Creatives Grab Coffee - Balancing Creativity and Business Growth (ft. Tripwire Media) | Creatives Grab Coffee 77

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

In Episode 77 of Creatives Grab Coffee, hosts Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov welcome Doug Darling of Tripwire Media for an insightful discussion on balancing creativity and business growth. Doug shares how his company navigated post-COVID challenges, emphasizing the importance of lean operations, effective team management, and leveraging tools like productive.io. He also discusses his passion for storytelling, public speaking, and personal development, including his recent ventures into stand-up comedy and preparation for the Global Speakers Academy. Packed with actionable advice, this episode is a must-listen for video production professionals looking to scale their businesses while staying true to their creative roots. Timestamps 0:00 - Introduction and Sponsors 2:19 - Doug Darling Returns to the Podcast 3:27 - Post-COVID Challenges for Video Production Companies 5:28 - Managing Team Size and Freelance Networks 10:12 - Adopting Lean Business Operations 15:41 - Sales Strategies: Outbound vs. Inbound Growth 20:13 - Delegating Responsibilities and Scaling a Business 24:53 - Founder Dependency and Building Team Autonomy 28:29 - Efficient Project Management Tools: Productive.io vs. Asana 39:40 - Doug’s Public Speaking and Storytelling Journey 46:29 - Stand-Up Comedy and Preparing for the Global Speakers Academy 53:58 - Personal Growth, Business Development, and Staying MotivatedSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 🎞️Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

Welcome to Creative Scrap Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creative Scrap Coffee is hosted by Dario Nuri and Kirill Lazerov from Labs Productions. Our goal is to share knowledge and experiences from video production professionals around the world. Whether you're a freelancer looking to start your own business or a seasoned business owner aiming to scale your company, this is the show for you. Join us as we develop a community of like-minded creatives looking to learn and help each other grow. Welcome to the business of video production. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Before we get started with the show, let's go over today's sponsors. Do you have a shoot in Toronto?

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All right, so today on Creatives Grab Coffee, we got another CGC alum, Doug Darling from Tripwire Media. Welcome to the show again, man. Great to be back. I miss you guys. You look all, we all look so different. Actually, I think I just have more gray on my beard. I'm trying to think of the first time we did it.

Had I like, had I shaved my head yet? I think I had. I think we had a hat on. Were we in the pandemic? Yeah, I had a hat on that night. Yeah. I had shaved my head then. We always had hats on. I think you had a hot on the pandemic. Yeah, you had a hot on that night. Yeah Then we always had hats on this is a youthful approach

So people don't see how little hair I now have. Oh, trust me on our end, too. It's not good No, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me back guys. I'm really happy to be here Yeah, I think it was it like a year or two years ago. We had him a while back, I think it was like a year or two years ago we had him on. It was a while back. I think it was season two. Yeah, I think it might have been. Yeah, it was a while back. Yeah, it was two years ago. Wow. It was like 25 or I was like see or episode 25 or 26 or something. So time has flown. We're on 70. This one I think is going to be 77 by the time it releases. By the time it's released, yeah. Almost 50 episodes later. That's wild to think, honestly. But anyways, for our viewers, tell us what's new.

I know you've had a couple of awesome projects come through over the last few years. We've collaborated a couple of times since then. Yeah. Awards, maybe, as well, like the one in the background you see. Like, what's up with you? Oh, that thing.

No, it's been a bit of a ride. I think, you know, I don't know about you guys, but we've had some ups and downs post COVID. So we actually, I think like a lot of video companies did well on the second half kind of a COVID when people really, you know, budgets were being put towards online things and video focused things when, when getting in person wasn't a possibility. And then of course, there was a little bit of a fallout from that. We actually had some clients going like, we're just diverting everything to in-person events. So we really started to see this kind of like unpredictable last couple of years and so we've had some real busy times, we've had some really

dead times, they've been unpredictable in terms of like seasonality but we've also had some like really big projects that we've worked on, some that have gone really well, some that have been learning opportunities if I can say nicely. And now we're just, you know, we're really focused on strategy and really building kind of our operations to really take ourselves to the next level rather than, I don't know about you guys, but when you grow a company, you get to a certain size of just sitting with another colleague. It's like a lot of us get into this to, for the passion of the art, for the passion of making video, and we don't necessarily get into it for managing people or growing a business or having a real business education in how to build all this structure and all these

these strategies. So that's something that I've had to learn over time, but now are now becoming very intentional on. So it's balancing creative and strategy and trying to do the best of both. How has your team grown from the last time we spoke? And because I remember you were in the midst of adding more team members. And actually, I think I remember back in 2022 or something,

you're mentioning how you wanted to also expand to like, I think you're saying Toronto or something like that. We've learned that like the size of a company or the success of a company isn't necessarily in the size or the amount of people. And I'm not even saying this myself, but a lot of people say in the agency world, especially that is kind of an old school thought

or a way of measuring things. So it's like, how many people do you have? And that's often the first question that I get. We actually haven't, I'm trying to remember where we were in 2022, but probably about the same people. We got as high as 15, we're at 13 now. We creep down to 11 for a bit. And part of that is managing the inconsistency of short-term video work or contract

work, right? Where, you know, we don't, in our system, we don't get a lot of like, you know, the equivalent of AOR contracts, like agency of record contracts, where we have two or three year contracts. A lot of our projects are, you know, somewhat short-term and so we can have very, very busy seasons. But if we staff only based on that, we've had last summer we ran into some problems where we were burning our money holding on to people. So trying to find that balance of who you want to keep internally at all costs, who you want to then maybe have more on a contract level, and then really then building the relationships that you're able to kind

of execute on quickly when the work does come. So we've really been working on our network to that point of expanding across Canada and in North America. We've worked really like even with you guys but also like with people in other major markets that when we have a shoot or a requirement for shooting that we're able to have already vetted it so we're not trying to find somebody and guess hopefully they're as good as they say they are but we can do everything from hire them out to do the project save a small little event where we have one or two people we don't need to be there maybe it's something where we have a small crew three or five people, but we want a director or producer there to manage the quality as well as maybe

the client. And we want consistency across where we're shooting in different markets. And sometimes just really big projects. We were just in Toronto, Colin was sorry, on a very, very big commercial project that had about 30 people in a studio. And, you know, aside from our editor and our director, everyone else was staffed by a line producer. So that's the way that we kind of see it,

is really building relationships. We made a map of where are all our capabilities. And in the States, we don't have obviously every major market, but in the States, people are able to travel between markets quite easily as well. So we have like one guy in Denver who basically, if it's within an eight hour drive, he's willing to go to. And that actually is a pretty big radius,

right in the center. And then we have several people in the South and in the East coast as well. So that's kind of the way we see it. And we just need that confidence and competence to be able to scale Coast as well. So that's kind of the way we see it. And we just need that confidence and competence to be able to scale that as needed. We're hiring primarily where we wanna have full-time people or grow full-time people is gonna be in project

and account management, as well as then like kind of writing and creative in the sense of like, we wanna make sure that people know our process. We have two full-time writers who everything, you know, slash directors who do everything from writing of scripts to the interviews and the the building of story arcs for for non-interview based or sorry, non scripted based videos or interview based videos.

So they need to know our process. They need to know our story flow. We don't want to just kind of bring in writers blindly into that. But even then we have a couple of writers now that we're training up that are freelance that we can call when we just get too full. So long answer short is that we're really trying not to just add people so that it could kind of eat away when we have those slow seasons. But we want to be big enough to be able to take on this stuff when it comes quickly because as you guys know stuff just

comes last minute all the time and it's really nice when we're able to help when we want to. That was cute you guys. You guys asked the question at the same time. I was just gonna say that it always works out like that where something comes up last minute like always when you least expect it like when you're ready to go that's when it's always seems to be the quietest but once you don't expect it that's when things kind of just pop up out of nowhere. Yeah. And there's a big growing need for businesses to get a lot more lean and like we talk this, we've been talking about this over the years where people, a lot of businesses need to be lean enough to be able to kind of like push through the slow

times. But you know it's very true when you start seeing a lot of the bigger agencies start to adopt that same mantra. Because like you said, it was the old school way for to seem big and very powerful as a business or as an agency, you needed to have a big team of people and manpower to really help execute upon clients' needs. But then you hear about a lot of the big agencies

starting to kind of like scale back or merge with other agencies because, you know, like there's clearly not enough work going through. I feel like there's a big talent pool now of people that are flooding the market because of all these different mergers and agencies shutting down. So now there's gonna be also a big pool of freelancers

also there ready to work with not only the big guys but also with smaller independent agencies and production companies. So now there's, now's the time to really kind of like really figure out who's like the key people in your team, foster that, and no need to just throw everyone in. Not everyone needs to have a full-time photographer or four photographers on staff or something like that

or four video people on staff because sometimes those guys also wanna go out and work with other companies. Yeah, it works both ways in a sense of so, you know, if we have, we had, and you know, I mean no ill will because we actually had a full time cinematographer. We have three people on the production side. So kind of video and assistant editing.

So the shooters, and then we have this, you know, 20 year experience cinematographer who was just so great. And of course though, last year in summer, we were incredibly slow and part of it was the economy. We noticed that a lot of other companies, colleagues, or even similar organizations were in the same boat as us. So at least it didn't feel like it was just me messing up and really screwing up. But at the same time,

we then started to see the slowness kind of coming in the summer. And we decided to work with our cinematographer and work on a way that we could actually bring him down to a freelance rate. So we're still working with him. It allows him to do other stuff because he loves doing movies. And he even took a sabbatical at one point to to work on a movie for five weeks. And for us also, it allows us then to have the flexibility

to work with different artists as well. Most like, you know, there's a lot of very large video production companies that, you know, are eight to 12 people, and that's because they are hiring directors and their DOPs and all their key creative people based on the work that's needed. These are people that you couldn't afford anyways at a full-time basis and most likely people who wouldn't want to work full-time for you. So it's kind of a it's kind of that

benefit of also having more access to different creative minds as well as long as you have then the ability to handle there's a lot of day-to-day stuff it's not all billable stuff too when we have an office we have gear we have all these other things that do need to be taken care of on a day-to-day stuff. It's not all billable stuff too. When we have an office, we have gear, we have all these other things that do need to be taken care of on a day-to-day basis. You do want to have some internal people as well, and creative people too, because sometimes we get, hey, can we get a shooter?

We have a lot of clients that will come have ongoing needs. Hey, can we get someone to shoot at an event in two days? I'm really sorry, last minute. Great, let's look at our schedule. Great, Ethan, he's available, we can send him so that it's trying to find that balance is always always tricky But yeah, it's just unpredictable. We just last like I keep using the comparison of last summer versus this summer We were busier than we've been in many many summers This summer and a lot of it is just based on the type of work that you're doing

It's not like hey, it's really predictable or there's some sort of global push in this sense because it is just based on the type of work that you're doing. It's not like, hey, it's really predictable or there's some sort of global push in this sense, because it's just like, well, nope, there's these things that need to happen on the initiatives that our clients have that sometimes are annual and a lot of them aren't. A lot of them are one-off or a lot of them are special for whatever reason that may be.

So the joys of not being able to see about three months in front of you, we're working on ways to structure out our sales process a lot better to not be flying by the seat of our pants or just like in that constant panic of you know we're either too busy or we're not busy and we're freaking out either way. So we're trying to get some more structure and balance to that and then finding the right clients that we know have repeat business, the ones that don't take a lot of onboarding. We try to avoid smaller, really small companies as much as we'll work with them,

but the onboarding takes a lot of time and then often they only need one video. And then so you're spending just as much time as you would with say a much larger organization and only to do one job. And then, we have dozens and dozens of jobs at some state of flux at any point. So if we would be doing that with each single client

only one time, we would just kill ourselves doing it. So finding the right clients, the right fit and defining who that is for us right now is where we're spending a lot of time. And finding that balance is always, it always keeps changing. Cause you could find the balance for your current circumstance and you're good,

but then you could either get more clients coming through in the next month or two or less clients. And then your balance is off kilter. So it's kind of like finding that balance that works in highs and lows. Are you doing more cold outreach for sales? Are you relying a lot on inbound? A lot of our growth was basically referral and inbound for the first 10 years.

And then I think that that partially was because there wasn't nearly as much competition. We had a real kind of like positioning in those last couple of years on storytelling, but we find that, or my guess is at least in our market, that it has become rather saturated. So there's more competition than ever. There are a lot more freelancers. There are, and then a lot of people are now hiring in-house. So whether that is agencies are actually bringing in video or companies themselves are. And so we find that Epson flows a little bit. We find that, I don't know about you guys seeing this, we're seeing some companies are kind of letting go of their video production in-house or...

Oh, okay. And so then... Do you know why? I think it's because it depends. I think it's subjective. I think it's because they don't know necessarily how to manage it. It's like if you go, we need to have in-house video. I have a marketing team or a very small marketing team. I'm gonna bring in video.

Okay, well, A, we have to keep that person justified. So we have to have them making enough content. We also have to be knowing the content enough to tell them what to make And so we've worked with actually a lot of clients where they have in-house Marketing they have in-house video and they can only get it to a certain point Sometimes they're asking for help or sometimes they're asking, you know, we need to do the larger stuff, which is fine Like actually people are very apologetic. They're like, we're really sorry. We do make some of our own content in-house. I'm like, absolutely, totally should be.

But when someone's maybe spending anywhere from 50 to $100,000 on a salary, and they're going like, we're making web content and vlog content, in that case, then you might as well. I see a similarity to when websites really started to blow up, then a lot of companies started bringing in their web capabilities in-house,

and then they realized maybe they don't have the right people doing that, or that it was an expense they didn't want because they don't have to always, always, always be working on their website, depending on your company. So then, I feel like web companies and digital marketing companies started to then grow again. In terms of, to answer your question on Biz Dev,

yeah, the last few years I've had to do it more than ever to kind of keep things going. It's better that I have now a CRM and a structure to it versus like I was pretty chaotic about it before. I was kind of like, what am I? I just signed up for HubSpot the other day so I can see the difference immediately going from what I was doing before, which is chaos, utter chaos.

I have basically like a pipeline. And so actually, I was doing a little bit of it today. Sometimes I get up really early in the morning because it's just like there's no distraction. I'm very easily distracted. So I will just hammer on like going through my lists and It it's you know, and you're just sending out notes and I think actually through some of our dead times I noticed that that's actually probably when I'm not spending as much time on it when I start to really put some efforts into it

That's when you know, we start to see people just like it's everything from like hey Yeah now is a good time to talk or I'm glad you got in touch Because actually I've been meaning to to you know, even just like sometimes we weren't really good at our own follow-ups Like it would be like great. Yeah, let's talk about it And you realize that you had then followed up with a meeting or they missed that meet They missed the email about having that meeting and then they forgot so like just keeping the momentum going is another part of it And when you have that system, we also I have a production coordinator who helps me with that and all

that kind of stuff. It's obviously silly to even say that that's, to be like, wow, who knew? Obviously, with much larger companies or companies that have a sales process, of course, this is even just breaking the ice on what a lot of people do. I don't think I could do this all day, every day. I don't like cold calling in general. I always say I don't like knocking on doors. I like walking through them.

So I have to be, the other reason I think I do it in the morning is I'm kind of in a good space. I'm at good energy. So that's where I'm kind of hammering on. Like, hey, you wanna talk about, I just wanna check in again and see if you wanna talk a little bit about storytelling. I see some opportunities maybe we talked about before.

After about an hour or two of that, I start to feel pretty low about myself and it's just like nobody wants to work with me. You got to put Glen Gary, Glen Ross on the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get some steak knives. Unfortunately I'm pretty much the only one on the team doing it so I guess I get to either both get the steak knives and fire myself but yeah so like in the mirror yeah exactly but yeah sometimes it can be like you know like the really good sales people a lot of my friends who are like they're just they're hunters right and I'm not necessarily I'm a little too empathetic and I take

it a little personally because it's my own company. So sometimes I have to be in the right head space, but we've, we've actually just worked. We were hiring someone who's helping with both the account management side, but also has some biz dev in her and she's one of these people who has no problem going up to people, networking, contacting people. So getting the right people in the right positions, of course, really helps because sales was never my strongest thing. I just ended up becoming that because it's a really good thing

when you are the lead of your company. And I am very passionate about what we do. So I can be the right person. Yeah, it comes through better. People like being contacted by a CEO rather than an account representative too sometimes. It's more personal, right? Especially with our types of businesses,

it's like when you're a small team, like if it's, take our business for example, if it's Dario and I who are trying to do the business development, talking to new leads or clients, but instead it's like the client will know that we're a small business, but for some reason we have a secretary reaching out or something like that, or someone who's like an in-between

that really doesn't need to be. It's like, why aren't you personally reaching out? You know, like they might be thinking because it's not like a big corporation, like say a bank where it's like, you can't expect to be talking to the CEO about every little thing, right? Whereas with a smaller business,

it's kind of like they're kind of coming to you for that more personal approach too. Trying to connect with a very specific creative team, you know, behind these businesses, maybe that's, they might feel more comfortable, it's like with the CEO as well, or like the person running the business. It's like you basically have final say.

I don't think it's that complicated, Kirill. I think it just depends on who's on the sales side pitching properly. Maybe it also comes down to... I'm just saying it could be like that. No one's going to be able to sell your business better than you. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. They will feel more of the passion through you personally.

Now the challenge, of course, with that is when you become the face of your organization and often the main point of contact and the relationship manager, it's very tough to scale. And if that is your goal, if you there's lots of very successful video companies who stay like three or four or five people, they the the leads and the owners are the key creative people and they just keep raising the rates and do amazing work. Others who look to scale in terms of size or book of business, a challenge for me, and you know, I've hit these milestones or these kind of these steps throughout where I have to be okay not being the face of everything or not knowing what's going on or not overseeing everything.

And now I actually get to a point where I'm really, I am trying to scale the business to add value to it by actually not being integral to the day to day, not being integral or the face of it, even though I have a lot of presence on LinkedIn and stuff like that. But like people, like I'm now very heavy in the sales process,

but if I were really, really trying to build this for some sort of exit in a couple of years, which I'm not, I would be basically getting myself away from everything from a client facing, as well well as even operational because when someone looks at your company to go like, okay, if you pulled Doug out of this, how quickly before it starts to lose money and people look at that when they evaluate companies. So if this is your nest egg that you're building building if this is something that or you want to build to sell then you have to consider that you you can't

do it all that you can't be the face of it you can't answer all the emails and look at ways that you can start to move your way to it because it got it was really hard for me at first and I actually mucked it up pretty good by jumping in and like not even letting the new people who are building the relationships and helping and I still struggle with that being sometimes quiet when there's a problem with the project. I still get brought in just like bringing in a manager when there's something wrong with the food at a restaurant but you know supporting the rest of your team to allow them to grow to get give them autonomy so when it's tough when you're the person who did it all and then you're trying

to be the person who does none of it and it doesn't obviously just flip like that. It's a lot of steps in between but I'm somewhere in the middle now. That's come up quite a bit actually. We've had several guests mention that they had trouble stepping back and letting for sure putting trust in their team members to be able to do their jobs properly. It's one of the most common things in any business in growth and it's why a lot of companies don't grow. There are some you know there's some good books out there. We're integrating EOS into so entrepreneur operating system. Their main book is Attraction. There's other similar ones like Scaling Up or other you know ones that people kind of operate on. then of course there's lots of different books out there You know built a built to sell

Plan to win those types of things and that they will tell you a lot of the times It's the lead it's the the owner the the the person who often the founder the CEO who actually is one of the biggest Challenges or who actually is one of the biggest challenges or blocks to really letting the business grow. I call it like pulling frozen fish out of the freezer. Like if you ever watched those like kitchen nightmares where, you know, where- A little bit. Yeah, comes in and he changes the whole menu

and there's often frozen fish and he's like, we're not doing that anymore. If the owner is the chef or like in the back of the house in any kind of way there's always this moment where he freaks out or she freaks out and she goes into the back and pulls out frozen fish. Of course they leave the frozen fish there so they do that but like it's that panic into like you know when we built process when we had to get stuff out of my own head because I couldn't be the only one doing it and and then all of a sudden things are happening without me,

I would jump in and change stuff very late in the video, or I would jump in and say that we can do something for a client that I didn't know there was context before that they were either being very difficult or something had already been promised. And that idea of thinking you're the only one who can do the thing that you do or that you like is just a, it's an ego issue and it's acting like there's no one else in the world who can do the same thing that you do because you're so special and so lovely and your mom hugged you a lot. And I don't know why I went there on that.

My mom, wait, this is going to turn into a psychological therapeutic thing. My mom didn't hug me a lot. I've been trying to prove myself ever since. We're Dr. Melfi right now. He's coming. It's like, why do you feel that way today? Yeah, we're not recording this, right? This is a test track? Yeah, yeah. We're definitely not 30 minutes into a talk.

30 minute test call, you know? Good to know. I have a lot to get Yeah, yeah, great. Definitely not 30 minutes into a talk. No. 30 minute test call. Good to know. I have a lot to get off my chest right now. There's something to relinquishing control of certain aspects of the business. And it's something that we noticed that's worked for us as well. Because in the beginning, Dario and I, we basically,

granted, when we first started in the industry, we didn't know a lot about the industry. So a lot of what we were doing was more so us trying to kind of learn the ropes as we went. But essentially we were basically doing everything, every task together. We did that for a number of years just to kind of get an understanding of like what the industry is like.

But we also noticed like how much time and how much time would be, could potentially be wasted by doing that. It's like, all right, we both look at all the emails, or we look at all the briefs, we look at all the calls, we're on every single client call, we're on every single production call, pre-production, post-production.

Who has the time to do all that? And as a result, it's like basically two people doing one job essentially. That's right. That's kind of like how you have to look at it. So once we started figuring out what each of our strengths were and we split up a lot of the tasks and responsibilities, we noticed a huge surge in productivity as a result.

Like Dario's now able to be on a hell of a lot more sales calls and lead generation calls than me. I hear you clicking. He's not listening. I was getting that I realized that I don't have my do not disturb on so I was getting a phone call and it was messing with my headphones. You got your mic right next to the keyboard. All I heard was click. It's like a good foot and a half away This is a good microphone. Wow He's disturbed by the do not disturb, you know, I turned on do not disturb

It was the the phone was like trying to like steal my headphones and it was like a spam call from Georgia So I'm like, okay, you gotta turn that off. Sorry about that. Yeah, I'm back We should we should actually answer one of those spam calls if it actually happens on an episode. Just be like, oh, finally you're here, how are you gonna help me, please? You want my credit card number? It's gonna be two things, either the Chinese people

or the air duct Indians, it's one of those two always. Yeah, it's always one or the other. But yeah, as I was saying, Dario now has a lot more capacity to handle more sales calls, like a higher volume, and he's focused on that, and he's gotten really good at that.

Whereas I'm able to manage more creative projects and client projects, get them through from pre-production to post, and just manage that entire process with the creatives. And this way, we're able to handle a higher volume of work to come through, thus generating more revenue and profits for the business. So figuring out how to who to relinquish that,

those certain responsibilities can help maximize your time. It's the idea, yeah. I mean, we still run into those problems as we grow, right? And whether that's me or even it's like, it hasn't been clarified, there's definitely times when we have three, sometimes four people on a discovery call and it's like, well, okay, maybe we have someone taking notes. Maybe we have like, we have someone who's going to need the information and I'm, I'm talking. So there are times for it. We don't need to do one person at all the time, but what we

do need is, and we just roll it out again because it's an ongoing thing, is accountability. So you need to know every person should be responsible for, or every role should have one person who's responsible for it. So, or at least that's what we do in the sense of, you know, who's in charge of invoicing, who's in charge of sales calls, who's in charge of, you know, all of those things. And it doesn't even mean that you have to do them on your own, it just means that you're responsible for them. So when there is, it would still get to that, like, wait, who's doing what right now?

And who's like, hey, are you calling them or am I? Well, whose responsibility is it? And you can start there. So it's not either you're both doing it and grabbing the baton or you both drop the baton, which is even worse. And so we have to continuously redefine that look at that and even remind ourselves kind of some feels almost cold like when you know someone on our team will be like hey are you doing that thing

and the other person will go it's not my accountability do you need me to do it I'm happy to do it but it's your responsibility to do it do you do you need help with it? And by the way, that goes like always, that comes back to me often where it's like, it's your responsibility to go, right, thank you. Okay. And then I can still delegate if I need to, but when we go, why didn't this thing happen? Then we should be able to know at least, and it's not throwing blame, but someone's at least to know like, oh, okay, sorry, that's something I should have done. And it's the only way that you can grow because you've got, yeah, the double, the two-headed dragon issue.

I mean, again, I've had this happen on numerous occasions and we just had to redefine it again where, you know, you want out of just an urge to do the best and even to be like, hey, yeah, when we get a whole bunch of people on the call, it shows our intention and our might and our enthusiasm. And then you realize like, oh, wow, this is very inefficient because we're already, you know, especially when, hey, if there's nothing else to do, great, but then you have a bigger problem when everyone's already super busy.

And one way to even look at it is, and I saw actually a really good example of this for, this is more for internal meetings, is actually looking at every person's hourly rate and going great. So if we put, let's say three people on this call that, and everyone's rate is, let's say it's 30 bucks or 50 bucks an hour or whatever this meeting that we don't think is actually costing us anything is actually costing us 150 or 250.

I saw the examples, like 600 bucks, this meeting's a $600 meeting. Do we wanna have all these people or do we even wanna have this meeting? And so I love that idea, but it is. It's like, how do we, and by doing that you have to have a good process because you need to know if you guys are splitting off

and we're all doing our own thing, well, how are we making sure that thing is being done and it's following through the process and the inputs and outputs? Because then the other problem that can happen is you turn into these little islands of things happening and you don't even know what each other is doing and that can be problematic as well. So then you need you know communication is another issue as

well right where you're not over communicating or not under communicating you know all those types of things and it can be overwhelming and it could be frustrating and stressful but getting to the other side of it and I was someone who never really understood the value of process until, and had a few people who were really trying to drive it into me. And I'm like, whatever, we're creatives, we do, you know, come on, it's supposed to be

fly by the seat of your pants. Now that we're on the other side of it, even when we're busy, we know what needs to be done and we know how to handle it. And we like, when this summer was so, so busy for us, and I'm not boasting, it was too was too busy like that's not a good thing however we had basically nothing go significantly wrong and flagged everything the moment it happened and that was through some meeting cadence and cadences that we have we have our

key people who meet for an hour and a half on every Monday and our entire team meets for 10 minutes every morning and all these things are managed very very well I like to think because when we pull down all of our clients and this is not a flex but it just is that we have at this point a hundred and fifteen projects at some point from the first call to an end of a closing of project in some state of flux doesn't mean they're all actually happening. Some are, you know, get frozen or some are moving slowly or, you know, that kind of stuff.

But we have to have that process and we have to have everyone knowing what they're responsible. And we need to be correcting in the moment when someone is stepping out of their lane, often me by the way, and making sure that everyone's doing what they gotta do and that we know who's responsible for what so we can all move together.

So it's been a lot of work to get there, but boy is it worth it. What tools? Which project management software do you use? We use productive.io and it actually does have a good CRM in it, like not nearly as good as a HubSpot or a Salesforce or anything, but for us, it has just multi levels of your engagement.

And then once it goes in, it does pretty good. It works with QuickBooks well, our last one didn't. It has some scheduling, we need, or we actually brought scheduling into it. We were using a different scheduler. So for for the most part it works really well for us plus they're not like a massive organization they've actually taken some of our input and ideas and built it so it's worked well we looked at lots of different ones including Monday and like we were used to be on work image egg

and I think we looked at Asana as well. That's the one I'm using right now. Okay yeah. Yeah, I'm on that. We actually had not looked at productive and one of our colleagues who were in the same building, they run a web wizard or a web and digital marketing company called Web Wizard, sorry. Chad kind of reached out, he's like you guys are looking for one right? We just integrated this like a month ago

and so he helped walk us through it, gave us a very good demo of it. And yeah, it's been really good for us. Why did you not choose to go with Asana? I'm just curious, because I'm like two weeks into it and I'm having like the time of my life. Oh yeah, no, I mean, we just basically chose about five different ones and I was not part

of the vetting process. So we actually had Colin, my executive producer, our creative operations, he was an account manager at the time, sorry, but in our creative operations manager who is no longer with us. And I think one other person and they did, they got on calls with everyone, they did pros and cons, like a big sheet was given to us looking at cost all that kind of stuff Not to not to disparage any of them and a lot of it was like it really was down to very small things It just came in like hey, and we had enough pain points on the last one We were on that we knew what we wanted to solve. So we had kind of set some

Some big priorities on like, here's the functionality we wanna make sure we have. And so when we looked at those pros and cons, there were some that's just like, it's great, but I think we would rather go with this because it serves us just a little bit better. Scheduling was a big part. We really wanna be able to schedule,

even though actually we didn't bring it in for a while, we were using float. We wanted the ability not to just see people's timelines. We wanted to be able to flip it and have project timelines and allow to scale them really easily because they move so much. So many of these are like you have to manually input when a schedule changes and it doesn't necessarily flex. I think that's becoming more of a common feature, but just a couple of years ago, it wasn't.

Okay. Yeah, I think when it comes to these types of softwares and everything, it all comes down to preferences a lot of the time. It's like camera gear, you know? Yeah. A lot of them are performing the same function. They're all relatively in the same level of quality.

Yeah. Not major differences. Sometimes it's just personal preferences, ergonomics, file types, X, Y, and Z. Company size being a big part of it too. Like if we're managing the inputs and outputs of a whole bunch of people, we need to be tracking time. We need to track profit. If you're dealing with either bigger projects and smaller crews or smaller amounts of people, then you might not need that.

Actually, we were coming from one that was just too robust. It had too much functionality. It wasn't very user-friendly, but it was just like too many features. We didn't need all of them, and it made it very, very confusing. We needed something a little more streamlined. And so, I know a very close colleague uses Monday.

They love it. It's great. It's for their digital marketing uses Monday. They love it. It's great. It's for their digital marketing company. They swear by it. Again, to each their own. So what's next for you then? Like you're in a process of strengthening your processes for your company.

You have like a solid team of 15 or so people. Actually, one thing I wanna highlight for him him I've noticed is that someone's become a little bit of a public speaker I've seen a little bit in the space. I also saw what you're traveling to Europe later this year. Did you already go there for this? No, I go in under a month. Oh shit, I gotta prepare for it. Yeah, so I can answer both questions. The public speaking one is something that, I mean, the story that I tell it, I'll do a very abridged version,

is I used to be a musician, I love performing, and I also love helping. So I think there's another life where I wanted to be a teacher. My mom's a teacher. I love being able to learn and then being able to impart that learning to other people. So I've been doing it actually.

It kind of just organically happened with, um, what we learned in storytelling. And, um, so having, learning the science of storytelling, I started having clients ask me to kind of teach some of that to internal teams. It actually started with a large bus company and wanting to teach their entire sales team the science of storytelling. And that kind of then turned into me getting referred to some other places. And then I'm like, this could be something. This could be a lot of fun. So I do it for a couple of reasons. A, is I enjoy doing it. So I do it for a couple of reasons. A, is I enjoy doing it. And it's really great for me in just in general

for being more and more comfortable with it. And as a result, that tends to drive business. So we've had one company that I did storytelling, two days of storytelling with their organization and the director of marketing moved to another place and basically said, we're working with Doug and Tripwire on the videos that we need to make because they know storytelling and we did not have to pitch, we did not have to compete and we got one of the larger contracts we've had.

So there's a little bit, a lot of it's relationship building, a lot of it is also positioning yourself as a leader in the subject matter that you want to be. And so, it would be the same way that I think if I started doing public speaking on technology, if we were really trying to, camera technology, if I was trying to build, for instance, like what Shane Hurlbut's doing, which is more of a training thing.

In my case, I really like being able to help clients because so many people come to us going like, we know we need to tell our story, we don't know how. So that's where I kind of, anytime I can help, I kind of pop in there. And so I've even gotten to a point where I did, I've been trying standup comedy to learn how to- I was gonna say, yeah, like how was that experience?

I saw you made a post about your first stand up routine. I was like, I gotta talk to you. It was a little taste. What's your, it wasn't, it wasn't my very first. I tried it last year. It was like, even though I've spoken in front of hundreds of people, I've played music, you know, in, in front of, in in front of a couple thousand before.

This, like doing it last year, there's this competition at a local comedy bar, and I felt like the first time I'd ever gotten on stage, like I was about to throw up before. And so it was a good exercise. I've been a fan of stand-up comedy since I was like 13, watching Evening at the Improv on a small TV in my attic. And so that was part of like a bit of a life-long,

you know, getting a monkey off my back trying it. But I tried again this year and I actually moved through the first round and I got to the second round. I got second place so I didn't move to the final because they only got first place in. But that was really great for me and what it's helped me do is, you know, on stage I still like the ability to be able to improv a little more. I want to be able to tell jokes a little bit more because that's really helpful for memory recall and connection and engagement. You know, when you're talking about scientific stuff,

you want to make it fun. It doesn't have to be all serious. And so it's just helping add tools to my tool belt of how to be a more engaging speaker and how to just build better connections and help people at a more grander scale. And so that's why I'm going to Lisbon where I got accepted to the,

it's called the Global Speakers Academy and I'm basically training for five days on how to up my game and my overall, my speaking, I guess, what do they call it? It's like not a set but like I would actually have you know a um like so many public speakers do like they're kind of really uh written an organized set versus more of a like a workshop so this would be um the ability to really have something um more structured I might write a book as a result and all of this again is just to further my

knowledge and my capabilities in the world of storytelling as well as then being able to just grow my personal abilities as well as hopefully it comes back to Tripwire as well. So that's definitely the plan. So that's kind of the evolution of that. It's kind of crazy how it has evolved like that, but I find it, yeah, it's a really great balance and it's scary. It is something that even though I love to perform, I'm not super, super comfortable on stage, although some people say that I come off that way. I think I stutter and I'm just a nervous wreck,

but maybe I just don't show it on the outside. You're developing. You're doing self-development, you're growing, you're improving your skills, and that is one thing people need to remember to keep doing when they're running a business, is like, yeah, you could do a lot of things for the business, but sometimes you gotta make time

to grow your skill, your knowledge base, try something new, learn something new, because how you go about doing that, the experience that you will gain from doing that, you can bring it to the business. Like when you think about any business that you start, you don't just start it out of nowhere with no experience whatsoever.

You have, like what makes your business yours is also like comes from the experiences that you have and your particular knowledge and skillset, right? The way you started your business is very different from the way that we started our business. Sure, we all make videos, but we all do it differently. Like, yeah, like certain same elements. We all hit the record button on a camera.

We all have a lighter too here and there, you know, and we ask a couple of questions, but there's a different side to it. There's a different personality behind the business. And the key is to keep fostering and growing that because it's like, there's nothing worse than being stagnant with the business. I find that sometimes when I feel like

if the business has become a little bit stagnant and it's like, okay, I think I've, I think Dario and I have not personally developed as well at the same time. It's not just the business. It's like, what can we also be doing to learn and expand more? I found in my time that anytime I get bored

with the business, it's usually because I'm not learning. It's that I'm not growing. And you can grow financially, but if you're just like, ah, it's the same old thing. And that's how we brought in the science of storytelling through Mew's storytelling, if you're just like, ah, it's the same old thing, and that's how we brought in the science of storytelling through muse storytelling, where it's just like, I feel like I'm making the same thing every time.

I'm not learning anything from this. Oh, you mean like don't just show up and shoot and just put something together, or don't, having a structure when a client comes and tells you they need something to be able to help them actually do something better, or to understand the why and the goal and the audience. All those types of things. That's that was one step. Well, this is kind of the next one for me. And I think to your point there, it's like it doesn't have to

be one or the other because you should be bettering yourself and also getting some fun out of this. Like we work our asses off that you should be able to get some perks and things that maybe you wouldn't get if you weren't doing this running you know being an entrepreneur right you should be able to reward yourself it doesn't have to always be in the form of dividends or money or things that you know it could be in in things that help grow you that should then actually reflect well on your company so it's not just like you taking money out, it's you investing in yourself. But I could do something online, absolutely.

And I'll see if like, hopefully I don't take the financial hit too much in all the travel and stuff like that going to Lisbon. But like, you know, at the end of the day, I think you have to remind yourself that you're worth it and that you do deserve it for all the hard work that you do. You need to treat yourself.

Because if you're just gonna like keep tight on everything and just go we can't afford it or we know everything needs to. Needs to be like at the lowest expense you just gonna burn out you're gonna become resentful and so you need to find those ways to reward yourself and i think the best way is if you can reward yourself that helps you then reward back, bring you back to the company more valuable in what you can offer. So that's kind of the way I think it comes full circle and it helps kind of justify you doing things like this because sometimes it's hard to justify that and I have a business partner and every time I explain to him, hey, here's what I want to do, he's like, does it help the company? Does it help you? And I'm like, yep. He's like it does it help the company. Does it help you and he's I'm like, yep He's like go for it man. Do it

so that's a those things are really really important and and it's not It's not either a splurge or just fully educational It's it's a little bit of both and and so that helps me feel better about it Especially when I have to tell the rest of the group that I'm doing it. I'm like, hey this money We're standing on me. I'm going to Lisbon. Bye guys. Let me know how the videos go. It's like, no, no, like I'm doing this for us. And this should then add to the security of the company and also the happiness of me, which is very important. It's also important to remember to also document and showcase that personal growth and development.

I think that is also something to think to yourself. Is this something that I would like to promote on the business of social channels? It's like, hey, we're just invested in learning this type of new technique and stuff. Or one of our key team members has really dived into this and this is what they've learned by doing this. It's like, I'm starting to think that could be a good criteria to think is like, if this is gonna they've learned by doing this. You know, it's like, if, like, I'm starting to think

that could be like a good criteria to think is like, how, if this is gonna be helpful for the business, would this be something that you would want to kind of create content and document and promote? Or like you, for example, you're going to Lisbon to learn about, like, to public speaking and stuff like that. So it's like, hey, like I, like, you're promoting it on LinkedIn, that we saw it, you know?

And so your clients are seeing this too, and they're seeing the different aspects that the people of Tripwire are trying to do to grow the business, because they know ultimately they're doing it for the clients, and for the projects that they're gonna produce for them. And there's- It's why I promote it.

It's why, actually, I don't like, even though some friends will laugh if I say I'm not like, you know, I don't like to talk about myself. I don't like to publicly talk about myself. If I'm in a group, I'll talk about myself all day. But I feel weird going like, hey guys, look what I did. But the engagement that I get when I'm, A, when I'm kinda talking about things that I'm doing

that have any kind of connection. Like you guys aren't the first ones to go like, hey what? You're doing this GSA thing? That's amazing. I'm like, great, this conversation starter. to go like hey what you're doing this GSA thing. That's amazing I'm like great this conversation starter It does also show that you're you know You're trying to continuously better yourself And then this is also when you're sharing things that are a little bit authentic that aren't they don't feel too too fake or too

braggadocious that people connect in that and so It is just it is all marketing like we actually will put this in our marketing budget, this GSA thing, as well as maybe learning and education. It could be considered sales. I'm gonna meet 50 people or 40 people, sorry, from around the world who are like-minded in different kind of organizations and worlds.

You're gonna build this network. All this should come back. For the money that I'm spending, I should be able to make this back, I would say, in a year year's time quite easily if I really put my mind to it and I action the things that I learned from it. So it's an investment as well. So all those things.

And then yeah, if you're not telling anyone, I mean, there's just this opportunity when it reminds me when someone like had first started out on their own and they had a demo reel and I had seen it online. This is a while ago and he comes back a few months later and I'm like, how's it going, man? He's like, ah, it's tough to get any business. I'm like, well, you putting your demo out there? Like you putting yourself out there?

And he's like, well, I don't wanna advertise myself. I'm like, buddy, if you aren't, no one else will. And you're gonna make it real hard for yourself. So you have to get over it. And I have to get over being like real real like, you know, again, like I I'm pretty self-deprecating. So for me to be like, hey everyone look what I'm doing feels weird, but This is actually very strange. It is easily the most engagement. I have gotten in all of my LinkedIn posts It was something like

6,000 impressions. I think the most I've ever gotten is 2,000 on anything else of actual substance. Maybe LinkedIn rewards people bragging because I think that's all, there's way too much of it anyways, but I just also got a lot of congratulations, a lot of support, people saying that I'll be really good at that. And so you're creating these engagements,

these relationships, and maybe it's not gonna be specifically right after like, oh, you're going to GSA, we should do a video, but it's gonna be like, oh, you're, tell me more about this. And you're continuing a conversation and down the road, someone's hopefully then of those people are going to let's work with Doug on this thing because it seems like he's his head's in the right space. We had a client who is a motivational speaker.

And I got to say, if you're ever going to pivot, Doug, that is a very juicy career to get lucrative. Yeah, I'm very, the amount of the amount of money that guy was making for time. If you're ever gonna pivot, Doug, that is a very juicy career to get into. Lucrative. Very lucrative. The amount of money that guy was making per time. I sort of got a curl. Kyril and I looked at each other, we're like, we're not charging this guy enough.

Yeah. I know a few of them and I know what they charge. It's actually, it's become a very highly competitive market. But yeah, those who have, you have a bestselling book and you start to really get some gigs out there. Like, yeah, it's pretty crazy what an hour of a rehearsed written presentation will get you. It's pretty wild.

So yeah, I mean, hey, that also could be a great benefit if I can actually really go forward on that. I have to figure out what my book would be about. I can't tell you, I have an idea. I'll tell you guys offline. Listen, I saw what they wrote. It was very basic. Yeah.

It's just the way it's packaged. I remember looking at it going like, oh my God, this is so simple. Like we could do this. There's a good double episode. Yeah, not to talk about another podcast on your guys' podcast, which is awesome. Sack two Bob's has I think two episodes about writing your own book and what you should and shouldn't do. Nowadays it's kind of like

this like entry-level thing that you have to do in fact I think signing up for this thing before getting upset accepted they're like so have you written a book or are you writing a book? Like those were your two options. It wasn't like, there wasn't a third one. It's like, I guess I'm writing a book, all right. Well, it's like, what are you gonna sell there? What are you gonna sell there otherwise, right?

Cause that's like one of the quickest things to actually sell at these events. Like usually when you're speaking, you're pushing people to, there's a call to action usually, right? The speaker's call to action is buy my book. You wanna learn more. It's a credibility, it's also a people to, there's a call to action usually, right? You know, the speaker's call to action is buy my book. You wanna learn more. It's a, it's also a credibility to it.

That's what I'm saying, yeah. I actually, I created an entire course, right? I taught for a year at my alma, what is it? Alma mater. Alma mater. Thank you. And it was, it was a digital media entrepreneurship. And so actually I almost made that course It was digital media entrepreneurship. And so actually I almost made that course and I actually kind of joked that all it was

was cautionary tales of what not to do rather than what to do. That could be a book, right? It could be like, here's the things that you've learned. I could take the processes that we've done with Tripwire. I can take the combined knowledge that I've learned from multiple different areas on storytelling and talk through that from a video perspective.

There's lots of different ways that I could go about it. So yeah, it's but it is kind of interesting, overwhelming and daunting. The idea of it. But nowadays it doesn't even have to be that big a book. You need to you need to write something of substance, but doesn't have to be like a 300 pager. They're getting thinner. I've noticed a lot of people who have written books and they went from 400 to 300 to 200. It's because ChatGPT can only reply so much, Kirill. Well it's just like honestly like who reads through like I've read enough of these enough of really actually very helpful books and by the time you get about halfway through it, you're like, I think I got it.

Like there's just a lot of anecdotes or kind of like, yeah, they're definitely fluffing it out. I will actually be backed by anything either. Like a lot of the times it's just personal experience that they're going on. So this is not scientific. Like unless you're looking for like a perspective where they have like a science behind it and say, no, this is backed by data and everything. A lot of times, it's just like, oh, this is what I did. But then again, guys, we're also having this podcast

where a lot of people share how they started their businesses, what worked for them, what worked for them. It doesn't mean it's gonna work for everyone else here. No, but it's the way it's pitched, Kero, because a lot of these books, the way they pitch it is like, follow it and you will be successful. Just follow these steps. Our thing is like follow it and you will be successful. Yeah, just follow these

Our thing is just like we're just having conversations up to you to take what you want out of it It's a lot of it can be snake oil. There are obviously there's some really great ones and they do actually back with science. There's a There is a great one of the books. I've only gone all the way through that isn't like, you know highly highly like kind of like educational, but it feels a little more like one of the pseudoscience books, but it's actually rooted totally in psychology, totally in, in years and years of studying. It's something called the happiness advantage. And it's just the idea is all these ways that you can be a happier person and you actually become more successful via by being happy and at first it sounds very like you know the like the secret or something that is very just like

you know theoretical and it will come. Yeah exactly. But there is there is something in that there is something in them in manifesting things because you're actually like you're getting your brain to focus on those things your brain can only focus on so many things. All this kind of stuff. So it's one of the only books I've gone through all the way word for word, and actually kind of want to read it again,

because I think I need to refresh it. But if you're ever looking at ways to just, you know, if you struggle like so many other people do as entrepreneurs, and one of the challenging things as an owner and as an entrepreneur is that our jobs are actually to focus on the bad, to find what's not working. As a result, a lot of entrepreneurs get depressed, whether it's because their companies aren't working or it's just really hard.

If there's ways to help you hack your brain into finding the good, because I've had to do that through fit therapy, meditation, reading books, all that kind of stuff, I can come off very happy here. But man, what goes on in this brain sometimes in the early mornings when you're just, again, on sales, like, nobody likes me. And it can get a little dark there. See, this is the therapy session we're doing, right? You guys still aren't recording, right? Exactly.

This is our ongoing unrecorded therapy session. You mentioned the mother. He's depressed now. He's Tony he's Tony's friend I'm telling you There's any over shares There's a thing that it says here for example where it's like how a positive brain fuel success and work in life That's its whole motto and you know, it's interesting You're mentioning about how they have to try to try to keep positive especially in our industry where it can get very pessimistic. And we've all seen it firsthand how people in the industry can get very pessimistic and very negative

about the work in the industry that they're in. And once they start doing that, you see the business decline. Like you actually can see it decline from the sidelines. And it's a shame because it's like, oh, if only they did this, they would be doing really well. Or is it just change their- We've seen it twice where they basically ended up

closing the business. Yeah. I'm not gonna mention names with Carol, you're the one who won't talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like we've seen it happen. I've seen companies that, it's the ones that are really super competitive or they're,

there was one that they're not all around, haven't been for a while that I found out they actually had for whatever reason because I don't know really how you compete in the sense of like there was a hit list on a whiteboard of just like the the the video production companies that they wanted to quote unquote beat I'm not in I'm not sure how you beat them aside from yeah right I'll tell you what I meant, on Google, they wanted to move up fast. Sure. Anyways, we found out we were at the top of the list

and so that was actually very flattering. But there is this like, I'll go online and I will admit, we all have like kind of, there's just times where because you're so competitive with yourself, you're trying to do your best and then you see say another colleague, call it a competitor or another person in your market that are doing work that looks great,

or maybe is with a client you used to work with, or one that you wanted to work with, and my immediate, like, my guttural reaction at first, internally is like, oh, why'd they get it? And then I realize, I'm like, this is not a way to be happy. Like, you can't succeed by just looking over your shoulder at what other people are doing and comparing in that sense. So what actually I usually do is then I have to like,

kind of reframe and actually I'll often celebrate them publicly and just write like, hey, this is amazing. And because it is, they've done a really good job. They're doing the same thing we're trying to do. They're trying to do their best work. And then if I do decide to share it with the team, it's not like, look at what these guys are doing. How are they doing this?

It's like, Hey guys, I really like their use of light in here. This makes me think of like something we could do, blah, blah, blah. And I'm pulling inspiration and trying to make ourselves better because that's the only way we are is we just learn from other people and inspiration, whether it's from someone in New York or it's someone who's a block away from us we shouldn't have to treat it differently but I definitely do find there's a while I wouldn't watch documentaries really good documentaries on Netflix because I felt like I'm like why can't we do this I'm

like that's a terrible frame of mind so you have to exercise perspective and and and find the good I try to write down gratitude for the things that we do have because rather than focusing on the things we don't, you don't wanna be just someone who's happy with whatever on the other side, happy go luckily, you need that drive, that competition in you to, I heard this from a CEO of actually a pretty big

car manufacturer and he's like, the best CEOs are the ones who are never happy with themselves because they always continue to improve. I'm like, that is true and wildly depressing because that means you can never be happy. It's like, well, what's the point? Trying to find that balance and again, I'll still have more of those moments and then I'll try to reframe them. I'll allow for them to be,

allow for that moment to not just deny myself to say, hey, yeah, you're going to feel jealous. You're going to feel insignificant. But then you need to reframe that because if you're just gonna go down that hill, yeah, you're right. Like it's just gonna, you're gonna compete for the wrong reasons.

You're gonna do the wrong stuff. You're gonna be terrible to be around and you're not going to grow. And you're going to get petty as well. I have to fight that as well. But yeah, so. The pettiness is like the thing you have to always make sure you're not catching yourself doing.

That type of mindset comes from the fact that you see someone doing something that you, it comes from the fact that it's showing you that it is possible to achieve those goals. Yeah. So hating on it gives you an excuse for not achieving them. You know, yes, I find that in the past we kind of had that but it was because but we dropped it quickly because we realized, hey, you know what, we're not giving it our full

attention or our our all. Right. So once we started doing that, we started seeing better results. Yeah. It also like, it's a good reminder. Like, you know, sometimes you also look at someone's stuff and you just go like, Hey, that's really good. I wish we could do something as good as that. And you actually have to like look back at your own stuff.

I remember sometimes if I felt a little down on, on the work or felt that we, you know, we, we, we need to do better in certain areas. And I would actually look back at the work we've done. I'm like, actually, no, I'm really proud of the work we've done. And actually this is just as good or maybe it's better or whatever. It's all subjective. It's art, right? But you have to kind of remind yourself of the great work you have done.

And yeah, again, just finding that balance is the drive, but not letting the drive you into the ground. Yeah, and especially places like Instagram where people are constantly flexing and showing off all their work. You can easily- Their best LinkedIn.

Their best work, yeah. You could really get into that downward spiral of seeing the greatest, the best work from people is like, oh, I'm having such a great life doing this, doing that, meeting this person, meeting that person. But then you don't know what the backstory is of like, oh, like are they actually keeping busy? Was that just one project that they had?

Everyone's circumstances are different. And it's like, I think everyone is trying to kind of romanticize their situation to everyone else. And then sometimes people do get into that thing where it's like, not that you're jealous more so, but it's exactly what you described where you're kind of like feeling like, why am I not getting to that level?

You know, like this, I'm clearly not good enough. Like you can easily go down that spiral. And the key thing is to catch yourself. I like what you do, which is celebrate it, especially if it's people you know. I think that's a good aspect to look at it. One thing I like to do is like, you do, which is celebrate it, especially if it's people you know. I think that's a good aspect to look at it. One thing I like to do is like, all right, if this is something I feel like I could have done,

why, what could I learn from this? Or what, why have we not done this? And like Dario mentioned, like the one thing that helps easily clear us of that is the knowledge is that, okay, well, we haven't done anything to try to get to that and when you have that When you have that mindset, it's like alright you so it's not about the fact that it's not about external factors It's putting the responsibility on you. You know like a lot of people try to kind of like put the responsibility on something else

It's like oh it went off. The only reason we didn't get this is because They turn less money external facts is just because they did this, they did this, the client did this. And it's like sometimes a lot of that is a little bit true, but you can't completely dismiss yourself from responsibility. Ultimately, if you're not doing the type of work you want to be doing, it's all on you at that point, right? And like if you're going to want to do those kinds of projects, you have to figure out a way to make it happen. And that's something that we always keep

in the back of our minds. And then it's like, if we really wanna start doing that work, are we ready to do it? Let's do it or whatever, and we'll figure it out. Yeah, I mean, it can be like- The leader bears responsibility at the end of the day. It's always gonna be your fault things are going bad, and it is gonna be your fault

if things go well as well, right? So I feel like you can't grow even as a business owner if you're willing to accept that because imagine you start growing adding employees and then what? You're going to blame them for problems that at the end of the day are yours? Like it doesn't make sense. That's what businesses like that feel at the end of the day. Yeah. Yes. When you're talking to a client, and if one of your crew members makes a mistake, one of them didn't hit record,

knock on wood for our team members. Oh, you jinxed us, Karel. I gotta knock on wood too now. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Everybody knock on wood, knock on wood. If a mistake happens in the business, you're the one ultimately responsible for it in the client's eyes.

How is it gonna look to the client if you just try to throw one of your team members under the bus? It's like this person's a shitty leader. You know? I'd much rather someone where they're like, we're so sorry about that, we made a mistake, this is what we'll do to rectify it, don't worry.

We will adjust it, right? Like things happen, you know? Like mistakes happen and then if you fix it, the clients will be grateful will adjust it, right? Like things happen, you know, like mistakes happen and then if you fix it, the clients will be grateful for that because then they understand that you can recognize when a mistake has happened, you're able to own up to it, which a lot of the time that's what people want.

People want people to just simply take responsibility and own up to their mistakes, which nobody does these days, I feel. You know, like a lot of people don't do it. There's such an opportunity when you make a mistake to actually better a relationship because exactly if you if you own it you own it quickly and you give them a plan on what you're gonna do and What you know that what you're gonna do might be just like fixing it getting on top of it still getting it to deadline Maybe it's a discount maybe whatever and even just checking in with them

Then they're gonna appreciate that and I always think way, way more than you trying to go like, oh, this guy really screwed up or it's not our fault. And like you guys actually, well, we maybe did this, but you guys did this, like taking ownership and accountability. Even when it's not personally, physically your fault, going like, well, they work for me, so I take accountability because it goes up.

There's a lot of character in that. And so we try to do that at all times. We don't want to over apologize. I get guilty of that sometimes where I'll just take the blame on something we truly didn't do. But it's also like there's no there's no winning and being right, right? We are in here we are filmmakers. Yes, we are in customer service though and I had a few people on my team who didn't really see the same as me. And we then very much didn't agree on the things like if the client was late on a delivery while we had people on our team, while they've lost their calendar, they've lost their schedule. Well, no, we can't do that because often the person

that we're dealing with is not the one who's actually at fault for the thing happening. Our job is then to try and save Or get it back on track if we can't then we'll talk to them about it But and we have enough of process now that we talk about like here's what happens if you miss deadlines and stuff like that Like we'll try and help but you know after a certain point we can't but like yeah Our job is to save the day when whenever we can because we are in customer service. We are not just filmmakers because if we just said, sorry, you lost your deadline,

well, our person on the other side is now caught in a very awkward position because they're not able to deliver in whatever reason. And being right is not gonna help us at all because even if they're like, yeah, well, technically, we missed our deadline on that and then you didn't deliver and I got in a lot of trouble or we weren't able to meet our goals, they're not gonna be like, so are we gonna work again on that and then you didn't deliver and I got in a lot of trouble or we weren't able to meet our goals.

They're not going to be like, so are we going to work again on the next one? It's like, well, no, they're going to find someone who can help. And yeah, so absolutely. And to that point, actually, like we were in a real tough place last year and actually my business partner who owns a digital marketing company got on a call with me and he said exactly what you said, Dario, which was like, it is your fault that you're in this position. It's your fault, it's your success when you are also doing really well. So take credit for that. But it is your fault when you're in a bad space or when you've screwed up, you hired the wrong

person or whatever, or your sales are terrible, the freedom in that is that you have control versus like acting like, well, there's nothing I can do about it. So then it is you, it is for you then to dig out. So it's actually kind of a freeing thing. I remember one person telling me at NAB, it's like, hey, you hire a sound person,

let's say for 250 bucks and it's their second time and then they don't record or they screw up or they mess up with an interview for instance versus the $500 person that you know for sure is gonna do it. Well, at the end of the day, was it worth saving that 250 bucks to put the entire project at risk? Well, if that screw up happens, yeah, that's your fault. You were being cheap.

So those types of things are worth considering even though we're always looking at the bottom line and all that kind of stuff. Super fun, hey? But what people also need to remember, it's like when the one big benefit of you fixing a mistake that you made with a client is that one, you're gonna be building loyalty with them in the future.

And you're also giving them, which is the biggest thing, peace of mind in future projects. Because when you're working gonna be building loyalty with them in the future and you're also giving them, which is the biggest thing, peace of mind in future projects. Because when you're working with someone, sometimes, like especially someone new, you're always like trying to anticipate where a fuck up or a mistake might happen, right? And you're waiting for it to happen, you wanna know how they're gonna handle that,

how they're going to push past it, right? Because then up until that point, you're kind of like, all right, they're gonna handle that, how they're going to push past it, right? Because then up until that point, you're kind of like, all right, they're doing good work, but you don't have always the peace of mind, right? This is how I feel sometimes when we're bringing on new editors or new shooters, we're just trying to kind of like feel them out with some smaller projects

so that we can kind of understand their workflow, their whole process. And with clients, if you make a mistake and then you fix it, you've now given that client peace of mind on future projects where it's like, hey you make a mistake and then you fix it, you've now given that client peace of mind on future projects where it's like, hey, if a mistake happens, Doug is going to figure it out. Doug will figure it out. He will solve it.

I don't have to worry because mistakes happen and sometimes clients, when mistakes happen, they feel like they have to, they're always going to be the responsible ones to kind of figure it out. It's like, no, you're supposed to be that next point of contact that can help alleviate those challenges, solve that problem. Like you usually do that when it's like external factors, but sometimes internal factors happen. You need to get a video delivered at a certain time.

Oh no, your computer crashed. What are you gonna do? It's like, okay, I'm gonna go bring this person in to help kind of like bring the ball home. It's, if you do that, you're basically helping to generate loyalty because of the peace of mind that you're giving clients. And you know, that's why owning up to mistakes

can be better than not making a mistake at all, honestly. As I said, there's the opportunity to actually build the relationship, strengthen it. Hopefully it's not too massive a mistake that you're really, really screwed up and that one, you know, there's obviously different levels. There's a disclaimer to the, I will accept responsibility for the-

Yeah, well, or just like the, yeah, like we didn't show up to her shoot kind of day. Yeah. Or something like that. And everyone is ready for it. That's not our mistake. That's negligence. There's different.

Yeah, yeah. Negligence, that's right. Mistakes and negligence are different. Whatever the offset is and say it is a big mistake, then you better be prepared to own up that mistake in a bigger way than say, hey, we're going to be a half day behind, but I'm here to communicate with you that we are well in advance of that. That's a good example, right? A micro mistake. And I see this a lot, like whether stuff coming to me or coming to us, and I'm not saying we're perfect in it,

but let's say the thing that you need to deliver a V1 cut of something on Thursday by four o'clock, and then it doesn't come till like Friday at noon. So you and your mind might go like, well, hey, it's close enough, right? And they got it the next day. They didn't ask for it. But from a customer service perspective,

they still might go like, I was just about to email. And also you didn't actually live up to your deadline. Or you actually emailed them at 4.30 on the Friday, or Thursday going, hey, we're running late on this, we're gonna get it to you tomorrow. Well, that's not even that great because they might actually be waiting for it so they can send it to someone.

So now they have to actually go, oh, sorry, I thought I was getting it now, I'm not, so you either make them look dumb or incapable, whatever. Versus the day before where we go, hey, we're running late on this, is this a problem or can we push it to Friday? That's such great customer experience. Most people, 90% of the time, go, oh yeah, no problem, all good. Or they go,

we're really, really banking on this because we have to show it to these people and we told them we're getting it. Great, we'll work extra hard today. We'll do the overtime or whatever. We'll make it work. That is so much better either way that you've given them that communication. We have a rule and we're pretty good at it by now is through our process, which is if you have to ask where something is at, then we have failed you. If you need to know, hey, when are we getting this thing or where is that even? It means that we haven't communicated our schedule properly or that we haven't given it to you.

Mind you, we do get the questions and like we very politely refer them to the schedule we sent. That happens too. But there's this idea of, what is it? Tell them what time the three o'clock train is. It's a Disney thing. I got that from Bill O'Reilly actually. Or is it Bill O'Reilly? Jeez.

Not Bill O'Reilly. We're gonna get canceled now. Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. Can we edit this out? I have a picture of him right there. Terry O'Reilly, oh my gosh. Very different, very different person. But he talks about like just you know, don't be like as per my last email, blah blah blah. So anyways, all that kind of stuff like goes a long

way. And you're building fans and you're building people who will either go to, you know, go to You're building fans and you're building people who will either go to, you know, go to BAT for you when maybe a new hire up on their side says, hey, we should maybe look at working with these people instead. Or, you know, we have one client that we've gone through so many different CMOs and boards of directors and all this stuff, and we continue to work with them

because their team will go to BAT for us. And because of the experience experience that they had and they're like, yeah, sure, you can try someone who's a little bit cheaper maybe, but we know we're going to get this done. We know it's going to be good and we think that's a value. So it also allows us then to also have the right prices because there's always, in a lot of different companies, there's going to be people, not necessarily them, but they're going to be directed to find better prices or better, better, or at least compare to other companies out there. And when you have a really, really strong working relationship and you're a really good communicator and even when things go wrong, they fix it, that that is worth

more than the 20 percent they might save on another company where there is no guarantee or maybe they didn't do very well. I always love it when people ask us like, hey, we really love your company. We like your process. We think your work is great. These guys are coming in cheaper though. Can you match their price? And I'm like, but you just explained all the reasons why we cost more and why we're more valuable.

Why would we do that? It's like, and I'm not going to call ourselves some expensive car, but let's say I'm a Honda pilot. I drive a Honda pilot and you want the price of a Civic for it. Well, no, we offer more. So we need to be paid for more. So the whole value conversation is something else, which is always fun. But yeah, it's just that those are the things

that keep business strong. It's like Mercedes and Civic. I know, you went from Honda to Honda. And I'm like. The price difference is like. No, Civic and Pilot, I'm in the Honda family. I'm just keeping it within. I'm just keeping it within that I'm looking at the Civic hybrid lately and that things like almost 50 like it's wild

Yeah, but but like you're just building relationships. Nothing works better in like cold calling and all that kind of biz dev stuff the best thing that works is people who go to bat for you the people who refer to you or even like stuff. The best thing that works is people who go to bat for you, the people who refer to you, or even like you got someone at maybe a lower rung of the company at the beginning and they don't have a lot of sway. Well, they will at the next company that they go to and they will grow and become marketing directors and CEOs or presidents. And like, it's just relationships and it's being good with those relationships that that's what gets you, that's what keeps you in business and gets you working with people that you want to.

We have people who just swear by working with us and they will go to bat for us and do testimonials for us and all that kind of stuff. That is the best biz dev for us and ever is when someone comes to me and goes like, I was told that I have to work with you guys because you guys are really great. That's way better than me trying to tell someone that or just like hi Do you want to hear about our story telling process we do video and blah blah blah blah like great, you know fine

But it's when someone's like no you need to talk to these guys. They'll help you out that just like subconsciously or even consciously just sits with you going like when these guys are swearing by it then Then I already know that this will be a good company work with Thank you on that note. Yeah Up for an hour in 20 minutes my back hurts I think it's time to end it I was going to stand in for that exact reason. I can't do that anymore. You would have had me like going down on my on my on my

My elevating desk and just like hold on a second I can't do it even with nice comfy shoes my 45 year old back won't take it anymore I got easy slides and my back is killing me right now Long periods Yeah, thanks. Thank you again, Doug, for coming on guys. Tripwiremedia.com at Tripwire media on socials. 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. Creatives Grab Coffee is also sponsored by. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you are a production house and you're looking for lighting, camera

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