Creative Canadian Women: Photographer Darina Kopčok - Generating Quality Client Leads

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This episode is brought to you by Fine Lime Illustrations

Food photographer and photography educator Darina Kopčok joins Melissa for this Creative Canadian Women episode where they discuss how to generate quality client leads for your creative services business OR your product business as well as how to grow your revenue streams by offering education resources to other creative service providers and makers in your niche.

Darina Kopčok is based out of Vancouver and in addition to shooting for food and beverage brands and hospitality clients, she teaches photography at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts. Through her blog Gastrostoria, she offers creative and technical resources to help food photographers and bloggers improve their photography.

In just one year as a food photographer, Darina was able to match her full time corporate income. She did it by investing in her skills and with the help of a photography business coach who got her dialed into her pricing and helped her identify - and connect with - her ideal clients.

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This Episode Is For…

This episode is for those who...

  • creative service providers who struggle to book themselves out

  • creative service providers who are caught in the budget pricing cycle and need to find better paying clients

  • makers and artists who want to investigate B2B (business to business) revenue streams (corporate clients)

  • aren't sure if they need a formal education in their chosen field

  • are considering teaching other creatives in their niche - either with business basics or craft basics

If you just want the links to the resources mentioned in this episode, scroll down to the bottom.

Listen To the Episode

Here’s a link to this week’s episode. You can also listen via the player below or on your favourite podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, and more). Just search for And She Looked Up!

invest in yourself

In this episode we discuss:

All the past guests and current listeners who contributed words of wisdom to this week’s episode

  • Darina’s journey to becoming a food photographer

  • learning in both formal and self-directed environments and the pros and cons of both

  • the art of the story regardless of your medium

  • Darina’s multiple revenue streams in her business: commercial food photography, working as an instructor at a local arts college and coaching and educating food photographers through her own website and the educational products she develops

  • how hiring a photography business coach right out of the gate made a massive impact on her business in the early years

  • the trap of “race to the bottom” pricing

  • the mind mess that is pricing our work

  • how to find the clients who appreciate your worth

  • the importance of researching and networking in your marketing plan to find those high value clients

  • the importance of cold and warm pitching and tailoring your pitches

  • using tools like LinkedIn to help generate leads and do research to create those tailored pitches

  • using tools to track your pitching

  • how LinkedIn can let you demonstrate to potential high value clients what it will be like to work with you

  • the value of creating a company page for your business in LinkedIn

  • the education side of Darina’s business - her formal teaching position but also her education resources (courses and ebooks) and one on one coaching that she provides through her website

  • when a formal education might be the best route and when you don’t need it

  • the importance of reinvesting in yourself and your skills and why it’s so important to continuously hone your creative and business skills

Mentioned In This Episode:

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Podcast Episode, Inspiring WomenMelissa Hartfielcreative enterpreneurshp, S4, business mindset, photography, lead generation, multiple revenue streamsComment