Creatives Grab Coffee - #118 Invest in Marketing, Win on Retention (ft. 17 Projects)

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Rob Arevalo of 17 Projects on launching a video company two months before COVID, marketing with no budget and then with real money, cold calling in New York, government RFPs, toning proposals down for corporate buyers, and why client retention drives growth.Chapters:0:00 Intro1:46 Meet Rob Arevalo and 17 Projects3:13 From the Air Force to launching during COVID6:35 Why keep going when the industry stopped8:13 Corporate clients and the easiest path in10:31 Client retention beats chasing new clients12:59 Systems that keep clients happy as you grow14:38 A two-person core with a deep freelance roster15:57 A thousand cold emails: marketing with no budget18:56 The marketing bets that took 17 Projects full time20:18 How Lapse grew: SEO over paid ads22:40 Evolving the marketing mix year to year24:03 Do mass cold emails still work?27:32 Cold calling in New York29:07 Timing, brand awareness, and staying on the radar32:08 Government contracts and RFPs38:38 What RFPs teach you about proposals39:32 Corporate proposals: make them boring44:24 Expanding to LA, Chicago, and Miami48:54 Competing in NYC: do your recon51:01 Why the name 17 ProjectsCreatives Grab Coffee is produced by Lapse Productions, a Toronto video production company. (https://www.lapseproductions.com/).To learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

It's all right guys, welcome to another episode. Today we got Rob Aravello from 17 projects based at a New York City. Rob, how's the show? Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I guess after this episode, I really got to diversify the guest list because this is like the third or fourth New Yorker we've had in the house. In a row.

Great. But maybe we'll end it off on a high note. So, Rob, just tell us a little bit about you and your company. Sure. I guess how far back, how far back are you going here? Let's go back to childbirth. Childbirth, yeah. All right. So you tell me if you want more details. I'll leave it at that. So, yeah, I mean, Rob Horevalo, again, based on New York City, 17 projects is the company.

And I'll give you our general description. We're a video production company that focuses providing video production services specifically to corporate clients. We do work with brands, do work with product lines, but most of the work that we do specializes around corporate clients. So whether that is company about videos

or client testimonials, anything along those lines, that's what we specialize in. Nice. And then I guess just tell us, How did you get into the industry, all that stuff? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I have probably not the most direct path. You know, after high school, I actually ended up joining the military.

Did that for four years. I was in the Air Force. I was doing airborne intelligence type of work. and after the military, I always had an interest in film and filmmaking. I would make a lot of, you know, films with my friends in high school, a little documentary. So I knew that I always enjoyed, you know, making videos. And after the military, you know, decided to go and finish school, I ended up studying film studies and business management at Columbia University in New York. And, I mean, I fell in love with the city. You know, there's so much to offer in New York.

There's so many opportunities, both creative for business. So decided to stick around. Ended up getting hired at a very small video production company, which was actually great in that I got to learn a lot about how to run a small business, got to sharpen my technical skills and really kind of saw what the blueprint was, you know, to start my own business. And so after being there for a couple years,

you know, figured I could probably do it myself and, yeah, launched the company in that. I launched the company in 2020, I would say right at the end of January, two months later. Amazing timing. Yes. So, and I'm sure, you know,

people have probably at a time. had some sort of similar story. But yeah, we had, I say we, like, you know, I had a team back then. But, yeah, I had to figure out what to do, right? So we did the virtual productions. A lot of tools came out. I think it was Vimeo Studio, was the one that I was primarily using. But yeah, a little bit of OBS, you know, a little bit of Riverside, Streamyard, you know, all the different platform.

But, yeah, basically, yeah, just find a way to add a line of. revenue, you know, that could keep me afloat for the time being. But once things opened back up, it was back to offering your regular type of video production line services. And, yeah, you know, kind of start small. You gain momentum. Whatever you make, you dump it back into marketing, try to get a little bit more momentum. And, yeah, from then, I think at this point, you know we've gone to work with hundreds of clients I'll brag a little bit here but you know includes Amazon Google Goldman Sachs probably blank a 16 Z big venture capital firm and yeah it's it's been kind of smooth sailing since then and you know like always trying to figure out what's

the next thing to do how to keep the business growing and yeah kind of on that of venture like everybody else. What motivated you to keep going with the business when you started it so close to such a major thing that basically halted the industry? It's one thing for a company that had been around for a while, you know, it paused, you know, because of the pandemic and then tried to figure out its way through. But you were literally just starting out. Like, what kept you dialed in to push forward at that point? Sure. I mean, part of it, you know, I think one could assume that it was going to be a temporary phase. No one knew how long it would be, right?

And I think at that point I had already made up my mind that being a business owner was kind of the way that, you know, that's kind of what I wanted. So whether I had to wait it out for, you know, a couple months, a couple years, whatever, I knew that whenever that phase was going to be over, that this is what I wanted to do. So rather than kind of just leave it alone, why not just try to develop whatever I could at the time so that, you know, when that face was over, I didn't have to start from zero momentum, right? Hopefully I would have built some sort of client list, you know, would have made a little bit of additional revenue. And, you know, I do say, you know, I started in 2020, but I didn't do it fully abandoning other projects or other work. you know, that I had.

It was one of those things where, you know, it was kind of a side, a side hustle at the time. And then, yeah, so it wasn't as big of a risk as maybe it sounds. So what have you done to kind of diversify yourself since then? You know, like now you've been in it for a little over six years, I guess. Like I said, what have you done to kind of diversify yourself? Like what have you been specializing it over the last little while? Sure. So again, coming from experience in video production, right, that's the primary service line offered.

What does that include? You know, full pre-production, production, post-production services. On top of that, animation. I know a couple guys that, you know, are very skilled, very creative. We do animated explainers, very similar to videos, also photography. We offer photography services. So apart from that, it was just expanding, you know, those additional services that are kind of related to video. And at the other production company, most of my experience was already with corporate clients. And I just figured that having that experience and just being in New York,

you walk around, you take a look at all these high rises, 100 plus floors, right? And each of those floors, there's some sort of corporate company that probably needs video. There's just so many opportunities. It just seems like a great place to be for, you know, trying to target corporate clients. So I figured that would probably be, you know, the easiest path in. and then if I wanted to pivot to a different target pool of clients, I could probably do so later on, but why not build momentum in the beginning where I think it's the easiest, you know, to get into where there's the most opportunity. And so, yeah, I would say apart from, you know, these additional service items, I think it's just trying to see how you can offer a service in a better way, you know, higher quality way. keep your clients happy, keep them coming back.

Because that's really, I think, where you start to see the business grow is, you know, it's not always about trying to get new clients, but it's retaining your client. And, yeah, I'm sure, yeah, you guys have, you know, but it's really the client retention that helps your business grow. You know, you cast a net, maybe you catch, you know, five, ten new clients, right, in a given amount of time. It doesn't really do much for you in the long term. none of those clients are going to stick around. You say, you know, let's say even just 20% of those

stick around. Next time you cast your net, right, you catch another 10. Well, maybe you keep another two, right? You do it over and over eventually you'll have, you know, a permanent inflow of, you know, work coming in from these recurring clients. So I think more than trying to offer new types of services, it was just doing a good job that would impress the clients that would want them, you know, to sign on long-term contracts with us so that we could just keep the business growing and keep the cash coming in and, you know, things like that. The conversations are always, how do I find new clients? How do I find new clients?

Where do I find new clients? But no whatever else says, like, how do I keep my clients, you know? Yeah. And I mean, they're both important, right? But again, if you're trying to play the long-term game, yeah, it's about client retention, definitely. So just making sure that you have processes in place that are, you know, professional. They're fast. You know, so from the initial inquiry that gets sent to you, right, what's your response time, right?

Do you have a system in place to basically organize all the inquiries coming in? you have a system in place to, you know, produce a proposal, you know, rather quickly. Are you doing your follow-ups, right? From then it's, you know, are you educating the client on like, you know, the services, what you recommend, taking them through the entire pre-production production process and then post-production. Just creating a system out of that that the client feels like, you know, they're being given the attention that they require for the project, that they trust, you know, the process in place that it looks like everything's going smoothly. Again, communication is a big key.

So I would say just having a system in place that really makes the client feel like they're in good hands. Like, that's the biggest thing. As you were growing, how did you maintain a strong system for that because I think usually like it's easier to keep your clients happy at the beginning when you got less clients but then as you grow and you get more clients that's where it really becomes tricky to keep everything top of mind right so how did you kind of work through so definitely you know there are a couple platforms out there whether it's a Monday or you know they can kind of all do the same thing but one just finding the platform that works for you key like absolute necessary, whether that's from also on like the invoicing side, accounting side, like everything.

But I think it seemed to just be very organic in that, okay, we're having more clients come in, more work is coming in. Let's add more team members, you know. So I think we approach it in a very organic way. We didn't try to, you know, grow beyond what, you know, beyond what we could handle. Basically, as we felt that we were hitting the limit, you know, I'd expand the team, bring on an extra guy. So I think it's, it's just kind of that organic growth, right? Not spending beyond what, you know, what we think we, right? So like, yeah, now we have an office, but, you know, for a while we're just working from home, right? So it's just, I think, taking it step by step. And, and, And, yeah, again, more work is coming in.

You grow the team. Try to repeat the process, grow even more, and so on and so forth. So how big? They're like controlled burns. Yeah. Yes. And sorry, what was that? I was just saying, how big is your team now?

So I would say it's two people that are handling client accounts. And then for the projects, right, we have a roster of technicians, operators, whatever you want to call them. And then we bring those on. So I think our biggest production, I think, had 20-something people on it. Our smallest production, maybe we sent one videographer to go film something. So it really just depends on the project. But doing like office client account management, things like that, it's two of us. So full-time, it's just the two of you within the company.

Okay. And is this person like a partner of yours, or is it more so someone that works under you? At this one, I would kind of say partner. But yeah, but yeah, I mean, but I've known this guy for a long time. Shout out to Carlo. Is he in the background typing? I hear some typing in the background. He's busy right now.

Maybe you should turn the camera on him and then also have him say hello. He's out of the office right now. Oh, he's out of office, okay. We'll insert screenshot here. He's just like this. Yeah. You mentioned earlier. how you would, as you were growing, like you would get extra money, put it into marketing to be

able to continue growing. I'm just curious, what did you mean by like the extra marketing? Like, what did that consist of? Yeah, I mean, when we, when, you know, I started, it was, um, me and and another guy, Fawn, incredible DP, shout out to Fawn. But we, I mean, right, we had no budget for marketing. And back then, this was before all the automated AI. systems that are now available to help you with marketing, but we were sending emails by hand. I think we sent maybe in like one month over a thousand emails, right? We got a couple clients out of that, you know? We made a couple like, I think it was maybe 20 something Kish, you know, out of maybe within like

two months. That's, you know, that's something. It is. Right? Were they all personalized emails or did you just like, just mass send the same email. Probably a little bit of both, depending on who it was, you know. And, yeah, like, right, you exhaust all avenues and connections near to you, right?

So go through your LinkedIn, send a DM to, you know, people that, you know, maybe you went to college with that are now at a company. Hey, I see you're doing marketing at this company. like I just started my video production company maybe we can cut you a good deal right we just started you know so really just exhausting every connection that we had um sending out email right and then right again we had at the time we're doing it on the side so um it wasn't a big risk just like a little extra work that you know we're taking on but now we have a little bit of money right we don't need it you know for for anything like what what can we do with this to help bring in more clients, bigger clients, right?

So then, yeah, it's taking, you know, that small budget that we had and seeing what other competitors were doing, you know, other small production companies that maybe wanted to be like, you know, in a couple of years. Where are they advertising, you know, what we see some people doing Google Ads, we see some people advertising on Clutch, we see some people on Design Rush or a production hub or, you know, all these type of platforms. What names keep popping up on these different?

platforms. So you got to take a little bit of risk. Can't say that everything worked. You're going to burn some money marketing, you know, in the wrong places that just don't give you traction. It's part of the process. But definitely, yeah, lucky for us, we found a couple spots that worked wonders for us. It really changed the game. And had we not taken that risk, like, you know, we definitely would not have gone to where we are. I'm not sure if you might have answered my question there, but was that the moment where you went and turned 17 projects into from part-time to full-time? Was it like finding the right clientele through that marketing? 100%. Yeah, 100%. It was, again, investing in marketing. And I do say investing because

we got great returns out of, you know, what we put in. those amazing clients that we got making sure that, right, they retained, they become long-term. I think it was probably a year and a half after, right? You start making more money than you are elsewhere. And at this point, it's an opportunity cost, right? So then we're going full-time, all-in, 17 projects. You know, we're making money, right, figuring out again, how can we keep the momentum going? And yeah, so but 100% it was the marketing that changed everything for me.

I'm curious that what have you guys, I guess, maybe heard, you know, because it's a lot of similar paths in some ways with other video production companies. But I guess like I'm curious to hear also, you know, maybe even with you guys. Like where where was like the moment where things kind of changed? You know, before I get, well, before I get to tell, I just wanted to say, I have started a guides section on the website. site. So this is one of the upcoming guides that will be published at some point when I come back from my vacation. So if anyone's listening and wants to hear what other guests have said for this topic, it'll be over there on that page. As for what other people have said, I would say A to Z.

Like some people grew from referrals or they got lucky with one client and kind of ballooned from there and then that kind of allowed them to grow and everything based on the money they were getting from that some people like you did marketing other people was hybrid for us I think what helped us was I think we started focusing more on on SEO and that helped we didn't really do a lot of paid advertising I don't think the paid advertising was helping because how it was set up was not good so we were probably just donating a lot of money to to Google And I mean, like, the main thing was that like, we kind of had like a little slap in the face with COVID, you know, and it made us realize that we weren't doing anything right, forced us to really look at the business and talking to other production companies like yourself, hearing their stories, how they, how they've grown, how they've persevered through different challenges, made us realize, okay, we have to, we have to think of new ways to do this rather than just only referrals because that's what it was before, right? And so it was kind of like a part-time thing as well.

And then, as Daria mentioned, we started focusing more on the business aspects of running a business, you know, SEO, creating content, putting ourselves out there. And then slowly that's where more of our clientele started coming from people simply finding us on Google, getting like to the point where we would get a call, a cold lead would call us. And then who knew that that would become a long-term client of ours. for four years now running, right? So everyone, as Darry mentioned, it's A to Z for everything. Like, we've heard so many different stories, and I feel like there's still so many other ways that people have gotten into this industry.

And what works for one company doesn't necessarily mean it'll work for you. Like, this is something we've mentioned before many times. But yeah, it's very interesting. Have you adapted your marketing strategy since then? Or have you kind of stuck to the same methods? No, definitely. It evolves. It's different from year to year. And it's one of those things where, at least for us, we just have to keep trying things, see what works. If it's working, put more money into it until it stops working. But yeah, we've had platforms that were amazing for us in the beginning. And for whatever reason, they stopped performing. And at that point, right, we just cut our loss. Like, we just stopped marketing there. A couple, maybe like a year later, they started performing well again.

We know we'll go back to them. But again, it is just kind of trying, at least we kind of just try a little bit with everyone, see what works. And then if it works, put more money in there, right? And yeah, new platforms are coming out all the time. New systems are coming out all the time. I'm sure you guys have heard of places like instant. Is it instantly? Yeah, instantly or Apollo is right?

with automated emails, we're not doing too much of that now, but just again, with AI as well. New platforms, new systems are coming out. So we like to try, you know, a little bit of everything and see what works. You get the, for those emails, those mess sending emails, so those still work for you? Because like, I get a bunch of them all the time and like most of them go to spam or I don't trust it. It just seems like badly written, you know, like if you're right. So we, we, launched one campaign so far and it did very poorly, which we kind of expected it to. Because, yeah, I'm sure you, everybody else gets, especially after, you know, this whole way, I think we get so many emails every single day.

So we're trying to still figure out, yeah, what we can offer, right, that would at least get us a response, you know. but I think it is it's probably a little bit trickier but again we're going to keep trying different things and and see what works but yeah I mean

I think we straight up probably got scammed out of a couple of places that are trying now every AI platform is the next big thing you know so that's that's what it is I just don't get with why some of the like those emails that we get like I don't get why some people just don't put in like 10 seconds of work

on it because sometimes I look at them I had a curiosity I'll open it and I'm like man like did you even like read this before you sent it out do you know what I mean yeah definitely yeah it's I think 100% at least for for that type of marketing it's uh yeah it's what you're offering them in return for their initial you know commitment to time and to set up a meeting with you because um one people can tell it's an automated email, I think, probably 95% of the time. So it doesn't, even if it's personalized, you know, when it's even too personalized, you just know that it's some sort of bot just extracting like your name and their company name and like it has some generic description of, you know, so I think it's, the hardest thing is, yeah, getting people to trust

you right away from that type of email and to want to commit to setting up a meeting. So we're still trying to crack that and figure out. Are you able to select like the type of person it goes out to? Yeah. So I mean, again, depends on the platforms. Some of these platforms, what they're great for is just extracting potential leads. So apart from the automated email system, maybe you want to figure out, you know, you want to find the email of like all the marketing directors in New York that work in financial services. right it'll help you extract like that information so it's good for that maybe from there you can send personalized emails but you know you can automate the process as well but again that's just like one of many marketing um effort set that you can do right there's the paid advertisement there are the google ads there are the directories um but i would say yeah for i would say just like try advertising

thing. Like, I've got opportunities from like, even like a forum of some sort, like, who uses forums nowadays, you know, and, you know, they turn it to a great client that I'm still working with today. And so really do just try everything. Would be my advice. Nice. Have you done, sorry, have you done, have you, what's it called? Have you done cold calling? I have done called calling. I have done called calling in New York out of all places where people are the friendliest I think

yeah you got just got a thick skin some people will cuss you out oh my god but we did we got some clients doing it I mean if it works if it works like you can't you can't fault it right

yeah it's you know like I try my best to, you know, I think we've been at one point invested in some sort of like sales classes or something. And yeah, you want to stand out in what you offer, you know, but also, you know, a lot of it is timing, unfortunately, which is not what people want to hear. But, you know, being that it is a factor that you have to consider, I think just, just playing the numbers game, you know, you kind of can't fail. Nine knows to one yes, right? A hundred knows to, a thousand knows to one yes.

But hey, you know, if you really want it, I think you'll get after it. So yeah, cold calling. Can you get cussed out, you know, in a hundred different ways and still pick up the phone and call somebody else? It really is a timing thing. And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize. It's not whether people are buying into what you're selling or not, because that's what a lot of people typically might think,

but it really is just a matter of like, are they actually needing content at this time? And whenever people find you on Google and reach out to you, that first step is basically eliminated because now the timing for them, they're ready for video and they're looking for people. Positive intent. Yeah, positive intent.

But when they're not actively looking, it's much harder to make the sale. Or like sometimes, it could be one of those things where someone is thinking, okay, maybe we should start looking into video and then you just happen to call like 30 minutes later. It's like, oh, perfect, someone that I could start exploring, right? That's the whole point of cold calling and cold outreach.

Like you said, some people don't like that truth. And, you know, that being said, I do have to say, you know, one, you have to be prepared for that when that opportunity to rise. So you have to know how to talk about your company. you have to know what services you're going to sell, right? Those clients, it's not just like, you know, waiting for the opportunity to kind of appear, right? You kind of have to be prepared for it. Two, there is something to, you know, like brand awareness.

Sure, maybe you sell, try to sell something to someone. They're not ready for it. Make sure you stay on the radar because, you know, when they do need it, you want to make sure that you're the company that pops in their head, right? I'm like, oh, right, I finally need a video. Oh, who are those guys that were annoying me with, like, emails and phone calls? Oh, yeah, maybe, you know, their content looked good, right? Maybe I'll actually call them, you know? So you do definitely still have to do, you know, the salesy, you know, stuff.

Some of it, again, just comes down to timing. I don't care how good your pit, you know, if someone doesn't have the budget or doesn't need a campaign like right now and maybe they're waiting for a different time in the year, like you just won't be able to to move them, you know, regardless of how good your, your pitch is. You know, I think we have some good pitches, you know, and yeah, I think I've had a client just straight up say like, like this sounds great, but like I just, we just did a video. Like, I just don't need another video right now. You know, you guys look great.

Maybe next time we'll call you guys. But so again, big factor is timing. But again, you want to make sure that you are prepared for that you're staying on people's radars. your website looks great right and that when the opportunity comes that you take full advantage of it yeah even sometimes it's sometimes it's just the fact that like you might even pitch like a great idea but yeah it's your selling is good it's it's now up to them to sell their boss or to sell the rest of the team on it so 100% also make sure there's always that gap yeah yeah yeah don't call during christmas time you know they're not exactly looking for videos at that point right

Well, there are always Christmas parties, so someone's got to film those. Yeah, yeah, depends, depends. I was actually also curious, have you had any success with government contracts or RFPs in the States? Because we've been slowly exploring that in Canada. Yeah, that's a great question. Something that's been an area that we're, that we've never really tried to commit fully to. but that we are aware is there and it's, you know, I think we're planning on looking into it.

We've done a little bit of dabbling into it. Yeah, they're right. We need to figure out a way to navigate because it's a little bit more involved. The process is a little bit lengthier, you know, to actually win these contracts. There are also additional requirements, at least on our side and the state side, you know, to be able to work on these projects.

So, yeah, it's something that I think we'll probably just take a little bit more. We have to kind of just learn a little bit more education on our end of how to best navigate. And again, what platforms to use. We have, like, attained a couple in the past. But that was just from people reaching out to it. It wasn't from us, like, going on these, you know, websites and seeing what's popping up and bidding and, you know, we're aware of like what the process works like, but we haven't actually delved into it.

But, yeah, definitely I think it's an area that it could be very fruitful if you figure out how to, you know, work it and gain momentum and kind of be, you know, the company that people kind of go to on those platforms. I used to think there wasn't a lot of proposals they were doing for video stuff. because we checked it out like years and years ago. But we signed up for it, again, recently. I signed up to all the different bidding sites here in Ontario at least. And there's a lot, surprisingly, like a surprising amount of like RPs that they publish.

The only annoying thing I noticed recently is that a lot of them you got to pay for it. So it's like 70 bucks apiece. And I'm like, man, you try for 10 of these. It's already 700 bucks. And it's like if you're not, if it's already like you competing with like 200 other people. Right. It's a lot of money gone for no reason. My favorite part of the whole process is also not only getting the RFP but also getting the evaluation criteria part of the document.

It's like, oh man, I feel like I'm back in school. So once we finish the RFP and go through the evaluation criteria, I'm like, did we do enough of this? How many points are we going to lose if we don't have this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot more involved in that sense. be less competitive because these are all kind of barriers to entry to compete in that space. Right. So I do think that, you know, again, I'm talking from no experience really doing this, but it seems

like if you get through all of that and you do become a player and a trusted player, you know, in government contracts that you could do really well being that again, probably not as competitive. And once you establish yourself, you can come. kind of, you know, know how to play the field being that, again, there's so many things that you have to play to in that space. So, yeah, I think long term it's probably a good investment. But yeah, yeah, I think, again, you kind of have to take that risk. You might burn some money. Again, that's our philosophy.

I was like, at least let me read the document. Let me see if I could even like, you know, apply for this thing. They're like, I know, you got to pay to see the, what the requirements. I'm like, oh, come on. You know, and the government contracts are known for, you know, some of them being pretty big. So if you do land, if you end up burning $4,000, you know, applying to, you know, 40 different ones or whatever, then hopefully you get one that's, you know, bringing you know, a decent amount of, you know, work. No matter what you do, it's going to cost money. That's the thing about running a business system. We're always trying to find the most inexpensive way to get new clients.

And it's always frustrating when we still have to pull money out of the bank account to do it. But it's just a, it's like a friendly reminder to us that we, you got to invest. It's another form of marketing, basically. Yeah. And again, even if you end up, you know, losing money, at least you've learned that, hey, this is not the way to go. And it eliminates, you know, one area that, you know, you need, you can ignore from now on and you move on to the next one. So it's good. I think it's always better to at least get to that point rather than like, say, you know,

there and being like oh i wonder if this works i wonder if this worse than like you know so that's true and i guess now with the clod and everything it'll be easier to apply to these uh rfps compared to before like when we did it a couple months back we had to do it all manually and that was like yeah right your 40-page proposal and my god it was executive summaries and yeah like i had to get i had to get i had to get jemini at the time to just translate what it was even asking us i was like i don't i was like i I don't know what they wrote. Like, this makes no sense. Yeah. No, I will. Explain it to me like I'm five, please.

Yeah, thank God for AI for that, definitely. You know, I think we, well, actually, maybe I'm not a lot of, we worked with a very large government entity pretty early on. And, you know, the work itself, it wasn't a huge, huge, huge job. But just to land that job, I think we actually have. wrote a 40-page proposal. It was insane. And probably not worth the time. But, you know, if anything, maybe we broke even, if you think about it all the time.

But it was, yeah, to try and, you know, long-term, right? Hopefully they work with us once. And then long-term, we can, yeah, turn them into a good client. It's a good client that we can also, you know, maybe not on a public platform like this, shout out but uh you know we're talking to similar clients and we mentioned that we worked with this client they say oh awesome um so yeah it's it's it's what it is what it is well the one good thing that RFPs also give you is that it tell they tell you what information the client is looking for or values more in your proposals so like say for example before if you were emphasizing

on putting too many different like say for example uh you put your entire portfolio there is like here's our entire portfolio to look at. But then in their criteria, they say, we only want two or three examples of this type of video. Then it makes you think about, okay, in future proposals, maybe I only need to show two or three examples rather than my entire portfolio. That's like a very simple example,

but it basically help, they help you figure out how to improve your proposals over time. And anytime Dario and I work on a major RFP or a major proposal, it helps us improve or like think about okay what should we include next time what should we do differently and yeah it's all a learning experience even if you don't definitely now that's a good point that you make also you know again it seems like you guys do mostly corporate video right we do mostly corporate video corporate clients are very corporate and what I mean by that is you know like when it

comes down to proposals. Yes, video is creative. Yes, we're creatives and, you know, but they're more looking for a company that looks established, trustworthy, has a system in place, professional, all those things. So when you send your proposal, you know, one thing that we noticed is we actually have to, like, tone our proposals down from like the creative design aspect. sets of it. You know, make it look boring in some ways where it's just like you can extract.

You can extract the information that they want rather easily, right? And of course, they're going to check out your content and make sure it's up to par and that it's creative. But more or less, they're just looking, again, for those very specific, you know, items. And they just want to, right, be able to read it, extract the information fast, send it to other decision makers so that they can read it, extract information fast, and no, not have all this fluff, decorative fluff that it just kind of gets in the way.

But again, you work with a brand, right? You're shooting a commercial. You better have something that it looks creative and is well designed, especially once you get into your pitch decks. Right, you got to have reference. shot. So it really, you kind of have to play to, you know, to the different segments, accordingly. Do you know how many fights Carol and I've had about this? Like, because he wanted to add more stuff and I wanted to take out more stuff. Just depends on the client. Yeah, it just

depends on the client. My favorite one though is when we've had, when we, when we've put proposals together for clients and they wanted to see very specific examples where it's like, we want, I think this was more early on where this happened where a client was like, we want this type of video for this type of client exactly like this. And it's like, we have the exact same video, just not in a finance sector, but in a software sector. But it's like, no, no, no, that's not the exact example they were looking for. It's like the same type of video that they were looking for. We've ran into that. But again, I think that just goes to show that for, you know, for clients, it's just like the trust factor. Yeah.

And it's just a trust fund. Like, right, maybe you've done amazing interviews that are client testimonials, right? But they want interviews that talk about a product line instead, right? Obviously, what they talk about is a little different, but from a technical standpoint, you can execute it, right? But they don't want to, they want someone talking about a similar product, right? And it's just like, yeah, it's just, I think, trying to eliminate risk on their end. And maybe they're not as educated. They don't realize that you can, you know, you can

execute it. So, yeah, I think for for a lot of clients, it's just eliminating as much risk as possible when choosing who they go with. We had that at the, we had that at the beginning. Yeah. We had that at the beginning. But then after we, honestly, we'll fix that solution for us was just adding more examples in the in the examples section. So for example, we would have like the reference videos, like maybe three and then another link that kind of links to like a big folder of different like maybe different industries.

But it's still like for example, like interview videos, right? There might be like 10 or 20 over there. So that kind of like I haven't really had any pushback from leads on that front anymore because of that. Because then they go to that link. It's got everything. One of those is going to look. similar to what you're looking for, you know? Definitely.

It gets easier over time. But yeah, like, as you said, it's all about eliminating risk, especially because they have to pitch you to their higher ups and they have to convince their people, all right, let's spend $50,000 of our marketing budget on these guys. It's like, really? Why is that? They want to find exactly what they're looking for.

Yeah. And it makes sense, right? Yeah, it makes sense. Can't, you know, can't really blame them for, yeah, I just trying to make sure all their money goes to the right place. One thing I'm also curious about is, so you're based in New York. Did you always know you wanted to work right in the heart of Manhattan? Or did you ever consider maybe going to some other cities or places?

I personally just like New York a lot. There are a lot of, apart from it being a great city, from, you know, culturally, entertainment, everything, there are a lot of opportunities here. So I figured, you know, it's, I mean, it is the biggest city also. So it's- Biggest market. I'm already, I went to college here, right? So it's, I'm already familiar with it. I know I like the place.

I know there's a lot of opportunities. It just kind of makes sense. So never really considered, eh, not necessarily you move. moving, but we started doing marketing in LA, Chicago, Miami. Got a couple clients, other cities, but our hub, I think, will always be New York. Why did you try to expand to those markets? I mean, right? It seems like there are opportunities over there that maybe we're missing out on.

So what you see a lot. Do you have like a presence there already? Like how did you expand? Yeah, so you guys have probably seen this model. It's right, like the video agency model. It's you, right, find local crews that you trust that maybe you've worked with. You educate them kind of what your expectations are, your processes, right? The quality that you're going for. And yeah, if you can land clients and these other places, you hire those local crews, right? You handle the post in-house, you know, wherever your central hub is. So it was basically a little bit of that. Just we have a been taking it to the extent that maybe, you know, some other companies have. We do have a lot of clients in, in L.A. and San Francisco, sometimes we'll travel out from New York, but other times we have our local crews that we worked with before, who are freelancers that basically will handle it for us. So it was like kind of like the client is already needing you there, so it just made more sense

to just start to set up operations. Yeah. And yeah, and yeah, Yes, we initially, you know, looked there because we knew that there were opportunities, but also we did have clients who constantly wanted content that were theirs. It just didn't make sense for us, right, to add this additional, you know, long-form travel expense because they'd probably honestly go with somebody local if, you know, they had to spend a couple extra thousand dollars flying, you know, some guys from New York all the way to L.A., you know, every other month. So it just made sense, you know, for our clients' sake and for our sake as well.

Yeah, it's always good to find ways to make things efficient for your long-term clients. That way, it guarantees more work, right? As you said, if you keep doing work there, they're more inclined to go with you if you're able to eliminate a lot of those costs. Yeah, they appreciate it, you know, obviously. They see that you're kind of looking out for them. unless they really love Rob and then they're like, nah, we need Rob, go, get over there. You can always go for the big projects.

Sometimes that happens, yeah, you know, and it's flattering, you know, and you're like, and sometimes I think I've even asked them like, you know, you could just go with somebody local and, you know. But again, that I think you get to the point where you've just like, again, really taking care of your client. And, you know, if it's a big project and there's a lot at risk, right? It's all about eliminating risk. They don't, the budget isn't even an issue anymore.

It's just we need to deliver this so that all these higher-ups can approve. And then our client's client can approve. And, you know, they'll, you know, at that point, budget becomes like, you know, something that's not even something that they worry about. Second, the CEO, the CMO, or anyone high up is involved, they find the money to make sure that they look good. Yeah. And we're more than happy. obviously to travel. We actually do quite a bit of traveling. And yeah, we'll make sure that

things get done, you know, up to the standards that they want. Nice. Being in New York City, there's a lot of competition. So how do you kind of deal with that? Good question. There is a lot of competition. At the same time, there's a lot of opportunities. So maybe it evens itself out. At least I expected L.A. to be more competition. competitive, giving our marketing reports, it does seem to be more competitive. So one, it's not as competitive as LA, but there is still a lot of competition. But again, I think there's just a lot of opportunity here. So, yeah, how did we deal with it?

I mean, study your competitors, see what they're doing, see where you can improve. I'm sure we're not the only ones. did this, but pretend you're a company, send up, you know, feelers out to your competition, see how they handle response times, right? Like, you know, what are their proposals look like, you know? I'll admit, yeah, we did that, you know, and you kind of get to see like, all right, like, how do our proposals measure up to these proposals, right? Yeah, I mean, you got to do a little bit of intel.

Maybe that's just my intel military side, you know, coming out. That's right. That's what we call recon. We actually got hired at, not just getting our competitive. No, but, you know, just basically, yeah, see, again, like, how you stack up to the competition and where you can improve. You know, I think sometimes you want to compete on price. Other times you don't want to compete on price, right? It's kind of a slippery slope to go down if, you know, that's what you're competing on.

But sometimes you have to. So I think it's having a good sense of what everybody is doing. Yeah, figure out what everybody else is doing, how well they're doing it, what their prices are. That'll give you a good idea of what maybe strategically you should be doing as well. Interesting. Okay. Let's do how you came up with the name. Oh, yeah.

Why 17? Yeah, not an exciting story, you know. But it's just my favorite number. You know, it's something that I've always gravitated to. And it seems to be working out, you know, so far. So I think we'll stick with it. But, yeah, I got to come up with some sort of start. And I'm always honest about it, too, because a lot of people ask.

Just say you're like blackjack and it's always your winning number. 17. Yeah, tell that to a corporate client. I'm a big gambler. That's when the dealer holds when they hit 17. Yes. No, but yeah, just a good number for, you know, for me. in my life. So it seems to be working out so far as well.

So another question to follow up on that on your website, do you have 17 killer projects that you have on your portfolio there? And it's always like a curated list. No, but maybe we should, we should implement that. There's a little idea. I like that. All right. So I think we can probably end it off there. So your website is 17, the number, project.

projects.com. Yes. 17. 17 projects.com. And your socials are at 17 17 projects? I think it's an underscore 17 underscore projects. Yeah, yeah.

At 17 underscore projects. So make sure to give him a follow and reach out to them if you got anything in New York. In the Green Apple. Yeah, that's right. Well, yeah, thanks for having me. Love what you guys are doing. Again, I was telling Dario this, but like, you know, for, you know, medium, small and medium-sized

companies, it's great to see what everybody else is doing, right, doing a little bit of that recon, right? It's not a recon. Yeah, no. That's right, yeah. Really, you know, it's, yeah, it's just smart, right? Educators, obviously, you know, I get to see what everybody else is doing. So, yeah, I think it's awesome what you guys are doing.

And for, again, people like me, other business owners, it's, everybody should be, watching this and like it's literally like taking notes on every episode and I know you're you talked about the guides that you're you know publishing yeah those are making it even easier so yeah awesome stuff that you guys are doing here yeah and I honestly I did it kind of for myself too because I was like yeah I don't have time to listen back to every episode we don't remember all the conversations yeah it's been like what almost 120 episodes now Dario right this is 118 this is 118 yeah 117 would have been better, but. You're right, yeah.

You shouldn't have postponed that of the week, then you would have been 117. But, yeah, I've even been, like, for those listening, I've also been updating the website. Like, I just have the first nine episodes to fully revamp, but everything else has been updated. The network is live, too. So anyone can go and see who's based out of where. Even, Rob, if you want to go check and see, you know, if we got shoots in other places. LA I haven't targeted yet, so unfortunately.

We'll get there eventually. Oh, I'm sure you'll have no problem finding people. I know he had someone from L.A. At least one. Well, now we got him. Now we got him. Textically, yes. Yes.

Yeah, if you guys do, we do have a team down there. Awesome. But yeah, awesome. Again, thanks for having me in. Best of luck and everything. Really big fan of what you guys are doing. Thank you. Appreciate it, Rob.

Thank you for chatting with us. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app. Creatives Grab Coffee is created by LAPS Productions, a video production company based in Toronto, Canada. Creators Grab Coffee is also sponsored by... My name is Maran. Welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto.

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