We recently connected with Amanda Ogg and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

Of course!  Thanks for having me!  There have been alot of previous jobs that have given me experience that I still use today.  It’s so funny because my mom used to always tell me, “Nothing you do in your life is ever wasted. All the skills you gather will always come back around, unexpected or not.” When I was a child, I would routinely roll my eyes and shake my head at her. I was sure that it was just her way of guilting me into doing chores, or stick with an activity that I loathed with every fiber of my being. Now that I am a full-fledged adult who has held many jobs as we moved from base to base when we were active duty military, I realize that she was right. As always, my mom was right.

One of my former jobs that I absolutely loved was a Starbucks employee. It wasn’t easy to be a barista who woke up at 3am so that I could open the store at 4am, but I loved the fast pace, the smell of coffee, and the camaraderie that I shared with my team. There is something rather magical that can happen when you’ve got a great team and you consistently put them together during twilight hours. That charm was why I accepted a position as a Starbucks manager in just a few short years.

While I was a Starbucks manager, I was taught a lot about the culture of the company. Especially their desire for their stores to be what they dubbed a “third home” for their customers. This idea was centered around creating an atmosphere that was so comfortable that they would rather spend their working days at a coffee shop instead of their own homes. To that end, the company created perks for people who stayed in their store for hours at a time, such as free refills, discounted drinks, double stars, etc.

But the most important part of this “third home” concept was the culture of the brand.  The company spent a lot of time indoctrinating us, their employees, in the “Starbucks culture”. This thoroughly informed us of how we were to treat the customers. And, to this very day, when I am thinking about my own company and client experience, I am always drawn back to this idea of your company culture or brand, as it were. And while Starbucks has had a rough go since the life-altering events of 2020, and their company culture has shifted dramatically, I will always and forever go back to the culture I was introduced to. Here are my top 4 takeaways that I build all my customer interactions on and my customer responses around.

1) Customer is King of the House. While others have described this idea in other words, like the “client is the hero of your story”, the idea is all based in the same vein of thought. You, as the business owner, are not the one is in focus here. Your client is. Your offers need to be made with the client or customer in mind. And, while profitability is an incredibly important factor, the presentation of that offer and how it speaks to the client is even more vital. They have to see and perceive its value in order to put their trust (and hard-earned money) in you.

2) Connections make a sale. I know that that sentence can come off as a bit shady, or manipulative. But, I only say it because in our day and age, relationships between business owner and client/customer seem to be put on a back burner. And it shouldn’t. We are so focused on the sale, the profit, the booking, etc, that you see numbers instead of people. And your people? They can absolutely tell. And they do NOT want to do business with someone who doesn’t see them as a person. Your relationships with your clients or your customers are the most important thing in your business. Where the relationships are built, the trust is built, and referrals are made, and the bookings or sales will naturally flow. But, without a relationship, the cycle falls apart.

3) Generosity is invaluable. And, what I really mean to say is this: Go Above and Beyond for your Client/Customer. Meaning, do exactly what your offer says you will do, or give them the product that they bought from you. But then, do a little extra. Whatever that looks like for your business. Sometimes it is giving of yourself and your time. Sometimes it is giving sometime more concrete and tangible. For some clothing boutiques I’ve purchased from, that meant they included a few stickers inside my package. For some skincare products I’ve bought, they included an extra sample that I didn’t know was coming. For other businesses, there is a welcome or client gift included in the experience. For others, they offer a more curated or hands-on guidance while the client is working with them. At the very beginning of my business, I included extra images than advertised for my clients, which has since been done away with. But, instead, I have morphed the rest of my client experience into something much higher quality to make up for it. It doesn’t always have to be big or unexpected, but it does need to be extra.

4) Kindness is key. While this one is last, it is certainly not the least. In fact, it might be the most important aspect that I have ever taken away from my time as a Starbucks employee. Customers and clients are people. People who are having their own day, good or bad. People who have their own thoughts or feelings. People who deserve to be seen and heard. People just like you. And, while it can be easy to forget that, it does not make it any less true. So, whether in the midst of a conflict that needs a resolution, just an everyday interaction where they are buying a product, or they are investing more time and money with you and booking a service, the way you communicate is incredibly important. And, above all, be kind, professional, and succinct. Be willing to accommodate where you can. And, just treat them how you would want to be treated in that situation.

I know as we get older, the majority of us have these weird realizations that things we heard growing up are completely bogus. (like telling me that I would get electrocuted if I took a shower in a thunderstorm – gee thanks, dad!) But, I have also had the privilege of a couple of my childhood sayings becoming a reality daily, like my mom’s invaluable advice. My time at Starbucks was incredibly tough, but also rewarding. It was one that shaped me into who I am today and how I run my own business in such a positive way. And, honestly, I will be forever grateful for the perspective (thanks, Mom!) and my time in Starbucks.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Sure!  My name is Amanda and I am a maternity, family and newborn photographer at For the Wildlings Photography. I am currently based in the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. And, while I officially started the business not too long ago, I have been behind the camera for more than 15 years now.

I am also a mama to 3 toddlers and the wife to a veteran, who was active duty for about 10 years. During that time, I felt sidelined from the rest of society. I felt undervalued and the seasons that we have walked through, as a family, has been taxing and hard. And, I honestly couldn’t find the beauty in the midst of the ugliness that I felt. For me, as a photographer, I want to show other mamas that every season of your life has some beauty. Even in the midst of the incredibly hard ones. I provide families a chance to invest in beautiful photos that feel effortless and fun. And, I walk them through the entire experience with styling and location guidance. Every mama deserves to see how beautiful their families and their connections are even in the midst of the chaos that they may feel. So, I strive to give them that.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

There have been alot of things that haven’t gone as I wanted them to and I had find another way to get to the goal that I was working towards, but nothing so dramatic happened to me until 2022.  This is a story that I like to call “How to turn an ICU stay in 25k”. In 2022, I was still recovering from a rough labor and delivery with my 3rd baby. My husband had started at his first civilian job in about a decade. And, I had just started my business back up after moving across the country and the aforementioned maternity leave.

In June of 2022, my husband suffered from a significant medical event that landed him in the ICU. That stay should have only been for a few days, but was turned into a month due to hospital staff negligence. That month was the hardest one of his and my entire life. He was in a medical coma because of the weakened state of his body, and the progress seemed to only be going backwards daily. I remember obsessively watching his vital signs and his chest rising and falling as I fought back the tears unsuccessfully. I remember breaking down routinely around 2:30am every night because I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it through another day. And, I remember being so so angry. Angry at the hospital for the lack of care that had put his life in significant danger. While he was fighting for his life daily, I slept in the ICU waiting room, got to know his nurses, and fought for his care with the management of the hospital.

After about a month, my husband had not only woken up, but had recovered enough for me to take him home to continue recovery there.

During this time, as you can imagine, all my business dealings came to an abrupt halt. I had to cancel any and all sessions on my books and refund all the money I had received. It was a whole new reason to be heartbroken. I thought I had killed any chance of me having a successful business for sure. At that time, there was absolutely no contest in my mind. My family and my partner in life came first. My business would just have to be sacrificed.

However, as my husband rapidly recovered, it became clear to both of us that we needed a different pace of life than he and I had lived for the past 10 years. His time in the military had been a 24/7 grind. One that demanded all of him and offered no boundaries. Because of that and our young kiddos, my financial contributions to our household were small or nonexistent. However, now that we were a civilian family, we had the flexibility to change that. And, the biggest change that could happen was with me.

After my husband and I talked about what we wanted to do and how we wanted our life to look, we decided that it would be best for me to start my photography business up again. So, that is what I did. I started building up my clientele again with any and every free bit of advertising that I could think of, doing a combination of free and paid family sessions, listened to a lot of feedback from my customers so I could tweak my client experience, invested in business and and ended up making 25k in the first 3 months of re-opening my business.

2022 was, by far, the hardest year for me and my family personally. It was full of heartbreak and disappointments. However, it showcased our resilience too. No matter what you throw at us, we make it out and then we thrive.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative that serves other mamas is twofold. First, I love the satisfaction of taking an unedited image and working magic to get a final image that is beautiful, emotive, and matches up with my vision when taking that shot. Second, I love hearing how my work impacts another mother’s life and perspective. Most of the time, mothers are the ones who want these sessions because while they are taking the images that will form the story of their child’s life, they are rarely a part of it. Even though they are also usually the primary parent and the ones with whom the child will have the most memories. So, I love giving mother’s a chance to not be facilitating the images. Instead, to participate in them. To create the memories with their children and for that memory to be recorded. As a mother, you don’t always see the beauty in the chaos that is our life, you are just too close and overstimulated. But when you hire a photographer to capture all those little moments that organically happen between you and your family, you get a chance to finally see and feel it. And, I love hearing the mother’s gush over how beautiful the images make them feel and how beautiful they feel as a family unit. It’s truly one of my favorite things.

One mother sent me a message after viewing her newborn gallery and, of course, loved how precious her baby looked, how beautiful she felt in the images that we captured, etc.  But, the thing that struck her was how she didn’t realize that her husband looked at her when she wasn’t paying attention.  She didn’t realize that, even in the midst of the
chaotic sleeplessness of newborn life, her husband still viewed her with love, pride, and almost reverence.  That was a gift she would never have been given had she not hired a photographer to watch her family’s interactions and capture them.  And, that right there is why I do what I do.  I love showing mothers the beauty that can absolutely exist even in the midst of their life’s current storm.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.forthewildlingsphotography.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/forthewildlingsphotography
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/forthewildlingsphotography

Image Credits
For the Wildlings Photography