Cap Region Creatives in Quarantine: Konrad Odhiambo

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4 years ago

Creatives in Quarantine is a segment that highlights creative professionals across the Capital Region during this period of isolation due to COVID-19. We have developed some questions that will allow our community to share experiences and learn from one another during this time.

Allow us to introduce our first feature, Konrad Odhiambo.

How are you coping with this new reality?

Now that most of us are stuck at home with possibly no income, times are tough. But we can use these times to our ‘advantage’ and do things we normally wouldn’t do or don’t have time for. I have been finding time to work on self improvement and find a balance between family and work. Looking at relationships between friends, parents and siblings and making sure no one feels left behind.

Have you started adapting and/or innovating your business model to operate under these conditions? Please explain.

Lots of us are super busy and often don’t have time to update our website. Now we do! Basic stuff like updating my site with most recent work and in general, make my website look good for potential future clients.

How have you seen the local creative community band together to support one another?

I’ve seen the community come together and do virtual meet ups as we normally would in person. There is a lot more communication happening online and people checking up on each other. The Power Breakfast Club has been holding its meetings online and using Zoom Cloud Meetings to keep the engagement going. I’ve seen the 10 push up challenge where friends challenge each other to stay fit while indoors.

Are you thinking about ways that you’ll change the way you do business in the future?

For my business, I’ll be working on improving my internal processes when it comes to client acquisition, booking and follow up after the fact. In these times I’d like to start offering more tangible options such as albums, prints and gifts cards to keep a positive cashflow.

For printing, my online gallery has a direct link to my vendor. Once orders are placed, my printer will drop ship the order directly to my clients. Vendors include White House Custom Color and Nations Photo Lab.

Do you see any long term changes to the way people work coming out of this situation?

I believe it’s essential to start planning long term and make sure you have a six month safety net in case anything happens. Now more than ever creatives who solely rely on one stream of income will have to diversify and have multiple sources of income.

Now is a great time to sharpen your skills. There are plenty of tutorials online that you can use to improve your workflow in shooting and editing. With all the extra time, now is a good time for self improvement. I’d like to participate in tutorials geared toward post production and financial planning.

Get in touch with Konrad: