We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amy Franey-Cunningham. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amy below.

Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

My client was so proud of his newest creation, he sent me a picture. Imagine finally getting your diploma after 66 years of being on this planet. After two years of intense classes in something he loved to do and after forty years of working jobs he wasn’t crazy about in healthcare. He finally landed right where he belonged.

A year before he retired, he was at the VA in Illinois and started learning about whole health. He gained so much information the VA offered him a job counseling. And although he spent many years helping veterans with nutrition by guiding them towards health instead of pills and bills, as we both call it, he hadn’t delved into cooking for others. “I’ll give it a try,” he said. Part of earning his degree meant preparing meals for others.

He was finally engaging in food. So fast forward two years, he earned his culinary degree from Escoffier. He walked his graduation this past November and I used his credit card to find him a great hotel and restaurant with foods he liked. Great red wine too. Part of my business journey is assisting people go after their goals. He wanted to walk at his graduation.

His journey with whole health is very interesting. At ten years old he moved from New Orleans and his daddy bought 50 acres of land in Greensburg, Louisiana and paid the neighbor to farm it for him. Chef Tony grew up eating beans and rice, fruits and vegetables by the box. When I mean by the box, in the country, it was so cheap you could buy boxes and boxes of it. They had their own honey bees too. We joked today about how the bohemians and countercultural people out West pay exorbitant amounts of money to eat like he did as a kid. As he grew in his independence as a teenager, the culture of try all the latest candy and candy bars threw him off the health wagon. He tried “every new one that came on the market,” he said. How does he know that? Ulcers don’t lie. He healed. Diligently watched his eating and somehow came round robin back to whole health.

As I looked at the picture of his meal, my heart sank. On that plate was culinary excellence. Let me describe the plate and give you the background on why my heart sank. The plate was a gray plastic number with curved edges and did I mention it was plastic? No. Just no. Now mind you, I’ve watched Home and Gardens shows on television every day for over 10 years. This was just wrong. Here he was proud of his work and here I was online shopping for new dishes. I let him talk and I was half paying attention and ended up finding a set of dishes matching his bold, masculine personality. Chef’s kiss. I knew he could afford them. I did know that but I really wanted to commemorate his graduation with an appropriate gift.

So, before he could object or even attempt to talk me out of it, I said, “Your new dishes will be there Thursday, love you, bye now.” And there was silence on the other end of the phone. Late this afternoon I read him this story and asked a few more questions about his life. Was it ok I was telling the story about us working together? Yes. Could he please describe what it felt like when he received the gift of dishes? “Sure,” he said. And went on to say, “I was humbled because people in my life don’t give me things. Not gifts anyways.”
As he is working on his second degree, we are working together as a team. I am beta testing his Holistic Nutrition and Wellness Coaching business, by being his very first client! I am gaining so much knowledge and working on the graphics for his business, and seeing the results of him handing out the flyers I made, gives my heart great joy.

Amy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As far as graphic design goes, I was just helping a friend out with her social media and it turned into more. The more programs I learned and purchased the more I loved doing it and gained traction by referrals. Taking classes in color theory, marketing and being an artist, catapulted me into this industry. I love customizing a clients work so the work is a brand new creation. And working within a budget because not everyone is ready for a website, I can design flyers, one pages, brochures and everything digital to give them an affordable marketing package mirroring the style of the client.

For my clients ready to take a leap into websites, I hit them with the freshest ideas. As far as website design and maintenance, the least challenging is WordPress. I am prepared when a client wants to pivot into a new platform, like Squarespace, Wix, or SHOWIT. I would learn that platform and take detailed notes. I started developing a talent for asking questions and simple conversations would turn into a plan. Next is the “pretty.” I develop visual tools of what I feel would look good based on a clients style and needs. Adding the right fonts, photographs and copy to pull it all together. I’ve never disappointed any clients with the website builds. Each one is unique and tells their unique story brand.

I got into Consumer Beta Testing working with Matt Coffin. He had sold his first company many years ago for over $330 Million dollars. The company was called Lower My Bills. While working for him, he would have me research different companies and do spreadsheets to see how each company stood out and stacked up against competition. I was sort of shocked looking at his portfolio and see he would just buy a new company based on our combined research. That part is still very fun.

Competitive Analysis can be tricky especially gaining intel over the phone. You don’t want to say to much, but do a general inquiry. That way you can come back to a client with pricing, customer service approaches, and identify where you could do better as a company. I learned this from a CEO here in West Virginia. “It’s not rude,” he would say, “it’s learning more so you can do more.”

Who doesn’t love to learn? Whether it’s tackling the Udemy platform with my own course on Journal Writing, Podia or creating workbooks is so much fun for me. Once a creative client comes to me with an incredible idea, I make sure to incorporate a way to build their brand, help them earn a passive income and share their expertise by saying, “hey, let’s make money doing this.” Teaching others using these platforms is income with a built in audience and low upfront cost. What better way to build credibility by building an impressive portfolio using all the ideas in your head. Workbooks can easily be marketed as print outs or digital so you can use them over and over again.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I worked at a company for ten years. Things started to shift in the neighborhood though. It was starting to get scary. I had a police officer drive up to me and say, hey it’s not safe this late, better get home. It was only 8 pm! There was a lot of “easy” to the job starting with the commute. Only a five minute walk up the hill. And my boss was an amazing combination of a friend and “go ahead and try it your way” kind of woman.

I wanted more. I knew it was time to move on. I bought a house in my beloved West Virginia with beautiful views and a very cool front porch. All that was left was saying goodbye.

Saying goodbye to a woman who shaped my career in those ten years by letting me shine. You want to handle payroll, great! Less work I have to do, it is yours. You want to take over the community service detail for the volunteers, great. I can still remember her giggling or cussing when she lost something in her office.

Like I said, all that was left was goodbye. Couldn’t do it. So, I left when she was getting her hair done. I couldn’t even leave a note. Someday I thought, I will be able to come back here and thank her for empowering me to run things the way I wanted to. Someday I will come back and not have these tears in my eyes. Someday I will stay for a visit and not want to stay forever.

Someday never happened like that. Occasionally I will call her and chat then quickly hang up the phone when the tears well up in my eyes. I’ve moved on of course, but the memories of that job, that time in my life I treasure the most.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I was on a job doing a professional website with a man who was a former gym coach turned psychologist. He was so great at nutrition, working out and giving advice on all of those things. He also does podcasting to keep relevant in the scene. Which is great. He knows some pretty influential people in Philadelphia.

Things started to shift for him. He ended up partnering with another podcaster who said would make him even more relevant. This person was based in another city and claimed to have a large following.

We ended up on a zoom meeting all three of us. The podcaster made an excuse to have me call him. I thought great! A Referral coming my way, winning all day.

Not exaggerating when I say it was the creepiest phone call of my life.
I don’t like manipulative people and I really don’t like men trying to separate me from my wallet. He started telling me things like, “I will make you a star,” and using language like, “you are not happy, just stick with me and I will use you to make money for us all.”

Being rude of course, is not an option. Especially when we have a mutual client. He was trying to use my relationship with my client to get money out of me. The “I can make you a star” speech would cost me a few hundred dollars a month. And he was so vague about what I would be buying.

Not a buy in for me. But, I really wanted the website build. And gently told him no. Eventually we ended up not working together and not even three months later, I found the website had vanished. I guess the guy with all the followers ended up sucking all my clients money out of the online presence into the podcasting presence. That hurt. I had nothing to show for my three months of work and brilliant website on square space.

There is a lesson in this though. I started networking hard and fast. I started a newsletter and got on social media every chance I got. Explaining again and again what I do and how much the service cost. Since predator guy entered the picture, my work with my client came to a halt because he tried convincing the psychologist I would work for free. Nope. Side note: The guy who tried getting between me and my wallet…His website says “Please be patient as we are updating our website!” Stings a little. Funny, mine is up and running!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mountaingirlwv.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountaingirlcompany/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-franey-cunningham-523357106/

Image Credits

Mountain Girl Co.