Creatives Grab Coffee - How To Diversify Your Video Business Income | Creatives Grab Coffee 42

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

JOIN OUR PATREON FOR EXCLUSIVE CONTENT: https://www.patreon.com/CreativesGrabCoffeeProduced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comIn episode #42, we discuss How To Diversify Your Video Business Income and more with Adam Sewell from Digital Spark Studios.Based on the East Coast of the US, their mission is to create work that triggers both emotion and action while building meaningful relationships with our partners.SUBSCRIBE and FOLLOW for more episodes!SUBSCRIBE 🎧✅ and FOLLOW 📲 for more episodes! https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

So welcome back to the show everyone. Today we have Adam Sewell from Digital Spark Studios. I hope I said your last name right as I was saying it. I was like I don't know. We'll call it close enough. It's been butchered all my whole life so it's fine. How do you say it properly? It's Sewell. It's just like Sewell. Yeah just kind of flow through all the letters and it just becomes one mush one one mush um why don't we start with a little intro about who you are and and a little bit about who digital sparks is sure so uh we're based in north carolina charlotte north carolina we're video production company down here um we started out about eight years ago now 2015 is when we is when we filed for our LLC officially.

Back then we were working full-time jobs. I say we, me and my partner Joshua. We were working for a 3D printing company in the manufacturing space, one of the biggest ones in the world. And they had a very small marketing team. And it was Joshua and I who were in charge of doing all the global marketing for visuals. So video, photography, motion graphics, graphic design, that kind of stuff. We were in charge of doing all the global marketing for visuals, so video, photography, motion graphics, graphic design, that kind of stuff. We were in charge of handling that side of the business. And from there, we basically said, all right, we're traveling around a lot. We're doing some cool projects. They're sending us all over the world to do this stuff. This is great. But it kind of gave us a taste as what could have been. So when I came into the company

and Joshua was already there, we kind of immediately gravitated together and was like, all right, let's do this, but on a bigger scale. Let's serve more customers, tell different stories. And that's kind of how we got started. And again, so eight years later, we're still doing our thing, just trying to improve every day. Nice, nice. So eight years, it's you and another business partner. We don't often see a lot of other companies that have two business partners. So I'm just wondering, how's your dynamic with each other?

And I understand why. And Joshua would say the same thing. Trust me. So we've gone through difficult patches. And it's like a marriage. There's compromise, there's communication, obviously, at the forefront of everything. The dynamic to start with was, you know, we both did everything for everyone. We kind of had a little bit of a handle into the business and into the creative process. But, you know, we were first-time business owners, so we were making it up as we go along, like most people. And we still kind of are doing that today, even though we have a little bit more experience. But it was probably about four or five years ago now that we really sat down and figured out what we want to do and how we make this a little bit more official and make this a little bit more structured. And

that's when I took control of more of the client facing communication side of things, talking with clients, bringing in new clients, onboarding and everything up until the creative discussions start. I still have a handle in that but that's where joshua comes in he's one of our lead directors he directs most of the stuff that we do um to a certain scale until we need to bring in external help so yeah joshua kind of oversees the project from start to finish from a creative standpoint where i project manage per se from more of a client facing financial kind of standpoint there. This sounds so familiar to like us in a way because we it was also for us same thing like about four or five years until we kind of sat down and like started restructuring

everything and I've I guess we're just basically like maybe two three years behind you guys I guess based on what I'm hearing. All right, Kirill? Yeah. I mean, like for us, it was partially because of the pandemic, which forced us to really reflect on that. Was there a similar kind of aha moment for you guys where it was like, okay, this is how we've been kind of operating for the last five years? Like you said, as if you're doing everything, what was the thing that kind of got you thinking, oh, maybe we need to relook at the business and how can we actually treat it as a business? Was there a moment like that?

I wouldn't say there was one specific moment, more of a culmination of small moments that came to a head, to put it in that way. There was an element of maybe kind of resentment on both our parts between between like what we were doing in the business. Like obviously now it's so clear that Joshua is more like creative leaning and I'm a lot more, I guess, you know, more worried about the relationships on the front end and building those and creating a good first impression with clients and getting them on board and getting them understanding what we can do and what our

capabilities are. So it was just through trial and error and going through those rough patches that it really just came out the other end in that, all right, we've got to change something. And then that ultimately led us to being like, okay, we're a business. Let's be a bit more serious about the way we structure this thing. I think it's very common with a lot of the companies, especially when there are more people involved. As you start working together more and more, you start understanding how the business works, who has strengths in what areas. And it's good to let people kind of lean into those a little bit more. That way, no one can do everything on their own. You have to let certain people take the lead on certain aspects of the business in order for it to grow down the road.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And just embracing that and just if anyone is, you know, even a few years behind us and where you guys are, just like embracing that early on is, I think, only a good thing. You know, when you're very early on, you're wearing a lot of hats anyway, and that's still going to be true very early on. But just deciding like which kind of, you know, if there is a lean or a decision on a certain side of the business, maybe one person takes it and the other person takes the other stuff.

I think just kind of starting off with that at the forefront of your thinking is a good way to move forward for sure that definitely happens too when the workload becomes greater because if you're wearing all those hats and the workload starts to increase then you realize after a while you're like i don't even have the patience to like fight for that type of this it's like look if you're good at that just you take care of it i don't care like i got other stuff to focus on you know yeah it's knowing when to let go on certain parts of the the process where it's not necessary to fight on like i

remember when we were first starting out every single step of the process it was like we had a committee meeting dario and i where we were like all right should we make should we cut out this shot from the video and then we would both be like talking about whether we should or shouldn't whereas like now we've gotten to the point where we work together long enough that we can trust each other's judgment on a lot of aspects of the whole process where it's like if one of us says they can handle something, trust them to handle it so that you could focus on other things. Because there's only like eight to 10 hours in a day that you could spend working.

You can't do every single part of the business or dedicate time to it. Yeah. And you naturally want to focus more on certain things as time goes by. You're like, OK, I like like you like, Adam, like you were saying, you like more of the client relationship side of things. So you want to focus more on that. So you're like, I'd rather deal with that than dealing with maybe like the accounting or whatever. Right. So you're naturally drawn to different sides. I was just going to say that accounting is something that you should still always be well-versed in no matter what.

I was trying to think of an example. That's the wrong example, Darren. Marketing, maybe. Marketing, yeah. Let's say marketing. Throw in marketing instead of accounting. I think that chapter, we'll call it, of starting a business early on, I think going through that chapter is really important and is something that you should kind of experience to understand the inner workings.

Because essentially, you go from working a desk for a company next to someone for a long period of time, and you get to know them on a certain level, but you go into business ownership together, that relationship takes a quick, you know, it amplifies significantly. And to go through those chapters where you're kind of button heads and maybe kind of stepping on each other's toes and kind of in, like you said, they're in the room,

just kind of making like hashing out decisions on a granular level for every decision that needs to be made. I think that's important, but, you know, equally as important is coming out the other side with like, you know, a solution to like what that is. Because I think going through that helps you understand people on a different level, for sure.

What would you say you're dealing with now? As like some, like, you know, back then you were dealing with how do you split roles between you, the partnership and everything? Like, what are some of the issues you're dealing with now not even issues but like maybe challenges or like bumps bumps on the roads bumps i don't know if i'd call bumps one of the main things that as a video production company i'm not sure if you experience i know a couple of production company owners that do is the infrequency of cash flow and what i mean mean by that is there is no telling what next year is going to look like from a forecast standpoint, really. You can understand that you're growing year over year. Great. But what does that year look like?

Is February going to be amazing next year for no reason? Is it going to be May? Because May is usually quite a strong month for us. Is it going to be May or is May going to go quiet? Having that kind of like forecasting is really at the forefront of my mind. And that comes from, you know, just trying to make it a little bit more consistent, looking forward, you know, always having in the back of the mind that this could be potentially a sellable entity one day and having that forecast and that predictable cash flow is really important

with that in mind so like diversifying our income is is a big thing so i mentioned before we started to talk like rental equipment studio we just built a studio at the beginning of the year that is now available for rent for production companies and come and and clients directly as well they can come in and use but so stuff like that which has had a little bit more control where we can put things out there and say, okay, these are available. And that gives us, you know, different ways of bringing in predictable income and rather than just relying on, you know, whether a client needs a video, because, you know, you've probably experienced that you can't just necessarily put a Facebook ad out and say, hey, we do this video. Okay, how much is it? Oh, it's over $10,000. I'm not going to make

that decision on a whim, right? That's not going to happen. It's something that needs to be nurtured and something that is, you know, it's hard to master. And I'm not ashamed to admit that something I'm working on every day is to figure out like how to make that a little bit more predictable for sure. You were mentioning about the importance of diversifying your incomes. And I think that's something a lot of production companies struggle with because of that lack of knowing what to predict in like the coming years. Right. And I find a lot of the time it's like, what was our average income in this year? Okay. Let's not expect that. And let's plan for if we had like, say half of that or less than that you know and then that way

if you do better then you can do better but one part I actually like that you mentioned was opening up a studio and kind of like leaning into that almost like as its own business because that is actually something Dario and I have talked about a lot and I'm sure a lot of production companies are thinking to themselves like what what would it take to actually start a production studio specifically, like a space of like, say 2000 square feet, 3000 square feet, whatever it might be like, how did you guys go about that process and how long did it take? So we've been in this space, this echo chamber that I'm sure you can maybe hear a little bit of, um, for three, three and a half a half years now um and it's a great space 25 foot ceilings you know lots of room to just kind of uh do you know host video shoots so

lots of opportunities and stuff but we didn't ever had anything that was like official like a production space in it we've got our desks we've got seating areas we've got storage space for our equipment stuff but we're like okay this is something that we could utilize. It's like a twofold thing, right? Like we could definitely utilize it and others could definitely come in and rent it and utilize it themselves as well. So it was like a win-win and it seemed like it was just something that we probably should have done sooner just because we're in a space that lends itself well to it. And we just said, okay, how can we do it and how can we do it right? So we put a lighting grid in, we have some pre-light lights attached to it that are part of the rental rate. And we have a seating area for clients where they can stream what's coming out of the camera to the

TV. How do we do it right? Yeah. So that's kind of like what led us to it. And to kind of go back and answer your question is like, we should have done it sooner. That's really like what it boils down to. I wish we did it a couple of years ago, but we just weren't really sure that if this was the space that we were going to stay in for long enough to do so. So yeah, we built it ourselves from the ground up. Lots of two by fours and lots of dust in the office for a long time, but it's great now. Yeah, love it. How did you guys, did you guys get a loan to be able to make all those modification and changes and additions or did you guys just set aside money and then over time just

you guys had a big fund to be able to to get everything yeah because it's a big investment it's not something that you can just like pull out of like your bank account as a business especially when you have such uncertain cash flows over time you want to make sure you have enough to keep the business operating properly. Is it like something you had to set aside as Dario mentioned? I don't like loans. Um, so no, we didn't, we didn't get a loan or anything. This was just, we were, we're in a fortunate position to have enough cash on our hand to do it. Um, and we, we looked at it, it was like, all right, cash. And then in a spreadsheet, like, how do we have to, what do we have to do? How many shoots do we have to book on this thing to, to pay it back?

And, you know, it's just going to be a working document. So, uh, it's, look at it as an investment more than an expense. So it's, you know, it's, it should pay itself back over time. Yeah. But I mean, one fortunate thing for you is that you guys were already in a space that luckily you can kind of adapt to what you needed. Like I like right now, we're still kind of we're still pretty remote with the way we work. And a lot of production companies are in a similar boat where typically like you don't always need a production studio. So a lot of the time people will rent it out depending on the client projects that are needed. At the most, they'll have like an office space or whatnot. But actual like studio space is not that common, I would say. I don't know. Maybe it is more common. We don't know. Because I'm wondering how you can go about finding like that right space where you'd have to rent.

But then also you have to make all these modifications to do it. It's almost like a much bigger lump sum. I'm glad to hear, though, that for you guys, it probably wasn't that bad because these modifications to do it. It's almost like a much bigger lump sum. Like I'm glad to hear though, that for you guys, it probably wasn't that bad because you were already in it. And it was just a matter of modifying some things as you went along, rather than one thing completely at once.

Yeah, I mean, you nailed it there. That's really, it's been a long-term project. And that's probably why that we didn't do it sooner is because we looked at it as like a bigger project that was gonna incrementally improve and serve what we needed to serve over time. And another thing I didn't mention, I should have mentioned is that one of our like our co-tenants in this space. So we work in like an industrial park type space is is also kind of like benefiting from having it here as well. So they want photography. They're in like the flame retardant apparel industry

and they need like photography and video of their apparel as it comes out. So it was also like a guaranteed kind of like consistent revenue stream straight off the bat from them because they need to churn that stuff out. And we have the space and they were like, all right, yeah build that space we've got work for you that that helps mitigate the risk it's not good that's that's really good to hear that uh you know because kira and i were talking about it and it's in our long-term long-term plan but it's good to see like how other people are doing it and another thing i really liked is that you were mentioning the the diversification of income because i don't think it's something a lot of us think about too often because we just think okay we do video production so we'll obviously just provide

videos to our clients right but like you were saying you got to think about other more you know stabilized sources of income so like the the rental space, you'll be able, I guess over the, I mean, over five years, five plus years of doing it, you'll be able to gauge like an average of what the monthly income from that will be. And then you were also mentioning equipment rental, right? I guess the key takeaway for people listening is that you don't have to do everything all at once and plan for it in kind of stages. And I think that's what will make it a lot more digestible. Like say, for example, first find a space that you can work out of, see if that works financially, then slowly add other aspects to it.

Maybe you can get it to that point. Not everyone has like a hundred grand that they could just drop on renovating a whole space to be a studio, right? I mean- There's probably more than that that they spend on. Of course. But the other thing is, especially with these places, because you're renting these, or you're leasing out this space for three to five years. What if you put all that money and investment into that space, and then all of a sudden the owner says, oh, sorry, you're going to have to move out. So that's another concern you have to think about later down the road.

So how does that work with you, Adam? You guys haven't bought the actual space. You guys are just leasing it? And that was in our thought process as we were putting it together. So we built it in a way so that we can reuse a lot of the materials that we used. So, you know, it's all two by fours that are screwed together so we can just disassemble it and reuse the material. Again, we built it ourselves. So it was kind of the labor was essentially zero.

And yeah, we just get like and I kind of want to reiterate what you just said there is that, you know, this didn't, we didn't start yesterday and build this, right? You know, like we've been doing this for eight years. We worked in the spare bedroom of my house when we first got started. It was three of us. We didn't even have three desk chairs. We didn't have, you know, like one of the, one of the, one of the guys that was working with us at the time, like he was sitting on the floor, like HDMI into one of my TV that I had in the room, you know, it was, it was, it was awesome. Like, I love looking back and seeing that time. But, you know, this is not something, you know, that I would recommend even for people to try and like get into, like, you know, early on, go through those early phases, get to understand the business,

get some cash, you know, like, you know, get the bank account where it needs to be and then figure out what the right investment is. It's probably not a studio space to start with. Like, just figure out what you want to do. Yeah. It's such a slow burn. How are you managing, like, because now, OK, you have three sources of income. You have the video production side of the business, equipment rental and the location space, the studio rental space. How are you managing all

those three? Because in a way, they could all be three different businesses, right? It's a lot of time. You know, it takes a lot. No sleep? Yeah, well, I don't get a lot of sleep. I've got two little kids at home, so I don't get much anyway. But, you know, when I'm awake, I'm barely here. Honestly, like to be fully fully transparent, the rental side of the business is definitely a supplemental income. It's not something that we put a huge amount of focus on. It's there.

It's like we have it on ShareGrid, for example, and we get a decent amount of rentals on a monthly basis through ShareGrid, although they are crooks and they take away most of your money through the commission side of things. And then the studio rental is just getting up and running right so it's it's still very early on in its infancy and

like the business side of that is still developing you know we have the legal stuff in place and like you know the the contracts and everything but this is something that is again going to develop over time and how we're going to push this out to the masses and really figure out what we want to do with that so i say all that to say like the main focus is still a video production company you know like if there is a production company here in charlotte that does the rental business and the video production company and they do it so well like they have great reputation awesome awesome guys over there and they and they just they've really nailed it like they've they've nailed they're like they're like some of the best guys that you could work with on the rental side of the business.

But they also have just like an incredible production company as well. So it's doable. I know they've got full-time employees on the rental side of the business. We don't have that. We're kind of just going to tackle them both. So definitely supplemental on the rental side on both studio and gear wise. One thing I just want to highlight is that when you're diversifying your income like this, you don't have to have each part of the each different source of income be its own business at the end of the day. If sometimes it can be like you're doing as a supplemental thing where it's very minimal effort, but to at least get something in return.

Because you said, for example, you're using it through a certain website, these rentals. So yeah, they might take more of the cut, but they're handling all the messaging, all the chasing people, all the stuff that would take so much time that it would take away from the big moneymaker, which is the production company itself, right? That is, at the end of the day, the main source of income. If you can get rentals for, say, an income of $1,000 a month for just a couple emails here and there a month, that's pretty decent. Whereas if you did $2,000 of income a month, but you have to spend like two hours daily making sure you're operating that process well, it's just the point is you have to spend like two hours daily making sure you're operating that process

well. It's just the point is like you have to be able to figure out how much time and effort will go into each of these sources of income, right? Like even if you did like affiliate marketing or something like that, if it's something as easy as just creating a link, you know, it's low effort, some reward. You just have to balance it out. For sure. And I kind of would say to that also, like, it doesn't necessarily even have to be like a different line of business. It can also just be focusing on like the video production side of your business and saying, how can I get a little bit more consistency and predictable income? And you naturally probably lean towards more of like a retainer type agreement, consistent, like ongoing work over a period of time. And we look at that as

like a foundation, right? It doesn't have to be, it's not all going to be elaborate. Like it's not all going to be car commercials. It's not going to be that type of thing. But if you have to do like corporate videos for, you know, a waste management company that can book you in for 12, 18, 24 month contracts, and you can just then start to forecast, say, all right, we know we've got this. Can we allocate a percentage of this towards marketing? Can we bring someone in as a full-time employee because of this guaranteed income that we're going to have?

That is also a really good way of saying, all right, we're a little bit more confident about the way that we can go into things. We can take on some more creative projects that are going to be in the portfolio, but we know that we've got this full back work that is going to give us a certain amount of money on a monthly basis as well. So I mean, it doesn't have to be a rental business or a different business. It can be just tweaking the business model a little bit. You mentioned retainer projects. Have you found a lot of success with those reasonable reasonable the reason it's

reasonable is when we don't we don't like to be like that a la carte kind of like cut and paste production company our retainer models are a little bit different they're essentially a bucket of money that depletes over time, but guarantees our availability. So say it's a 12-month contract, $100,000. They've got our services for $100,000 over the course of the next 12 months. And on a quarterly basis, we'll kind of revisit and say, all right, this is how much we've got left. What project's next?

If it's a testimonial that costs some $10,000 to $15,000, all right, that just deducts from the $100,000, but guarantees our availability. So we'll just have to move around things to make sure that they get it. But clients will pay to know that you are there at the drop of a hat. And that's the way that we structure it.

It's like a credit system almost in a way. And that actually just reminded me of like a recent client, uh, project that we've kind of signed for the year as well, where it's not, it wasn't phrased as like a retainer model, but then if you look at it, it really kind of is, it's like for four quarterly videos in the year, you may not be getting paid on a monthly basis, but retainers don't have to be like a monthly thing specifically. It could be like a quarterly thing as well.

It's like, we know every quarter with this client, we're going to do this project, then this project, then this project. But I like your approach too, where it's like buying gift card almost in a way, like a gift card of $100,000. And you can also, you want to incentivize them as well, right? Maybe you give them a 10% discount. So they're getting $111,000 worth of stuff for $100,000 or, you know, so they're not going to sign it unless there's an incentive, like other than the convenience of you being available. I don't think that's enough to convince someone that they should sign that big of a contract. But if you say, all right, over the course of the year, you're going to save $10,000, $11,000, $12,000, then, you know, the accountant team might pay attention. Buy four videos, get one free. Yeah. However you want to word it,

right? Like, I mean, there's definitely ways. Yeah, absolutely. I want to look at the financial side of that. So like, are you, you're locking them in for like, let's say a hundred K, like as soon as they signed a contract, are you doing like, they do quarterly payments to you or is it? Monthly, monthly, monthly payments. you or is it monthly monthly monthly yeah monthly payments yeah and it benefits us so much as well you know like if their initial project is going to be a thirty thousand dollar project and they want to get started right away then we would have that conversation say all right let's do let's do like the deposit of you know fifty percent of the entire retainer and then once we catch up to six months down the road or whatever it may be, or we make it $5,000 a month there or now

for the rest of the duration of the contract. How do you go about bringing up that type of, how do you say, agreement to a lot of clients? You know what, Kirill, to add on to that, do you find a lot of success with new clients or recurring clients? It's a great question. No, it's definitely you want to have a relationship, right? You want to make sure that you're going in.

That's what I figured. Yeah, 100%. I would maybe mention it in passing very casually in some of our earlier conversations as something to look forward to or something we can explore down the road after initial one or two projects. But it's definitely something that would hit a lot harder once you start to develop an ongoing relationship. Because, you know, then they can see the financials. If they've spent $20,000 with you over the course of two videos and they've got 20 videos to do this year and they know it's going to be $10,000 every video, you can easily show them the value over time if you were to do it that way. You don't want to scare them right

off the bat. And the funny thing is, I just thought of an analogy. It's like, imagine you go on a first date and immediately the first thing you're talking about is getting married. It's going to scare everybody away. That's a great a great analogy yeah it's it's so true dude like i mean and yeah you want to make sure that you're just knocking those first couple of projects out of the park building that rapport with the you know those human connections with the people who are going to ultimately vouch for you internally if it's like the director of marketing the market whoever it may be they're the ones that are going to be taking that up to the higher ups and say, hey, if we do this with these guys who are really good and have done great work for us in the past, we'll save this amount of money over a period of time. I mean,

if you just look at it from like how they're going to present it to their internal team, who they have to get approvals from, it makes a lot more sense that way. Well, it comes down to numbers, right? Because if they then go and present it and they're like, look, we're going to save $20,000 a year, you'd have to be a fool not to at the same time because that will help them kind of justify other parts of the process. Like I feel like once we've worked with some clients for multiple projects over time, you also feel comfortable pitching ideas to them because the one thing is that they will also appreciate is that you also understand their business a lot more. You can understand better what their needs are,

what might work for them versus what might work for someone else, so that you're pitching something a little bit more tailored. And that relationship can build even more over time. Do you ever get in touch with your clients? I guess, obviously, the ones that you're on a good basis with and try to see what their marketing goals are for the year and whatnot and see how you can kind of fit into that picture? Absolutely. I was actually going to bring up that point. I'm glad you did. I always try to take it as someone who's interested in the bigger picture

because that's ultimately what we do as like video creators. Like we're just a part of the puzzle that is their marketing plan throughout the year. And to show that you have an actual interest in that early doors, like early on in the conversation is to, is to show that you care about like how they can get the best product to ultimately like go towards that goal of that marketing plan. So yeah, trying to understand what they're, you can even ask them, you know, like ask them about budget, you know,

like what is their marketing budget going forward? I'll ask that. And, you know, sometimes they'll tell you, sometimes they'll, you know, scoot around it like everyone else does. So, but it's like pulling teeth, getting budget talk. It really is. But, you know, to answer your question, yes, absolutely. Talk about the broader market and plan, show that you care, show that you have an understanding of other parts of like the broader market and plan and how you might fit into it. So I think, and that is just going to be like, oh, that's actually a really good point. I didn't think about that. You'll get that response a lot. It's a collaborative effort over time, right? And it's, it's not like you trying to pitch them something, you know, you also have to hear from them, like

what, what they need and what will probably help them over time as well absolutely probably just pitching it as like a free consultation call like you'll sign an NDA whatever just so you can get a bird's eye view on their whole marketing plan and then kind of see if where you you can help them in right yeah I personally I probably wouldn't bring up an NDA I'd just try and like make it as conversational as possible and just let them volunteer information if they're not I wouldn't force it too much. But just showing that you're actually interested in that sort of stuff early on is kind of how I would take it. But I mean, by all means, try the NDA. That's a good approach showing that you care about your clients and how they're doing as well. Because I think going from that approach makes it more casual, as you mentioned, not making

it too formal, especially if nothing is in the works at that point, right? And it will also help them understand how the video will fit into a campaign that they maybe haven't even thought about. Companies at a certain site, they've got multiple, multiple campaigns running throughout the year, and they maybe haven't addressed that. Okay, we've got a web landing page, we've got some graphic design, we've got some photography scale but like we haven't really thought about video but a video for this campaign would actually work really well and it would just maybe get if you can get them thinking about the ways that they can use you it's you know they're obviously going to be able to convince themselves a lot more than you're going to be

able to convince them we we kind of we deal with a lot of b2b clients so i'm finding that a lot of them don't have too many like crazy like marketing campaigns uh on the books but they do need video content still and a lot of them i'm finding we're finding that there's a lot of different types of videos that they're lacking so we were we were just talking amongst ourselves and we were thinking of like maybe once uh every quarter whatever like once a year just hitting them up and saying hey we were just thinking about you guys we developed like a list of these types of videos that could benefit you because that's that's what we're noticing right now with a lot of our b2b clients they would probably appreciate the suggestion right the direction i mean we get clients a lot where they maybe haven't even started to explore video.

They've got a pretty decently built out marketing team, but they've not really moved into the video space yet. So anytime that you can provide suggestions based on experience and industry knowledge, most of the time they're going to be appreciative of that. of that and if it means you know touching base once a quarter to make those suggestions then i think they would you know they would they would take those suggestions and and run with them you know if not if they don't take them at least you'll be at the forefront of their mind again yeah the other thing we're we're also finding a lot of success on is uh providing additional services like photography services and right now with the with with the podcast effect that we're developing this network of businesses like not just across canada but now into the podcast, the fact that we're developing this network of businesses, like not just across Canada,

but now into the US and next month probably into the UK as well. Like a lot of our clients are like, oh, okay, we might have a headquarters over here that would you be able to grab some video footage for us of? And it's nice to know these trusted partners in these other cities because then

you can also go to your client saying like, hey, we've built a relationship with this company in, say, Charlotte, and they can probably help us out with this kind of project if you need help there. Having all these different kind of relationships built can really help in that sense as well. Absolutely. Get that wider footprint let's talk about the uh the market over there in uh in charlotte like what's what's it like over there so in terms of like film community we have a great film community in charlotte it's it's obviously it's not atlanta and it's not la but in terms of just like the talent and the the people that we have at our fingertips here down is it's

it's really cool like it's it's quite a tight-knit community like most people know most people in the space which is really cool there's not many egos um which is obviously one of the main things that we look for when we're hiring crew um so it's it's awesome in terms of like industry down here charlotte's one of the banking capitals here. So we've got, you know, all the banks you can imagine. Really? Yeah. So yeah.

That's surprising. Wow. That's our main industry down here. There's banking. There is a fair amount of manufacturing here as well. So there's a lot of businesses in those spaces. And yeah, it's really cool. And we're not far from Atlanta as well.

So sometimes, uh, those, those things kind of filter out down this way. Cause like in, in Canada, at least like from our experience and people we've talked to a lot of the time, everyone tries to get to some of the bigger cities because there is a little bit more work. But then when we, uh, have guests and, uh, who are in smaller communities, is it very interesting to hear that kind of dynamic and how, how tight knit the community is and how there's more of like a camaraderie. I find like from what I've understood that everyone has, and it's interesting to hear that

because in the bigger cities, like here in Toronto, it's like, it's, it's a very hustle mentality that a lot of people have in comparison. So it's just interesting to hear that. I think it makes sense naturally if you think about it. If you're in a small community, everyone knows everyone. You're not going to get anywhere if you're an asshole, right? You can't because your name is just going to get tarnished so quickly. And, you know, we have that good old Southern mentality as well where most people are mostly nice,

even though most people aren't from Charlotte. You know, we've got, you know, for the most part, most people are nice down here. But once you get to those bigger communities, there are so many people to choose from. And, you know, not everyone knows everyone. And, you know, that leaves room for people who don't have everyone's best interest in mind, you know, and egos can develop. Yeah. Ego is a big killing force in the industry. And a lot of people are trying to, you know, get ahead as quickly as possible. And I think we get it, you know, everyone wants to move forward in their careers. They want to grow their companies, but I feel like sometimes some

people forget about the importance of building proper relationships over time. And that is one very key aspect in our industry, at least for longevity. Absolutely. I will work with someone who is nice and hardworking over someone who has an ego and maybe does a little bit better work every day of the week. I have no interest in working with people who are hard to work with. Absolutely zero. You should be having fun working with the people that you work with. It shouldn't be too transactional. The second things seem a little too transactional and there's no

chemistry between crew members and team members, then what's the point of us even doing this at the end of the day, right? Exactly. I mean, that's why we got into it, right? We enjoy what we do and why would we move it into any other way or bring people on who, who challenge that? But tell me a little bit more about the Toronto market. I'm curious about, I want to know about you guys specifically, like the story behind you guys. And then a little bit more about like the Toronto market as well. Dario? Joel, do you want to? Okay, I can do it. You got, you got, no, you got, I was wondering if you got tired of saying it.

Yeah, it's, you know, what's funny is that we've, we've gotten asked this question so many times now on the show that it's like, it's, it's becoming like a song and dance. Like, and I remember the very first episodes, we would be like going into very big detail. And then with each time we're asked, it gets more condensed, more condensed, more condensed.

Can I change the, let me change the question then. Yeah, sure thing. To avoid just mind-numbing people um so like what what excites you in in your day-to-day job today as opposed to yesterday like what what is exciting you in in running the business and in the production space uh of what you do oh okay that's a good one on my end on my end i actually the one thing I like about every day is that there's a potential for something new to come through the front door. And that's what I like about our industry is that you'd be working with some clients one day and then all of a sudden an opportunity can come walking through the front door that just happens to kind of open the door to something completely different. And this especially happened when we started focusing more on our SEO and trying to get more searchable. And so now we're starting to get more and more leads

from different industries that we never had before because we used to be all word of mouth. Our industry is a word of mouth industry and it's very rare. There's people in similar industries that we're getting recommended to, but now it's like very diversified, I think is the word of mouth industry and it's very rare. There's people in similar industries that we're getting recommended to, but now it's like very diversified, I think is the word. So now it's kind of like, there's like that exciting factor where it's like, I don't know what's gonna come through the front door

in the next week, the next two weeks, the next month. And it just, it keeps you going. I really like the client. It's funny, I'm like you, Adam. I really like the client communications part. I don't know what it is. It just like energizes me. I always feel like a lot of energy at the end of those calls. And I love talking to them about about their project and everything. And the other thing I like as well is that whenever we are shooting, it's always something different. So we're we're experiencing something that i think actually i think we have one of like the best jobs out there because we get to experience so many different jobs that i don't think anyone else has that opportunity it's almost like we're doing like we're in the multiverse it's like oh if i went in that career down that career path i would have been that's what my day-to-day

would have been like if i went there it would have been like that that's the part i like i like as well is If I went there, it would have been like that. That's the part I like, I like as well, is that every time you're on set, it's always different. You get to see what other people are doing in the world. And I don't know, I just really like that. I also get bored easily. So it's like the perfect job for me. You know, a funny thing that I, that I realized this actually really early on, even back in 2014, 2015, around the time we started, because we started while we were still in university at the time. And I remember everyone was, we went to business school and everyone was working to get into a lot of these big corporations. You know, you have to start at very junior levels

before you can even get the opportunity to work closely with some of the VPs or the CEOs and everything. And what made me laugh so much was that I'm still a student technically, yet somehow I am interviewing CEOs for these videos that other people really have to bust their asses to get to that point. It was almost like a cheat code I felt like I hit at that point. Because I mean, like starting in 2013, 2014, like because I imagine, Adam, you started around a similar time as well, where that wasn't a time where like the video production company, like, cause I imagine Adam, you started around a similar time as well, where that wasn't a time where like the video production company, like the smaller one model was really established

as a possibility. And it was almost like you're figuring it out as it goes and you're kind of growing with the industry. So it was interesting to kind of see how that growth became more normalized. And like, now it's like anyone can grab a camera and then open up a corporation name and boom, there's a production company right there. Yeah. Yeah. It's very different now. But that's cool.

I'm glad you guys shared that. What about you? What excites you? Just, so I come from a background in sport. I played soccer in college. I played soccer every day my whole life between like the age of six and 22. So very much in like just incremental improvement.

So just like every day improving the company and its processes just slightly. You know, I'm not in any rush to like to do anything. You know, I just want to just improve incrementally. So like at the moment, I'm in kind of a phase of just improving our client communication and improving the communication that we have at different phases throughout the production and just making sure because, you know, we're picking up bigger clients now and different post points with different expectations. And they, they need a certain level of, you know, customer service

throughout the journey. And they need to be involved at certain places where other smaller clients wouldn't. They couldn't care less about maybe the versions of the script that were being iterated early on. But once you get to a certain phase, and these are national broadcast spots, they have a big say in it of how they want things done. So without bombarding them with communications, but also conveying the messaging that they need to receive is a current thing that I'm working through and kind of like trying to move throughout the company as well. So very boring answer, I understand that. But it's just like the incremental changes

to get to somewhere ahead of where we are today, tomorrow. You know, the funny, the one thing I like about what you mentioned is the incremental improvements, because I feel like a lot of the time in our industry, we get bombarded with so many other production companies, especially on Instagram and everything. You're seeing like all these massive commercials that are major projects that a lot of companies are doing. And you're thinking to yourself like, oh man, I feel like I can do that, but like I need to do, so then I, okay, I have to go out there and like, I got to create like a massive commercial like this right now. It's like, yeah, you can't just do major jumps and things like that to improve. Like the key is to do small steps. Cause if you put too many

large goals that you can't attain within a certain amount, that can almost be almost demoralizing. I don't know if that's the word. No, no, it is. Yeah, demoralizing. And then if you could make it to the point where you're at least improving something in your business on a daily basis,

even if it's small, like the small changes add up to something big. You can't just wake up tomorrow and like, I'm going to start a podcast and like or start a show and be with like 50 episodes within like 50 days. Like it doesn't happen like that. And we also learned that in our own way, you know, by actually doing it. You know, the other part of that, too, is that you need to be prepared for when those opportunities do come through the door. you need to be prepared for when those opportunities do come through the door, right? Because if you do get that chance and you blow it,

well, that's going to tarnish your rep. And also, like, just deep down, you'll go, damn, I've really screwed that one up, right? So you don't want to ever be in that position. Yeah, you've got to put those reps in to, you know, to be able to come out the other end and be able to do it when called upon. But I think another way to do it is, we've been talking about this over the last couple of years, is just consistently working with people who are considerably better than ourselves at what they do.

So, you know, bringing in, like, something that we haven't done too much in the past is work with outside directors but this is definitely something that's at the forefront of our focus if and when the opportunity presents itself obviously there's a there's a budget thing that needs to be you know achieved in order to do that when it comes to a certain level of director but it also unlocks the opportunity to explore a reasonable sized job you know multiple at the same time. So they can control the creative and the pre-production process. And we can be doing two, three, four good sized jobs with good sized crews in different locations

at any given time. And it's something that we haven't done, but we're currently going through right now. And it's been a great experience just working with these incredibly talented and experienced directors. I think that is one way that you could maybe leapfrog, you know, and leapfrog a step in the process is just handing it off and getting it to the people who have done it before. Yeah, because you'll learn things along the way that you normally wouldn't have on your own, right? Just because when you're talking about

those types of directors, they're doing that constantly and they're used to a certain standard. And, you know, we, we started from, from watching YouTube, right? We just aren't going to learn that stuff unless you're on those bigger sets, which those guys are on almost all the time, right? So it's almost like we're stealing or not even stealing knowledge, which is copying knowledge, you know? It's like peeking into it because they live and breathe it, right? You know, it's like peeking into it because they live and breathe it. Right. If you get a master, like someone who is a master at that one particular job and you bring them in to execute it, you know, you learn what works in your process even over time as well, including the shooting, rarely hiring other people, you know, everything was very generalized because our roles were generalized. But then the second we started hiring people, which we started doing about a year ago, like making it almost like a mandatory thing to have our crews be at least four or five people at a

minimum, it allowed us to start breaking down the roles, breaking down the creative that goes into each of those roles and realizing what works in the process, what doesn't work in the process, how to manage it with the client, how to improve it over time as well. The second you start bringing in other people, then you can see the flaws in your whole process. And learning from the crew because every now and then a crew member would suggest something that we never even thought about. learning from the crew because every now and then a crew member would suggest something that we never even thought about and that was like i'll give you an easy example uh our gaffer was uh asking us if we use this lighter app to scan the rooms and everything because we can create setups that way and we're like what is this thing it was wild it's called polycam and it's like a it's a lighter app for iphone if you have an iphone 12 pro you you can use it. And we've been doing that for Location Scouts ever since because we just scan the rooms, create floor maps.

Like it helps a ton, right? But that's something we wouldn't have learned on our own. You know what I mean? It's something that someone else brought in with their experience, right? Everyone has different experiences that you could always learn from. There have been even times where when we've like when we've hired like dps to to help us shoot a few things uh we've noticed like oh that was interesting how they decided to light that interview at least as an instinct right oh that's that's pretty cool how they went about

doing that shot like oh this gives me ideas on things we could do for other projects like you got to learn from the people you work with i feel like that is a good way to do it and like you said surround yourself with people that surround yourself with people that can do it better and you will learn and elevate yourself over time as well. A hundred percent. Uh, so we're nearing almost the hour mark. So I will answer your Toronto question. Yeah. Uh, the Toronto market question first, then I'll ask you one last one and then we're good. Um, so as a Toronto market, market i think it's i think it's very diversified from what we've noticed there's a bit of everything i don't think it's like one of those cities where like if you go to the the middle of canada it'll be very agricultural focused or like it'll be a

bigger portion of the pie um or if you go to like the last guest we had on is in seattle uh over there it's very um tech focused from what they were telling us. Here, I would say it's very diversified. There's a strong financial tech, maybe not a strong agricultural part to it, but there's about everything here. I don't think it's too focused on a particular industry, I would say, at least from what we've experienced and from the other Toronto-based companies we've spoken to. You got a pretty good film community there too, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're Canadian New York, so you have people making movies here.

There's a ton of companies here doing corporate as well. It's funny, like when we started the podcast, that was one of the things that we were interested in doing is just networking with other local production houses because it's like there's a ton of us out there and we kind of all know about each other but no one ever talks to you talks to each other here no one does you almost never run into them like sometimes you might be bitching bidding for the same project but like that's a that's bidding not whatever i need some water sometimes you'll be bidding for the same project you might not even know it it's like that's a that's bidding not i need some water and pitching sometimes you'll be bidding for the same project you might not even know it it's like it's like it was one of those types of

situations but yeah the amount of work that is here i would say is there's a ton of work i mean every company needs video at the end of the day and not just one they need a ton of video content and there are a ton of businesses here in toronto yeah especially if you're starting out i saw yeah that's actually to the point i was gonna make i mentioned you mentioned on one of the previous podcasts that you were kind of concerned about the canadian budgets compared to the u.s market is that is that still the case like is it pretty significant so they do listen to the episode actually do listen yeah i like that he's bringing in these uh these points i mean yeah like because the what we were talking about in that episode was essentially like uh the companies that are u.s based that have offices in canada we you can't expect them to be it's not the

headquarters so the budget isn't going to be that high right also if they're marketing to the canadian market like we're population of what 35 million how much you think and then a smaller portion of that is their actual target market compared to the u.s where it's like 350 million population like it's just you can't compare to that right so it happened at target that's i like i don't even know if like that's the the budgets are that different down there that's just what i always assume just because you know the the company headquarters are all down there so they probably reserve more money for for stuff there right that's that's what i always assume but i don't know how it is like just to kind of uh stress that this is only for like a

specific type of clientele this isn't that wasn't like a general comment in terms of like all the companies that are in toronto it was more so like some companies that are have like a small office in toronto or like uh like you know it's it's more remote well no you know what it is it's it's basically if it's a business that is head it's not applicable to businesses that are headquartered here i would say but most businesses are headquartered in in the u.s major ones at least major one if you're me if you're a fortune 500 you're in you're headquartered in the u.s major ones at least major one if you're me if you're a fortune 500 you're in you're headquartered in the u.s most of the time got it well it's something that i mean you just guys you'll find the bigger budgets you know if you just keep going you know they'll come across

it just seems like yeah i don't know one day maybe i don't know slowly they'll yeah a big one will just land in your lap you'd be like holy shit yeah i don't know yeah yeah most most of the most of our projects are in the medium range now like we're kind of like small to medium still um but you know that terminology kyrill it differs depending on who we're talking to because because our version of medium is probably way different from his version of medium. Here's the funny thing. I feel like every production company in their own minds, they're always in the small to medium range. Always. No matter what stage in career you're in, in your mind, you're always going to be in the small to medium range.

That's fair. So what are some next steps, Adam, for you guys in terms of like what are some things you have in the works or want to do in the in the in this year so we want to keep developing relationships with agencies market and ad agencies just kind of build out those relationships something that we you know we've done in the past and we and we have some agency partners it's just that's kind of the direction that we want to go because we want to get that type of work that they have. So reaching out, connecting, grabbing lots of coffees and lunches with these key creative directors and producers at agencies is one thing that is at the forefront

of our networking game. In terms of just production side of things, just keep improving. Again, I think the main focus for me, for the company, is to just keep bringing on talented and better creatives, keep bringing in the jobs that enable us the board. We'll learn a lot from them. Our portfolio will improve the type of the client experience will improve. It's just like there's a ripple effect that comes from working with the best people. Obviously, that comes from getting

the jobs that attract the best people as well. So nice. Yeah, that's a good mantra to keep going, you know, and continue those incremental and minor improvements on a daily basis, right? That's essentially it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so right before we end off, tell us how you came up with the name Digital Sparks Studios. Oh, God. You know, I'm not crazy about the name. First of all, most people don't understand what I'm saying when I say it because of my accent and that's a big problem when you're trying to tell people where to find you so it was really it was just like you know me and my business partner 2015 just kind of sitting across the desk from each other just trying to rapidly googling things that were available on GoDaddy

as available domain names and just we knew we wanted like the word digital in there. And, and it just evolved from there. It was just a little bit of a riff off until we got to it, but not crazy about the name, but it's stuck now. There's no changing it. We can't do anything about it now. I like it. It's always cool to hear like, uh, it's almost like the origin story. I wish I had something more interesting to share about it, but it really was quite just, uh, all right, just uh all right we need a name list let's go to town on google and figure out i i actually have one more uh question that i did want to ask uh and i i wanted to ask it right from the get-go but like so who's who's the who's the arsenal fan over there who is the asshole fan this guy

this guy oh all right all right so you're buzzing right now aren't you I am on cloud nine I can't even begin to tell you like and I really don't like how much they impact my overall mood I'm Arsenal day one man I've my whole life been following oh so Jesus yeah I get considering Arsenal had like D Dario, this soccer team went through like a period of like three years where it was just constant disappointment because I have an Arsenal friend too and just seeing the pain on his face.

Dude, 12 years, 12 years. Like it was so bad. Yeah, yeah, it's been bad. I've also been suffering too on a, on what was it? Like an eight year period and only or nine year period period and now it's starting to actually kind of slowly

Come back up guess which guess which club I support. Okay, so a year period Come back is coming back up now or is it? Oh, is it Liverpool? Why did you let him you should let him with us? No, I'll let him guess again. Oh If you're on the way up, it's got to be Man United, right? Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, you've been going for it, Raph. I've enjoyed laughing with you while crying about Arsenal

over the last few years. Yeah, man. It's looking good for both of us right now. Yeah, if we could just nudge City out of the way, then it'll be back to the glory days in the mid- 2000s right when it was just united in arsenal that was that was a legendary era that was the good times right there yeah we should connect you with judah hernandez from black white media uh who was on the podcast uh last year i think he's episode 20 something uh he actually used to be a soccer player before he switched into video production. And he's he opened up an office in in the US. Oh, yeah. Production company. Which city is in

Miami? I think in Miami. Oh, that's a bit further than Charlotte, though. But he's he's going he's going out to Miami for his shoot. That's actually a good idea. If you want, we could connect you to Judah. Yeah, for sure. Connect us. I'd be great. Okay. Well, Adam, thank you so much for coming on. If you guys want to either rent equipment or rent a studio space or hire Adam's company for your production, then hit him up at digitalsparkstudios.com or just, I don't know, get in touch with us and we'll connect you to him. Yeah, that's probably the easiest of anything. Anyways, thank you again, Adam. Thanks, adam thanks guys really enjoyed it i really appreciate you getting me out of like a backlog of meetings this is really fun all right thanks man all right guys take care take

care bye