Creatives Grab Coffee - Improving Business Process (ft. August Media) | Creatives Grab Coffee 30

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, a podcast on the business of video production, hosted by Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov from Lapse Productions.Our goal is to make the video production industry smaller by creating a sense of community. Whether you are a creative, an entrepreneur, or a professional there is knowledge for you to learn. Join us as we have industry professionals from around the world come on the show and share their insights on the industry and business. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Welcome to Video Production.Today we are welcome by Sasha from August Media. August media is a boutique digital agency that covers everything from content production, management and design.Timestamps:00:00 - Intros 10:26 - Ongoing improvements in your processes14:36 - Metrics are Key24:07 - Developing client relationships by providing multiple services29:42 - Identifying your customers31:45 - Different clients have different needs37:11 - Identifying bottlenecks41:41 - Communicate and set expectations with clients50:10 - Providing a good experience53:44 - Project management using Slack and Frame.io57:54 - OutroTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/creatives-grab-coffee/Subscribe and follow for future episodes!Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140Instagram: @CreativesGrabCoffee https://www.instagram.com/creativesgrabcoffee/Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.com Instagram: @lapseproductions https://www.instagram.com/lapseproductions/ #videography#videographer #videoproduction #businesspodcast #videoproductionpodcast #lapseproductions #creativesgrabcoffee #videomarketing #videographers #videoproductioncompany #videoproductions #videoproductionservices #videmarketingstrategy

Okay, so welcome back to Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we have Sasha from August Media. August Media is a boutique digital marketing agency that covers everything from content production, content managing, and design. Sasha, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me again. It's crazy. It's been now, what, two years?

Almost two years since we had you on. Oh, yeah. So that's two years into the pandemic man yeah well like we basically interviewed you when it was like somewhat at the not necessarily the start but early stages and now we're bringing you back for ending stages almost yeah yeah fingers crossed right guys but how's it been how's it been over the last uh few years or the last two years uh it's been all right uh it's been right we've i feel like we've adapted quite nicely um learned a lot um definitely got stronger through this um i would say together with our clients so you know the sword pandemic doesn't sound as scary anymore uh you know there's a lot more

certainty around it as comparing to two years ago so you know um things are things are relatively good it's it's nice to see you know both our clients our artists uh our peers all coming out of it and you know going back to the, shooting real stuff with real people in person. Yeah, no complaints. I remember when you first came on, you were telling us how, because you have three businesses you run, right? And August Media is one of them.

You were telling us that August was actually doing very well compared to the other ones and how you were going to work more on it to grow it and make it an even bigger part of your three businesses. Yeah, he was expanding. He was expanding at the time, at a time when everyone was kind of downsizing or just kind of pausing in their in their workflows. Sasha, you were talking to us about how you were hiring new people. You're working even more than ever. It was it was very kind of shocking for us at first. We were like, wow, this is great. Amazing.

And that's that's exactly what was happening. And then we kind of hit a different roadblock that we didn't expect where we started growing a little too fast. So we didn't spend enough time on, you know, really optimizing the processes or coming with the right processes. We're basically, you know, just trying to onboard as many clients as we could at that point trying to hire and onboard as many employees or social media managers as um you know to support those new clients and then kind of hit the new roadblock where you know we grew a little too fast and we realized that brussels we came up with were not necessarily the best ones or the most efficient ones and then you know at some point we're dealing with a problem where the revenue was going up at, you know, a pretty nice pace, but couldn't say the same about the profit.

So we really had to hit the brakes and really stop with everything that we were doing and say, you know, listen, something is not coming together. Like something, like we're busier than we've ever been you know and only getting busier but it's not showing on the bottom line uh so you know kind of had to go through the whole process improvement uh project uh say around october september october last year uh reset everything restart everything and you know, like after we came back from the holidays, like around January, like I can say, like we're finally working as the world machine,

ready to continue with the growth. So, you know, really, really excited about this stage as well. So, you know, kind of interesting problems to have during the pandemic, you know, where you have like one side of business that is still really, really struggling. And then the other side of business is struggling for completely different reasons, right? So on one side, we don't get enough clients.

On the other side, we get so many clients that we don't really know how to deal with it as a small business. But, you know, I can say that, you know, finally everything is back on track on both ends with the demand and also with the with the with the capacity with the supply and with our with our processes one thing that's come up in the other episodes we've had is a talk of systems and how you really need to create

really detailed systems so that you know you you are a well-oiled machine. I'm just wondering how, how, how you took a step back to reflect on the systems that you did have in place and how they were inefficient and how you kind of sat down and just reorganize them and rework them. So how, how was that process? I think the biggest gap and the biggest problem was that again, like because the leadership team was kind of involved in so many different uh businesses or activities um you know from like mintrum to purpletree and then when you have one side of business that is doing really really well then

naturally you kind of take your eyes off and then you start helping with the parts of business that are you know maybe struggling a little bit more and then you start helping with the parts of business that are, you know, maybe struggling a little bit more and then you get a little bit of blindsided. And then, you know, we're obviously think that we know what we're doing at all times and we've done this before, not the first rodeo. And then any kind of thing that, you know, everything is good because the money is coming in. And then you quickly realize that, you you know all your old processes potentially you

know like we're not we're not working as great um yeah so as i said like we kind of saw that on the bottom line you know the cash flow wasn't the problem but at the end of the day like we didn't really see much staying on the account so very quickly that we realized that we need to do something and it was a complete stop. So basically, we agree that we're not taking on any more clients. We're not hiring any more employees. Doesn't matter if it's a client, if it's the artists or people in the support functions until we figure out what's going on. So I myself come from the process

improvement background, where I used to work for a big one of the big banks doing exactly that basically process improvement where I would go and look at the existing processes in the back office operations and then figure out the the best processes for going forward and I was able to recruit one of my former colleagues because obviously you know managing so many businesses and being under so much stress it's really hard to concentrate on one specific task and spend more than 15 or 20 minutes doing the deep dives so she came on board she kind of took a couple of our existing employees under her wing and really like coached and trained and mentored them and at the same time they kind of shared more with her about the existing business and together they kind of like formed this little process improvement group you know with the

external subject matter expert and also you know all the internal folks who know understand the clients who understand the issues that the current employees are dealing with and then basically after spending about two two and a half months they were able to improve the processes with the current systems that were already had in place but also like introduce some of the new you know tools and project management tools the time tracking tools whatnot and really made it made it for everyone. So again, not just for the clients, but also for the employees. And 90% of it was really eliminating the redundant activities, unnecessary passing off the tasks or on the other hand, delegating a little bit more.

um on the other hand like delegating a little bit more so that was fun that was fun kind of brought me back to my old corporate days even though like i wasn't as involved myself but just kind of like you know watching out all the process maps that the teams put together you know looking at the numbers the savings whatnot uh and then also like introducing some of this new process to the clients themselves and seeing their excitement and seeing the productivity just going up do you have any when you're looking at oh sorry i was just gonna ask like for other businesses that maybe are in a in a stage that you were at earlier where they they do have systems that do need to be updated or improved do you have any tips for what they could do um i would say first of all don't stop trying um i know they're you know smaller businesses like ours can not necessarily afford a custom built

custom built systems like you know crm systems or project management tools or whatnot so you kind of have to depend on those solutions that are available out there online. And, you know, first of all, it's not easy to pick the best solution for your business. And then a lot of the time, doesn't matter what solution you pick as your first one, still takes quite a bit of time to, you know, implement it, introduce it, make sure that everybody knows how to use it. And then three, four months later, when you realize that this potentially might not be the best fit or the best tool for the team, you kind of feel a little demotivated because you already spent so much time and you're not willing to try something different, something new,

just because again, like your you know, like your time, your time was extremely valuable to you. And you think that, you know, it's just going to be a waste. But I feel like, you know, you just doesn't, doesn't matter what experience you had before, like if something is not working for you and you feel like you're going to waste time, you know, in the short, in the short term, it's still, still it's still worth it just giving it another try and trying something new until you come across something that really works and really helps your team really helps your bottom line really helps your client so yeah basically don't give up if you don't have a big budget that just means that you have to you'll have to spend a little

an extra time like figuring things out and you know looking for that solution that's that's the best for your organization and A lot of the time, you talk to your peers and what's working for one company, for one set of clients, is not necessarily going to work for everyone else. There's a reason why there are so many services out there. Well, one thing we have to remember is that it's an ongoing, like developing processes is ongoing. You know, like they're all, we're always trying to improve them. It's never, we figured it out. This will work forever, you know? And that's just the one thing that we all have to remember as we're going about it.

We can't always think, you know, sometimes, um, oh, this, uh, this thing, like, I don't want to work on it later. I want to make sure it's done now. So we don't have to worry about it. But sometimes you have to keep improving it. It's like developing your content, developing the product that you're giving to clients. You don't just create a t-shirt and then it's ready to go. And that's it. You're constantly trying to think of different ways of how it will fit, how comfortable will

it be, what material is it made of? You want to keep thinking about how to improve it. Sometimes, Dario and I, when we're working on some of our own content for labs and for creatives, grab coffee. We think to ourselves, okay, we have our video system set. We're good to go, but no, we have to, we have to think about ways to improve it, see what works better over time and how it can go. And especially as you mentioned with certain processes, you know, for, um, uh, for like onboarding and everything like that, you have to make sure that you're constantly

improving it, you know, otherwise it's, you're, you're doomed to have that same issue that you mentioned that you have, you know, where the, where the revenues were coming in, but the profits were roughly staying the same a thousand dollars on a thousand dollar profit on $10,000 in revenue is a lot different than a thousand dollar profit on a hundred thousand dollars in revenue right i also find that you know like every single person out there especially business owners are dealing with with their biases right as i mentioned like once you invest into something you kind of like almost get to touch get attached to it i don't know how many times you walked out of a bad movie when you went to the theater probably never a couple times a couple times so then that means that you learned something but i know like most of the people you know they will

pay for the admission ticket they will go into the theater they'll sit down they'll spend 40 minutes they realize that the movie is but they will still continue sitting until the end because they already paid for it right my favorite my favorite memory of this though is when dario and i went to see the movie called movie 43 and people thought it was done halfway through and half the audience left dario and i we were we were just a little bit slow in getting up and then all of a sudden the movie continued again and we're like oh there's still more this oh okay i can't believe you brought that one out that is i never thought that movie get brought up again it was just such a standout movie going experience because we went into that because not not knowing what to expect and it just completely

you know which movie we should have walked out of dumb and dumber too that was a horrible movie i think after that movie after that movie that's when we started walking out of movies but i think i think i think that's that's that's an amazing experience like when you do it once like you realize that your time is worth so much more than you know like the three fourth dollars that you're gonna you're gonna wait for that mission by not sitting through it until the very end and i feel like it's kind of like the same with with some of the technology is some of the softwares and tools and the processes you know

just because you invested in something and you spend time kind of like learning it and you know implementing it but if it's not working it's not working you need to try something else right at what point do you decide where it's not working because sometimes like you just have to wait a little bit longer for it to finally kick in but then there's also a certain point where it's like okay i think it's time to move on how do you decide or how do you figure out what time is the time to move on? And again, like, I think, I think that we sit on something for a little too long.

Again, it doesn't matter if it's, we talk about letting someone go, be it a client, you know, a colleague, an employee, a friend for a little too long, because for the same, for the same reason right because we invested so much so much time and effort into it um so you really need to have like specific metrics right you need to look at the bottom line you need to look at the metrics so if you start seeing that the numbers are not there and something is not not working like that should trigger some sort of an action right um So if we're talking

again about the bottom line, and you know that you have specific margins, you know, you want to make like 30% as a profit, and then you see that you're not making that consistently for, let's say, even like a month or two, then that should be a signal that, hey, like you need to look at something, something is not right, like you're either discounting your work a little too much which i mean sure up to you but if it's strictly about the processes then to me like that's that should be and that should be an easier fix so again like you have to as a business owner like you have to look at the numbers right like you can't use just pure emotions or, or anything else. Like the numbers will tell a bigger, a bigger story than, than the picture sometimes.

It's a good arbitrary metric that just kind of, or sorry, not arbitrary, uh, neutral metric that can kind of tell you whether things are working and not working. I mean, obviously it depends on the type of processes. I mean, if, what if it's though a system in your business that doesn't necessarily come from say revenues or profits or anything like that, you know, if you're developing your own content, I guess more so if you're developing content for promotion, it would be more so the views, the engagement and things like that. Right.

There's always a number at the end of it, Kiril. Yeah. Yeah. There really is always a number no matter what there's always a number there's a match there's a metrics or a dollar sign at the end of it but there's always a number 100 and as creatives you know like we're more visual we're more you know like most creatives are perfectionist as well and sometimes it's really hard to kind of be honest with yourself. You know, I always say that, you know, if we're talking about the processes and not necessarily the bottom line, it's like, you know, when do you know that it's time to stop editing that,

you know, like this is, this is good enough. This is exactly what the client paid you for. You know, you can do better, right? You know, you can spend like another hour, another another day another week on making it look even better but how do you know that this is the time to say okay this is good now now it's time to share it with the client instead of you know spending more time on it but that's when you got to turn your business your business uh brain on and go like okay this needs to be closed because we need to move on to the next one. So I guess when you are running like your own business, you do have to manage both sides.

You know, there's a left brain, right brain type of thing. You have to manage your creative side with the business side. Cause if you let the creative side run rampant, it'll never be perfect. I remember hearing a story about how when Scorsese was at the premiere of Goodfellas, he was still talking to, I think he was talking to the writer, Nicholas Pelleggi, and he's like, oh, that shot, I should have fixed it like that. And he's like, he's still thinking about the edits he wants to the movie. And Nicholas Pelleggi was like, Marty, it's done. Leave it alone.

Like it's already on the screen. The movie's done. We're here. We're at the theater. And hey, i appreciate that and i think these conversations need to continue and you always need to be your own kind of critic critic right but at some point you need to say okay like i'm gonna do it on the next project i'm not gonna do it with the next video you know and potentially hey like maybe i'm gonna charge you a little bit

more as well because i know it's gonna take me a little bit more time. But I know this is the type of work I can deliver. Or again, if you can perfect it, and you can take that next step and put some extra efforts into it. But then, hey, are you going to use it in the portfolio piece? Are you going to show it to the next client and say, hey, this is what we can do, but this is the price tag that comes with it? Yeah, I guess it really depends on the type. Yeah. I guess it really depends on the type. Like you said, it really depends on the type of project. Sometimes we,

we've had guests on the show mentioned, you know, some is for the real, some is for the meal, you know, and like obviously with some projects, say for example, if you were creating a simple like print ad or,

or kind of like a 30 second highlight video versus say like a full feature documentary piece or something like that, the effort, you have to weigh how much time and effort needs to go into it. And obviously also with the amount of budget that goes behind it, that's, as you mentioned before, there's that other metric of how much time you need to be spending on certain projects, how much money is backing this particular project and i feel like you know these metrics are not only for yourself like these are also the metrics that you will want to share with the client as well

right so you know like the difference between like a social media video versus a branding video versus campaign video you know like you want to communicate that ahead of time and kind of set expectations you know sometimes both for yourself but obviously for the client for the client as well and that that really helps to like being just like upfront like setting the expectations um so you know like if the client has seen your work as a you know highlight really and all the best the best pieces that you have produced in the last year in the last five years, you also need to make sure that you're setting the expectations right. And, you know, and they know exactly what they're going to get, you know, for the budget that we're working with as artists.

Yeah, we have to educate the clients and let them know. And like you said, setting expectations is so important because sometimes clients might think, oh, if I give you this budget and I want to get that type of product, that's possible, right? But then you can let them know. It's like, no, it goes in. That budget can get you a little bit of this, but we need you actually need this much to kind of produce this type of product. Or even sometimes they might come to you and say, yeah, you know, this is great. That's a great budget to work with. We could do that. And also this, this, and this, because sometimes you might be able to do more for what they provide as well. So it's all about having

those key conversations and managing expectations. But this is where it turns a little bit more into art again, less, less of a science where like, how do you build those relationships with the client where you can be like fully transparent with them and vice versa where you can say hey you know that like you know it's it's always the chicken and egg kind of question you know how much is it going to cost and you know but what's your budget right and then so so my favorite battle my favorite clients are those that you know we have this trusting relationship with and you know they'll come back to me and say like want this this and that but this is our budget and then we'll reallocate that budget towards the things that will really make a difference for

them right so what they're thinking might you know might not be necessarily the best thing because they're not the creative they're not the artists and they're getting the instructions from someone else um so again it's just going back to like having that you know relationship with with your clients where you can help each other how do you how do you go about like because for us since we're doing like it's usually a video by video uh project so like on our website for example we already have like our videos start at like 5k, right? But with you, since you're an agency, how do you go about informing clients like what their project might cost if they're just or like even trying to get information of their budget? Because

it seems like the filtering process for you might be a little trickier, because with us, we can already do a lot of the vetting right on our website, because before they even get to contact us, they need to select the budget. But with you with you it's kind of like because you're offering so many more different services right versus us we're just offering strictly video and usually it's a one-off video right right but that's you know so i think it might be a little bit easier for us because with all our clients we have this ongoing relationship so barely do we do like a one-off thing for for any of that clients doesn't matter if it's on the corporate side or if it's an august media client

so usually we offer them different solutions for for for different needs that they might have so i find that it's a little bit easier to build that relationship where you know you offer all these different services and a lot of the time again, again, you can come up with some sort of a package deal and say, hey, I understand the budget might be a little bit tough. Let's cut on this thing because we can't sacrifice on the video this month. So let's do it again. Like on the August media side, most of the clients that we put videos together for, we'll also manage their content.

We'll also do their photography. We'll also do their social media management we'll also run their ads so say hey you know like we understand there's only so much that we can spend this month and if the video is the priority then let's cut something else so we definitely have a little bit more flexibility and then sometimes we'll be like you know let us prove it to you that if we do it like this, if we work with this budget, then we can really make a difference for you. So let's pause everything else. Let's see how the video is going to perform. You know, let's put a little bit more money into this. And then, you know, basically decide for yourself after whether it was worth it or not, whether we should go back to the previous spend on the video and like again spend more on the ads or spend more on on the photography content but i feel like a lot of our clients

that's another thing that has happened in the last two years with you know instagram algorithms changing and the whole industry changing so fast where like the photography is not enough anymore you know the design is not enough anymore like i feel like the videography and the videographers the production companies are getting a lot more love now comparing to two years ago and but the one good thing about you guys in terms of how you can develop your client relations is the fact that you have that flexibility of all the different services you provide uh when clients come to video production companies typically it's a very specific need that they need for a certain time.

Not everyone is going to have a need to have a video done every week, every month, every little while. But there is sometimes going to be need for photo content, for design, for website, for the whole mix. And because you guys can provide those customized solutions where one month they do, you guys do video another month, you do design, you're still developing that client relationship, but you're doing different services. Whereas in our case, we would be there for the video for that month, but then because the client is working on other types of projects there, we don't have that time to develop the relationship further for those specific types of needs and services.

So that is one of the big advantages that an agency like yours has over, say, a typical video production company or a design company or a photography company only, right? For sure. And then, you know, when you start working almost as a continuation of your team and you become, you know, their content production company, the marketing company and consulting company, then obviously, like eventually you have a much better understanding of, you know, the client's struggles, challenges, but also successes and the type of revenue that they're bringing in. And you just get a better holistic picture of who they are and what's important for them. And again, you're building that trust where they can talk freely about what they can afford versus what they can't afford. And as you said, a lot of the time they'll come to us and be like,

hey, we need to refresh the website. And the website itself is not, you know, a cheap, cheap, cheap product. And so they'll say, well, maybe, you know, maybe we can go get like the photography done somewhere else. And at this point, like for us, it doesn't matter if we're making money or not, like if they're going to go somewhere else, we're okay to offer them photography sometimes at cost, for example, just to make sure that they get the best possible website website you know like our designers you know would obviously prefer to work with our own artist

as opposed to working with someone else so again by offering those services would definitely get a lot more flexibility and would definitely get to know our clients a lot better and that was kind of always the goal to instead of trying to get as many clients as possible you know try to have smaller number of clients but offer a wider variety of services to them and one thing we've talked about in other episodes is that a lot of modern production companies are starting to blend the line in a way between being a video production company and sometimes like a marketing agency because it's like to stand out it's like we're not we're trying to be like consultants we're trying to see what their problem is how we can fit into that solution we're trying to make them think about all the other uh things they

need to think about when they're creating a video right but it always seems like okay we're trying to create results driven videos but at the same time we can't be the results driven part without like a marketing agency. So there's been like this funny thing that we've started to notice where we're trying to, we're implementing elements from like marketing agencies like yours, but within the production space. But even then we're still kind of like hindered by the fact that we don't

offer marketing services. Yeah. Well, it's because like with video, it's a more, we're more specialized at that point. Right. With agencies, typically with agencies that do a mix of everything and they bring in the specialists to help them achieve that vision. That's why there's for many, many years, it's been that kind of relationship where agencies hire video production companies. And that's how a lot of people in the industry operate, because the video production companies don't have to sell necessarily to clients. And then the agencies come right in with the brief, the needs. They see which production companies can help them execute that vision. And then everyone gets to work, right?

Whereas you and I are in our video production company we're also selling to clients specifically and uh that's where as you said sometimes has the those challenges but um very different compared to the agency model as well i think i think i'm sorry go ahead go ahead and go ahead uh it also depends on the type of clients that you cater to like are there small to medium-sized businesses are they big corporate clients you know with their own marketing teams and who are like used to working with with the agencies or you know different contractors so i feel like with august media type of clients which is definitely more of a small business to medium-sized business, where we deal mainly with the owners themselves.

And a lot of the time, they don't have the capacity, they don't have the time of the day to manage relationships with multiple vendors. They would rather have a one-stop shop. So this is when the boutique agencies like ours come in handy while the bigger agencies will work with bigger organizations um and work directly with their with their marketing departments um but you know this is the organization that are also used to working with the agencies um so again like you need to define you need to define your your target market really are you

you know are you are you are you targeting the other agencies that will hire you as a subcontractor? Or are you targeting the end user? And if that's the case, then who are they? Are they small businesses? Are they medium-sized businesses? Are they large corporations? There are small businesses that are new to the industry. There are also small businesses

that have been doing this for 20, 30 plus years and making enough money to, you know, afford proper services. There are startups or new businesses that are just trying things and, you know,

they are going to make mistakes. So it all depends. I guess there's like three channels in a way because there's the ad agencies or marketing agencies that are dealing with big clients like coca-cola for example right and they might they'll they'll probably bring on like a production company for their projects then there's like the small to medium-sized marketing agencies that are dealing with clients that can afford i don't know maybe 10 to to 20K a month for their services.

And the video might be a part of that service as well. And then I guess there's video production companies that are just like doing videos for companies and might throw in a little bit of marketing or like just let them think about it. I think they're all separate in a way, because again, like if you're a small to medium sized marketing agency, you won't be able to pitch your client on, Hey, let's hire like a video production company to create a video for you because that video will probably cost anywhere from five plus, right? That might eat into like their whole budget for that month. Right. And that's just one video.

Usually if you're doing a lot of content, when you're in a marketing agency, I'm assuming you're giving them multiple deliverables over the month. You can't give them like three, three videos. That'll be like 15 K minimum, right? That'll eat through like that month and the month after. Right. So I guess, I guess Carol, in a way we're thinking about it, like we're all kind of in the same bubble, but it's kind of like we're different as well. So yeah, the line is blurring for video production companies, but in a way it's like separate. It's not part of the same sphere. It's because they're all different clients.

Some people, I feel like a lot of companies and agencies feel like they're all selling to the same clients, or at least that's the way they talk about it. At least that's what I've seen over the last decade or so being in the industry is that everyone talks about clients as if they're all the same. They all have the same needs. But as we've gone through it, everyone has completely different needs. A lot of the time, Dario and I work with specific companies that have also marketing departments. So they're all handling that side of it. It's almost as if they're the small ad agency within the company and they just need to simply outsource the video content. So that's, for example, where a lot of

the clients that we work with specifically, whereas there are other companies that work specifically with small sized businesses that, you know, need a little bit of content every now and then. So they work directly with owners, you know, and it's very bare bones. Or, and kind of like with you as well, Sasha, where August Media works with like small to medium sized companies, but they're a little bit bigger, but they want to have one vendor that handles everything for them. Because that's a very specific need. And I get that convenience. If I had to go to five different vendors and manage five, imagine getting emails from five

different people for the same campaign you're probably doing when you can get it from just sasha right you know it might be a little bit easier 100 100 i mean you guys are running your own small business as well so you know every every email or every unnecessary meeting is you you know, that's, that's, that's an opportunity lost somewhere else. Yeah. As you said, time is, time is key. You have to try to find ways to save it in whatever way you can. And if determining in your internal process that it's better to work with one specific vendor,

that is something that you've developed and discovered within your business that is going to be key to saving you time and money, right? Time is money. And that is one of the key ways to do it. I also want to quickly bring back, you mentioned over the last few years, you started to have very exponential growth and you had to first take and pause briefly to kind of see what you can do to improve. What was the very first thing you guys did when you realized you were having that uh that challenge i was like what did we do physically um just called a meeting like how to brainstorming session um kind of try to get everyone's perspective on what was what was what was happening like why is

it that we're busier than ever before but you know not showing the the right the right profits you know so everyone got a chance to kind of talk about their challenges uh and the things that they were missing in their day-to-day life uh but at the same time you know as a leadership like we also showed the challenges that the company was going through and you know how it all kind of like fits in together right um so one of the first things that we realized was, you know, like when you work with artists, when you work with a perfectionist, people who would do whatever it takes to get the best, absolute best product to the client or, you know, service their needs.

I could think first thing that we realized is that we're not billing back. A lot of our clients for a lot of things that we're actually delivering to them. Right. So that was that was kind of easy. Second thing I realized is that, you know, there are far too many revisions and back and forth. And it wasn't always because of the clients. It was because, again, like our processes were not done right. was because again, like our processes were not done right.

You know, like we're not getting the briefs properly or like the briefs were missing the information. A lot of the time, again, when you have a big team and multiple editors involved, for example, there is some sort of a gap in the communication and the information is not being transferred properly. Then you end up doing a lot of revisions that, you know, a lot of the time you can't even build back for it because it's not of the client's fault um and then when you when you

onboard so many new people at the same time you know people who are not necessarily familiar with the culture or um for a lot of them this was the first time like working in the agency or having a full-time job as opposed to being a freelancer you know we also quickly realized that our onboarding wasn't wasn't the best because we're used to like onboarding maybe you know like one or two people every quarter or every six months and then it would be just like shadowing with us for as long as it would take when everyone was working from the office and then you were right next to someone more senior right so here we're like hiring at a faster rate working remotely servicing different type of clients and then you know um yeah we're

just we're just not we're just not ready for it and i feel like you know some people understanding that something wasn't working they started coming up with their own processes so you have two or three people basically responsible for the same kind of task, but following three completely different processes. So the first thing was really to just kind of like, you know, talk about the challenges, but also document every single process that every single team member was a part of and look for those gaps, look for those opportunities, look for the bottlenecks. So explain like a bottleneck. Give us an example of a bottleneck you guys had.

So one of the bottlenecks could be having only two video editors. So the first one was, you know, all our videographers were also the editors. So, so, you know, once we got too busy and like the work started piling up, uh, and then it was really hard to hire for like, you can't hire for the geeks. Cause then, you know, when you're really, really busy, then you have all those people kind of sitting there at a, just sitting there waiting for, sorry, when they when we're really, really busy, then it's great when you when it gets a little bit slower than you have, you know, a lot of people just sitting there like kind of like waiting for work.

So we started using an outsource team a little bit more. So when I had like, hire some editors in Ukraine, that were more so on an on-call basis, but were still a continuation of our team where they're still exclusive, but they didn't want to work like 40 hours a week, for example. They were okay with shorter weeks, but they were there to support us when we really needed them. So that was kind of the main one and then the second one was definitely the bottleneck was the number of revisions where you know we would always expect to go through two or three revisions per video for example but when we got busy and we got all these new folks uh then the revisions went up

from like two or three on average to like five or six right so this is something that you also can't plan for like hey like there are all these other projects that are piling up there are all these other projects that you need to go and shoot and build for but instead like you're sitting there and just just working on revision after the revision after the revision were the revisions a result of just mistakes on the editor's part just because they were too overloaded or was it because the client was asking for more revisions? So both. So the clients were normally asking for more revisions because we didn't have the right tools to collect the initial ideas and we didn't have the right brief form. And then a lot of the time, because they knew people were not fully,

fully or properly rather trained. And then a lot of the times, because some of the clients had this expectations where, you know, they can get go through as many revisions as necessary, and not going to get built for that. Right. So it was a little bit a little bit of combination of all the different things so i had to go back to the clients and educate them like hey you know like if you're asking for something you know if there's a change of scope or something completely different we have to bill you for that you know if if you didn't notice something on the previous revision we have to bill you for that um but also you know if it wasn't your fault and obviously we have to go and

like train our people or change our processes so all these different if it wasn't your fault, then obviously we have to go and like train our people or change our processes. So all these different things. It wasn't just one. With the revisions, there's something Carol and I have had trouble with in the past where like we've had clients that do come back with more and more revisions. And sometimes it is stuff that they didn't mention on previous drafts. I'm just wondering how you deal with that because with us, like it's always been like going forward, we are going heavy on the education front where it's like, look, we can do this many revisions. And even when we send them a contract and we're going through it, it's something we've outlined very clearly on that because it is something that does eat up a lot of your time

and you can get stuck in a loop. that what did amy call it do you remember she had like a term for it it can become like a like a tumor almost like it just keeps growing out of control oh yeah yeah because sometimes uh they like as you mentioned dario um we would talk with the client before the project see what they want and figure out what the brief is and then once the video is delivered they might have say example, like a specific thing that they're just not that they want to change, you know, maybe they didn't, the song there, they're a little bit more not feeling for the video, and they want to try several different ones until they find one that they like, you know, for example, in that situation, sometimes they, they, they want to make the changes after everything's

already done or they've heard from someone else in their company hey we saw what that was but maybe we should try this now and then all of a sudden everything has shifted so how have you handled like those particular situations um definitely through communication setting the expectations find that a lot of artists struggle especially at the beginning of their career to you know go back to the client and say hey like this is going to be extra right so again like being the perfectionist and trying to please every single client and win them over and make sure that they're going to come back they go above and beyond to the extreme um and as i said like because a lot of our guys like they used to be freelancers

as well then they they had those bad habits that's what i was when i was telling you like about the billing where we would find out that you know like there's certain things that we did i would never even build the client back because you know people are just not used to doing that when they're running their own business when they're freelancers they would just you know do whatever it takes um but yeah basically communicating to the client educating them telling them ahead of time. Now, when we send the quote now, not only do we tell them that there's going to be an extra fee per revision after a certain number of revisions, but we also ask them how many stakeholders are involved in the project, how many different levels we're going to go

through where you know you feel like you're done you know the marketing department approved it but then they're like oh now we need to send it to the senior leadership team or now we need to send it someone else and it would be like wait what like they haven't seen it yet and then as you said like you know they're going to come back and say i'm just not digging this music you know can we can we change the music and to them it feels like a small thing uh but for you like you need to re-sync everything go through all the footage again um yeah so again like there's all this little things that we learned over the last

two years uh and you know that you can identify the red flags and say hey like it sounds like with this type of client we need to be up front with them and or i can kind of guesstimate what it's going to cost and how many reasons we're going to go through some rather like incorporate that into the price so no one likes extras right nobody like if you give someone a quote for let's say ten thousand dollars and then with all the extras that come to 20 grand which is double the budget and that's going to be it's going to be bad so we'll like to incorporate as much as possible and try to guesstimate and try to you know use our previous experiences to figure out you know what what are we going to go through when it comes to the post-production specifically

it's smart that you're going through all you you're letting them, you're asking them how many levels of leadership does this video or photo or whatever needs to go through, right? Because then I'm guessing you wait until, if they say like it needs to go out all the way until this level, you wait until you've gotten feedback up until that level before you present them with the revised draft, right?

Exactly. That's smart. That's what we should have been doing. That's very smart. I actually learned this on a project a few, a few months ago that we did, where I realized we were, we were working with like the marketing department, but we were also doing it for a client of theirs. And when we were giving the revisions to them to make changes, we were doing it. And then they were like, great. Now we have to send it off to them. And that's when I realized, okay.

And I started doing this with future clients where I was saying, or with future projects saying, here's the draft. Let us know once you've gone through it yourself and the client, make sure all of you guys have looked at it, collectively decide what the changes are, and then we'll do it. And because of that, less revisions,

much, much easier process. You know, it's always little things that you have to make adjustments on in the processes that will make your life so much easier down the road. And for example, the question you just said is a very simple one, but sometimes people forget. It's like, how many stakeholders are there in this project? Such a simple question, but not everyone thinks of it right away. And that's a great way to kind of filter out and figure out what the whole project is going to be. Cause as you mentioned, nobody likes to have surprise expenses. You have to try to guesstimate to the best of your abilities, how many revisions they're going to be, because it is an uncomfortable conversation to

tell the client, Hey, it's going to cost this much. If you want this many more revisions, because you know that it's going to not necessarily leave a bad taste, but you know, it, hey, it's going to cost this much if you want this many more revisions, because you know that it's going to not necessarily leave a bad taste, but it hinders the experience a little bit. And that's ultimately what you want to give them is a good experience. So again, if you look at your historical numbers and you see that you constantly go over on the revisions and instead of doing one or two, you're constantly doing three or four well then include the four revision to your pricing tell the client that only two are covered and then if they get three to four you basically hey it's on us you know what i mean so i always like to surprise them with good news as opposed to bad news you know same thing with i don't i don't know how you guys do it but i still

see a lot of vendors who will charge an extra three percent if you pay their bill by credit card right well why don't you just include that three percent into your price and give someone three percent cash back if they pay by check or email transfer uh you know what i mean like our clients absolutely love it because they're so used to like smaller vendors, you know, like adding 3% on top of the bill. And we're like, no, we're not like that. We're actually going to remove 3% if you pay by check. Right. So same thing with the revisions.

If you know that you're constantly going over and that's a common issue with our industry. And it doesn't matter how well you train the client. It's just like, when was the last time you produced a video with two revisions? Yeah. Right? When there's a time crunch, that's when. That's when you do less revisions. It's like, oh, you need it tomorrow?

I mean, we could only do really one revision before that. And then another thing on the revisions that I learned in the last year, I can't remember where I read it, but it was game changing. So when you send something to the client, don't ask them, what was the question that we normally ask? You send something, let me know if you need any changes.

That's the question that 90%- Yeah, we stopped doing that long time ago. And then the client will decide that this is their job now to figure out what else can be improved. doing that long and then the client will will decide that this is their job now you know to figure out what else can be improved right so and i know like a lot of artists are still doing that like don't don't don't ask them don't ask them for changes unless you know they know something needs to change i'm even going as far as debating on removing the question of let me know if you

have any questions you know because i'm i feel like that debating on removing the question of, let me know if you have any questions, you know, because I feel like that's like the cousin of that other question. 100%. And especially if you yourself know that this is, how many times have you done something where you were like so satisfied with the post and like how the video looks like, and then you send it to the client and then, and then they basically ask you to change things and then the video looks worse than

than it did before so many times right so yeah just say like hey like i'm i'm if you're if you're generally happy with it and you know that you did the best job possible then say hey like i'm so excited to share it with you yes that's honestly that is a great way to do it we don't hype ourselves up no i don't hype ourselves up. No, I don't think we give ourselves enough credit sometimes. And we're kind of like living up to the client us excited so much about the project and product that we produce for them they're probably going to be happy with it as well at least unless it's like something super minor that needs to be changed whereas if you go it's like here's our here's the video they're going to think oh maybe we need to make some changes because it's all about

how you presentation is so key you have to sell it twice you have to sell it you know you have to sell your services first and then you have to sell it twice. You have to sell your services first, and then you have to sell the final product. And the better you do that, the happier the client is going to be, and the less work for you at the end. I think we all forget that we're selling. That's hilarious, though.

We present it and we go, what do you think? Tell me about it. Yeah, but that's a good way to about it. Yeah. But that's a good way to frame it. You know, you're never done selling in, in the whole process.

You know, you might, you sell in the beginning to get the client, but you also have to sell the product when it's made, you know, not like not being disingenuous, but you know, you have to also show how excited you are to share that with them,

you know, because you know how it really is satisfying to finally complete something for a client give it to them and then see their reaction you know and see um like how much they like it and yeah and trust me like they don't want to go through revisions either like they want it done as soon as possible i don't want to get built extra they don't want to spend more time so yeah it's just the way a lot of it is like 100 of it is really communication because you know that your work is great otherwise they wouldn't have hired otherwise you wouldn't be doing what you're doing but i feel like part of it sometimes is uh the also because you're communicating through email

i feel like sometimes the energy gets lost because it's through email. And one thing I want to try to start doing with more and more with clients is maybe having more phone calls also with them in later stages of the process. Because we try to do email because we're trying to also be respectful of their time where they can't always hop on a call, but sometimes doing a call can really answer a lot of questions because sometimes they might ask a change, ask you to do a change that they think will work, but they haven't really asked you if that would work. And it's a little bit harder to kind of not necessarily debate it, but explain how it would fit in the edit over email. So it's better to have an idea.

I just had an idea. You know, we should do if we are going to implement that where we do call them, we should get them on a zoom call and then do present the video screen share and then show them. And then if they have like some suggestions like that, actually show them what it would look like. Cause I forgot exactly what I was talking about. I forgot who said this, uh, that they like to invite their clients over for an editing session to see instead of inviting them in person since we we don't really do that you can do it virtually at least that's not a bad idea actually that doesn't that does still involve them past the uh the the production processes of the production stage as well so they are still involved and they do still feel like they're a part of the

experience as well. Yeah. Love it. And it doesn't, and it doesn't feel like a revision process at that point. You know, it's like a presentation, any initial thoughts they might, they could tell you like, Oh, this was great. You know, like I, I think the video was, was great here. I think there was just maybe like this one little section that we might need

to just adjust, you know, like just some spelling or some texts. Maybe we could add some texts for that section to, to really beef up the information is like, great. I'll send you the video after you let us know exactly. And then we'll make that little change. And that's, that should like, if you're, if you're doing a teaser, it's like teaser before the trailer, you know, it's just a little peak and then they get to see the full thing that's that's exactly we should do that so we actually do that with our with some of our clients where you know we'll just get them on slack and then we'll just share our screen and there'll be after effects or premiere and then literally just work on the video together with them so if it's something a little bit more kind of like dry and, you know, very like corporate and

if the context is very important, like instead of kind of like going back and forth, we'll just have them right there and do all the work with them online. How do you do it on Slack? Slack has that function? So Slack is basically works the same as Zoom. But the one thing that we like the most about Slack is that a like you can you can hear the sound and then you can also draw on the screen so if you need to bring your clients attention to something you can just like circle things or draw errors and then vice versa like the client can draw on your screen so if you're editing something and then the client can

circle something on your screen it's absolutely like easy. I didn't know Slack had that function. We got to look into this. That's really interesting. No, no, even like that's the only thing that we use. And then I do the same. So I'm not an editor, but when I work with my editors a lot of time, and again, because we're not in the office,

we'll just jump on Slack, and then we'll spend like half an hour, as opposed to you're doing something, and you're rendering it, and then uploading it somewhere, especially with the client. It saves so much time. Do you use Frame.io? We use Frame.io.

Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's another thing that, you know, with some clients, it's a little bit easier. Others will still, you know, go through the video on Frame.io and send you a Word document with 75 things. with 75 things. So I actually found another challenge when getting frame IO, because originally that thing where they, they give you a document and you know, you have to look at the timestamp on it and then try to make sure to figure out where it is in the video. That was, that was the first problem that it solved, but introduced another issue where they sent the video to everybody. And then there's 10 people giving their notes. And then they're even debating in the comments.

So ever since then, I started communicating to clients saying, please have one person from your organization comment exactly what you guys want for the changes, just so that we know that you're all on the same page. Or if it's like you and a client, have the client one person and you, the agency, one person comment on there. And then if we have any questions based on those comments,

we can touch base with you and determine it from there. Because I remember there was one comment chain on this one particular note. It was like 10 comments. 10 people. At least it's still all in one place like it would have been worse if it was going over the emails and like back and forth that's true

collective chaos but we basically tell them that hey like if you have strict deadlines uh and we don't have much time then we're not going to accept a word document we're not going to accept anything in the thread of the email like you go on frame my own you make all your comments right there and if you can't then we can't promise that we'll be able to deliver either right yeah what kind of system so you use slack for a majority of that you also use frame do you use anything else so so our go-to tools obviously frame.io slack and also monday.com is our overall like project management tool okay that helps us stay organized i also use it for all

kind of like reportings like metrics kpis uh that's like literally this is this is our goal too. Like we spend most of the time on monday.com. Interesting. Yeah. Well, it's also connected now to our website. So, you know, like if the clients are submitting like any type of requests, it goes directly into monday.com and we can action it in so many different ways.

So we can respond to their emails directly from there. We can assign it as tasks, like add everything that we need it is absolutely fantastic okay interesting oh and then we use we still use uh we use harvest to kind of like track our own time as uh I don't know if you guys uh no that's good because we were we were uh looking for something that could help with that because a lot of people have been saying like you know they they measure how much each each thing costs based how much time they spend on it but we never really asked how they measure it and some of them didn't know so that's good to know that

there's a tool out there like harvest uh that you can use to measure measure that that's good so it's great and even if you're not necessarily like you know using that to build the client back at least as a minimum it gives you a lot of data uh you know so you can price your work accordingly going forward right so everybody on the team uses it and we say hey like this is not to kind of like monitor your you know productivity or this is nothing personal like this is just to help us understand how much time and effort is going into every project and understand whether we're pricing everything correctly or not. Whether there's an opportunity to be more productive or we need to charge the client a little bit more.

Yeah, that's great. Well, Sasha, we're a little bit over the one hour mark at this point. Before we end it off, Kiril, there's two things i want to there's small things uh okay number one is uh what kind what books are you currently reading or have you read that you recommend our listeners to read and then the other one was uh what does august media how did you guys come up with the name august media i'll start i'll start with the with it with the name first uh as you know like we're part of different business in the creative industry so we try to keep everything kind of like under its own under its own name so that we don't confuse our our clients um and then most of the names are kind of closer to the end of the alphabet.

So when we decided that we want to do a creative agency, we decided that the name would have to start with an A. August is definitely like our favorite month of the year, like summer, but it's not as silly hot as it is in July. Augusta is also Svetlana's grandma's name. Svetlana is my partner in August Media, the creative vision behind it I'm the numbers guy, she's the creative one, so Augusta

is her grandma's name so I thought it was you know, it was fitting to pay some respect to our previous generations that brought us up yeah, so nice and uh any books any books uh that's a funny one don't make fun of me but uh i finally read

the great reset by mr schwab uh to educate myself a little bit and literally learned nothing from it. So I'm telling you, like I come from the process improvement background. So the whole like, you know, progress, automation, robotics is not anything new to me. So I feel like there are a lot of people who are giving way too much credit to, you know, to this whole movement and the book itself uh yeah um is it worth it i feel like everyone who is stressing a little bit about the future and everything that's happening in the world right now should probably read it to put themselves at ease um but otherwise

like most of it is just common knowledge and And if you're following the technology, if you're following the economics, if you're following them, there's going to be like absolutely nothing new to you. Nothing to be scared of. But, you know, we all need, and as the last two years showed, and, you know, everyone needs, like the most important skill to have these days is the adaptability right you can't depend on you know the previous success on the previous skill set you know like once you're i don't know back in the days once you master something you can kind of like sit back and

enjoy enjoy your right like nowadays it doesn't matter how good you are at anything. You know, you still have to stay on your toes and, you know, watch out. It's like year one every three years. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. 100%. Sasha, thanks again for joining us again after two years. You know, maybe in another two years, we'll check in

again, see how much August media has grown. Sounds good. Well, yeah, as always, it's nice to stay in touch with you guys and following your success as well. So we appreciate that. I feel like, I feel like all of us have learned so much in the last two years that, fingers crossed, next two years are going to be a little bit easier, but we're still going to continue learning a lot. From each other. From each other, most importantly. Yeah. All right.

Thank you, Sasha. Thank you.