We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Maryam Salassi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Maryam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I was in middle school, I spent A LOT of time trading notes and letters with my friends and one of our preferred greetings was “Hi and hello”. I don’t know who started it but it was prevalent enough that it stuck with me as a funny greeting because it just sounds kind of silly and unnatural when you say it out loud and it makes me laugh.

15 years after middle school I moved states and decided to dive in to starting a family and newborn photography business. I wanted my brand to be casual and fun with a hint of nostalgia, and I knew I didn’t want to use my name. I started to think about my own childhood, things I loved doing in that time of my life, and the idea of passing notes and my old preferred greeting came to me. That’s how I came to settle on Hi & Hello Photography. It was casual, welcoming, and fit really well with the brand I wanted to create.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I first dabbled in photography as a high schooler, but only in the context of photographing my friends and documenting my life. When I went to college I thought I’d maybe go into psychology until I took my first photography class. I was immediately hooked. I eventually switched majors and got my BFA in photography, though to be honest I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with my degree. After some time working in insurance and hating it, I got my teaching certificate and became an elementary art teacher who photographed friends’ families on the side.

Eventually we moved to a new state and because childcare was so expensive and teaching salaries low in comparison I decided to go full time into launching a family photography business. I knew posed photography wasn’t for me and I noticed while there were a lot of lifestyle photographers in my area there weren’t that many who focused more on family documentary photography which is what I was more drawn to. I saw a hole in the market and I spent a lot of time working on my website and SEO to try to attract clients who were more interested in photos that reflected their reality instead of just making pretty pictures. To this day (nine years later) the majority of my clients come from Google thanks to all that foundational work I did all those years ago.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Straight out of college I worked for a large car insurance company as an adjuster. While it wasn’t my dream job, it did teach me a lot about customer service and client experience. In training they told us the goal was to surprise and delight the customer and I really took that to heart. I spent all day talking to people who had just been through a really frustrating/scary experience and my goal was to turn that experience around make it not suck so much. I always had a really high satisfaction rating and I prided myself in being able to listen to even the most keyed up, angry folks and bring them to a place where they didn’t feel so bad.

All of that helped me understand that clients just want to feel seen, heard, and to know that I will deliver what I promised. It doesn’t take much effort for me to do that because I talk with every client before booking their session, and I tell them what to expect at every step. Because of that ability to manage expectations while also being kind of flexible, I’ve built a solid reputation as someone who is trustworthy and kind.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think just having the ability to learn and grow constantly is such a gift. Having the freedom to try new things, set my own schedule, and let go of things that aren’t serving me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hiandhellophotography.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/hiandhellophoto

Image Credits

Maryam Salassi