026: Mimika Cooney – Portrait Photography Success Through Business Relationships

026: Mimika Cooney – Portrait Photography Success Through Business Relationships

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so for today's episode, I've got a super busy mum. She has three kids, she's married, she's a published author, she's a small business and marketing expert, she's a workshop presenter, both online and offline, and she's a specialist portrait photographer who focuses on beauty, glamour and baby photography. Mamika Cooney, welcome to the podcast.

Mimika Cooney: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Andrew. I'm super excited.

Andrew Hellmich: It's an absolute pleasure, Mimika. Now, we've only been chatting via email, and I was expecting an American accent. So what's your background?

Mimika Cooney: Oh, honey, I'm not all that in a bag of chips, I tell you. I'm originally from South Africa, so like you, I'm a southern hemisphere girl. Well, being southern hemisphere, not the girl part, but I'm, yeah, I was born and raised in South Africa, and once I had two kids, we upped ourselves and replanted ourselves in England. My husband has an internet business, so I lived and worked in England for almost six years, and then we moved over here to the States. I've been in the States actually, seven years today.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. And then did you have your photography business in all three countries?

Mimika Cooney: Well, in South Africa, I helped my husband in terms of the internet marketing, website design, so that's where all the business experience comes from. And then when we went to England, I went to night school, when my youngest, well, he's now the middle child, but he was two, and I went back to photography night school and learned, you know, when digital first came out, was the whole rage. And I basically worked my way through and got some accreditations in through the British societies, and then ran my portrait business there for five years. I mostly was, but 80% wedding and 20% photography, I mean portraits. And then I slowly transitioned to into doing more portraiture. And then we moved to the US, and then I had to up and leave and start all over again, new market and a new, or the new country, which meant a different culture. And I had to sort of relearn everything again, and started that way. So, and that's been about seven years now, so in total, is about 10, 10, to 12 years as a professional photographer.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. Now, I really want to delve a little bit deeper into the whole marketing side of things, and sort of starting again. But to give us a little bit more of an idea, I know that, looking at your websites and your internet presence, you've got a lot of business focus now, don't you?

Mimika Cooney: Yes, well, I mean, I started in business, and then, of course, photography was my hobby and became passion, and then it became an obsession. And I was a typical mom with a camera who, you know, got excited with taking pictures of my kids. And I've always been artistic, so I've always been into the arts and dancing. And so when I decided that I wanted to make photography a career, you know, going back to school and learning everything, I had that business background, which really helped, and then I was just honing my skills in terms of, you know, technicality and learning how to use cameras and, you know, shutter stop and all those kind of technical aspects of photography. So, yeah, definitely a bit of both, really.

Andrew Hellmich: So, so now, I mean, I know that you're a published author. I think you're working in a second book at the moment. Is that, right?

Mimika Cooney: Yes, this long summer is making it hard to get it done.

Andrew Hellmich: So, see you are a published author. You're running all these workshops, and you also have got your photography business. Now, I guess listeners really like to know sort of what percentage of your income comes from workshops and what comes from photography at the moment.

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, well, I mean, I'm still mostly a photographer. 80% of my income is full time photography. I mean, that's my thing. And, you know, I'm slowly working into doing more coaching and training other photographers, because, you know, people have connected with me online and offline. And as I meet people, they start asking questions, and I'm always happy to help. And now feel I've been, I've got to that stage in my business where I'm happy to give back now, having experienced so many different genres, I mean, from weddings to babies to families. I've even shot cars and food, just about everything you can think of. I've had experience and figured out what I wanted to do. And at the moment, I mean, I still have my house is, you know, about 40% of it is taken up by my photography studio. So in, when you walk into my house, the bottom floor, which is supposed to be the formal dining and living area, is actually what I've turned into a photo studio. So that is still my full time gig. And then in between looking after three kids, one of which is three, I have a computer attached to my hip. And, you know, doing all the training on the side.

Andrew Hellmich: I mean, you seem to be everywhere on, you know, on the internet and super busy. And, like I said, you've got the three kids and married. And, you know, how do you, how do you stay organized?

Mimika Cooney: How do I stay sane? It's more like a question.

Andrew Hellmich: Insane or sane?

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, sometimes I wonder myself, but yeah, I mean, well, basically I have my iPhone. It should be probably duct taped to my hand. I have that permanently attached, attached to me. That's why I wear pockets all the time. And, you know, I'm always just trying to get things done, super-efficient. If you actually go on my website, there's a video I put together of a day in the life of me, which is kind of crazy. It's almost like, you know, ADD and all that put together. And I don't let the moss, you know, gather under my feet. I use every little moment I have to make things work. And I work pretty fast, as you can tell. I talk fast too. So I just, I'm always go, go, go.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, okay. I mean, it seems like you're doing so many things. I had a, I had an email from Bronwyn, a listener, just this morning, and she said "I would love to know how successful photographers and business people stay organized. How do they prioritize? How do they not keep bringing new things in and, you know, pushing the old things out with, you know, what should you be doing to stay focused and successful?"

Mimika Cooney: Oh, for sure. As photographers, we love shiny things, anything new, and it glitters. And, you know, I'm like, "Ooh, what's that?" Especially when it comes to camera and, cameras and equipment. I don't do shoes, I do cameras, which is very dangerous, especially for my husband. So, you know, it is hard. I mean, there's something it's not to say that I've got it all together. I, for sure, I mess up all the time, and I constantly have to, you know, reprioritize things. And in actual fact, I was writing an article today for another magazine, and the whole thing was, you know, "How do I keep sane without losing my marbles. And how do I keep organized?" And basically it's, you know, using the time you have. And what I most effective thing that I do is what I call time chunking, which is all time blocking. So in other words, I'll say, for instance, this morning, I left my 14 year old in charge of the 12 year old and the three year old, and I took my laptop and went to Starbucks so I could actually get some writing done. So I would say, "Okay, for those two hours, I'm not checking email, I'm not checking Facebook, I am going to be writing." And boy, is it's hard to actually focus on something because, you know, we get distracted with all the little pings on our, you know, Facebook message, and then there's an email, and we're like, "Oh, what's that? What's that?" So it is, it's, it's hard, but it's continual process, and it's a learning process. So you got to figure out, "Okay, first of all, what are the things that I need to do that are going to bring me business?" So yes, Facebook is great, but sometimes, you know, we can get really lost in it. And unless it's actually connecting with people, you know, browsing around and trying to figure out what everybody else is doing, is really can be a huge waste of time. And really just, I have a, I use Google Calendar, which is, you know, synced to my booking system. So it'll actually, I can actually color code little things like, I'll say, you know, green is for the kids and red is for, you know, urgent to do's and blues are appointments. So I can kind of schedule looking at my time, because if I don't schedule things, they won't happen. Because, you know, it's like going through one ear and out the other you if you haven't put it down somewhere. I mean, it's like having sticky notes is a very bad idea. So actually putting it down and scheduling time with yourself, I find, is the most important thing that you can do. Because, like anything, things can, time can get away, you know. So, I know it's not to say that we all have it together, but having systems in place is why I'm so excited about being able to help other photographers teach them that, because we love, we love the pretty stuff. We love taking the pictures, you know, we love being out there, but a lot of us just really stink at, you know, the business side and organizing and like, even reminders, sending those to clients. And, you know, simple things that normal business would do in customer service, especially for us photographers like myself, we're like a one-woman or one-man show. We got to do all things. So it's like managing them all.

Andrew Hellmich: We do everything, don't we? You know..

Mimika Cooney: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Literally everything. So when you're, when you're sitting down in Starbucks and you're writing your blog post or whatever you're doing there, do you turn Facebook off? Do you turn everything else off?

Mimika Cooney: Yes, because it's ridiculous. I have to, like, force myself to not want to keep peeking at it. It's like, you know, peep show. Please switch it off. And of course, you know, if I don't actually close the browsers, because, you know, if somebody sends you a Facebook message, it goes beep. You're like, "Oh, what's that? Got to check." It's a thing called FOMO. I'm sure we all suffer from it, the fear of missing out. We all have this problem that, you know, if we don't check it right then and there, it's gonna, like, never get done.

Andrew Hellmich: And that's when you get lost, isn't it? Once you start peaking, then you get lost.

Mimika Cooney: Exactly. And it's like, going down the rabbit hole. It's like, "Okay, how did I get here again?" And then you look at the end of the day, you're like, I didn't get any, everything done I wanted to get done. So it is, yeah, if I'm going to concentrate on something, you would close all the other browser windows and concentrate on that one thing. Because that's also a big, a big fallacy about multitasking. Multitasking is actually not, not effective because we think, you know, we can manage a few things at once, but you get far more effective work done when you take a task, focus on it. Because, you know, when you start, say, for instance, when we're editing photos, you know, if you do a little bit here and then you have to go back again later, it's much harder than if you sit down and, say, just get through like four or five different clients folders, because you're in the flow, and, you know, you've got the actions open and you've got the system. It's just so much easier to keep that flow and to just work with the momentum that you have, and then you'll feel more effective, because you actually feel like you're accomplishing something. So for instance, you know, writing blog posts, I'd schedule for like, say, an example, 10:00AM on a Tuesday. Then on a Wednesday, I'll, you know, meet with clients, so only on, and I also have to do this while my youngest one in pre-school. So she works, she's at school from nine till one, three mornings a week. So I have to kind of get everything done in that time. So in that time is what I would call, you know, money earning time. So I'm not going to check Facebook during those hours. I'm going to be either shooting a client in the studio or on or wherever we're going to do it. And then I'm going to be promoting it, doing anything that's got to do with marketing or talking to clients. Anything that will make me money is in that money time, and anything else that I could do, say later, like, maybe I'll sit in front of the TV and start looking around Facebook at, say, eight o'clock at night. And it does, it does take discipline. And I'm not necessarily the most organized or the most disciplined person. It's like pulling teeth sometimes, but for my own sanity and for my family's sake, I've had to really, you know, figure out what it is that works for me.

Andrew Hellmich: So with your experience with training and talking to other photographers, where, where do you think most people fall down? Where do, where do you see most people going wrong when they're trying to be successful with their business?

Mimika Cooney: Well, first of all, like it, like, for example, for myself. I started photography and I fell in love with photography. And you know that time when you do, do and you, like the bug bites, you like, "Oh, I love doing photography." But what the mistake a lot of people is, because they love doing photography, they think, "Oh, you know, I need to make a business out of it." And what we don't realize is that whether you're a photographer, you have, you run a yoga studio, you're a doctor, or you're an internet marketer, but business, running a business, is 80% business, 20% craft. And I think one of the big things that the photographers, you know, starting out, they concentrate a lot of their efforts on, you know, learning the craft, which is great, but they forget that the business, unless you have clients, you can't pay the bills. So that decision needs to be made early. You know, "Am I going to do this to be a business, and do I want to make profit from it?" Because a lot of us have a problem with the word profit. It's like, "Oh, I love doing it, so I'll just do it for free" and yeah, you know, "Sure, I'll throw in the digital files and, oh, sure, don't worry. I'll edit, like, all 100 images and give them you all on CD." Meanwhile, you're up until two in the morning scratching your eyeballs out because you've got way too much to do. And then what eventually happens, and it's usually after doing it two years of being in what I call the honeymoon stage. When that wears off, when reality hits and the bulls start coming, and you stressed out, you overworked and underpaid, we realize, "Hang on a second, this isn't so much fun anymore." Because, you know, it used to be fun, but now it's become a business. It's a completely different monster. So I think, you know, primarily, people, we need to think about this long and hard, that unless we can be good business people, we, you know, we should rather keep our photography as a hobby and keep a day job. So I always encourage people to say, if you've got a day job and you want to become a full time photographer, work on the business and build that up, and then when you're ready to be able to go full time, then you don't have to stress yourself out with worrying about paying the bills, because that's a really stinky position to be in.

Andrew Hellmich: So, so what's a sign that you're ready to quit the day job and go full time with photography? Is, is there something that we can look at to say, "Yep, okay, I'm ready to do this."

Mimika Cooney: Well, I mean, ask any accountant. It's all got to do with the numbers, right? But for me, I mean, I say that now only because I've learned that the hard way. I kind of like, you know, through caution to the wind and said, "I'm going to just do this." And I mean, thank goodness for me. I'm lucky enough to have a very supportive husband who's been able to amuse my, my moods, and say, "Okay, well, if you all really want to do this, you know, I'll support you doing that." But the same time is I had to make money from it. So back in England, when I was primarily a wedding photographer, I still continued to work with him during the day. And once my income had got up to a certain level to be able to cover my expenses and to provide me with even a basic salary, that's when you know, "Okay, this is a full time job now. I can actually make this a full time career." And then, you know, you've got your bills paid. You know, it really has to come down to the numbers and just really working out what you really need to earn to sustain you.

Andrew Hellmich: But, so, do you find the looking back, do you see the position that you're in almost to be a dangerous position that a lot of spouses go through? So if you, if you, because you had a husband that was working and basically supporting the family, you could afford to, you know, have the hobby and build it up slowly, and it didn't have to really be successful to the in at the start, because you had that support?

Mimika Cooney: Yes, for sure. And I think I had, you know, it's, it's been a luxury for me to be able to do that. And, you know, I know I wouldn't have been able to do what I've been able to do. Especially because I took the, made the decision early that when we had kids, I didn't want to go back to working full time. So I intentionally took a step back and in, which means that, you know, taking a dive a bit in my income, because I couldn't dedicate the time to earn as much. So I mean, this is particularly talking about the last three years, because I had a baby three years ago. So I had got my business up and running to, you know, full time. I had two contract employees that would come work in my house three, three days a week. And we were running a, you know, high volume studio. And then when I got pregnant, I, first of all, I got really sick, so I just, I was finding it, you know, physically really difficult. And then I, you know, I had an epiphany one day, and I thought, you know, "I really want this baby, but here I have my business." And, you know, I had to kind of choose, and for me, I intentionally took a step back, so I would cut back on my hours and cut back on my, the volume. And slowly, you know, redevelop my business plan, and decided again, "Okay, well, what kind of business model do I want to have?" And this is what I've learned. And I say, "This is why I advise people not to do what I did." I just got into it and fell into photography and fell into doing weddings and failing to do that, because people said, "Oh, you take good pictures." Let you know. "Can you do this, or can you do that?" And what I've really realized now is, unless you know who your market is and who you aiming your services at, you can't be all things to all people. And unfortunately, I learned that the hard way thinking, "Oh, well, you know Joe Sop down the road. He's doing a high volume business. He's offering $25 session fee just to get people through the door", because we need to get sessions and bums and seats. Yes, that's great, and I can, I can fully understand it, especially for people who this is their full time job, they need to get the money in. And I can appreciate that. But what I've found is that, through my experiences, when you get desperate like that, and you just allow everybody in the doors, inevitably, you can't please everybody. And a lot of the time those price shoppers are the ones that actually cost you. You will actually end up having to take money out of your own pocket to cover things. So those are the hard lessons I learned along the way in that because I didn't have a plan before I started and I just kind of fell into things, I ended up somewhere I didn't think I would end up in. So I'd say definitely, as a first protocol to really decide where you want to go before you even start.

Andrew Hellmich: I think the story you just told then that's a pretty typical story, particularly for photographers in Australia. Lots of mums or even and guys too, that get into photography. And then they get told that, you know, "You do beautiful photos." Then next thing, "Ah, I'll start a business." And then they get that two years down the track, and they still haven't really got a business. They're operating at a loss. It's never going to, it was never, ever going to be able to pay the mortgage, and it was because they had the support from their spouse that they were able to keep going. So what should those people do before they get two years down the track? Do they need to develop a better price list? Do they need to work out marketing strategy. What should they be doing before they get, you know, two years wasted of hard work?

Mimika Cooney: Oh, sure. I mean, definitely. I mean, first of all, I've, I've been chatting to a lot of photographers, and first of all, I find that the first problem is, is the ego. A lot of photographers I've trained at first, who are the newbies, kind of get really offensive when you say, you know "You shouldn't be charging so little." And they're well, "How, who are you to tell me to run my business?" "You don't know my market". "You don't know my, you don't know where I live." People here can't afford more than $25 a session fee". And that's a lot of the time is mindset, and that's part of what I train as well as, you know, changing the way we think about things. Because a big problem we have is when we're starting out like that, we think, we don't actually do the numbers. We don't actually figure out how much our time is worth. Because, you know, especially with digital. Digital is a two-edged sword. It's great in that it's sped up productivity, and it's, you know, you access to photos is so much quicker. But on the downside, it's really devalued people's time. I mean, back in England, when I got trained, the first year or two of meeting photography was all film based, you know, you took your photos and you knew every exposure was going to cost you at least a pound, so you didn't go and waste it. I mean, I was very pedantic about getting the lighting and exposure done right in camera. And unfortunately, now with digital, you know, these cameras are so easy, you know, they adapt so easily, that a lot of the mistake is they think, because they have a fancy camera that's going to take the good pictures. And then you think, well, you look online, and you start looking on Facebook, and you say, "Well, the photographer down the road, she charges, you know, $75 for a newborn session, which is three to four hours long, and she offers them 25 fully retouched, edited photos." "Well, I'm starting out, maybe I'll come in a little low, and I'll charge like $60." And then Sally down the road starts seeing her prices. "Well, if she's charging $60, I'll charge $50 " and then, and then it just carries on. And then eventually, what happens is, the prices get ground down to the ground, and you can't go anywhere. You know, if everybody's undercutting everybody because they don't have the confidence to charge what they should be charging. And that's a big problem I'm trying to fix, is that in order to charge money, you need to feel like you're offering the product, like, let's take photography out of the picture. Let's look at another, completely different model. I mean, if we say a hairdresser, a hairdresser can't just put up a shingle outside her house and say, "I'm a hairdresser, come", she has to go and get trained first. Number one, she has to go through an exam to say she knows what she's doing. And second of all, she needs to have a, have a plan figured out of how she's going to, you know, work this as a business. Because how many of us will go get our hair cut? We know there's different prices for different salons. You can have one of more up market one, or you have more of a, you know, like this place called Great Clips here in the States, which is like $10 you can get a quick Busby. And, you know, it's just, again it just depends. But for us photographers, we tend to forget that it's really hard for us to price ourselves based on what everybody else is doing, because we don't have the confidence in the product or the service we offering. So the first thing is, what I advise is, if you're not confident enough to charge what you should be charging to cover your bills, don't charge. Rather go into what I would call portfolio building stage. In other words, offer sessions for free. You say to your client, potential clients, "I'm busy building my business, and I need to build up a portfolio. I'd love to offer you a complimentary session. But once you know, once I have my portfolio ready, our session fees will be X", whatever it is. And but you don't pull that number out of the air. You sit down and look at, you know, how much your equipment costs, because you've got to include things like depreciation. You've got to include how much time you have available, like, if you have to earn X amount of money a month, how many hours do you have available to work? So how many sessions you need? Again, it comes to numbers. And as I said, I'm not the number person. I'm not the accountant, but I find that if I didn't have a handle on my numbers, I was, like, completely clueless. So you know, definitely, if that's not your strong suit, sit for someone who can help you figure things out monetary wise, of what the numbers mean. And then, you know, keep the day job, or keep doing what you're doing and until those numbers match, and then you feel okay, a standard session fee, a good going rate, is $100 for an hour session. When I'm confident enough to charge that, I'll charge it. But in the meantime, you know, this kind of price war thing is just, it's, it's hurting everybody.

Andrew Hellmich: So what did you do when you came from England to the States? What were the, what were the first steps in starting that business, or restarting the new business?

Mimika Cooney: Well, in England, as I said, I was primarily doing weddings, and even before I moved over, for about eight months before we moved over, I started to change all my SEO and all my websites and reaching out to people in the area that I was moving to.

Andrew Hellmich: So hang on. So when you said you're changing your SEO and stuff, did you go through your old blog posts and just reword them, or you started writing new blog posts?

Mimika Cooney: No, just like, well, at that stage, I had a separate blog and a separate website. So I started optimizing my website for America as opposed to England, and then started to, you know, take inquiries. And in actual fact, I'd booked about three weddings just by the internet before I got to Charlotte in North Carolina, where I'm at. And but of course, you know, that's because I had done, I had really done weddings for six years in England, so I already had a portfolio to work with. So I done research in the area, and I got in touch with them, an actual wedding planner, and made friends with her via email, and then just started to do a lot of market research as to, you know what the prices were and what people were charging for albums and packages and things like that. And then based on where I saw myself in the market, I then pressed. So when I came over, I charged that full price of what I felt my packages are worth. I didn't start from the bottom and move my way up.

Andrew Hellmich: So just tell me that Mimika. So what, sorry to interrupt. Why, why did you worry about looking at what other people are charging? If you, if you had to base your prices on what you need to earn?

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, well, basically equating it's all in terms of pounds versus dollars. You know, trying to figure out, like, for instance, say, for instance, if I was charging 1500 pounds in the UK, I needed to figure out, you know, where they put me in the US market. And then the equivalent, so basically was, you know, okay, number of hours. And then, I don't exactly say I went and copied someone's prices. It gave me a good ballpark idea, but then I adjusted according to the numbers that I needed. And my, of course, my experience helped as well. And then just so in other words, I actually came out and charged more than the average photographer in the area, because I was using my experience in the fact that I was coming from England, is a good marketing and that definitely helped too. So I didn't start from the bottom. I definitely decided, "Okay, this is where I wanted to be and where I wanted to charge." And started from there.

Andrew Hellmich: So did you, did you look at the competition in, in Charlotte and see where your photo, how they looked compared to theirs? Or, did you just have a look at the pricing and see what people are offering? I'm just, I want to just make sure I've got a good handle of how you worked at your price list when you first moved there.

Mimika Cooney: Yeah. I mean, it's a bit of both, really. I mean, I looked at what the current standard of photography was here, and, of course, there's all different ranges.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Mimika Cooney: And then I actually got in touch with one of the photographers here who I felt was more or less on my level, and I said, "You know, you know, I'm moving over." And, I mean, you know what? You know, just made it friendly that way. And said, you know, "What is the standard rates and how do things work?" Because, of course, here in the States, it's a little different. For instance, in England, when you have a wedding, you have the speeches on the same day. So in other words, you have the wedding that, you know, the getting together, you have the dancing or cutting of the cake, and the speeches is conducted on the same day. So usually my days were longer, but, you know, 12 to 14 hours I would spend on a wedding in England. Then when I came to the States, it was a new thing where they did the speeches on the day before, on a Friday, which is usually the rehearsal dinner. So time on an actual wedding day was less hours, but it was still equating to the product. And like the albums that I was purchasing, I actually was buying from Queensbury, from New Zealand, so there was huge import fees on that. But so and again, you know, because I was choosing the products I want to deliver, because I really believed in providing a good quality product. So of course, my prices were a little more because I was equating to that. So again, it's a little bit of both. When you're coming to a new area, you know, you do need to be aware of what the prices, what the market can bear. But without, without saying, "Okay, well, she's charging that. I'm going to charge the same." It's still a little bit of an open equation, because it just depends on where you're at.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, and how were you received by that other photographer that you contacted?

Mimika Cooney: Um, he was actually pretty open, really. He, he's not in my direct area. He's in North Carolina, but he's at least a three hour drive away, so I made sure not to contact someone in my direct competent, competition area. He was, you know, based in Raleigh, and I was coming to Charlotte, so there's, you know, it's not like clients would come to me. There's no competition between us. But he was in the same sort of market area. And here in the States, that the States are usually have their own sort of price range, like California and New York are much more expensive than here in the south where I am. So again, you know, it just depends on what market you in.

Andrew Hellmich: So you contacted, you said, a wedding planner. And did you do any other marketing apart from that and the website?

Mimika Cooney: Well, mostly I got all my inquiries through the internet.

Andrew Hellmich: So this is from a new, this is, I just wasn't sure where the website. You build a brand new website, or you rejigged your existing English one?

Mimika Cooney: Yes, I just rejigged what I had. So I had, you know, I'd already had, my website had been going since 2003 and when we moved over in 2006, you know, I'd really had traction, and I had already had Google rankings. And of course, things have changed a little how things are done then. But, you know, having been an internet website design to me, it was an easy fix, just, you know, readapting to changing keywords, and then, you know, doing for search engine. So yeah, I'd say 80% of my business came through the internet and through my website.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so that start to happen already while you're back in England, or this is..

Mimika Cooney: Yes.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay, so you got some bookings and starting to gain some traction pretty quickly.

Mimika Cooney: Yes.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And then, so you moved over.

Mimika Cooney: Yeah. So we moved over, and moved over in the July, and I think I had, I had two weddings in October, one September, so I kind of had three for at least that year. And then I got to know the market, and, you know, sort of to market myself more. And then, of course, I realized here in the States, it's very much about, you know, connecting with people like vendors and florists and bakers. And, you know, just started to make relationships with people that way. Because, you know, the old adage people do business with people they like, you know, you want to be likable. So you want to go and, you know, meet with people and be helpful. And I did tons and tons of free sort of sessions. Or, for instance, you know, I worked with the baker who was really good and said, "You know, I'd love to do like a model shoot." We have a girl dressed in a wedding gown, and we'd love to have your cake, use your cakes, and, you know, all of those kind of things, just to really build my portfolio. So even though I had five or six years behind me, coming to new area, they didn't know me. They didn't know my, my reputation, or where I was coming from, they're like, "Okay, well, don't know you." Especially vain venues were very cagey, like, "I don't know you." Like, even though you, your work is, you know, above standard, it's and I thought, you know, in England, I was very much about I wanted to prove myself in terms of my quality of work. And I entered a lot of competitions and won quite a few. And then I thought, "Oh, we'll come over to America. People appreciate the fact that, you know, I'm an award winning photographer. Surely, that's got to help?" Not.

Andrew Hellmich: It didn't help.

Mimika Cooney: No. You know, at the end of the day, it's yes, my, definitely, my quality of work stood out and put me in a different bracket and as opposed to a smaller market. But it still didn't mean it made it easy for me to just walk in and say, "Hey, I've arrived, you know, pick me." I still had to start from the, from the ground up, and start building relationships again and just start networking, and just like you would any kind of business. So there is no easy fix. There is no easy one step, you know, easy button. There is just plain hard work, one person at a time, really.

Andrew Hellmich: And did you go then from three weddings to a lot more the following year?

Mimika Cooney: Um, yeah, I think, I'm trying to remember now, this is like six years ago. I think, you know, of course, I think the first year I did eight, and then it was like 15, and then it went to like 22 and almost pulled my hair out. I figured I was happy at around 20, this is when I was doing mostly weddings, and then I wanted to do get more into portraits. So I started pulling back on the numbers on weddings, and then started to do more portraits.

Andrew Hellmich: Why that changed from weddings to portraits?

Mimika Cooney: Well, honestly, it was family driven. I mean, my kids were five and seven, and I hated being away on weekends, you know. Often, a lot of the weddings I did were at these country clubs or these yacht clubs, and I'd have to go and stay over on, you know, on a Friday night to do the dinner rehearsal where the speeches are, and then have to do the shoot the wedding the next day. I mean, not to say that they were gorgeous weddings, and I really enjoyed them, but I always had this working mother's guilt, like I should be home with my kids, you know, I'm missing out. You know, what are they doing? And "Mommy, Mommy, where are you?" There's only so much of them you can take, you know, with and eventually I had to decide, was either my sanity and my family or, you know, continue working at that pace. So yeah, I mean, for me, it was a more of a work life balance decision that I decided I didn't want to work weekends anymore.

Andrew Hellmich: Fair enough, and income wise, was a big change in income going from weddings to portraits?

Mimika Cooney: Yes. I mean, in some ways yes or no. I mean, of course, when you get paid for a wedding, you usually get, you know, a lot of a big chunk of change up front. So that helped with cash flow. But with portraits, it's a smaller start. But then when I worked my numbers, I figured out I was making more actual take home profit with portraits than I was with weddings. Because if I looked at the amount of time and I had to spend editing and the cost of an album and all of that, by the time I figured it out, I'd make more profit selling wall portraits for someone's home that I could schedule during the week or, you know, in my own time. Than I was, you know, making charging the package on weddings, albums and stuff. But that's just a personal decision. It's not to say it doesn't work for someone else.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Mimika Cooney: It definitely does work. It was just personally I decided that I wanted my weekends free. And I thought, well, you know, I've always enjoyed portraits, and I did that in England too, but I decided if I really wanted to be in control of my time, babies was the best way to go. Because, you know, moms would come in during the week when my kids are at school, so I could still have my life but have my business running too.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. So you made a conscious decision to target babies because they're going to fit in with your lifestyle. It's perfect.

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, not just that, but I've just always gravitated towards that. That's funny, when I look back at my whole portfolio, I was always Anne Geddes, the Australian photographer, has always been like, "Oh, I wish I could do that, babies in pots and, you know, baskets." And to me, it was always one of those, "Oh, one day I'll get there, kind of thing." So for me, it's like, "Well, hang on, if I really want to do it, why not just make it happen." So and again, you know, a portrait business and a wedding business are completely two different marketing engines too. I mean, I take my hat off to those photographers who managed to do both really well. It was a lot of work for me. And of course, the fact that I could only work, like 24 hours a week, I had to decide, "Okay, what's going to be worth my time."

Andrew Hellmich: And what was that?

Mimika Cooney: Well, for me, ultimately, was doing portraits. So I would have..

Andrew Hellmich: Sorry, as far as marketing goes, what was, what was the sort of the key marketing, couple of things that you did that sort of improved business, or picked it up to the point where it was successful?

Mimika Cooney: Well, definitely in portraits based here in the, in the US, was, you know, making relationships with vendors. So for instance, when I was really focusing on getting babies, I made a relationship with a lady who owns a 3D ultrasound company. So, you know, moms would come there when they're pregnant to see, you know, a scan of their baby, because they don't offer that at every doctor's visit. Here, it's up, it's extra. So she had her own marketing engine. She was only interested in getting them in while they're pregnant. And then, you know, we had an arrangement where I'd provided with free wool portraits for her office, and she would hand out my card. And I definitely, before 2008 was getting a ton of inquiries about an eight to 10 a week. So, you know, they were qualified leads. I mean, obviously not all of them were my ideal client, because, of course, you will have price shoppers no matter what market you're in. And slowly but surely, I started honing in my marketing message and figuring out who my ideal client was, and working it that way. So I definitely, I'd say, "You know, making relationships with other people. And, you know, getting my work up where people could see it." You know, I worked about nine months with the lady at a hospital to get a bit a wall portrait in one of their waiting rooms, doctors' offices, OBs offices. You know, anywhere that my client would be, wherever she would frequent, is where I wanted to get her. So that was my idea is, you know, "If I, my client, where will I go? Where do I shop? Who do I hang out with? Who, you know, whose opinion do I value?" And I would really go after it that way.

Andrew Hellmich: So with, if you're hanging, say, wall print in a doctor's office, would you put your logo on there? Would you put contact details? How would people know that that's your image and to contact you?

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, I mean, some places are really iffy. Some, like one particular doctor's office, didn't want any branding on the pictures whatsoever, but I was allowed to have a small box of business cards underneath on a coffee table. Other, other places didn't mind. However, I wanted to brand them, and I would always have my logo on with I've had these little stickers made that should only like about half an inch by an inch, so they look small. But if you go up to them, if you're really interested, really interested, you can actually see my web address there. But for me, that I used to get more inquiries when people actually handed out the cards. So for instance, if I got really cozy with the nurses, and, you know, go in and take them cookies and sweets and candy and, you know, anything nice, they'd remember me, and then I would hand them my postcards. And if they actually spoke to clients said, "Oh, you got to go to this photographer. She's really great." And if they handed that person a card, 99% of the time, they would call me. So it's just depends on the relationship you build. And of course, in the medical profession, there are a little iffy about, you know, either showing favoritism or promotion. So it's just you got to take each opportunity as it is, because every single one of my vendor relationships is different. They all have to be handled slightly differently.

Andrew Hellmich: I love that, because so many people that I interview in, they talk about sort of Facebook marketing and advertising and, you know, doing different things, but not many people talk about building up these relationships, particularly with portraits, with these different vendors. That's so great. So you basically have these vendors promoting you and handing out your cards and recommending you.

Mimika Cooney: Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, old habits die hard. I mean, we might be living in 2013 and we have the internet, we have Facebook, but you cannot replace a human interaction and human connection. And that's really what I teach, is trying to teach people that if you want to make a business that works, you still need to have that human connection. Because at the end of the day, you know, like, especially a pregnant mom for instance, you know, she's in a very sensitive position. She's not going to just open up a magazine and see a pretty picture of a baby go, "Oh, I want that photographer." It just doesn't work that way. She needs to hear about you, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, even, 14, 15 times before she'll actually pick up that phone. And she wants to know, and I know from being pregnant recently and having gone through the medical system here, she wants to hear from her friends and to the people whose opinion that they value. So her doctor, who her dentist, her friend, who, her yoga instructor, her, you know, her midwife, those are the peoples whose opinion matter. So even though I'm on Facebook and I'm on the internet, that's kind of like the last place, they'll go, well, not the last place. They'll go and check me out there. So they would have heard about me somewhere. And they go, "Oh, you know, I've heard about Mimika. Let me go check her out", and then they go and see the portfolio on my website, and then it gives me that street cred, like, "Okay, she knows what she's doing. She's actually really good." So it's not necessarily, you know, the first place they go, and it also isn't the last place they go either. So sometimes you can get a really good client. Say, for instance, I had client who was coming to the area, she was moving here herself. She didn't know anybody to ask especially, you know, they have no connections here. She will obviously go to the internet first, and she'll start to seek me out, and then they usually will go and start to meet with photographers. So it's kind of a little bit of both, and that's why I say to people your, with your marketing plan, you have to be everywhere. You can't just pick one method. You got to infiltrate the system so that they hear about you through different mediums. And it's not just the one thing. And that's a mistake I made in the early days, thinking, get a huge expense of one full page magazine ad, and that's going to bring the phone, and that's going to make the phone ring off the hook like, "Yeah, I'm set, I've got it made up." I just ended up crying, and I look at how much money I've wasted on all those print magazines and cards, and it's kind of what I call the cold sell. You know for yourself, if you, if someone wants to solicit business from you, you don't know who they are from Adam. You're not going to just hand them your credit card. You want to know who they are first. You know you need to figure them out, like, "Are they trustworthy? Do I like them?" And it comes down to the know, like and trust factor. First of all, how do I know about you? I get to hear about you on through my friend, through Facebook, on the internet, through the dental hygienist. Then, do I like you? I'm going to check you out on your website. Do I like the work you're doing? Do I like your personality? Do I like the picture of you, you know. And I'm also a big believer of putting yourself out there, like show a little skin. Like, I'm big about having a little camera set up over my shoulder when I do photo sessions, even though it's really rough home edits, it shows them a behind the scenes view. And that is, like, 10 times more effective than me talking about myself.

Andrew Hellmich: So hang on. So I'm not sure what do you mean here? What are you doing?

Mimika Cooney: Okay, so say, for an example, if I do a photo session.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Mimika Cooney: I have a little Sony home camcorder that I set up on a tripod, and I've positioned it to where I can just leave it recording for a whole session. So whether I've done newborns or I've done a glamour session, obviously, you know, I let the client know, and if they really are against it, I won't do that, so that's privacy covered. But for the most part, people are happy for me to do that, because all I do is just it shows me in action. So it shows me interacting with the client. It shows me showing them how to pose. You know, what the inside of the studio looks like. It gives them like a behind the scenes view, and then I'll post those on the videos on my blog, and then people actually get to see more of me, so they'll get to know and like me quicker. That way they go, "Okay, I get to like you more, and then I'll get to trust you, because you seem to be a trustworthy person. I can see what you're doing. You know, you providing", and it's all about that warming up process. Kind of liken it to dating. I mean, you wouldn't go to speed dating, sit down in front of someone say, "Will you marry me?" It's kind of like, weirdo. Like, "Seriously, do I know you? What's your name and where are you from?" And that's what us photographers do with our clients. Here's my ad, here's my business card, here's my Facebook ad, marry me, you know. And you're like, "Wait, what happened to dating?" Like, you know, "Let's get to know each other a little first before we move to second base", you know.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. So this is, you're using these video, little video clips then on your blog post, is that right?

Mimika Cooney: Yes. So if you go to my website and you click on the blog link, there is, so I've been doing it more recently than some of our old things. But even if you can't do video, at least take, like, say, a behind the scenes photo, or just a setup shot. Like, say, for a newborn photographer, do a pullback shot of what your studio looks like, of you setting up and clipping the background and the bean bag and all that, all that jazz. Because even that helps to give them a good visual. Because if they know what they're coming into, like clients have said, "Oh, I love the photos I saw of your studio online. It looks so organized." And because when I say I work from home, they're like, "Oh, it's probably like, she's going to be in her bedroom and it's going to look like a dive", and, you know, eww, it doesn't have that trust factor. But if I show them what they can expect, again, on my website, I've got a page called experience, like mimikacooney.com forward slash experience. It actually shows them what my studio looks like. And I send them that link in the emails I send them when once they've booked a session. So by the time they walk in my door, they know about me. They know about what, the places like my studio looks like, what they're going to expect from me, and everything has been lined up because it's all about education. Again, it's that relationship, how many times we communicate, what we communicating and getting them warmed up. So they know by the time we get into the sales room and we ask for money for that marriage proposal, they're not going to freak out and slap us across the face. They're actually going to be like, "Sure, honey, whatever you want."

Andrew Hellmich: Then that makes total, it makes sense. And look, I actually read in one of your recent blog posts the importance of standing out in the crowd, you know, with the crowd of photographers that are in business these days. And is that, is that one of the things that you're doing to stand out?

Mimika Cooney: Well, I hope so.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So what, what I mean is that, is that an important thing today? Is that an important message to get across, that we do need to stand out?

Mimika Cooney: Well, we do. And I know we hear about this a lot, and a lot of people say, "Well, how do I stand out? Because I don't know how to think, how to offer anything else than what everybody else is offering." Because you, when you're starting out, you don't have that confidence again. So you look at what everybody else is doing, and everybody, at one stage, was blind, buying these templates from blue domain, or whatever it was called. And everybody's stuff was looking the same, and everybody was buying the same backdrops and same cameras. That doesn't make you unique. You know, at the end of the day, what I teach and what I try to train photographers is that finding that uniqueness of you that we shouldn't worry about the competition that's out there. Because you are you. No one can duplicate you. No one has your same drive, your same vision, your same passion for things, and the same way of doing things. And people, some things that you do will resonate with the right people. And this is what I say, even I you know, in the training part is, you know, you really need to figure out who your clients are, because if you're having the conversation. You know, again, back to the dating you know, girl walks into a room and then she sees a few guys there standing holding drinks. If the one guy you know has, is wearing his Hawaiian shirt, dressed all sloppy, she's not even going to consider going up to him to talk to him, or allow him to even communicate with her. She's going to look at the tall, dark and handsome guy who's dressed in a suit. You know, you already know who you you're attracted to. The same thing happens. Because one thing we forget as photographers, our, our clients, are making a very emotionally driven, personal decision. It's not like you're looking for a plumber. Any you know a plumber is a plumber. A painter is a painter. A hairstylist is a hairstylist. But of course, you know, with a few, you know differences in talent. Photography is based on art, and you know, art is subjective, so either they like your style, they like what you have to offer, or they won't even be entertained by what you have to offer. Again, I liken it to something like music, like no matter how many songs I've listened to, or how nice it's packaged, I just can't bear to listen to heavy metal music. It just grates my ears, where some people might find it enjoyable. So no matter how much I try to convince them, if they don't like what I have to offer, and they don't like me, and they don't resonate with my message, it's we're not going to go anywhere. So it's kind of like, again, you know, if we're dating this person as much as they're interviewing us to be their photographer, we need to interview the client to see, are they the kind of client that's going to bring out the best in me? Are they going to allow me to be the creative person I want to be, or are they going to just treat me like a commodity, just like these department store photos places you have here in the States where you go and you pay a flat session fee, you don't know who your photographer is going to be. They're going to just stick the child in a plain piece of background and just say, "There you go. Done.", like school photography, there's no personality in that. There's no connection. And, you know, there's a market for everything. And if you want to do that, then great, go for it. But I've just found in the years that I've done it that people are more, they resonate with me when I'm, when I have the right message, and we connect on the same level.

Andrew Hellmich: And this is where, if you, you can't be afraid to be different. You have to do what you want to do. Is that what you're saying?

Mimika Cooney: Yes, definitely. I mean, you can be you, and you could do things the way you feel. And I know you've heard, we've all heard this before. Like, "Don't watch what the competition's doing." "I know I've done it myself." I'm like, "Oh, but look, they're doing that." "Oh, that's so great! I wish I could do that, that's so.." And then we get stuck, you know, thinking we got to do what they doing. But you don't have to. An example, I've and I've actually done this for myself. Like, when I'm feeling really like, down, and I'm feeling really stuck, and we get really bored, and it's like, "Oh, I just don't feel like doing another session like this." I do what I call a me time, some me session. So what I'll do is actually organize, like a model, shoot, like, "Okay, what is the weirdest, most outlandish idea I can come up with that will really make my heart sing." So I'm the client, I want to make myself happy. Let me design it in style. Shoot it exactly the way I want to, you know, take the time. I don't have a client worrying, you know, looking over my shoulder and telling me, "Here, you wear this outfit because granny gave it to me", and it's this big, ugly, huge head bow that's going to look dreadful. You know, you take control of it. And even if it means you do it for free, you don't have anyone paying you to do it. I find when I have those little breakout sessions, I actually am the most creative. And then when I use that as a portfolio, it actually starts to attract the people that I've been dreaming of dealing with, because they see the real me. So that's a good, good exercise is when you're stuck, go and do something just for yourself, and it doesn't even have to be photography based. Could mean, go watch a movie, you know, go watch a big epic movie, and, you know, get totally engrossed in it, and you'll be surprised how they can really refresh your viewpoint.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice, I like it. Now, I want to be conscious of your time, and I want to race through these 10 quick questions. Are you ready for these?

Mimika Cooney: Sure, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: 10 quick questions, 10 quick answers, 3-2-1, go! Okay, here we go, Canon or Nikon?

Mimika Cooney: Canon.

Andrew Hellmich: Favorite lens and why?

Mimika Cooney: 24 to 70, because it zooms. And I don't have to switch it off over my body.

Andrew Hellmich: It just lives on there.

Mimika Cooney: I have a 51.2 but I don't like to use my legs. I'd rather zoom in and out.

Andrew Hellmich: And see I thought you were so energetic.

Mimika Cooney: I am, but know were taking of babies. Yes, if we're talking weddings, 70 to 200 I like to get right up and close up people's nostrils. Let's see real close.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Do you shoot JPEG or RAW?

Mimika Cooney: RAW, baby.

Andrew Hellmich: What's, what's one setback you face along the way through your career?

Mimika Cooney: Oh yeah. Yeah, lots like, how much time do we have?

Andrew Hellmich: Give me one.

Mimika Cooney: Well, of course, 2008 was like a big Hiroshima bomb for everybody. And I had, just overnight my, my referrals just dried up. And my biggest mistake was, you know, that relationship I had with the lady in the 3D office. I started relying on her for business, and when she cut me off, I kind of saw my bum, and I was like, "Okay, hold on a second, something's up." So there was a big wake up call.

Andrew Hellmich: So how did you overcome that? What did you do?

Mimika Cooney: Well, I had to start from scratch and find other relationships and just start to be instead of having all my eggs in one basket, I had to figure out, "Okay, I couldn't rely on her to bring me business. I had to find it myself." And started to, you know, get on my bicycle and make new relationships with new people.

Andrew Hellmich:
What's one thing you can look back on and think to yourself, "Yeah, I took a really big step after I did this."

Mimika Cooney: Actually, I would say it's probably in the last 18 months when I've done my whole rebrand. Because when I moved from the UK to the US, I changed my company name into, it was called Photo Lyrical Photography, because in my mind, I thought I was going to be hiring people and have, like, a big studio, and have lots of employees. And as it turned out, that doesn't suit me. I'm not a people manager, I'm more of a creative ideas. So for me, I actually discovered that I was re, I was branding myself incorrectly, and I was attracting the wrong clients. So for me, the complete rebrand I did, which is now the whites and the blue and the more clean, more modern look, that's more me, and that was one of the biggest adjustments,

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. And then that sort of, in turn, brought people that you were trying to attract to the business?

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, because I was getting frustrated. I was like, "Why do I have all these people that with this kind of style who have, you know, not very outgoing and very formal, and didn't want to give me any creative leeway to do the things I really wanted to?" They wanted to tell me what to do. And I was like, you know, there's something's up. And in actual fact, another photographer, I did a mentoring with her, Sarah Petty. She actually worked with me for three months, and she helped me, you know, see the light. And we always joke. She said "She, we went from fuddy duddy to modern hip." So, you know, I'm always more modern and fun and hip, and yet it felt like I was not being myself, and I feel now my brand really resonates with the right people, and I'm attracting people who are like me or who like you know what I have to offer.

Andrew Hellmich: If you were to move again tomorrow to the other side of the world, we've never lived before, what would be the place..

Mimika Cooney: China.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, okay, why not?

Mimika Cooney: Okay.

Andrew Hellmich: What would you do to get bums on seats sort of right from the start? What would be the first thing you did?

Mimika Cooney: Well, besides learning a language, yeah. Definitely, I'd say, you know, you want to start with the internet presence first, but then it's getting a life of the land. In other words, figuring out how things are. Because, as I said, You know what works in the States, different to the US, is different to the Australia, and it's different to South Africa. Because I know, you know, South Africa and Australia, we were ex-British colonies, and we kind of come from that. More conservative mindset where you know the whole poppy syndrome or lobster syndrome, where you know if you start doing well, people don't like it, so you can't be very "Look at me, look at me." Where in the US, it's like if you don't make a loud noise and show people how you know that you're good and make a noise, marketing noise to differentiate yourself, it's, it's very hard to break through. So again, it's, you know, got to understand the culture. I think in China, they're very strict that I think we could have any nudies or anything. No, you know, babies would have to be covered. And, oh my gosh, the scandal.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh let's say you move into the other side of the States, would you start with a Facebook presence or with a, with a website presence?

Mimika Cooney: Oh, website for sure. Yeah. I love Facebook for what it does in connecting me, but it's very dangerous position to have your whole business model based on Facebook. What I mean is, if you don't have a website and you just use the Facebook group page as way of attracting business, Facebook can change, it's you know, very fickle. They can change their decision to do things on a whim. And if you have it all again, it's all your eggs in one basket problem. I'm all for, you know, building traffic to my website and getting eyeballs on to the platform that I control. But I do use Facebook a lot in order to drive traffic to my site. So, you know, it's getting people, for instance, you know, you take pictures of people, you tag them, their friends, get to see your photos, and that's great. But, yeah, I'd say, you know, you'd have to make sure that you are where everybody else is. Sort of, you know, whether it's your clients are on Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram, you kind of need to figure that out.

Andrew Hellmich: What software do you use for your batching, editing, renaming and renumbering?

Mimika Cooney:
Lightroom.

Andrew Hellmich:
Very good. What do you wear when you're shooting?

Mimika Cooney: Usually a pair of slacks, pants or trousers if you in England, and, you know, a comfortable shirt. I like to kind of rebrand subtly, you know, sort of the, with my blue and white and black, I usually have some kind of, you know, color coordination. But, yeah, I like to, I get on the floor, I roll around. I'm, like, on my belly. So I like, I don't do dresses. I do, usually barefoot or with fancy socks and comfortable pair of, you know, black slacks or something.

Andrew Hellmich: Have you got an embarrassing photography moment or stuff up that you're happy to share?

Mimika Cooney: Yeah, how many do you need?

Andrew Hellmich: Everyone's got one? You've got plenty.

Mimika Cooney: Oh God. I complain, it's like, you know, "Oh my gosh" Well, let's see if you think of a recent one. Well, I mean, in my studio, I have my actual light set up on a tracking system in my dining room, and behind me is the sofa where the client sits. And for one, one morning, I was shooting away, and I heard some giggles sitting behind me, and the dad was sitting behind me. And I was, you know, facing the baby, didn't realize wearing, like, hot pink knickers sticking out of my low, flung pants. So he was getting a right nice view, like, really embarrassing. Or when my hair almost caught in fire when, you know, getting too close to a sparkler on a, you know, on a wedding. That's also hilarious. But, you know, as I said, how much time do we have?

Andrew Hellmich: That's great. Mimika, it's been an absolute pleasure. How can people find you and check out your books, your website?

Mimika Cooney: Oh

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah.

Mimika Cooney: It's books because I like so in the good way. You can check me out on my website, which is www dot Mimika Cooney as an M-I-M for Mother, I--A, and then Cooney is C-O-O-N-E-Y, like George Cooney without the L, the woman, remember that. So it's mamikacooney.com and I'm everywhere. On Facebook is forward/Mamika Cooney, Twitter, Pinterest, all my full name Mamika Cooney.

Andrew Hellmich: Great.

Mimika Cooney: And my Facebook group page is Mamika Cooney Fan. So go and say "Hi", and you know, I'd love to connect with you there.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic.

Mimika Cooney: Oh, and I must say, I do have a free download as well. But this book we're talking about, I've written a book called Boutique Baby Photography. Don't worry, don't let the titles freak you out. It's more about the business side. So go ahead and download that. That's on my mamikacooney.com/freebies.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. And I'll add links to that in the, in the show notes as well.

Mimika Cooney: Fantabulous.

Andrew Hellmich: Great. Thanks, Mik, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Mimika Cooney: Thanks for having me, Andrew. Take care.

 
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