We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Skillings. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you have any key partners or vendors – if so, how’d you find them and start working with them?

As a photographer in their the beginning years of their business you really don’t know anyone. I found that social networking is really the key. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool. Also you never know when you will stumble upon someone that you may be able to work with and create a great partnership. I am a one women business and when I can find good people to work with I’m not letting them go.

I was sitting in a nail salon treating my self when I started chatting with the lady next to me. Before we knew it we were discussing both our new adventures, mine woth creating my photography business and hers creating a business renting out her beautiful white horse for parties, photos sessions, extra. We traded phone numbers and chatted for a while. We soon came up woth a plan to work together giving each other a deal to do spring mini photo sessions using her horse as a unicorn. We had so much interest we ended up having to do a second date in the summer. We have since done several mini sessions together. She promotes my business and I promote hers. This just goes proves that you never know who is sitting next to you and to be a kind person to everyone. These mini sessions that I have done with her and her horse Sugar has had a tremendous impact on building my business this first year in business. I will be forever grateful to her!

If I had to say a reason why I partnered woth her or why she went with me came down to us both being local businesses and both of us just starting out. We were both willing to take the risk on each other. We kept lines of communication open so we both trusted each other and felt we could depend on each other to hold up their end of the deal. I think if the communication would have been lacking neither of us would have felt comfortable to make a deal where we have to trust that the other person is going to show up and really work hard to make the sessions great for our clients!.

Sarah, 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?

I am your typical sports mom. I have two children ages 8 and 4 who both play hockey as well as football and gymnastics. So you can only imagine how busy our calendar looks. My love for photography started when I was in high school. My high school offered photography as one of the art electives. I dove in head first and excelled to the point where the teacher had asked me to student teach and help others in the class. Now this was a whole different world of photography as we used old 35mm cameras with film and developed our own photos, where as today is more of a digital world. To me it doesn’t matter what type of camera you use it only matters that you love what you do. After high school I didn’t do much with photography as I got busy with college and then later getting married and having children. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I got my hands on a new digital Cannon Rebel that I really got back into photography. It was challenging to get back in to as there is a drastic difference from film cameras and digital cameras. I took several online classes and did and lot of research to learn how to use the digital cameras of today. I even reached out and did a mentor session with one of the photographers that took my family’s photos. She is a wonderful teacher. I recommend to any aspiring photographers to see if you can do some one on one mentorship sessions with someone you know and respect in the industry, it will make all the difference. She taught me things about my camera that probably would have taking me months if not years to realize. Now I use the tips and tricks she showed me every time I use my camera. I have grown exponentially over the past few years and my client base shows that.

I try my best to make my client comfortable before, during, and after their sessions. Getting your photo taken is nerve racking for some people, and for some its very stressful. They may not know what the best thing to wear is. Or how to get the look they are looking for. As a photographer I am there to answer any questions they may have before hand. I will make suggestions especially if they have a certain location in mind or a certain look they are going for. I make sure the lines of communication are always open and that they know that they can trust me and that their investment in me means just as much to me as it does to them. During a session a lot of people get really stiff or they really don’t know how to position their bodies. I like to talk to them in a way that relaxes them. I say things such as I know this feels really silly but you will love how it will look, or everyone feels awkward when they are getting their photos taken. I try to make it seem more low key and less serious. This allows them to relax and feel more comfortable. I will hold conversations with them throughout their sessions so they barley even notice that I have been taking pictures the entire time. I feel that most important part of being a photographer is making sure your clients are comfortable during their session. Yes, clients are expecting excellent photos but would they book you again in the future if they felt awkward or uncomfortable during their session, probably not. So I strive to make sure I do everything possible to make sure everyone is comfortable, especially if there are uncooperative children’s. If I can get them to focus more on me have fun with them they are more likely to play a game with me and let me take their photos then if mom and dad have to bag pled with them to get them to sit still for 5 more minutes.

The moment that comes to mind when I think of the question what are you most proud of is a client I had when I did a fairy tail princess and unicorn mini. She was about 7 years old. Her grandmother got her the session as a gift. She was extremely nervous at first but between the horse’s owner and myself and of course the horse we were able to make her feel very comfortable. The session didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary until the grandmother reached out to thank myself and the horse owner for the session and how much it meant to hear granddaughter. What we did not know was the granddaughter was dealing with some bullying at school and this photo session some how gave her some self confidence again. She was on top of the world. We were all in tears, and they have been repeat clients of mine ever since. I feel so proud and specials to have touched a young person’s life in that way. I hope that my photos and the way I am with clients continues to helps others in the future even if I don’t know about it.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I am still in the process and will always be trying to grow my audience on social media. I started by making a business page on Facebook. Of course you send it to all your family and friends and ask them to share it, but that only gets you so far. You are trying to reach new people, potential new clients and that is hard to do. One of the tricks I used was a contest. I offered a free mini session, to enter the contest the person would need to like my page as well as share my page. I set it up so people could enter the contest for about a week or so. I kept track of all the people who entered the contest and put their names in to a bowl and drew the luck winner. This not only drew in the friends and family as who doesn’t want to win something for free, but it helped me get my info out to other people that may not have made their way to my page. People not only shared my page with others as part of the contest rules but they tagged people they knew in their posts so they could enter and so the word spread quickly.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source for me for new clients has been social media. If Facebook or Instagram were not around I would not have been able to get my business and clientele up and running. This is about the only way I have to market myself, my brand, and my work. I still use business cards and hand them out whenever I can but social media is by far the best way to spread the word about your business. I greatly appreciate all of my clients and how they have used word of mouth the pass my info along to people they know as I have grown and gained new clients that way as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sarahskillingsphotography.mypixieset.com/?fbclid=IwAR1MNdJM4bbbYcS-XiK-UzPkwuYYJLm71C_LudegX-_oVyQ-yIm-_1FzsFA
• Instagram: sarah_skillings_photography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091622536076

Image Credits
Sarah Skillings Photography LLC