A "FREELENS exclusive":

Apply for a #karpademy annual scholarship worth € 25,000

 

Guido, what is the #karpademy?

My team and I are targeting established photographers who still have room for improvement. We examine creative as well as administrative processes. Positioning, marketing - but also awakening the desire of existing and new customers are our tasks.

 

What exactly can the participants expect?

#karpademy doesn't explain how to photograph weddings to the wedding photographer. We are convinced that we will be able to solve challenges that the photographer himself has already recognized. We are concerned with problems and risks that the photographer himself has not yet recognized or does not see coming. We take care of them together and make sure that his business is well positioned for the future. We are working on how it generates a sphere of activity and crisis-proof additional income. Our goal is to bring this business "to the next level". Personally, I would like to increase the earnings of the existing business by at least 25% per year despite the crisis.

 

That sounds ambitious at first.

It is important that in spite of all creativity, the economic side and profitability are not neglected. A look “from the outside” helps a lot here. Some time ago, I brought Andreas Langensee, an experienced marketing professional of many years, into the team to expand marketing across all channels (offline and especially online). For example, 90% of the photographers are not present with any advertising in the area of ​​online marketing, which is alarming. In the #karpademy we pass this extensive knowledge on to our photographers so that they too can learn how to arouse desires in the best possible way.

 

What do you mean by “arousing desire”?

There has to be a reason why you choose an offer. Interestingly, my customers don't discuss the price with me - at least not in terms of the amount. It's more about whether you can afford my price. The desire here is not aroused by the cheap offer, but by the quality of the offer itself. I was once in a pizzeria and the cheapest pizza cost 17.50 euros, mine even 25 euros. The place was full and the line long. The pizza was awesome. I would go back again and again. Ask?

 

What does a photographer who runs a small studio in the country do and certainly cannot call up a mid four-digit amount for a wedding?

I know this situation very well. Heard a hundred times. So we offer the customer the wedding for a few hundred - the small package. The trick now in step 1 is to make it clear to the customer that the medium or even large package is what they really want. Step 2 are mechanisms to make the large package affordable for the bridal couple. I have a couple of ideas.

 

And do they work?

After all, they work so well that my current deal looks like I will receive half of my fee in the coaching period from the profits from our joint marketing campaigns. And since I am a certified consultant, the other half is heavily subsidized by the state.

 

You award a place for the #karpademy among the FREELENS members.

Correct. I want to set an example and show the FREELENS staff that external advice is valuable. That you have to be open to new things. To learn. Every day.

 

How exactly will it go?

In the practical part, my students and I see each other on two to three, a maximum of four weekends. It's not about teaching the participants how to take photos from scratch. I'm pushing in the right direction - that has worked without exception so far. In addition to optimizing our own portfolio and our own presentation, we are also planning tried and tested marketing measures that go beyond the previous business. Incidentally, I have been offering something like this - portfolio reviews, detailed discussions and customer potential optimization - not just since Corona, but successfully on a daily basis for years, because I do not necessarily have to be on site for this and also on tour or when I'm at home Los Angeles, can do.

 

Optimizing customer potential sounds exciting at first. How can we imagine that concretely?

I have a customer from Magdeburg who mainly addresses business customers. His business has been stable and successful for years, but as so often with “room for improvement”. Together with him, I developed a project that was initially intended to develop the "desirability" I so often cited among business customers. An initially purely representational concept in which potential customers simply want to be part of it - and which opens the direct door of the customer to my student - and gives the chance to prove his range of services. This is not about opening my magic box and BINGO! make the photographer a star overnight. The point here is to use the perspective from the outside and to provide the photographer with a permanent perspective on acquiring new customers

 

What does the financial side usually look like when I book a place in the #karpademy?

I charge a flat rate for my daily coaching sessions - in a way that often a single newly won job is enough for it to pay off. Specifically: if that works in a few hours, the costs are in the hundreds and not in the thousands.

This is different, of course, in the #karpademy annual coaching. Realistically, I would have to calculate fifty thousand euros for that. But: we are currently living under special circumstances, and these justify special measures. To avoid misunderstandings: So if the photographer has been photographing 20 to 30 weddings a year up to now - then this is first and foremost an existing business that I do not want to take away from. I'm only interested in what goes beyond the previous business. And we work out that via Skype or Zoom Session. Marketing spending and costs are paid for, the rest is shared during the coaching time. Any funding during the coaching time goes to me - really what is called win-win, because the student earns money from the first business together - and if he continues to apply what he has learned successfully over the coaching time, all the better for him.

 

Apply now as a FREELENS member for a scholarship:

Please send applications as ONE PDF to freelens@guidokarp.com . In addition to the usual information such as application photo and curriculum vitae, a maximum of 10 photos from your own business and a short description of your current business must be submitted.

The application deadline is June 15, 2021. All applicants will be informed of the decision in writing.