's, I don't know if it's going to be lifelong, the after effects, but yeah, it's, you're reminded. But then there are also, like, you know, things where it's like, my kid throws his plate on the ground, and that annoys me. I'm not like, Oh, I'm happy to be here. You know, like, life is life?

Andrew Hellmich: I was going to give you a hypothetical and say, you know, something like, let's say Magda or Zoe. Your photographers, you know, come in and that they didn't get the shots that you would expect them to get. Like, is it like today? Now it's, "Don't worry about it. You did your best." Or is it, "Damn it, you know, like, you've got to do better", or has coming through what you have changed you in that way?

Katie Donnelly: I think I would temper it between the two. I don't think I've never been someone to be like, this was really bad, you know, like, I just don't think that's helpful. Like, I don't think that that's helpful in your confidence. And I don't think that's helpful for a boss to say that you can say you can be realistic, like, "This was not one of your best shoots. Why do you think that was?" And often you know, like, we are our own worst critics. I know when a shoot is not great, when you know, or I know when it was just really hard, and I to work really, really hard for it. I'm like, I worked so hard for this shot that is, like, you think is mediocre, but I know how hard I worked for it. And you know, I'm not on every one of their shoots, like I do shoot sometimes with them together, but not often. But I trust them. I trust them completely. I think they, they know how to make magic, and I've trained them. And if they really didn't get the shot, they probably got 15 other ones that I wouldn't have. And or they, I know they would have tried their best, and I know how much they love people. They love people. And you have to love people. And if you love people, and you try your best, and you're trained really well, and you know, you're creative and inspired, and still it doesn't happen. I mean, sometimes it just doesn't, you know, it was either circumstances or whatever. I I don't think that cancer changed that about me. I think that having to work with people made me more, you know, temper how I talked, maybe as well, but I don't know. I'm a positive person. I'm a positive person.

Andrew Hellmich: I can see that. I can see it. I can hear I know the listener are going to. And I've got to say, if Magda or Zoe are listening back to this. Your work is incredible. I've seen some of your photos. I love the video about you girls talking about your favorite pastries on Instagram. It's so cool in one of the stories.

Katie Donnelly: They're awesome.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, amazing photographers.

Katie Donnelly: They're awesome. Yeah, we're really, really lucky.

Andrew Hellmich: You are. You are. And let me take you back to the business side of things, you mentioned SEO, is that the main way that clients are finding you to book a session, and if not, what is?

Katie Donnelly: We have a bunch of different lead sources. Up until recent, up until the last few years, it's been purely SEO, word of mouth, you know, clients coming back, return clients. And then at some point, I tried and integrated Facebook ads, which we no longer do. And the Facebook ads did work, but we ended up also, you know, like still doing like, a majority, like, our Google leads are kind of like, those are our golden leads. We absolutely love our clients who find us through there, because we know they've really seen our website a lot of times. They've seen our website and then clicked over to social media. They know us. They have a, you know, a feeling and then. But we also have partnerships with some travel like influencers, that our clients find us through as well. Sometimes we do giveaways that's, you know, very, very occasionally, maybe once or twice a year. You know, we don't have all of our eggs in one basket, but yeah, so we do, I would say, like, the big, the next big thing are, you know, travel influencers. I've done partnerships with hotels, you know, like, just always trying to, like, see what works, do it for a certain amount of time. We have a few car partnerships with car dealerships.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal. All right, so you've given me, like, I could ask you a million questions here. I'm going to try and narrow this down. When you said, if someone finds you on Google, that's your best client. I get that. Have you tried or are you using Google Ads as well as organic SEO?

Katie Donnelly: I have never tried Google Ads. It's definitely something I would like to try. I don't know how to do it. I don't really know who I would ask that would be, you know, someone, yeah, I think I haven't gotten to that part yet, but it's definitely something that I would try. I don't see why, why it wouldn't work.

Andrew Hellmich: Especially if your website is as good as it is and your social stuff.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: I'll share something with you. I'll share a couple of interviews that I've done on Google Ads, and you can go and check.

Katie Donnelly: Oh, perfect. Oh wonderful. Yeah, it's, it's definitely another thing. Like, right now, we're really, like, I'm actually in the process of, like, totally rewriting and overhauling our website and adding a lot of stuff. And, you know, redoing all of the SEO. There's been a big Google update. I don't know if you have SEO, you know, techie people in the background, but there's, like, been the healthful content update recently and so, and it just been a few years since I've redone the, you know, just updated everything. And I think, yeah, it's important. And I dropped a little bit in rankings for Paris family photographer, which is our target keyword. So it's, yeah, you just gotta, you gotta work on it. You always have to, like, make sure your content is also, you know, what you're sharing with your clients is relevant and helpful. We're really focusing on trying to do helpful blog posts, and I'm having fun with that actually writing leads.

Andrew Hellmich: I can see that. I can see that you've got so many different guides and different helpful hints and tips and so good. Let me ask you then, with SEO aside and your website aside, so that's a given, if I was to say, Katie, I'm taking one of your marketing channels away. It could be the partnerships, it could be the referrals, could be repeat clients, it could be the influences. Like, which one would you think, "Oh, shit, don't take that one away."

Katie Donnelly: Overall. I mean, like, I feel like the partnerships with influencers, like partnerships in general, I would say, "No, don't take that away."

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so tell me about partnerships with influencers, because the talk in my group with the premium members is, whenever someone suggests partnering with an influencer, everyone chimes in and says, 'What are you going to do with likes, likes and comments? That's not going to pay the bills. Why would you want to partner with an influencer? What are they really going to bring you?" You sound like you've made a success of that?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, I guess I kind of stumbled into it. I've worked with a few travel influencers for Paris for many years. I'm friends with them as well. And we're, you know, business kind of like back and forth, which is cool as well. But yeah, I think you have to ask for something. From the client like, if you do like a you could do a giveaway with influencer, you know, like, that's not just for likes and comments, it's for client leads. If you want to get client leads, you have to ask for them. But that said, like, we do a lot of shooting that is, is just shared on social media by these influencers. And you have to think about, like, the brand association.

Andrew Hellmich: With the influencer in the image?

Katie Donnelly: So like, we're shooting them. So like, you know, but they're tagging us, you know, people are finding us through them. We're getting linked on their website. There are things that are good that even if you don't have the leads they were. I mean, goes back to Google, like it. What looks good on Google? Like these sites that are really reputable are linking to you, which is important, these social medias that have way bigger followings than I do are then tagging you, and, you know, you're creating these really honest relationships with them too. And I think that, I think that you have to be just like, you know, if I wouldn't go and just do a partnership with any old store here. Like, no, it has to be aligned. And so our influencers, like, they're real people, like, I love working with them. We have such good relationships with them. They're so genuine. They're just, like, really genuine people, and they're exactly who our target client would be.

Andrew Hellmich: So your target client would be like one of these influencers, or they would be following one of these influencers?

Katie Donnelly: Like, they have families, they have, you know, there's or solo travelers. They're like, they themselves, would be a target client, you know, or like, they're in couples or whatever. So you have to get people who are aligned with your brand. I'm not just how, you know, I wouldn't just say, like, "Oh yeah. Just get someone who's, like, always taking private jets and, you know, country hopping" and if they're not aligned, but if it's like a local family person, why wouldn't that be aligned with a family brand? You know?

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, okay, so first of all, if you're looking to partner with an influencer, do you want them to be Paris or French based? Or can they be from the US coming to France?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, they can be from the US coming to France either.

Andrew Hellmich: Either. Okay, so let's say, let's say I'm an influencer, and you think, "Look, Andrew, he's got a lovely family. He's in Paris regularly. He's doing photos. I love his work. He's got good value, like, we connect." What metrics are you looking for before you decide they're going to reach out and suggest partnering with me,

 
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Andrew Hellmich: You may not realize that you probably do, but you are an incredible professional, and the way you overcome those objections so easily, so seamlessly and so passionately, and it's a testament to your skills.

Katie Donnelly: Well, thank you.

Andrew Hellmich: In business, like really, it's amazing. It really is amazing. And I think there's going to be so many great comments from listeners. I've got one very last question to ask you, because I know that listeners will shoot me if I don't ask you for that. Katie, where is the best place for listeners to see more of your incredible work? Where can they find you online?

Katie Donnelly: So on our website, katiedonnellyphotography.com, and I'm very active on social media on Instagram, so you can see me talking and to the camera a lot, and bring you around to Paris and trying to do better about being even more active on social media. But you know, there's only so many hours in the day, and I like to spend time with my family too.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, I'll add links to those in the show notes, but on Instagram, it's Katie Donnelly underscore, and Donnelly is D-O-N-N-E-L-L-Y, then an underscore. So I'll link to those in the show notes so that people can easily find you. You've got your social media is fantastic, as is your website. So I'll link to all those. The last question I have for you, and you can answer this as quickly as you like. But sales, with so many expats people, visiting people on holidays. Are you doing same day sales, Zoom sales?

Katie Donnelly: Same day.

Andrew Hellmich: Same day sales.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: In the studio?

Katie Donnelly: Yep. So we meet our clients outdoors. We do all of our sessions in the mornings. We do our studio sessions sometimes in the afternoons, but yeah, mornings are really when we photograph, and then middle of the day is, you know, we come back and we prep their gallery and the best ones, and then they come into our studio in the after, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes just like an hour later, and they have this really cinematic experience where we show them their portraits, they choose their favorites, and then they decide what they want to order.

Andrew Hellmich: And then, do you ship actual prints to the US?

Katie Donnelly: Yes, we ship all over the world. We've shipped to so many different countries, and we take care of shipping. And so it's just not an added, it's not an added thing. We just get their address, and then it arrives at their doorstep. We say, "All you have to do is hang it. It doesn't go on the to do list. It's, you know, it's done."

Andrew Hellmich: What? You send it framed?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, we send it finished.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, all of our wall art is finished. It's ready to hang.

Andrew Hellmich: Amazing, amazing.

Katie Donnelly: It's, you know, beautiful museum quality, yeah. So we're, yeah, we really stand behind the generational importance of it. And so the quality has to meet what we say.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Look, that's everything I was going to ask you for the listener. Just for me, listeners still there as well. How close are you to, you know, some of the incredible sites in Paris, if you walk out of your studio now, like, can you see the Eiffel Tower?

Katie Donnelly: Okay, so we are in the center, center of Paris. We are in BD Saint-Germain. It's where you have a lot of the art galleries. It's a big art gallery district. It's also, it's like right next to the Latin Quarter, which is where you have tons of restaurants through the museums. We're 10 minutes walking to the Louvre, 10 minutes walking to Luxembourg Gardens. We are five, maybe 10 minutes walking to Notre Dame. We're a short ride, like 15 minute on the subway to the Eiffel Tower. But you can see the Eiffel Tower from a lot of places in Paris, we're a few minutes walking front to the river, where you have a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Andrew Hellmich: My God.

Katie Donnelly: So yeah, we're really, really central to Paris. Go and see the studio. Love to have you and any of the listeners, if you're in Paris, let me know. Shoot me a message on Instagram, and I'd love to show you the studio.

Andrew Hellmich: So good, so good. Do you walk down the street and pinch it, like you are living that like the movie dream?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, I know. I know. Funny thing is, when I first moved here, I didn't love Paris. I moved here purely to be with my now husband, and I was like, I was hard to move from my family. It's hard to move like I'm so close to them, my cousins are my best friends, like it was so, so difficult to like. I felt like I left half of my heart 3000 miles away, and like it was gutting for years. It was really hard for me to vote, to visualize myself here long term, and then just one day was like, wherever I am, I'm going to be there. Wherever I am, I'm going to be happy to be there. And if I'm here, I have to make the best of it. If I'm in New York, I have to make the best of it, like you just have to enjoy where you are. And I really, truly love Paris now, and I feel like it's, it's so much stronger because it's this grown love. It's not this, like, crazy, wild, passionate, you know, inspirational love. It's like, I deeply love the history, I am so interested in the museums, in the art in this there's amazing street art scene here. There's, like, it's really, really beautiful music scene. Like, it's an incredible city for families as well. Now that I have kids, I'm like, discovering this whole new layer of the city that I didn't know, that I wasn't, like, intimately involved in you have this, like, down the street, you have this gorgeous little kids cinema that shows short art films for kids. And you're just like, I it's just, it's so beautiful. Amazing restaurants, amazing. And I love, I love just walking around. I love biking around. Take my bike everywhere.

Andrew Hellmich: Very good.

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, it's a great city, and I have grown in love with this city. So, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: When you have dreams at night, do you dream in English or in French now?

Katie Donnelly: Yeah, so I mostly dream in English. I have dreamed in French. My, at home, we do speak English, because our kids, whole life is in French. And my husband, I fell in love in English. It's, that's our love language. And so and our kids, yeah, their, their whole life, they're, you know, they're in public school and public daycare. So it's all French, French, French. And so we're their, you know, main exposure to English. My daughter is bilingual. My four year old is bilingual. Like, really, really good. I mean her. I think you know, there are some vocabulary where she doesn't know it in French or in English. But yeah, it's cool, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, if you haven't got the vibe from me, I'm sure you have. You are an inspiration. I can't wait to share this conversation with listeners.

Katie Donnelly: That's very, very sweet to say. Thank you so much. It's, like, just been such a pleasure and, like, so humbling to be invited. Like, wow. Thank you.