Buxton photographer wins Theo Paphitis award

A Buxton photographer has won an award from Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis.
Buxton photographer Melissa Downhill, whose company Melissa With Love, won a Small Business Sunday award from Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis. Photo contirbuted.Buxton photographer Melissa Downhill, whose company Melissa With Love, won a Small Business Sunday award from Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis. Photo contirbuted.
Buxton photographer Melissa Downhill, whose company Melissa With Love, won a Small Business Sunday award from Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis. Photo contirbuted.

Melissa Downhill has been honoured with one of the entrepreneur’s weekly Small Business Sunday prizes for her portrait and wedding photography company Melissa With Love.

The 32-year-old, of Hallsteads, said: “I have always been a massive fan of Dragon’s Den and I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Theo was always one of my favourite dragons, and I followed him online. I realised he liked to help endorse smaller businesses and saw what an impact it made to them when he did, so I entered by tweeting him about my business and telling him all about it. A year went by, and I had not won, but then I tweeted him at the beginning of January, which is when he picked my business as a winner for that week! I was so happy and overwhelmed that Theo had taken the time to look at my business and give it his personal thumbs up out of 1,500 other people who had tweeted him that week!

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“As a result, I’ve had hundreds of messages from all sorts of businesses who love my work and now follow me online. I had 250 extra followers overnight!

“It’s been good because the boost to my business has been great. I’m just now looking forward to meeting him for the presentation which will be fab!”

The mother-of-two, who has been a photographer for four years, said her best business tip was: “Never give up.”

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