Never stop growing! Listen to Mike Peraino of Killer Creations dish on how he started small and grew to cover over 6 different states with his photography business.
Links mentioned in this episode:
For information on how to get on the Jewish Party Maven Certified Vendor List just click here: I want to get on that Certified Vendor list
CLICK HERE to get the FREE DOWNLOAD JPM Top 12 Wedding Words the Best Vendors Know
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Never stop growing! Listen to Mike Peraino of Killer Creations dish on how he started small and grew to cover over 6 different states with his photography business.
Links mentioned in this episode:
For information on how to get on the Jewish Party Maven Certified Vendor List just click here: I want to get on that Certified Vendor list
CLICK HERE to get the FREE DOWNLOAD JPM Top 12 Wedding Words the Best Vendors Know
Don’t miss future episodes!
SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A REVIEW: Apple Podcasts - Google Play - Spotify and MORE!
For more platforms visit: BUZZSPROUT
Just like in the party world, reviews are like GOLD. If you liked what you heard, please leave me a review and share what you liked the most about the episode.
CONNECT: Email
LIKE & FOLLOW: Facebook Instagram
LEARN MORE: Website
Hello there are you entrepreneurs out there? I know you got a business going, what have you wanted to have a second studio or a third? What would need to change for you to have a photography studio say in Idaho and Los Angeles and San Francisco. My guest today is Mike Peraino, the CO owner, photographer and cinematographer at killer creations. He is a self described lover of all things Italian. And Mike has figured out a way to combine his love of travel with his very successful business killer creations. They go around the world, but they specialize in Illinois, California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. Tune in today to hear about Mike's story, how he started his business, and even more importantly, how he keeps growing his business. As a Catholic farm girl in Minnesota, I certainly never expected to ever be the Jewish party Maven, but 4400 parties and 26 years later, I am indeed an expert at Jewish party. I am fiercely committed to help him the best vendors book more parties in this amazing, lucrative and incredibly loyal Jewish party market. Let's go. Hello there, Mike. How are you? Hey, Pat. Good morning. Good to see ya. Oh, my gosh, I haven't seen you in ages. You got the new look going. It's been a year since I've seen you. I know. It's been crazy. I know. It's great to see you. I feel like it's been too long. And then thanks for noticing the beard. It's definitely grown out. I think there's a lot more gray in here then. Yeah, telling me that it was a year ago. But hey, it's been you know, it's been around like a year to definitely learn and grow. So thanks, man, what you have been doing this year? Have you been busy, we've been busy. So this year kind of is starting to feel a little bit more more like we're returning to normal. So last year, everyone knows, you know exactly what happened. It just stopped brakes hit. And nothing happened from March, April, May, June, July, August, we kind of did some smaller backyard events, which were great real, real small events. Sometimes I was one of eight people, you know. So you're you get this really cool, immersive experience. And then you're capturing these emotions and these connections that you might not be able to get on an actual wedding day where you have 600 people so raised to doing huge events. So it was a really nice change to do some of these smaller events. So we did that we kind of switched over and did a little bit more of the corporate world. So we've been doing a lot of smaller commercial things, which are nice, but those also happened during the week. So we had weekends pretty much wide open for a huge sweep of that summertime, which hasn't happened in 15 years for me, which was crazy. Exactly. It's such a weird thing to have Saturday's open. And yeah, I don't want to get used to that. I love working Saturdays. Yeah, I love it too. For a while it's like, Huh, you know, maybe I'll just become a greeter at Walmart, I'll work Monday, weekends open. But that didn't happen. But I did really spend a lot of time with my family. So I have three kids under seven. So my daughter is six, my middle son's four, and then I have an almost two year old so I get to spend a lot of time with them and my wife at home, which is really cool. So we did some smaller trips in and around Michigan, and hung out, you know, as a family group and really got to grow together. So that was the bonus. The huge, you know, diamond in the rough was that all that family time, and then a lot of personal growth stuff too. So you kind of panic for a little bit. And then you get over that and you're like, Okay, now what am I going to do so? So what are you doing to develop your business, developing the business. So we, you know, we always say we have, you know, when we're busy in the middle of the wedding season, you say there's not enough time to really work on the business, you're just working in it. And so we didn't have some more time to work on the business. Obviously, we had to put out a lot of fires, we moved more than 74 events, I think that took a lot of time pushing them from, you know, one year to next, sometimes to the next and then even to the you know, to 2023 we have people Move, move, move, move. So we're doing that. But then once that settled down, we had some time to do not necessarily rebranding but just kind of approach how we're going to be dealing with our brides and grooms again. So, you know, we get past this busy and we want to figure out how we can serve them once we're back into the real world so to speak. So how can we serve them best? What processes can we put in place now that there's time to read? You know, revisit that conversation so that while they're were connecting to go through the timeline where you know shooting the day of we're following up afterwards, we're going through the album's and the final video processes and all that how can we best serve them so we really focused on that and As a team, the backup a little bit tell us what you do. What do I do? So we do photography and cinematography, both in the wedding and event world. We've been doing it for over I think we're going on 12 years now under the killer creations name. And then I've been doing it where and so Yeah, good question started in Michigan. So I'm originally from Michigan. I live Royal Oak area our studios here in Clawson. But we kind of grew from there. We're out in LA in San Francisco and in San Diego, Montana. Pacific Northwest, we have Seattle, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Yeah. And then we do a lot in Detroit. And then in Chicago is kind of like just a hop away on northern Michigan's braid. So we ended up out west, because a good friend of mine who I happen to just sit next to one day in church, you know, you say hello, you stand up. And then you ever see that person again. He was in the video, I was in the photo, this was more than this was like, you know, 12 years ago or more. We kind of grew the business together, him and another. So that'd be Jason, we have Mike Hubert, and we kind of grew this up together, Jason unfortunately moved out west, where his family's from, or his wife's family. And then, you know, we had a little bit of downtime, where like, Oh, we missed working together. So we brought the company out there. So that's kind of how we started digging into those things. And we've had great contacts throughout those other markets as well. So it sounds like we're this huge business, but we do a lot of the traveling ourselves, which is great. So you know, we'll get to do you know, I was in, I'll be in New York, in a bit in three weeks, in two weeks, I'll be in San Jose, I was in Utah at the fall. So there's a lot of really cool kids, we get to go which you know, help tell our story. So that's what we do. We tell, you know, a couple of stories through photography and videography, not only here in Michigan, but you know, anywhere else Fingers crossed, we'll be looking at Orlando next. So how do you find a new? How do you determine this is a market I want to be? So I'll use Orlando as the next one. Because we have all those others, they work out. So we either we've either been there we'd have family there, we know the area? Well, we have friends there. So it's not just kind of picking a spot arbitrarily and saying, All right, let's just kind of dive in here. So we will, you know, kind of do a soft test, see if we can, you know, get anything. So will we reach out to people like yourself to people who are already in the industry dug in in that area and say, Hey, this is what we do. Looks like you do an amazing job and you love it as much as we do. We're thinking to come into that area. Is it worth it? Are they friendly to us? They're like, Oh, we don't want anymore? Yeah, totally. Because we really just love working with people, whether it's our brides and grooms or the other vendors on site, we're all there to, you know, to work for the couple. And if you're not doing it as a team, you know, I guess they'll be there or it's no fun. So but yeah, so we've I picked Florida because I have cousins there. Orlando is one of the best spots for wedding photography in in the state. They have the year round traffic going there. But but then for us in Michigan, you know, we slow down, we do some winter weddings. But November, December, January, February, it's pretty sparse. But that's when things are picking up in Florida. So I actually had a chance to do a wedding. The end of February in Orlando, it was amazing. It was 80 degrees. And then that's when we're like, okay, we're gonna try this so connected with my family, and who should I reach out to? And then some we're kind of trying to soft launch and it's a two hour flight. So you know, cool, awesome. So tell me how it works. When you go off premise. Do you haul all of your equipment from here? Yeah, so um, depends where we're going. So if a couple of us are traveling, it's not too bad. So we'll kind of bring half in half, we have a pretty small streamline kit, you know, if we're doing like a bigger production, it's it's harder. We did a really cool production shoot for like a TV show pilot out in San Jose a couple, maybe two months ago, we needed to rent everything we brought as much as we could, but we need to trucks load, you know truckloads of things to do that. So in that case, we're renting most of the time, like I'll be in San Jose again for wedding. I'm bringing in like my gorilla gear. So I have a roller bag of cameras that I packed some socks and underwear in there pretty much wear what I'm gonna wear the whole weekend and throw a backpack on the back with a change of clothes and then that's what I'm bringing in and we can survive the weekend with that so I don't need everything. I can kind of pare down my kit but you know, I don't I don't like to check anything because I I've had people lose things flying in usually flying the day or two before but if you fly him I've flown in on the day. For like an engagement session. We're supposed to meet at the beach at sunset and They lose your luggage. You know. So I'll have like, I always bring the basics with me. But I had like this whole setup for, you know, lighting for the sunset never began when I check anything unless I know I'm not using it for the next two days, so Wow. Okay, well, I bet you have some awesome stories. Well, my company is called the Jewish party Maven. And we've had the great pleasure of working with you as the red coat ladies over the years, and you do such incredible stuff. And I know you don't do specifically Jewish, but I mean, you do an amazing job of Jewish parties. But you don't, that's not your forte, you specialize in all kinds of wedding. So how do you learn what's important to your clients? How do you have the confidence to say, Yep, I can do an Indian wedding? Yep, I can do a Greek Wedding. Yeah, I think, you know, it's really all about listening to what the client has to say, you know, listening to what they have. So it depends whether it's a Jewish wedding in any wedding, a Greek Wedding, Middle Eastern wedding, an Italian wedding, you know, just sort of depends where they're at on that tradition spectrum, sometimes they're very traditional, and they have all of the things that are going to happen. And then sometimes they're like, we're just gonna do one or two, you know, it's really important to our parents, but for us, so you have to listen to that and not expect, you know, one or the other. And then really just kind of asking questions. So first of all, they'll kind of give you their vision, and then I'll dig in and be like, Alright, so we've done a lot of events, either at your location that would seemingly be similar to yours. But tell me the specifics. What are you going to do? What's the surprise, you're going to pull out at the ceremony? Or at the reception? Are there any other traditions that are beyond the scope of what you would consider normal? For me, you know, just to be prepared. So the timeline is really important for us. So we know when to be where, and if any of those additional traditions go and kind of say, this is what I would expect. What do you guys have planned above and beyond that, and tell me if I'm right, or I'm wrong, because sometimes we've even done events where you have the same family, but then there's influences from, you know, maybe the bright side on this side of the room, side and that side, and now traditions kind of skew in a different different way, even though they're playing? Oh, no, it's exactly the same as me like, wait a minute, it's not the same at all. So I guess, just listening to what they have. If you do have questions, ask them. I always like to say it's better when everyone knows the rules ahead of time and time of just instead of just guessing at him, you know, the day of or whatever, even things like what are you aware? Right? Yeah, what outfits are you gonna wear? How many times are you changing? You know? No, I mean, what are you as a professional? Yeah, what should we be wearing? Right? Do you need to be in black tie? It should? Are there certain colors you should avoid? Is there something that? Yeah, yeah, no, I just finally get to dress up. I haven't done you know, usually, I'm wearing either a black tie, or just, you know, something like this. So, but I haven't gotten to wear anything super crazy yet. Okay, so are there times when you worked? Because this again, is the Jewish party Maven, Are there times when you've worked a Jewish party, where you thought, Oh, my gosh, I wish I'd have known that beforehand. Yeah, I guess so earlier in our, you know, in our, you know, career path, when we were starting out, we wouldn't ask all those questions. So you learn from making mistakes, or you learn from other things. A lot of times, and I know I've even asked you questions, like we're doing this event, this is what I'm expecting, you know, cuz now not all the time, do you have the chance to connect with the bride and groom as you would like, they're busy, they live out of town. They're both doctors in the residency, whatever it might be, you can't get all the details. So we connect with people like yourself that know all the details that have dotted the i's and cross the T's to say, Okay, this is what we're expecting, what should What should we be, you know, looking for, or what are we missing? So, I guess that would be the best answer. And then also, you know, on, I guess we've had in the early days, we would just have people say, Hey, we want you for X amount of hours, just show up and get whatever and then go home at the end of the you know, the coverage and that's like the worst way to possibly do it. But every once a while you get someone like that we've learned that's never the way we approach anything anymore. Because you're gonna miss something or something's gonna happen that even they didn't know a lot of times we'll have things that the bride and groom might not have any have even expected because it's a tradition tradition that mom and dad put in there or something that's for grandma and grandpa. So if the whole family is available, or on an email chain, or whatever it is, I generally will say, hey, if there's any secrets or traditions that are out there, just email me independently so that you don't spoil it, but I want to know what's happening and how we can best serve you get, sir. Well, I focused on training all kinds of vendors. And so we watched a lot of things happen. I had a party several years ago now, thankfully, where the party was at a kosher venue and the Fatah First assistant brought a sandwich. And it happened to be a ham and cheese sandwich. Yeah, big oops, it caused a huge bunch of tumbled and almost ended the day for that photographer and his crew. But we worked it out. But those kinds of things you just don't know to ask. And so it's important to ask a lot of questions. It's important to understand traditions. And that's what this whole Jewish Party Movement was about. We want to focus on teaching vendors how to do their very best job for these clients. And you mentioned that earlier, it's all about what's important to the client. And right, we love happy clients. And we're all in this business, because we want to make those clients happy. And one way we can make them happy is by honoring their traditions. And that's what this is focused on. Tell me about this other thing you got going the event guys, the event guy, so that's the secret. Yeah, so everyone's asking about that. So Derek, from he three Detroit and Dan Rafferty band, and then Nicolas, from the leasing experience, and I had kind of just always been criss crossing at events. We've known each other for years and years now, Derek, actually 10 years ago. 180 days from now, it did my my wedding. So he was there as the entertainment and the band for my event. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so and I was lucky enough to fill in his wedding. Nicholas's wedding as well. So we kind of just have a good mutual respect for each other and what we do, and they approach the business and are enthusiastic for personal growth, business growth, and all that. So that brought us to this idea of just like, we'd have these like mastermind sessions, like, how do you do this? What do you deal with when this happens? And then kind of figure like, Okay, how can we share this. So similar to what we're doing right now, we'd be zooming, we'd be meeting up, we'd be, you know, going grabbing a coffee or a drink. And then we said, let's, let's create something that we can share. So it's a similar idea, we're kicking off the podcast soon. So hopefully, you guys can hear a little bit about that, we'd love to have you on as a guest as well, to grill you with all these questions. But it's really about, you know, hopefully offering something to our listeners that could help them grow the business, learn something new people with an entrepreneurial mindset, you know, overcoming these hurdles. So as a business owner, as you know, you don't just wear you know, the hat of organizer, photographer, you know, decorator, whatever it might be, you also then have to, you know, lead your, your crew, you have to motivate them, you have to teach them the various traditions that they need to know to be on site to better the clients, and all that. So that's kind of you know, how we came together with this idea, the event guys, with the name came out. And that's what stuck with me. And it's kind of fun. So we've had some great guests so far. And no, it's a podcast, it will be a podcast. And right before the shutdown, we did what we were planning on doing were like, kind of quarterly events. So we did the event at the fifth in, no, I have no VI, there is going to be just a chance to you know, to get together to mingle almost networking with more of a an exciting, fun spin on it, just to get us together. Because we work so hard. It's fun to play a little bit, too. So that was the idea behind it. But I would say pretty much every day, if not 10 times a day, the three of us are chatting or, you know, connecting just that, you know, inspiration going. So is that a business you intend to monetize? And we'll see what happens right now. It's just the chance for us to connect and share some of the things we've learned, connect with others and hopefully learn, you know, from them as well. And then just, you know, see what happens. So, you know, it's always great to monetize something, if not, we're really enjoying this kind of doing it. And I guess, you know, we started out saying, Hey, you know, it's cool, we'll have this, this podcast, and it can promote some of the stuff we're doing. But the inverse with that we've already learned is even cooler, is that we're getting so much information from our guests that we're growing, we're learning and it's just been really insightful and inspiring us just to have these amazing guests out and then go from there. Very cool. So you do all I mean, as a party manager, I'm not so incredibly concerned about the quality of the video or the quality of the sound. But you guys, that must be a whole different animal when you have a cinematographer and a sound guy and a music guy. Yeah. Derek at his place had built out a pretty awesome studio, which you'll see we have been happy to have you guys in there. So you know, I'm dealing with the lighting. And Derek and Nicolas are worried about the sound and the audio and then I'm dealing with editing again. So it's kind of fun. So I guess the one wrench it throws in there is like we try to get it to perfect and things haven't come out yet because we're like, oh, let's change this. Let's update this. Let's do that. Now we're like, okay, it's really Just about getting the information out there. So stay tuned. And very shortly we'll have the first couple episodes coming out. Somebody just recently said, If you wait until it's perfect, you waited too long. Yeah, I agree completely. And we're learning. You're not totally embarrassed of your first podcast, you waited too long. Right? I always like every time I see myself on camera. When I see myself on this, too, I'll be like, Oh, man, I just you do things you don't really notice that you do until you're, you're scrutinizing yourself, but hopefully, nobody notices all my weird tics. Oh, that's so funny. Well, you always do an amazing job of understanding what's going on and seeing the big picture. And I love working with you for that reason. But tell me about how you learn. Are you a visual learner? Are you a podcast learner? Are you a book learner? How do you I say, I think I'm a cross between a visual learner and a book learner. One of my big goals every year I you know, like most people, the I like, okay, 2020 ones come on, what are the goals? Let's write these things down. I have a goal of reading 100 books this year, and I'm around, give or take 10 a month. That's my goal. So I'm going to go over I think wedding season gets here, it will slow me down a little bit. But I've been reading some amazing books about whether it's personal growth, health, longevity, business service, all of that. So I learned from kind of getting that information, getting excited about it, and then you know, sharing it with someone. So tell us your favorite books, books. Um, so there are a couple that like, sometimes I'll find an author I love and I'll dive into them like crazy. So there's there's one I'm reading right now is this really nutty? Dude, who I actually love. His name is Wim Hoff. It's kind of a Are you familiar with him? The Wim Hof Method? Yeah, so cool training. So I've been doing that. And it's really it's really cool. It's, it's, I like, kind of these crazy challenges. So I read a couple of his his books. And just kind of what he stumbled across accidentally and found through the cool training and through the breathing is really interesting. me so kind of brings a lot of these different things from my past together. I used to do martial arts as that, you know, so through that, and meditating and breathing. So now this is just, you know, let's add cold to that and see what happens. But are you doing cold showers? are you jumping in the lake somewhere. So both cold showers every day, and then my parents live on a lake. So I jumped in on Christmas, I'm freezing cold, it was snowing, which is great. And then every once in a while when we're out there, I'll jump in there. But if I'm not able to do that, it's always a cold shower every day and then the breathing. So that's kind of like the health the health corner I'm on. I've been reading some books. So there's Tony Robbins, there's I can pull up a list. I'm going to pull up my list real quick here because I'm going through my crazy. Are you a podcast person too? Do you have I you know, it being a podcast or now myself, I'm trying to get into podcasting more, but I just have such a long list of books that I'm not always you know, listen to podcasts because I'm either reading or listening to these audio books. So I kind of have a whole recommendation from Derek from Nicholas or some other friends. So if you have some I'm happy to to add those to the list because I got to get these done. And then I jumped back into that. I find that I read for pleasure. But I don't read for business very often. But I like to listen to audiobooks for business. And I spend a lot of time driving so I listen to audiobooks when I'm driving. So who are you listening to? I just listened for the second time to Gino wickman traction. Yeah, I think his book is fabulous and profit first. I listened to that again and Mike mccalla Wits does a really cool job of doing things differently than other people do. And I appreciate that. Because I'm a very much out of the box kind of girl and my family's out of the box family and, and his whole way of looking at your business profit is different than anyone I've run across before. I have an accounting background. And it's very different to hear somebody say All my life I've been taught to take your sales minus your expenses, what you have left is profit. He says that's totally wrong. And you will never have a profit if you do that. Interesting. He says take your sales minus your profit. And what you have left you will figure out how to deal with in terms of that's all you have to do for expenses. And if you need to cut expenses, you'll figure it out quickly that way. And you know what? I think he's right, right. He gives an analogy when you have a whole tube of toothpaste you spit out a whole tube of toothpaste. And if it drops in the sink, big deal you put on another one. But when it gets down to the end of that tube, you're squeezing and twisted. And you can make do with a whole bunch. And that's the way he looks at business expenses. And yeah, well that's I mean, that's super timely now for kind of what we've been going through. Because of the this, the toothpaste tube has been squeezed very tightly this last year here, and I'm lucky enough that I work out of my house, and I don't have a lot of expenses. But I know you have this big, beautiful studio, that's just fabulous. And you have a lot of equipment expenses. So yeah, unfortunately, I mean, I'm always I'm like, I'll keep things as long as possible until we buy it. My my business partner is always about the gear we want to upgrade this year, and like, Let's wait six more years, we don't need to upgrade, you know, and then we kind of back and forth. So in the studio, you know, studio was a big step for us. We had been in a really cool blessing cube kind of we were renting for a while in Royal Oak and pointing that way and downtown Royal Oak. Um, somebody bought the building we were renting and just was not the best landlord. So things would change weekly, monthly, and whenever we're like, Okay, so we're gonna move, so we look to rent, to rent to rent to rent, and then this building became available for sale, and with a down payment, the No, no monthly afterwards, it was cheaper to get a building and do it. So we ended up doing that. And it was it was kind of one of those big things where I was like, 10 years from now I'll be able to do this. And then it happened in two years. So you know, some of these books that I've been reading, like, it's I think it's so crazy how this happens. It's happened so many times in my life, when you focus on something so intensely, it's literally the only thing you do, and it's a laser, and it just happens way faster than you think it could or would. And I wouldn't even credit myself for it. But just thinking about is the only thing I thought about because we literally had to get out of there at a certain date. And by that date, we had found this place. So sidetrack but yeah, it's amazing how that works, that I listened to Amy Porterfield a lot. And I love her teaching style. And I love her detail in what she does. And she's very systematic about how her approach to things and one of the things she makes you do is write down a list of five things as if they already happened by outrageous goals as if they already happened. And yet, it is interesting how your mind works that way. So what are some of your big outrageous goals? Well, I'm working on Jewish party, Maven, and I, my goal is to help 1000s of vendors be better vendors in this Jewish world. And I still have the red coat ladies. And I love the red gold ladies, and I love working these parties. But I watch people who are terrific vendors not give their best to our clients because they don't know better. So my big outrageous goals are to help all kinds of vendors with the Jewish party Maven, make a bunch of money doing it, and live wherever I want to live. I have a goal that someday I'm going to be a nomad and live with my computer and run my company from anywhere. I was supposed to go to Portugal this February, and I was not able to go there because of COVID. Right going there in December, and I'll spend several weeks there and I love to explore. I like no new new try something different. Nice. My family often criticizes me and says okay, if you want to, I mean, they'll say can we go to dinner? Okay, where should we go? Well, sorry, we've already been there. No. Yeah, but it was really good. Can we go back? Sure. When I've been to all the other restaurants. And once I get to all the other ones, and we can do it. I love it. Yeah. And so that's exciting. But how about you? Do you have advice for people who want to break into this photography cinema market? What advice would you have for someone whose goal is to become like Purina become Don't be Mike Marino, that's number one. You lose your hair really quick, and you go gray. But I guess the best advice, you know, never stopped rowing. You know, earlier, I guess it kind of in everyone's career, you kind of get to this plateau. And then you're like, what else is there to learn? Where else am I going? What else can I do? Am I even you know, you have like a mid career crisis almost, or whatever you want to call it. I have one of those every couple years, like what am I doing with my life, and then you kind of you find another another mountain to climb and it's whether it's improving your skills as a photographer, improving your skills. Now also photography can break down to hundreds of things, it can be lighting, it can be posing, it can be you know, shooting, it can be editing, and then then you have the business side of things kind of in that pie chart. always improving on every one of those bits that go in there because if one of those, you look at it as a wheel, it's not going to turn very fast but we have great photography skills and no business skills or people skills by near horror like you're, you're you're saying if you don't know the traditions or The, you know what your clients are expecting? You're not going to be able to serve them? Well, you might be great in the art, but without the service, you're not going to get very far. So I don't know if I have any superpower, first Jewish? What's that? How did you get your first ever Jewish party? How do we get it? Um, I think that that wasn't because they're like we saw you had a bunch of Jewish events. It was we saw you work. We liked it. It's different. Have you done any Jewish events? And so I grew up in the event industry. So I had done all sorts of events that my dad was used to be an owner at Laurier rostering Entertainment. So really, yes. So I literally been to every kind of event you can think of, for the last, you know, 30 years, everything from being a mascot to being a cotton candy maker to being a blackjack dealer to being who knows what it is, I've done it all get a call, you know, day before, like, Hey, we need an extra this or that? Okay? I mean, don't do it. So, you know, so we fast forward years later, I was talking to her now, hey, we like your work? Have you done any Jewish events? I've been to lots of them, but as a photographer, and then so we kind of like, well, that's fine, we're cool with that, you know, we're gonna explain some of our traditions what we expect? And then so that's kind of how we open it up, or like, I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know, everything I should know. So fill me in here. What do you guys need covered? What do you want? You know, there's always I always say, there's two lists, you have your list of wants and your list of needs, you always have to get everything on the list of needs, no matter what the list of wants is kind of that icing on top, you know, the cherry on top of the icing or whatever it is. So, and you want to go above and beyond that. So you want to hit the wants and the needs in the day didn't even think of but without having, you know, essentially the rules out in front of you. You don't know what what the game is. So we chatted, I don't know, this may be 10 years ago now. And they're like, I said, Okay, so we're gonna do that, you know, this is the ketubah signing. And this is how we do it. And this is how you know, our family kind of where our family expects, you know, and then we're gonna do portraits over here. Because, you know, when we did last time, that's how we did it. And we wanted the exact same thing. So we can hang it up next to the other ones, so they look similar, and then just kind of walk through it. And then, you know, years later, I know that I've encountered you on a number of events as well. And I was probably, you know, like, what do I do what's happening next, you know, because even though you have a plan, certain things can either, you know, pop up out of nowhere, like you said earlier. So, you know, through the years, I've learned a lot from you, as well, you know, as a rental lady, before the party maybe even existed, but you've always been in there teaching us. So I appreciate. But again, our goals are similar, our goal is to do the best job for the client. And that comes through in the work that you do all the time. And I hope it comes through in the work that I do, because I'm not the caterer I'm not the DJ, I'm not the photographer. But I want those vendors to do their very best job, and they can't do it without an understanding of what's going on. And so yeah, I think you helped bring all of those pieces together at the events that you're at, for sure. Because you know, you you have, you have a lot of hats in a wedding, you're dealing with all of those other people. Whereas a photographer on generally, I might be dealing with you and then the bride and groom, and then maybe the the DJ or the band, but you know, I have four spokes where you're dealing with, you know, a lot of them, and then you bring them together, making sure that people are, you know, not being crazy, and then they're not eating ham sandwiches when they shouldn't be. So I won't bring any ham sandwiches in any future events? No, I appreciate that. You're not bringing them to Jewish events, at least. Other events, it's totally acceptable. That's another one of those things where just understanding basic customs is huge. And so I know that you work hard to learn all kinds of things. And I appreciate that. And I'm always learning from every party. There's something new at every party, and I love learning from vendors. And I go to some photographers, and they have no idea how to set things up. And I find myself channeling my inner Okay, what would Mike say that that. And now he says to stand this way, okay, put your shoulder back, but you have bags to put your weight on when they go. And you have all these amazing things that you're good at that you just take for granted. And it's wonderful that you are going to do this event guys, Detroit and share some of that knowledge with the community. And I look forward to seeing some of those things come out and hearing them on podcasts, or your podcast, visual podcast. They're gonna be both Yeah. So we'll have audio component, the visual component, and then some of the main keys will be broken down and kind of like shareable or something. Yeah, good. All social media. So let's talk about social media. What's your favorite social media platform? I am the worst person talking about social media, but I know I should be doing it. I don't. We're kind of that's one of the things we had. Well, we were Working on the business like, Okay, what can we do because I don't have the discipline or the need to want to post post post post. But what has worked well for us when we do post regularly is Instagram, we a lot of people, we don't have a huge following at all, you know, maybe, almost 2000, we have a video, a video on a photo one, and they're separate. We're thinking to bring them back. But we do some boosts. And we do things like that. And we get people finding us on Instagram, I always think it's crazy that people find us and we don't do a lot of the things you're supposed to, you're supposed to do SEO, yes, all this and we have the basics covered. And you're supposed to post 10,000 times a day, and all this stuff. And we kind of do the basics and, and it happens. But I think a lot of our business does come from word of mouth, from all the other vendors we've worked with over time, which we're super thankful for. And we, you know, we work hard to recommend everyone we love working with as well. But I'd say Instagram is kind of my favorite right now just because it's it's really easily approachable. But you know, there's a lot of downsides to it, too. If you just turn into scrolling instead of you know, on the other side, pushing, pushing stuff out there is great and easy. But then sometimes you get sucked into consuming too much of it. I have had a personal Facebook page for years. And my personal Facebook page turns into my business Facebook page, because my clients call me by name. And so I generally post almost nothing personal. And I post only business things and it's, it's a challenge. Yeah, it's kind of the same for me, I'll have the you have the, hey, here's an event we just shot. So we have our business one, but then it also goes on to mine. And then if you look at my feet, it's like 90% weddings. And then then it's also my daughter's birthday. You know, like that's Oh, sorry, Rosie. But you know, I don't think I need to share as much of my family stuff on social media, or me I see it more as a business, you know, business minded setup. Well, that's awesome. Well, if people want to get a hold of killer creations, where should they find you? What's the best way to reach out to get your services, the best way so you can give us a call, or check out our website. It's killer creations. dotnet and we're still dotnet after 12 years of doing this the.com somebody else bought. And it's like $10,000 to buy like, Yeah, I don't know. So, people, here's a quick funny thing. So, to all the naysayers, when we start a business, we couldn't, we couldn't you can't have a wedding company that has the word killer in it. And if you're not a.com no one's gonna find you. And we're still alive, you know, more than 10 years later with killer dotnet. So what were our killer creations dotnet you can get a hold of us through their email is great, give us a call, we'd love to chat. We love to host our couples in the studio. So we're here. And we're going to set up the you know, the couple sitting there when you sit near going over work in India albums, the checkout, things like that. So there's a lot of personal touch to it. The whole COVID thing obviously put a put a little bit of a stop to that so Zoo mortals have been working well for us. But you know, we love to love to meet up and to get a couple years because then you can really have a feel like a little bit more of a get to know you. Yeah, we already know each other. But if we just met over zoom, it's a little more formal. So I like to have you know, have a coffee. Have an espresso with with a couples that come in and go from there. So come on down and visit us here or get in touch via email. Okay, and I will post your email in the show notes so that people can find it. But killer creations dotnet finger Yeah, info at killer creations. dotnet is the email and then we'll get back here. Super quick. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Mike for joining us today. It's always a pleasure working with you and I appreciate your sharing your world with us. I I know you're doing great things and the three of you guys were getting together doing that. Detroit event no event guys, Detroit right event. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Three Amigos powerhouse. Yep. Let's try something goes. So yeah. So thanks so much for having me. It was great to hang out and chat and connect a little bit and to see a smiling face. I know a lot of times I'm just sitting here behind the computer these days. So it's fun to connect, even if we're doing it over, or zoom. So hopefully you get to do some traveling before I see you next time because I know you're itching to get out there too. So, indeed. Thank you very much. You heard it here. never stopped growing. That was Mike parados quote and one I firmly believe in. He mentioned some of his favorite books, and they can all be found in the show notes at Jewish party Maven slash 15. Peter Drucker said it a little differently when he said Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. So, what are your courageous decisions going to be? What are your big outrageous goals? I want to hear from you send an email to Pat at Jewish party Maven. I really enjoyed catching up with my credo today, and I hope that you learned some things. But that's just the start. Hopefully you learned something from this amazing entrepreneur that you can go out and apply to your own business. Thank you for listening. see you right back here next Wednesday. At the book more weddings podcast, with the Jewish party Maven herself. Pat Blackwell.