I'm excited to welcome internationally awarded professional photographer, re-toucher and digital artist Antti Karppinen from Finland to the show.  Although from Finland, Antti recently moved to the UK. In this interview, discover what it takes to achieve success as a photography business start up in a new country.

It's a question every guest is asked on the show – what would you do if moving to a new country, knowing what you do right now. It's one of the most revealing and helpful answers to listeners and today we have a real life example in Antti. His story of success will amaze and surprise you. The “ripple effect” of his chance meetings took him to heights you'd never expect.

He says on his website – I belong to a new generation of image artisans, to whom all things are possible. I create complex visual concepts and images with unlimited imagination. And it's that outlook and his skills that recently won Antti a bronze World Cup Medal in photography! It's that same outlook that gives him the confidence to go after what he wants in the photography world – the guy is a true inspiration and a sign of what any of us can achieve.

Here’s some of what we cover:

  • Where Antti is making money in photography
  • Antti's business structure and how it differs from the ‘normal' photographer
  • Why Antti left Finland for the UK
  • What business preparations Antti made before arriving in the UK
  • How long it took Antti to get his first clients after relocating
  • The importance of setting goals and structure for your photography business
  • Why Antti takes his printed portfolio everywhere he goes
  • The importance of setting up in person meetings with prospective clients
  • Meet as many people as possible – the best strategy to grow your photography business
  • Why a printed photographic portfolio will book you more work everytime
  • How to leave a lasting impression on future clients
  • Photography pricing
  • Image rights, copyright and usage rights for commercial photography projects
  • How to handle client budgets

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

What’s on Offer for Premium Members

If you’re a premium member, you should have received an email with links to your version of this episode where you can hear lots more content from where we dive deeper into some of the earlier topics plus some new ones that I pushed hard for that include:

  • Why Antti continues to work on personal projects
  • Using social media to get the attention prospective clients
  • How Antti managed to work for the BBC
  • The importance of pushing yourself to places where your ideal clients are
  • Always consider the ripple effect of your actions
  • How Antti's targets a client (no matter how large) and goes after them
  • Personality and confidence always matters in the success of your business
  • Why Antti shifted from portrait to commercial photography
  • How Antti managed the transition from portrait photography to commercial work
  • The importance of setting real price expectations when doing pro-bono work
  • The best thing that Antti has done for his photography business
  • What Antti does to get better at business
  • What Antti could have done better to generate work more quickly when relocating
  • What the World Cup Photography is all about

If you're on the fence about becoming a premium member, join with the $1 trial today and get access to the FULL interview with Mark Condon, get access to an amazing back catalogue of interviews and ALL future interviews delivered automatically to your podcast app.

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

What is your big takeaway?

Following this interview, I’d love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you’d like to implement or learnt from what was shared? Let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.

When there's an element of touch involved on printed paper, it leaves a mark on people's brains – Antti Karpinen

If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you’d like to ask Antti or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them below.

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

iTunes Reviews and Shout-outs

IMG_2196Each week I check for any new iTunes reviews and it's always a buzz to receive these… for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's confirmation that I'm on the right track with the interviews and that they really are helping you improve your photography business. That's awesome!

Secondly, iTunes is the biggest search engine when it comes to podcasts and it's your reviews and ratings that help other photographers find PhotoBizX. More listeners means more interviews and ultimately a better show.

If you have left a review in the past, thank you!

If you haven't and you'd like to, head to https://photobizx.com/itunes and you can leave some honest feedback and a rating which will help both me and the show and I'll be sure to thank you on the show and add a link to your website or blog if you let me know your website URL just like I have with “Adam Joe” below.

Over 100 Separate Workshops

Not an iTunes shootout today but one I want to make anyway – and it kind of fits because we talked so much about Instagram last week.

This one goes out to Adam Joe of Adam Joe Roberts Photography in the UK. Adam is a wedding and portrait photographer who left a comment on one of my IG photos that made my morning! He says:

Catching up with the premium podcasts slowly while working.

Episode 117 with Anna Pumer was easily the best yet. Thank you for allowing me and others to attend 117 (and counting) separate photography workshops for a measly $20 per month. 

It's like we are taking advantage of you every week!

Adam, thanks mate – what you've said about the podcast is the exact dream I had when starting the show over two years ago. My plan was to deliver a workshop every single week that was worth paying for and concentrated on the business of photography for wedding and portrait photographers. So reading your comment drives home the fact I'm actually achieving what I started out to do. Again, thanks.

 

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

Sales Without Shame – Photography Sales Course by Kristen Kalp

Kristen Kalp was our guest a few weeks ago and I shared details about her Sales Without Shame course. After hearing about her strategy to use printed proofs for the sales session (part of the course) I promised to give it a try and have since ordered three lots of proofs and we've completed two sales session using Kristen's strategies – more about them in last weeks episode but the signs are very positive!

Since the interview, I downloaded Kristen's course and there is so much more to it than printed proofs! It's a complete strategy for portrait sales including:

  • Products to sell and show
  • Overcoming and dealing with rejection or resistance to your prices
  • Questions you need to be asking during the session to give your client what they actually want
  •  How to move quickly and completely through the session
  • How to deal with discount hunters
  • How not to give everything away
  • Using incentives to make the sale happen and actually get paid
  • What to do when the decision maker isn't at the session

In addition to the tactics you'll find cheat sheets and forms to use during your sales sessions with everything laid out in order so you don't miss a step.

I've since passed the course onto Linda to follow for this weeks sales sessions. Usually it would be Tenneille but she is heading off on holidays for 6 weeks!

I was also pretty excited to see a complete module for wedding photography too! Topics include selling albums to disc only wedding bookings, selling extra pages to client who have ordered an album and doing it all easily and without fuss.

Honestly, if you're someone who struggles with sales and selling, you give too much away, feel intimidated by some clients or don't feel you're worth what you need to (and want to) charge, have a look at Kristen's course and make use of the $200 saving for the next 3 weeks only.

Here's the link again: Sales Without Shame

KriSten Kalp - Sales Without Shame

Feedback is starting to come in from listeners now using Kristen's course like this from Deb Smith in Australia.

 I have only just started reading the Sales Without Shame course but I've already used a portion of it on one voucher client whose shoot is coming up soon – Deb Smith

I think the real beauty of the course is the easy to follow nature and the just as easy to implement nature of the course. It's all there and laid out in simple steps and Kristen does a fantastic job of answering any questions that seem to pop into your head while working through the material.

As mentioned in last weeks episode, if you do have any questions while completing the course, Kristen is right there for you at brandcamponline@gmail.com.

The Photographers SEO Course is Available This Week!

After months of work and planning and recording, the Photographers SEO Course will be available next week! This is the course I asked Gabriel Machuret to create for PhotoBizX listeners after engaging him to help me with my new website.

I've been looking at the course outline and the content is amazing. What I love most from what I've seen is the videos, over 30 of them are so easy to follow as Gabriel walks us through the exact steps on a real website as he makes changes and optimises the site.

If you want to see your website rise higher through the search engines, know what to prioritise with SEO tasks and not have to be a blogging machine (no photographer I know has time for that, I know I don't), this course will suit you perfectly.

Keep an eye out for an email this week with links to the pre-launch videos to get a better idea of exactly what's included or you can save the URL –  learnphotographyseo.com

Oh, and the course will only be available for 3 days at a super special price, then 7 more days before it's taken down. Gabriel will explain why in the videos but there's a great reason… something about one on one support for 3 months!

SEO Logo 600

The other BIG news about the SEO course is every purchaser of the course will be getting a 20 minute website appraisal by Gabriel! ( I said 10 minutes in the podcast but Gabriel went and added another 10 minutes after recording!) He'll be going over your site and making SEO recommendations so you know exactly where to get started. That is incredible and that appraisal alone is worth more than the cost of the course.

In regard to costs, I've been getting plenty of emails asking. Well, you'll be happy to know the cost is an amazingly low $127! Here's the catch though… That price is only available for 3 days after the launch. After 3 days, the price is going to $199 for 7 days before the course is taken down.

There's a very good reason for the short sales period (think bonus for course attendees) and we need to have numbers finalised to kick things off.

If you want to know more, the 3 pre launch videos are now live and you can see them here: learnphotographyseo.com. The course will be available in a couple days.

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:

Antti Karppinen Website

Alias Creative

Antti Karppinen Photography on Facebook

Antti Karppinen on Twitter

Antti Karppinen on Instagram

Antti Karppinen on Tumblr

Antti Karppinen on Pinterest

Antti's Conceptual Wedding Photography blog

Antti's Steampunk friends for life blog

Rahim Mastafa

Doctor Who

Purple Port

RealSFX

Andrew Minton

Olympic Silver Medalist Jamie Baulch

Call Bruce

Amber Griffin

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

Equipment

Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

Antti Karppinen Photography Podcast

Thank you!

Thank you again for listening to the show and thanks to Antti for being a fantastic and thought provoking guest!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!

Thanks and speak soon

Andrew