60 Seconds with Sharon Cosgrove Photography

Tuesday 26 July 2022

Tell us about your business and your role within.
I am a professional food and drinks photographer and run a studio in Saintfield, Co Down. I help businesses showcase their product and its provenance, using my skills to tell a visual story. I love to work with clients directly helping to bring together their vision from start to finish. I shoot, edit and manage the business daily myself. This year I have been shortlisted for Creative Entrepreneur of the Year for the Scotland and Northern Ireland region which I'm very excited about.

Share a brief overview of your career journey to date.
After a decade as a professional photographer shooting portraits, jewellery and products, I decided to combine my skills with my other passion and started shooting food. I set up a website and began a blog about what I was shooting. That expanded to an Instagram account where my images reached a wider audience and eventually, I was getting requests to shoot for local businesses. As I got more confident, I decided to make things official and launched the business in 2018 under the name Sharon Cosgrove Photography.

What aspect of the Yes You Can Programme did you take part in?
I took part in Yes You Can Imagine It Programme as a start-up looking for advice and support in how to make my business successful.

Why did you decide to get involved in Yes You Can?
I knew Women in Business was a great community to be a part of, especially as a start-up business and someone who knew little about the mechanics of running a business. Yes You Can was the perfect fit.

How was the Yes You Can experience?
Overall, it has changed the course of my business. I met some amazing women entrepreneurs, a lot of whom I'm still in touch with. The mentors and course directors were incredible at delivering everything we needed to know in a straight to the point, uncomplicated format and the guest speakers were inspirational.

Which skills or experiences from the programme helped most in your business?
Learning how to structure my business and identify my audience were very key to the early stages of my business. Advice on accounts and business banking were also a great help and who to go for things like investment or funding.

What is your advice to those who are thinking of applying?
Don't think twice! It's crucial to get the right information and support. Yes You Can is a great way to introduce yourself to a way of working that will stand by you and your business.

How can we keep up to date on your business journey?
You can keep update with Sharon on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and her website.

The next Yes You Can Programme will be launching in Sept 2022. Click here to find out more.

Tuesday 26 July 2022