Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Holly Michelson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Holly, thanks for joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

We bought one way tickets to Africa. Moved there with our five-year-old son to meet the five year old twins that we intended to adopt. Our wedding photography business was only a few years old and we had our best year yet. But nothing was going to stand in our way, we knew these girls needed a family and we planned to give them one. We lived there for 5 months while going through the process to adopt.

Here we are six years later with a total of 5 children. We still run the photography business but grew it to having a team and many more mediums other than photography, We also built a farm in 2017, opened a studio in 2020 and started a new business in 2021.

Life has been full for the Michelson family.

Holly, 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?

My husband, Matt, and I bought our first nice camera when I was pregnant with our oldest, and I immediately fell in love with how a photograph can tell a story. I buried myself in any photography education I could get my hands on so that I could make my images look like those I saw in magazines because I wanted to create something just as beautiful. Then a few friends encouraged me to start a business. That was something I had never thought of doing before. But every step of the way, and with every hurdle, I knew God was guiding me and giving me the knowledge and talent I needed to succeed. That is why we named our business 5:5, Romans 5:5 is a verse about Hope and how it doesn’t disappoint. We felt that was a great thing to build a business on: hope. Little did we know that through the years, much of our message and service to our clients would inspire hope.

We started our business by focusing on telling stories with photographs of families and weddings. As we built relationships with our clients, many of them started businesses and needed our help telling that part of their story as well. We realized we needed to be able to serve our clients and help them tell all kinds of different chapters that will be a part of the overall story of their life. We added videography and graphic design into our business as we found those three often complimented each other when telling a story.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

For us and our industry, our work speaks pretty loudly. But I feel that our drive for further education, practice, attention to detail and high quality is what made us legit rather than just a mom-tographer and her second-shooter husband.

We are still constantly learning and trying to improve upon our craft. The learning never stops.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Being genuine to you and your brand has been our most effective strategy. We always try to show potential new clients gratitude for even considering us as a possibility—that’s an honor. Before talking about how awesome our company and service is, we ask about who they are and what excited them about the story they need help telling. We do that and anything else that we can in order to show them that we truly care about them and that is why we deliver consistently exceptional work.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.fivefivemediaco.com
• Instagram: @fivefivemediaco
• Facebook: @fivefivemediaco
• Twitter: @fivefivemediaco
• Youtube: @fivefivemediaco