Creatives Grab Coffee - LEARN NEW Ways to GENERATE LEADS | Creatives Grab Coffee 40

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

JOIN OUR PATREON FOR EXCLUSIVE CONTENT: https://www.patreon.com/CreativesGrabCoffeeProduced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comToday we welcome Liam Dawe from Altitude Media, a video production company based out of St.Johns, Newfoundland that focuses on creating first impressions that drive results. 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 share their insights on the industry and business. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Welcome to Video Production.SUBSCRIBE 🎧✅ and FOLLOW 📲 for more episodes! https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

Welcome everyone to episode 40 of Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we're welcomed by Liam from Altitude Media. Before we kind of jump into it, Liam, just kind of give us a little east coast of Canada in a really old city called St. John's, the oldest city in North America, actually. And so in 2017, I was getting my engineering degree and funny enough, picked up a camera, fell in love with it, saw an opportunity here in the market to provide content creation services. This is also when like Peter McKinnon was just getting going. So being able to, you know, learn and enhance my skills in videography, did a lot more of that instead of studying engineering, but basically continued to grow the business while I got my degree. And then when I did finish my civil engineering degree, I continued working on the business full time since then for the past two years. So what we do is video production here

locally in any and all forms, whether it be short form, long form, more like documentary style. We did a web series last year that we produced. So content in all forms. So you're the second person we have. We brought on the show from Newfoundland. We had Braden King previously. And did he not also study engineering? So you guys both studied engineering? Is that the trend in Newfoundland? Go to engineering, go into video production right after? Yeah. So Braden's like pretty much my best friend. We've, uh, we've done a lot of traveling and yes, we did do engineering school. And funny enough, I got two roommates also did engineering and both work in marketing now as well. So yes, I guess it is the trend here in Newfoundland.

Something about engineering schools there that don't like motivate their students to continue with it. This is a bad advertising for engineering in Newfoundland. There could be something there. There definitely could be something there that we're tapping into. So two years into it, you're just fresh out, right? Basically. Yeah. So I graduated in 2021. So now I've been full time in the business for the past two years.

So I would say we're kind of in a similar situation. Like we've mentioned before, even though we kind of started the business back in 2014- ish like if we feel like we weren't really treating it like a business i would say we're also kind of two years into it i'm just wondering um how like what are some of the challenges you've faced so far running it yeah so i would say since i got out i mean when i was a student you know it wasn't that big of a focus for me. It was like, anytime a job came up, it was like, you know, great excitement. Sure. Let's take it on. But now, you know, I'm not a student and I need to make a full-time income from this. So it's like, no, you really got to keep this business afloat and manage your cashflow and such. So

in saying that it's, it's, you know, keeping the work steady and going. I mean, I looked at my revenue over the last two years and throughout the year, you see it go like this, right? I don't know if it's like this for you guys. It seems to be pretty common across video production businesses. So this year, I'm really trying to figure out ways where I can kind of alleviate that and get more steady cash for more steady projects coming in. So, I mean, it seems that the number

one thing that video businesses struggle with is uh lead generation um you know has that been a challenge for you guys or you know how do you guys think about that we we get you know what's what's interesting is that i would say about late into i would say Q4 of last year or late last year, well into this year, we're getting a pretty consistent amount of leads coming in through our website. I would say, yeah, like on a daily basis, there's quite a few that come in. But we've started to focus on filtering them out even more lately. So I suspect that the amount of actual leads, I'm not talking about like those dumb SEO or those AI lead entries that I can't stand. They're constantly coming in now, especially. It's increased so much in the last week.

It's driving me bananas. I wish i could blacklist every one of those companies but i don't want to give them attention yeah we kind of we're trying to filter them out a bit more because carol and i actually did the numbers on the projects we're doing and how much we're supposed to make off of it and we realized hey you know what like the entry points we had for a lot of leads coming in was a lower than what we should have been uh setting the expectation at for example we had our project starting out at like 5k right that was like the first century

point five to seven and a half k and we just did the numbers on on what the total cost is for a production process and i was and we were like you know what it has to be like starting at at least 10 so we've kind of increased it so i suspect that the amount of leads coming in are going to be a lot less uh but so we're but the ones that come in at least will be a bigger fish for us but in terms of what we're doing for because they're more quality dario like i i know exactly what you mean like where the lead generation process should be evolving obviously in the beginning you want to try to get as many leads as possible in the beginning you know just to know to know that it's kind of working. And then as you start getting more and more and more, you realize there's only a certain amount of time you could spend with each and every lead. So then, to your point, Dario, that we have to filter them out in a certain way, it's better to filter down to get more quality leads. like we would rather get maybe 10 solid leads that could actually have potential than go through 100 leads where only maybe five to 10 of them would actually be decent to even explore, right? So

it's all about figuring out what works for you as a business. So what is your guys's qualifying process look like? Well, I mean, we have we, I guess it starts off from our contact form, right over there, we kind of decide who's coming in through the door. And then from there, it's literally just a question of money, right? Based on what they what they need. So like qualifying qualifying factors, I guess, for us is like to talk to us. You need 10 right off the bat. It's like you need you need at least 10 G's to talk to us.

And then from there, we're kind of going based on what they need. And then if they need more, it's like, you know, you need you need at least 10 Gs to talk to us. And then from there, we're kind of going based on what they need. And then if they need more, it's like, you know, you need more money. You don't have the funding. Well, you can't get that right. Another factor would be, I guess, I don't know how it's going to be with these 10K plus leads, Kirill, because to start off with that budget, it's going to be a different type of animal compared to like, we only have 5k and we want the world, right? Do you know what I mean? Like to get to start off from that, it's already like a special type of lead where it's like, okay, we kind of know what we need, yada, yada. You might get one that where it's like, yeah, we have like a 20k budget, but they want $60,000 worth of work, right? budget, but they want $60,000 worth of work, right? So I don't know how it's going to work out with these new leads that'll come in. But from the previous ones we've had where they did have these types of budgets, it was pretty easy breezy. I think it's because there's a sense of where they've already kind of prepared and done their homework on why they need to spend that

money and kind of understanding the strategy behind why they need video at the first place. Like money is typically like a good indicator of like how serious a company can be. And if they've done any prep work, you know, if a client hasn't thought to themselves how they should probably use or utilize video, they're going to be more hesitant to spend some money, right? Where it's like, I don't know what I need video for. Maybe I'm only willing to spend like two, $3,000. Can't go more than that because then I might lose, lose for nothing whereas what we're hoping for is the as the bigger budgets come in it's like all right we need to hit this this this goal this uh this goal and this goal uh in order to do that we need 15 000 to achieve it all right now let's find someone who

can solve our problem with this budget so that also might be what they just set aside for it they might not know because like yeah or something like that normally like that would be like it's at least an idea yeah the first step is like do they have the money uh step two i guess is like what do what do they want and what do they what do they think they want what do they actually need and are they willing to kind of like listen right to what the experts what problem are they trying to solve essentially i was just going to say like what have you experienced at this point like doing lead generation in st john's well the thing here locally i mean it must be probably similar in your market is you have your your freelance videographer right which is just your standalone guy, which is me like two and a half years ago, just going around with a gimbal and, you know, a Sony A7. And then you've got this really high end agency.

Right. And so we're trying to bridge the gap right in between. And, you know, obviously here, a lot of tire kickers, a lot of people that think they're going to get a video for 400 bucks and and so and um we just recently so i want to ask my next question would be you know have you guys done anything um marketing paid marketing on social because i just recently uh got into that and i recently had not seen any results before but we just ran a campaign and have been able to book a ton of calls saw a lot of success from that what is that something you guys have done before what are you using as the as the platforms like are you using Instagram Facebook or LinkedIn what are you using yes so it's a Facebook and Instagram campaign so I think we're doing about $15 per spin per day. And what it is, it's a lead form

that they fill out right on Facebook or Instagram. And basically I get their email and then I have someone who manages the leads and then books in on a call with me through Calendly. So, and what that video was, it was myself on camera, like I am right here, and quick 45 second video. And what I spoke to is the fact that I felt that video marketing here locally still hasn't caught on like it has in bigger cities like Vancouver or Toronto. And I see that as an opportunity. And then I spoke to that and then, you know, spoke about what clients we've worked with here locally, which are some pretty, you know, well-known brands. And then my offer was this video marketing boot camp. Basically, let's kickstart your business at the start of this year by doing some video production and video marketing.

And from that, we were able to book now 11 calls in two weeks. And that's actually why I asked about qualifying leads, because sometimes I'm getting on calls. And it's just like, okay, you weren't a fit. So what I did to adjust that was I think what you guys said you're doing, you're within the contact form, you have a budget option, right? You guys said you're starting at a 10k. For me, I also went in and did, okay, four to six is the starting point there wouldn't it be better to do linkedin for you because like the type of leads that you want to get i'm guessing at least like types that you get on facebook might be like smaller businesses which are dealing with

smaller budgets but if you're doing linkedin you'll get like maybe you'll get bigger companies that are looking at it right there you have to look at the market that he's in. He's in St. John's. There's not as many major corporations or businesses that are based out of there. A lot of the companies he's probably dealing with are, at least this is what I'm guessing, are probably like on the smaller to medium end kind of sizes. And maybe his market is more so on Facebook and Instagram.

Like what works for us in Toronto may not necessarily work for him, right? It's a completely different market that he's working in. Am I right? I definitely think you're correct in saying that. But Dario, I think what we plan to do is that once we see ad burnout within meta, because now we've proven this has worked on Facebook. I mean, we booked a lot of calls now doing a couple of pitches this week. It's been a great success, which was honestly,

I was completely surprised. I didn't think it was going to work. But we've seen a great success with it. And now I think you're right. We should, once we see ad burnout on meta, we'll move into LinkedIn. But the thing about LinkedIn is you're right. It's more qualified people that are on that platform, but it's much more expensive. It's crazy expensive on LinkedIn. Like I was looking at doing running some ads on it ourselves. And I was like, let's just try organic at this rate.

Yeah, unless you put enough money behind your ads, depending on the platform that you're in, you're just going to be throwing money away for nothing. Like you're not going to get anywhere with just like five bucks a day or something and on certain platforms who are in order to see any kind of result, you need like 40 or 50 because then you're just going to be spending money for nothing. Are you using Google ads? Yeah, so I do search ads. Now, I really should go and hire someone who actually knows their way around that platform. Myself, I've just set up a pretty basic campaign. um their way around that platform myself i've just set up a pretty basic campaign um clicks are good but i i don't think it's optimized to where it could be same boat we're in the same we're in the same boat like i i ran the i ran whatever i did uh but i i actually this week i was thinking maybe

we should hire someone that knows their stuff on on that platform because i don't think i did like the best job at it but you know what like it is getting a lot of clicks it's trial and error like i i find that it's trial and error whether you hire someone or you don't you know it's good to kind of get a general sense of the platform beforehand and understand what's good and what isn't and then as dario mentioned sometimes know uh and and as you mentioned as well know where your limits are and that at what point it would be a good idea to start bringing in an expert that can help you know obviously like the very basics you could probably handle but maybe some more advanced search techniques or or whatever it might be it would be good to to bring in uh more expertise you could

also do the course i was thinking of doing the uh certificate course for adwords because in the long in the long term it could save a lot of money and and whatever but yeah i don't know it's funny because that the uh the the keywords for our industry are very specific there's not that many compared to other ones it's very it's a very small list yeah you're so right about that and when it comes to hiring an expert for this, get someone from a referral or read reviews. I had a guy reach out to me and I decided, okay, you know what? Sure, I'll hire this guy to do my Google search ads. Next thing I know, I have banner ads showing up on websites in like Turkey and India or something. This is what this guy did for me.

I was paying for him. Oh, my God. I was just like. that's the default setting if you don't select something third parties yeah that's what he did he left that on i mean i couldn't even believe that see that's the importance of knowing at least the basic understanding of some of these platforms because you might accidentally hire someone who actually doesn't know his his uh his work and then you're kind of screwed like in your situation there. Like I remember once we were trying to see

about hiring someone much earlier on. And I remember Dario, he called me the next day. He's like, yeah, so I looked into what they were telling us that we should do. And it's a complete scam that they're doing this. No, it wasn't that. It was like the thing, the stuff that it was it was like the the thing the stuff they wanted to do was like the most basic of basics and i was like this is not this

is not like i can do this so then i started doing it that's how dario became an aficionado when it came to google adwords no for seo but ad adwords i still don't know what the hell i'm doing with it but it's working like our ads are on the, like they run on the first, second page and everything. Not putting too much money into it though. I think we just put like 500 bucks a month, something like that. I think we run $10 a day maybe. Maybe $10.15. But, you know.

Yeah. And so you are like, you're pretty well versed in seo is that correct like how can i up my seo game i mean i know i need more backlinks but like you know if you had three things i should go and do right now to increase my page ranking like what do you think what do you got for me number one i'm not an expert uh number two i would say, just do the basic checklist on, what's that website I used? Something.io. It was, I think it was backlink.io, if I'm not mistaken. Let me just trip backlink.

No, it's not backlink.io. Don't go to that site. I don't know what that is. But. Dario might get a virus. Yeah. Even when a page loads slow, you're like, oh God, what did I do? That's them cracking into your computer at that point no listen i'm not an expert when it comes to seo i've learned the basics i think uh but i think

when it comes to seo you just got to do like the basic technical stuff the biggest is consistency i like i remember once we started being I remember once we started being more consistent, once we started being more consistent, that's when more results... You got to explain what that is, Kiril. What does consistency mean in SEO? Well, I'll leave it to you because remember, you're the expert.

I was getting to that before you rudely interrupted me. So just have the basic technicals that I'm not going to go into each one of those. You should research that yourself. and then number two is like yeah create high quality pages through your blog get some backlinks that way um and number three don't do shady shit because you'll get caught eventually like there's this one website if you search video production toronto they just somehow appeared on the first page and it was a total scam website like they were a video production company with no work no work right it

was just a ton of keywords on their page and it it was all keywords on on every page google like over a year it took google like over a year before they hit them and then now they're like page four or something they're slowly disappearing but yeah i don't know for seo it's just be consistently posting make sure your tech the technical side is correct like you know using for example for technicals like you're using the correct headers headings like you know h1 for title titles and then you do you know h2 for subsequent ones like you got to like index your website like the way a library organizes its book collection right so yeah i don't know what are you doing so far for for all that stuff really just on the website trying to have keywords um it's like you guys said about that video production company

that you said was a scam. It's like, I went on this one website, it was a web design Toronto company. And I just saw throughout the entire page, it was like, we provide web design services in Toronto. Like everything was, every single paragraph, every single piece of text was purposed for SEO. so i went into my own website and like tried to put a little bit of that sauce in there um you know we provide video production services to businesses in saint john's like just trying to clean up the website and the copy on there and what you just said about like h1 and h2 and headings and such i definitely need to go in and have a look at that because i don't think i'm doing that properly with within wordpress

yes you also can't overdo it though because and I don't mean with the headings I mean in terms of like you know populating your site with the right keywords and everything because at the end of the day user experience is what matters because I've seen some websites where they just throw in like a ton of words and you look at and and you're like you you're you made this website for google but if i was a user i i would just tap out so like great you're ranking high but like how many leads are you actually getting because your website is a disaster right i totally agree and on that website that i mentioned where it was just nothing but keywords it was just the the writing was just completely garbage because it was so focused on keywords. And so that's a really great point you make there. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are going to start abusing all these AI tools.

And I think that's great because it's going to screw up their rankings because Google's already made it clear that they hate that stuff. So some good opportunity there. Unless they switch over to Bing and then really use all those AI tools. They limited it on Bing. Like you can only use it like a couple of times a day and everything. So it's not. And all these tools are so broken anyways, like in the sense that one out of 10 times will give you something decent.

And then you look at it, you're like, I could have done this myself in half the time, you know, that you spent trying to figure it out. Throw in like a rephrase this for me. And you have to input that function like 10 different times before it gets you something even half usable. And then even then you still have to rework it to what actually works better. I mean, who knows where it can actually help in certain situations, but I think it's still very niched out. Like it's not going to be the solution to everyone's problems. It can actually help in certain situations, but I think it's still very niched out. Like it's not going to be the solution to everyone's problems. It can only be as like an aider in certain,

I don't know if aid is a word. It'll just simply be a help tool. An aid. It'll be an aid. You know what bugs me is that on LinkedIn, on my feed, it's like everyone talking about it and it's like the most like annoying posts i've ever seen in my life like one after the other like it makes me like cringe every time i see it my linkedin it's my listen linkedin is turning

into facebook it's awful i can't stand it you know what yes it's funny because it it i have noticed that it's almost like as if everyone who grew up on Facebook then moved to LinkedIn. That's what happened. And it's got this like, it's got this culty vibe. Cause it's like, everyone has like this smile almost like the, the, the, the posts read like they're smiling, you know, like, like I'm a hostage, but please, everything's fine type of vibe to it.

I mean, they say that Instagram that instagram you know people are putting on a filter and showing the best their best uh life and then on on linkedin i find it's like a corporate filter you know it's very it's like it's like you're saying that's exactly it it's the i lost my job but everything is fine approach it's it's it's unfortunate right because like in those situations if that happens it's like what i mean Because in those situations, if that happens, it's like, I mean, what are you supposed to do? Be negative? You got to try to be positive and get yourself out there.

So it's like you understand why things are the way they are there. That's for that stuff. That's for that stuff. But it's like most of the stuff is like, oh, my God. I always look at these posts and I go, how does this guy have this much time in his life? Because you'll see it's like the- Or they're only on LinkedIn.

You'll see a post and it says to see more and you click see more just out of curiosity and it's like a like it's like a blog post you're like how did you have this much time and you like what are you doing i'm like this is why work from home doesn't work for everyone you should be at work like how do you have this much time to write like 1500 word essay it's like it's like four it's like 10 reasons why uh business is the way oh my god man not just list them out definition for each one and then literally like you said like it's like a novel or a book it's like you should have actually written a book at this point i think the thing is i think i think the thing is uh this fake positive reinforcement people get because it's like it's like oh my post got like 12 likes.

It's like, buddy, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm just liking random stuff as I go down. We're now getting into the social media craze because this is also, the same thing can be said about Instagram, Facebook, and other content creation. That's just with the business blanket over it or like the corporate side of things, right?

Is your community very active on LinkedIn in St. John st john's did you find or was it just pretty much like mostly facebook and instagram like we were talking about i definitely think that you know businesses are active and individuals within those companies are pretty active on linkedin like absolutely um and probably you know i don't think they're getting on Facebook and posting too much about, um, you know, their work life balance and how working from home has impacted them and such. But yeah, I would definitely say LinkedIn people here locally are certainly active on that platform. And there's definitely some people in the city who have really built a brand, um, on LinkedIn and through posting and creating content on there. um on linkedin and through posting creating content on there oh so then why don't you uh start incorporating maybe like some of those um promotional aspects on linkedin i mean aside obviously from how expensive it could be what about just organic you could do organic too no

i think that's absolutely something um i need to focus on as well as you know just blocking out time every two hours every thursday morning which clearly I have started to do. And now writing content, dedicating two hours every week, protected time to creating content. Because I think we also have a hack where we have a lot of video content. And that on LinkedIn usually performs pretty well. LinkedIn actually wants you to post more video stuff because a lot of it, like you said, is 1500 word looking blog posts. I think video content, they're going to push that organically pretty far on LinkedIn. So I totally agree. Got to make it happen.

The great thing about our businesses is that we have the tools to create the most effective type of content. The tricky part is actually creating that content. Yeah, because a lot of the time we're thinking about what kind of content to create for clients and their businesses. And like we've said this before on the show, is that you got to treat your own business as your own client. You know, try to look at it objectively from an outside perspective. It's like, what is,

what is missing from this business? Like what is missing from altitude media? Okay. Clearly altitude media, they have this, this, and this, um, uh, but they're missing out on blog posts. And you've remedied that. For example, now you're, now you've blocked out two hours every week where you're just creating blog content that you're posting there. Oh, maybe now I need to put like an hour a week where I just start thinking of like LinkedIn video ideas that I'm going to create for, for altitude media. You know, like you gotta, you gotta start thinking more about how to work on the business essentially. Absolutely. And it's kind of, it's funny you mentioned that because, you know, I'm a video marketing

company and my revenue is going like this. Well, why don't I just do video marketing? Right. And like, that's kind of something, that's how I ended up landing on, on doing this is company and my revenue is going like this well why don't I just do video marketing right and like that's kind of something that's how I ended up landing on on doing this is exactly having that kind of outside perspective on your business and realizing if I'm if I'm saying we do video marketing well we should practice what we preach and that's kind of what the approach I took on this whole thing can you go into a bit about the the video marketing side because it's not often

we meet another company that does focus on that it's it's very rare actually so tell us a bit about the the video marketing side because it's not often we meet another company that does focus on that it's it's very rare actually so tell us a bit about that at least like from a video background you know like going from video production to video marketing is yeah and is it like is it like a side thing that you're offering or is it like it's the bulk of your business the main video marketing well first i would want to ask, you know, I'll give my answer first, you know, what do you guys define as the difference between video production and video marketing? For me, video production is someone's coming to me, maybe it's an agency or it's a business or a marketing team. And they're saying, we want to execute on this two minute video, and then you make it happen. And then you deliver on their vision. Video marketing,

I would say it's more so working with the client through a discovery process to figure out what sort of videos should we create that are going to accomplish your marketing objectives, right? Like what would you, how would you guys interpret that? Well, we do, but the second one is still video production, isn't it? That's what we do. It is video production, but there's more strategy involved. That's kind of how I would interpret it, right? Whereas video production, I'm thinking that is just someone's coming to me and they're giving me the treatment on the video. They're giving me the direction.

That's kind of how I would think of it. Video marketing, we're coming up with a solution for the client on how they can accomplish the marketing objectives. What would your answer be? For the client on how they can accomplish the marketing objectives. What would your answer be? Because video marketing to me is I'm creating the video for you and I'm helping you market the video. Okay. That's how you would think that.

The full distribution process is essentially because a lot of the time, I think what you're kind of like trying to separate it as it's almost as if you're kind of being the marketing department for that company in a way with the video content. But at the end of the day, there still needs to be distribution and execution upon it. Right. And that is how we see video marketing on our end, because a lot of the time, even marketing departments, they they know they need to do video, but they don't know always what they need to necessarily do, right? So I guess you've kind of like basically, in our eyes, separated video production into two types of clients, essentially, that you're servicing.

Clients that know what they want and clients that don't know what they want. But that's still video production. Or in his case, though, it's more so like if we were dealing with clients like that when we have uh ad or marketing agencies it's more so like the first thing you described and then uh if we have direct the client direct the business it's more so the second type you described because that's what we deal with a lot so you guys are executing on the rollout of the content that you guys are creating no no so we uh we don't do the the actual distribution side of things that's that's that's video marketing right um but we like most of our business i would say like 99 at this rate at this

point it's a direct to client and uh almost always they're coming to us with uh you know they need they need an initiative and then we help them craft the right video based on their initiatives right so we are in there at uh you know farm to table ideation all the way to completion but what they do with that video at the end of the day is always up to them right cool and so i would like to learn about you know what is your guys's discovery process when it comes to that ideation working with the client to figure out what what the requirements are what does that look like for you guys so i mean we have like a whole process in terms of it starts actually from the discovery call we ask a ton of questions related to what

the purpose of the video is going to be um what the intention is behind it, the key messages, how they're going to all the way to like how they're going to distribute it. And then as we go through like our sales funnel, we're pitching them on the right type of video that they want or what they want at the end of the day. And then going into our pre-production process, we have like a good idea of what the video is going to be. So from there, it's just a matter idea of what the video is going to be. So from there, it's just a matter of getting into the fine details, right? So then at that point, we go through our entire pre-production process to figure out the whole roadmap for everything. So I guess it's a two-step process. It's first during the sales process, we're figuring out exactly what the client needs because we got to pitch on the project, right?

And then going into it is when we really like flesh it out. So when we get into pre-production, we're fleshing it out. So it's two-step for us. And let's kind of unpack that sales process. Is that just discovery and pitch or is there more in between that or does it vary on the project? There might be. So like during our discovery call, it's usually about like 30 to 40 minutes for us. And that's where like we've developed like a series of questions

where we just go through each one and that gives us enough detail. Then I'll do a follow-up with them and then ask them for more information. Or if they haven't provided that during the call, ask them to send it to me via email. And then Carol and I start to unpack everything. And then if we have further questions, we just do email communications for that. And then we and I start to unpack everything. And then if we have further questions,

we just do email communications for that. And then we just do our final call with them where we just pitch for the, well, we do our RFP essentially, right? Yeah. It's kind of like doing the work of the RFP essentially beforehand, because you mentioned you're essentially looking for companies also that know exactly what they want, what they're aiming to do. That's essentially what an RFP is, right? It's like, these are our goals. This is the content we need to make. How can you execute it, right? That's what they're asking for. So this is when you're dealing with new leads, you're trying to figure out what those things are initially, and you kind of create your own RFp in a way based on what you've talked about

you nailed it on the head it's it's exactly that it's basically getting all the information that would need to be on an rfp and now we basically just answer that rfp so once you go into the project with that you already know what the project is going to be like especially if they've agreed with what you want to do and then obviously for the pre-production process like it's a bit more of going into the nitty-gritty on whatever you just pitched um and then through for that you should have your own process as well right um i think for everyone it's going to kind of be similar like for us we just actually just sat down last week and like went through it very in a very detailed manner and that's actually how we realized that we were undercharging for pre-production especially considering the amount of time that we need

to spend on it because we did a breakdown we're like wow we got to spend at least 15 hours on pre-production so that's when we're like you know what like we're not charging enough for that so even even with something like uh like a pre-production process contains like three client meetings as part of it kira and i were doing way more than that sometimes just go over an hour and we've even defined that like you know there's three meetings they're an hour each anything after that needs to be done via email communications because you can not do that when you're doing a project here or there but when you have a lot of projects you just don't have the time and like you know if you take do like five

meetings back and a lot of them can just be done through your email like it it does it does delay things right you should be focusing on other things too right yeah like i mean if it's if like if the bulk of your projects are very similar you should have a pretty good streamlined process about how you should go about it we're not talking about the situations where it's going to be like say a 500k project or a 100k project where there's a lot of different elements that need to be checked off before you even get into certain parts of the process and even sometimes pre-production can go well into the production process as well. For example, you have a few shoot days prior and then like you have to schedule the next few shoot days, like two,

three weeks later, you're still kind of doing a little bit of pre-production in between based on like the other shoots that you've done. Those are very unique situations that we're not kind of like touching upon. We're talking about like, what is your most basic starting point to execute a video project try to figure that out and have that in mind when you're pitching and selling to these new leads because then if you don't have that in mind you don't know how much work is going to go into it and then as daria mentioned you might accidentally undercharge and that actually even helps you figure out at the end of the day, what your new baseline is. If you figure out like, hey, if it takes this much time to do this video project, then I need to be charging a little bit more, you know, to make it worth my time.

Yeah. But you'll figure that stuff out as you're going through it, because you should be able to, like, you know, those distribution graphs where it's like uh it's like a it's like a mountain you should be able to tell okay a bulk of my clients fit into this category right so from there then you can just standardize things but uh so what are like some other like uh like what what is like your kind of like sales process aside from like that form that you feel like it you feel like it might be too long or too short or something that you might need to fix based on it? So right now it's very similar to what you guys are doing. First, we do just a 15-minute discovery to vet them.

And even before that, we'll look at that Calendly form. How do you vet them? What's your vetting process? Well, on that questionnaire is budget and also their business. So we'll kind of do a deep dive into that and look into there. But you have 15 minutes, right? So when you're doing that 15 minute call, what are you doing to vet them? Yeah. So I'm just answering, I'm just reading through a script and learning about their business, learning about what their objectives are, what are they selling? What, what would the outcome of the project need to be for them to be super satisfied?

And really, I'm just looking for red flags. You know what I mean? People saying, I don't know if, you know, we have the budget for this. And, you know, you know, the typical stuff, right? And then I'll hop off the call. And, you know, if I know at the end of the call, it's definitely gonna be a fit, I'll say, Hey, let's book in another, another time to chat on this and then do further discovery or come to them with a pitch. Like, uh, yesterday I did a pitch on a second call and that went pretty well, but that's because on that first call went so well and I thought they were really warm and ready. And so I went ahead with that. And so, like you said, I think it's pretty similar for, um for a lot of video production companies to do that type of discovery process. So you essentially have a, it's more so like a, like a pure vetting call. You don't go into any

deep dive details until, until you've done this essential call, right? No, I would say, I would say it's, it's not just a vetting call. I am trying to learn what would they like to accomplish with the project, for sure. And as I'm doing that, like I said, I'm just looking for red flags that they might have. I kind of do like the... My intro call is kind of mixed in with the follow-up one as well. So I try to just nail everything out of like nail everything at once like i don't want to have to have too many calls like elongate the process because i used to do that it was like okay quick call let's just blah blah but i figured actually

one thing that helped me was that i just tell them do you get them on a phone call do you get them on like a video call it's a video call so they book through calendly and it's a zoom okay yeah like there i noticed i noticed the ones that don't want to do the video call it's a video call so they book through calendly and it's a zoom okay yeah like there i noticed i noticed the ones that don't want to do the video call is also a good a good way to vet them out because it's like yeah could could be a red flag yeah it's like what do you have to hide but but again they're not even going to get past booking on calendly right you have interesting yeah that's good and same thing with the four to six k in the form they're going to hit that and go okay never mind right you know i have people lie to me all the time on that do you have the same

well i have everyone that comes through it's the it's the bottom tier right it's the four to six k not this six to ten or ten ten ten to fifteen fifteen plus right no one's hitting those they're just hitting the base minimum i still have them it's like oh we actually have less than that's like but why did you get in touch you want to sweet talk us that's what it is my first question is like well i always go like okay let me just quickly go through your details so you said you need that oh wait you selected this option this for the budget i just want to confirm that's correct right on friday i had my first i just told them like oh yeah no we can't we can't do that and it was amazing just telling them no right off the bat they wanted it so much tell me about that like telling a client on a call to be

like hey um we're not a fit like how do you approach that well i looked at the at the number and i was like oh yeah no we can't uh we can't do that at all and then they're like oh but you know blah blah i was like sorry do you? No, I don't refer them. Like, I don't have time. Like that's time out of your day, right? And if it's like, if you didn't read the thing, that's not on me. That's also someone you don't want to refer

to people in your network that you respect and appreciate working with and collaborating with. Do you want me to send you a lead that has like no budget? That has no potential. No budget is tough. But I know some local videographers that are on the come up that i i do send uh business to but not like super crap leads that's a good point videographers is different because like a lot of the times like they're not handling ideation to completion right like they're more like hired guns in a way so it's like

like i i know a ton of I, I know a ton of, you know, we know a ton of cinematography, like videographers we could send these leads to, but it's like, we're also dealing with a certain budget level where it's like, they would need to do kind of what we're doing just on a much smaller scale. Like the types of leads that we're getting in now,

like the ones that I, the one that I was dealing with two years ago, I would have gladly taken them on. Right. But it's like, you still need to know how to run the whole pre-production process. And a lot of those guys, it's like they don't really. I mean, they might do some some of that work for smaller clients, but it's like she wanted me to like stay on the call. And like she was just like, oh, but you know, like maybe you could tell. It was funny.

She's like, well, but you know, maybe we could tell. You could tell me a bit about yourself. I'm like, there's no point. Like we're not a good fit, right? Like I was like, you need at least this to talk to me. I was like, if you want, go talk to your manager or your superior. If we can get more budget, then we can schedule another call. But and then she still wanted to pry and ask like questions about like, you know, what, if we can get more budget, then we can schedule another call. And then she still wanted to pry and ask questions about how we do it.

And I was like, look, how I do it is for my type of clients. How a person with your budget range does it is completely different. The way Balenciaga makes their clothing is different from the way Gap makes their clothing, right? You could learn the process, but if you don't have that kind of money, you still can't buy Balenciaga and like Gap is not gonna be of the same quality. Yeah, and like just one thing to note and to stress is that this isn't like,

this isn't done with an intention to be rude or anything like that. And it's just a matter of like, it's just how businesses run, right? Like everyone has only so much time that they could spend within their business on certain things. It's not a matter of being rude. It's just a matter of like saving people their time because

this is actually something that is a service to these leads as well is that we're not wasting not only are we not going to waste our time but we're also not going to waste their that's what i told her that gives them that's what i told her i was like listen i i think you need i don't want to waste your time and my time as well but i I think you need to spend this time right now. So finding a company that can match your budget, right? Exactly. It's being, it's, you don't want to do a disservice to anyone that you work with or could potentially work with, right? And it's a matter of like putting your name out there in a positive light in different ways too. Speaking of Balenciaga, do you guys have insurance and media coverage insurance?

This is something I just learned recently that I definitely need to get. I had insurance for drone doing aerials and recently learned I need media insurance. Do you guys, how does that relate to Balenciaga though? Yeah. So Balenciaga just recently has been in a firestorm online over the campaign that they did right and it was i think now there's a bunch of lawsuits going on and the lawsuits are towards

the agency that actually created that campaign right so that's kind of even though they signed off on it right because they they have to sign up on, yeah. So that'll be in the courts, right? See, I think, okay, well, firstly, one, I always think at the end of the day is the company that puts it out there, if they're the ones that chose to put it out there, it's up on them. I can see why though,

that they would probably be trying to blame the agencies because they're saying, I was like, oh, you know, we trusted them as experts and this and this and this. That might be one thing. But I think what saves us as video production companies is that we're just the tool.

You know, maybe it was the marketing or the ad agency specifically that developed the strategy that might be more. Them suing us is like someone suing the graphic designer. Yeah, or suing the camera company. It's like, you made it with these cameras wait but but hold on uh let's go into the insurance part so because we have uh what do we have we have liability insurance yeah we have liability for like the liability insurance that we have basically covers like you know in case there's any accidents

on set or anything like that uh that is usually required by any any video production company if you don't have insurance go and get yourself hey kyrill do we need to get one specifically for each shoot each time we shoot or it's no it's just for the in general for the year no no no no no not not necessarily i i think uh it depends i think those are the situations where you have to get it if you don't have um um if you don't have oh i see but we we have it so we don't need to i see okay exactly like some some uh like if you were if you wanted to book a professional uh studio to rent they have to see that you have uh a certain kind of um they have to see that you have uh insurance set like maybe you could probably

generate like like might not be a bad idea to look into this but just to see if we need to generate some kind of uh like report with our insurance company for those specific shoots just it's just literally one document that would just kind of get printed out because you've been handling the studio stuff for us so like if we have to shoot out a studio we got to get a special form from our insurance guy yeah i thought it was just it's a specific one just like why do we have to get a special form from our insurance guy. Yeah. I thought it was just, it's a specific one. It was just like, why do we have to get it for a student? Like we already have it now.

I think it's because you're dealing with something a lot, a lot more major in a studio setting because with, with insurance, you're basically kind of like covering their asses as well. I think that's why we have to do it with studios is that you're covering their asses so that they know that we have it. But it's, it's so that everyone is covered on all fronts whereas like if we're going to like a client's um uh company to film things certain there like we need to have our own no matter what right so that's so there's that's i mean it's always good to double check things

yeah i think i might call up our guy and just ask him i don't know if he i don't think he may know on this i think we have to check on on more on the production side of things like liam like what is your experience on that front like if you've if you've had to deal with that well so yeah i got the liability insurance and the drone insurance but just recently now the insurance company is after me to get this kind of like media protection around the content that we create i don't fully understand it um it might be like some kind of scam media protection around the content that we create. I don't fully understand it. It might be like some kind of scam. I got a meeting. Upscale.

Yeah, right. It's like because I'm creating content and insurance around that, not just liability. I'll tell you why. Because you tell them you do video marketing. That's why. You could be right. Maybe that might be it.

That might be it. Yeah. Because again, you're not distributing the content, right? You're not, you're not walking, you're not doing the whole process there. Yeah. Well, we're moving more into that this year. Like yesterday's pitch I did, we actually would be executing on the media buying. So maybe that is.

So you are starting to shift into like actual marketing of the videos. Absolutely. So. Okay. Okay. like actual marketing of the videos absolutely so okay okay so now i'm looking to basically create content um and marketing assets for the entire customer funnel right right from an awareness ad to um a landing page um and also the media buying in between and just as a way to kind of increase our service offering and really revenue

and you know value we can provide here in the market interesting yeah we we've uh we've had this conversation you know prior to actually pre-pandemic believe it or not we were debating getting into the video marketing side of things but we we just decided we don't have that expertise. So it doesn't make sense for us. And we might as well, we might as well become, you know, better at one side of things. And also would have been a completely different animal for us to tackle. It is. It's a beast.

Yeah. I think it's the key is like to know where you want to kind of excel in and where you want to focus your attention. Because the second you start introducing new services into your business model, there is a whole new set of things that you have to consider and they could affect every other part of the entire process. Like for example, if you wanted to do video marketing or like say on the video production side, the color grading process is a completely different process that has to be incorporated into your plan. So then when you're going through pre-production, you have to have now another section that's specifically

where you have to go to a coloring house, how you will essentially get the footage to them, how you will get different drafts, things to present to clients and things like that, right? If you didn't have color grading in your whole production process. So every service that you incorporate into your business can affect every other aspect of the business, specifically in your whole process. And then you have to then consider like, how will that affect essentially that very first interaction with the client in that sales call? It's like, okay, instead of presenting a nine step process, now you have to present a 10 step process. So I'll give, I'll give a better example. Cause what you're, cause for like colorists, like that's, if you're, if you have to go to a colorist, you're dealing with

a bigger budget. So it's factored in. That's what I mean. Like it's, it, it, I'm just using an example of a process alter. But, but marketing something like that, it's equivalent to what we're doing with the photography. So like with us, we started offering photography services, right? Now, it's not us actually doing the photos or us knowing photographers. It's we partnered up with a photography agency. So basically what we do is we just use them for that, right? So we get it at a good rate. They get the business

uh and then they they handle that we we we're we're only involved in a little bit of the communications with the back and forth you know let let them know okay let's book a photographer who's a photographer great okay i'll get them involved with the contact they go shoot it they send us the link uh to the to the. And then we forward that to the client. That's the extent of our involvement with that, right? And vice versa. We also help them on the video production side if they need it for their business, right? So it's a matter of like finding key partnerships that can help you better serve your clients

and introducing services that are actually going to help your clients. Because sometimes some companies, they push services onto clients that they don't really need. And sometimes it's better to offer services that will essentially keep you in mind as the problem solver for your clients. When clients come to you, they basically want you to solve their problems and challenges. So for example, for this one client of ours, we do a lot of video production and occasionally they have events where they might need a photographer. So rather than them going through the tenuous process of trying to vet and find people that they don't know, see how they work together, if it's a good fit or not, they could just come to us and say like, hey, do you know any, do you have any photographers that would be available on this day that are trustworthy and reliable?

And if they can execute it with a delivery date of this, this and this. And then say, yep, we have exactly this person you need. Let us know these details and then we'll just coordinate it for them. And we just simply connect. They go shoot it, provide us with the images and then we provide it to the clients. That way it's like a one-stop shop almost in a way. It could be a good idea for you to maybe, I don't know how far you are into the marketing process,

but it could be a good idea for you to also see who in the local business side of things can help you out with that because then you can just focus strictly on the production side or if you want to do both, that's up to you entirely. But just because we've noticed when we try to divert our attention too much, one thing always suffers and it's hard enough to run a video production company as a whole, right? Yeah, I totally agree. Especially when it comes to the media buying side and, you know,

running Facebook ads and such, I'm pretty well versed in that, but I need to find someone who really knows their stuff and really can deliver. So I totally agree. And it's potentially, you know, finding those strategic partnerships with another agency or maybe, you know, hopefully I can find an individual, you know, to help manage the cost there. But I agree on that. Are there any other strategic partnerships that you guys have or, you know, that you're looking into? And what does that kind of look like?

Is that just a conversation to say, okay, guys, you know, handshake deal, or is it more intricate than that? You know, we're, we, we only have that one going on right now. And luckily enough, they also do offer, uh, more marketing services. So for example, I just, we, we had a lead come in and they want to do like a website, a website redesign. But part of that was new video content for their website. Right.

So I pitched them on on our videos and I told them also we have a partner that can help them with the website redesign. So I connected them with them. Right. In terms of like agreements on paper, it's still very early on so we don't we don't have anything on paper but we have had conversations where we've discussed like how it could potentially morph into something bigger going forward um so we're both both parties are aware of of where it can like you know that it's meant to grow right yeah i think it's important to to see and see and trial and error it essentially

because sometimes when people try to do partnerships or things like that right out of the gate each party might have a different idea of what it could be and sometimes it could turn into something else that you wouldn't expect and you might say this is how we want to basically handle client referrals or things like that. It might not work within like three to six months after that, right?

So it's good to kind of test it out, feel it out, see how everyone works together. And then if it gets to the point where there's like a consistency, like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, like every day or every other day, oh, that that's when it's time to talk about it it does come down to money so like if the money starts getting to the point where it's like okay we really need to talk about this then we'll obviously do it uh but the x like you know we're we're on the same page on that in terms of other partnerships i I think for now, no. I mean, I actually, Kirill, one good thing would be maybe with an animation company, something like that.

That would be a great idea. Potentially. Just to have that service. Because animation is one of those things where it's like, we don't do too much of it, but it does come up here and there. And then when it does come up, it's like, I don't know. That's the only thing I would maybe add to our repertoire, to be honest with you, like a strong animation partner.

Because we do use freelancers, but it's always a freelancer at the end of the day. Their quality is always going to vary compared to who you use. It's more so availability is the challenge with freelancers. Good animators that deliver and are reliable and trustworthy are very difficult to find um i find more difficult to find than like say editors or cinematographers because it's a lot of it's not like front-facing as well as much like you're basically they're they're working from home like like cinematographers or other crew members you see them on set so you're able to understand how they work a little bit better in

person whereas uh it's a little bit harder to find and take the chance on like say editors or but also because also because you're not an animator right you're a cinematographer so you can tell like it's like a dog recognizes another dog type of situation, right? Yeah, that's a good point. But in anime, it's like, I hope this guy's not just selling me on this. I hope he knows what he's selling me on. Is there, Liam, a certain partnership that you have at the top of your priority list that you might want to explore more of?

Or are you still kind of trying to figure that out yeah i definitely think i'd like to i mean we've worked with marketing agencies here in town who don't have in-house um video um but i think you know developing a strategic partnership with a big agency here in town uh you know to be their go-to for video production could be pretty, pretty strong for us. You know, we noticed with that, you'd have to go with a big one, but then the big ones always have a lot of options. So they kind of can shop around easily. Cause we've noticed if you deal with a, like a small to medium sized marketing agency, their clients, like at least for the type of video production work we do, cause even with, with our partner over there, if they're sending us video work, they know that it has to be video work of a certain budget.

Because a lot of times when you're dealing with small to medium sized clients and you're a marketing agency, like the video budget is smaller, right? Like we could dry out their like two months maybe of their marketing budget with just one video, right? But that's just because of the type of video production company we are. Actually, most of us marketing budget with just one video right but that's just because of the type of video production company we are actually most of us are kind of like that right like i mean for us now our starting point is 10k before that it was like five now it's seven and a half like most people fall into the five to 10k range right but a lot of these small businesses like if you tell them like like i don't know if they're dealing you're dealing with a restaurant you tell them yeah we can we can your marketing agency it's like yeah we'll we'll shoot uh one day's worth one uh we'll

come in for a day we'll shoot one video you'll get one video asset out of it and it'll cost 10 000 they'll go like what the hell we can't do that that's that's a lot on a monthly basis it won't work right so i think the only challenge with that is going to be like trying to find a partnership where it's like I can't do like the same quality of work that I do for one type of project. In terms of like basically they'll need a lot of work. They'll need more so like a videographer I've noticed compared to like an actual company. It's a company that our overhead is high. Like we bring on a lot of people, like the cost of a video is just too high for them.

I find at least. Think of it like this is because they're going to these other companies with a certain kind of idea in mind of like overall content that they need. They need many services, right? They're not going in there specifically with video as the main service that they need. They need to create their website. They need to create promotional photos. They need to create banner ads, like a

whole wide range of things. So in their mind, they're basically say they have like 50, like say 10K that they need to distribute amongst all these platforms. Some companies can do it. Obviously, some parts are more so focused on and then other parts there might be a little bit if there's budget left so think of it like if they've spent the 8 000 to get their whole media uh brand image set up right from the get-go they only have 2k left over and then they're like oh let's do a video how much is it going to cost 10k it only works if you have they don't it only works for them if they have like an in-house guy because then it's already salaried so they can just send them out whenever. But again, they're also having the challenge

of how much time is that person going to be spending on this one particular client. It all goes back down to even if they're in-house, their hours are still billable. No, I know, but let's say you're a marketing agency and you have an in-house videographer. If you send them out for one, two hours on Tuesday, it's fine, right?

Because that guy's probably going to edit it as well. Versus if we send out someone, if you send out a cinematographer, it's at least like you got to book them for the whole day, even if it's two hours, like that guy's not going to take it on. So it's like, boom, right away, you're $1,500 in the hole. That's not including the project management people,

just coordinating stuff. And that's just sending the guy out. It's like, just capture whatever. If you want a producer, then boom, another $1,500 right away. You're $3,000 in the hole, just footage capture, even if it's like two hours. I guess basically it's the different kind of experience. You know, like a lot of people lump in cinematographer

and videographer together as the same role, but maybe those are two separate, completely separate roles and distinctions that people have to define in our industry. But it always keeps changing. Sorry, Liam, did that answer the question? Like Dario and I go, I noticed that this episode,

like you've asked the question and Dario and I just kind of went off. He's not joining the conversation. We're waiting for Liam to join in and he's not joining in. As he just mentioned, he's just kind of taking in what we're talking about. Hopefully it's something useful there, right? I mean, absolutely. And I totally agree.

You need to have a good communication communication a good standard set with that agency um you know to say hey listen like don't come to us with a two thousand dollar budget right you need to to kind of establish those terms and set those expectations yeah but but then again if you are dealing with the ones that would deal with those budgets and now you are competing with other people in your in your pool? But you never know. Could work out. But I don't like relying on agencies because I feel like – I mean they have no loyalty. They have no loyalty to you, right?

I mean why should they, right? So it's like you could be their go-to guy for like six months and then someone under charges and delivers the same quality boom you're gone right absolutely totally agree um i want to ask you guys have you guys done any mentorship or coaching programs to kind of level up your guys's ability because i recently started uh partaking in those over the past couple months um they're pretty expensive, but I found that was a way to really accelerate my learning and ability to kind of organize myself in my operations in my business. Where do you find those? Like a mentor? Do you mean like finding a mentor for yourself?

No, I think he's talking about paid consulting. No, it's paid coaching. So it's like a paid community and paid mentorship and so i'm in two of those they're both based out of the united states and so basically i meet with a mentor every week and i also have access to all their learnings and that has been kind of like monumental for me over the past just these couple months i mean i used to get this i used to get this. I used to like email proposals, right? Like, and now I've since, you know, leveled up my ability with like the whole discovery process. I wasn't even familiar with that prior to this coaching. So, you know, what have you guys done?

If you haven't kind of dived into any programs, what have you guys done to kind of level up your ability? I mean, you guys are very competent in your business acumen and in your video production he thinks we're competent you know what's funny is that when we i think i think one of the big one of the biggest things is actually this show was a big uh changing factor for us because when we started it we started during the pandemic because you know there was no work coming in. So we needed something to kind of give us a little bit of like a, let's say like a purpose on a weekly basis, you know, like let's do an episode and interview people. And it was kind of like a good way to give everyone a chance to kind of like, you know,

connect and talk. And then we actually like through doing these episodes, we kind of started learning a lot more about not only what other people were doing, but also learning about what we weren't doing. It's like, oh, Dario, like, I think we need to start thinking about this, this and this, or like, we haven't thought of this, we haven't thought of this. And then that was kind of like the probably the biggest thing that we've done is essentially just doing this show and just connecting with more and more creatives. And within here, I see you guys are going back and forth like, hey, you know, we should look into that.

We should try that. I think that's super cool. And, you know, you guys have been super consistent. This is episode 30, is it? 40. 40. 40. Yeah, 40 now.

And how have you guys been able to maintain that? I mean, this is a lot of work to book all these guests in and then produce it and put it up there. You know, what has been your process in keeping it going? Well, the thing that's helped a lot is that we started hiring editors for this. produce it and and put it up there you know what has been your process in keeping it going well we uh the thing that's helped a lot is that we started hiring uh editors for this so that's that's saved up a lot of time so basically right now the breakup is i'll be the one that does the outreach books in the at least books in the guests um and then uh kiro deals with the editor and then kiro

pumps it out on on the on the social channels that's been the breakdown we've kind of just split it up like that and it's just it's just worked it's easier to kind of just separate um like like divvying up the role so that it's like okay one has done that now i can get this and then like handle the creative and like put together the actual product. This way it just becomes a lot more of a well-oiled machine. Like, I mean, before we did, it's not like we did 40 episodes in a row. So just to keep that in mind, we basically had started.

It started like at the end of like we did it, how it worked before. Yeah. Like 2020, we did a run of like 15 episodes or so. And then 2021, we're like we we got a lot to focus on we don't have time for that and then took a year break which we should enough i should have kept it going because we learned a lot from this so we restarted in 2022 and then just slowly we did a ton of them in march and then we just released them little by little and then now we're just doing more more weekly ones because we'd realized that, you know, we were growing a lot on a week by week basis. So every week we're learning something new. And it's good to have, it's good to have your own kind of, uh, piece

of content that you could actually focus on. You know, like there's a lot of things that you can learn doing, doing something like this, uh, you know, that can work in other aspects of your business. You know, like sometimes you might, for example, find a bug in one of your post-production softwares that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise if you were just handing projects to editors. Because I discovered one last week and it was like frustrating me all week until I figured out what it was. And then now it's like, okay, perfect. Now we have a fix and now we can apply it to everything else that we do. So this was actually some, this was actually an issue with the way Adobe Premiere exports

its color. And I was noticing slowly over the last few weeks, it's like, there's something going on with the export and I couldn't put my finger on it exactly. Um, and sometimes it happens with different updates and, and then it just kind of hit me last week. And I was looking at like the preview bar of Adobe Premiere. It's like what the, what the color and the look was. And then I looked at the export and I'm like, there's something different here. And then I basically put them side by side and I'm like, And then I looked at the export.

I'm like, there's something different here. And then I basically put them side by side. And I'm like, why is it exporting with colors completely washed out and uncontrasted versus what is on the preview bar? And I'm like, this is probably where we've had issues in the past with certain projects where we were thinking to ourselves, oh, the color was a little bit dull in that project. I wonder what was going on. And I think this was essentially the problem. And essentially, this was a problem that dates back to like 2016, 2017 even.

And a lot of people deal with this issue because whatever is being exported with Premiere, Premiere is set up for essentially a color space that is meant for broadcast. And that color space is completely different to what it is on the players and the media players on MacBooks, on PCs, but ultimately YouTube. I read that some people were saying essentially that it was like, oh, it's just that media player that you're using. You got to use VLC and then the problem is fine, which is okay, that could be fine. But most people who are using Mac A are going to be using the standard media player.

So you want it to be optimized for that. That's one. But ultimately that same issue was appearing on YouTube. And that's what was frustrating me all last week. I delayed an entire episode release because I needed to figure out- I was wondering why that episode didn't release. Yeah, that's why it's being released this week.

Well, how do you fix it? What's the fix? I'm so familiar with this issue. I've had this as well. I think everyone has it, just only a few people like ourselves have noticed it. And the funny thing is that you get this LUT that you need to apply to the Premiere.

You get it from Adobe's website. But they deleted it. They deleted it need to apply to the Premiere. You get it from Adobe's website. But they deleted it. They deleted it. So that's the crazy thing. And that's what frustrated me because a lot of the resources that I was finding were saying, oh, you just have to download this LUT from Adobe. And then it just kept giving me error messages to the link.

Maybe the link was just broken and they just put it on a different part of the website. But I finally found another YouTuber. His name, I believe believe is Sir Matt Johnson. Oh yeah. The guy with the beard, right? Um, the wedding guy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like he, he does a lot of really good, uh, wedding tutorial content and he basically had a fix for this and what he did cheekishly in his video saying, um, the Adobe has this LUT and, uh, I could link it to the thing, but I'm going to just put it on my website just in case for whatever reason they might delete it down the road. And that was like three years. And that was like three years ago. So I'm like, thank God,

thank God he sent it. I downloaded it. And yeah, it worked. It worked. I already released a short this morning and it looks completely different compared to what the uh premiere was exporting prior and oh my god like i i was just that was one thing i was going to actually talk to you dario after this call was it was about that huh i was wondering why you delayed it okay that makes a lot of sense uh listen uh but uh going into the mentor stuff um i'm what's the name of that program you're using i mean i i we're not good i don't want to do it, but I'm just curious. So there's one that's called YouGurus. And, you know, that one is mainly, it used to be something for people doing freelance web design and help build that into, build their freelance web design into more of an agency.

And so it's not very tuned to videographers, but the mentorship is still extremely valuable. And so it's not very tuned to videographers, but the mentorship is still extremely valuable. Another one I'm in is an eight-figure agency. These guys, Jordan Roche and Zach Feath out of the United States. And so I get on a call with Zach once a week and, you know, we're just laying out, okay, how do we get the agency to the next level and really build this business? And so it's really great accountability. You know, I guess you guys could probably speak to accountability because you you got a partnership here. For me, I don't have a business partner in this. So it's really great to have that accountability every week. And also he's introducing me to so many different strategies. And the biggest one so far has been related to

operations and actually doing SOPs and really dialing in my process. So an SOP is a standard operating procedure. And so for every single project now, we have a standard operating procedure, right? Okay, and you have it actually documented and mapped out. Okay, step one, what are we going to do after our discovery call? And when the client is saying,

okay, let's move ahead with the project, what we're going to do is we're going to invoice're gonna invoice them our deposit okay step two we've received the invoice step three now we're gonna do a welcoming onboarding email and mapping out this entire process of your project right from start to finish that's interesting we we um we've been doing that lately as well like we've mapping it all out yeah it, it's so beneficial. And now that I do it, I can't believe that I didn't do this for the past four years. What do you do with the deposit? One thing I was trying to figure out, I think I'm going to start implementing it, is I'm going to start doing right when they sign, we need to get a 15% deposit. And then before the production date, I'm thinking of doing 35% is due.

And then after the production date, I issued the other 50% or maybe at first draft. What's your breakdown for that? So, I mean, it varies on the size of the project. And typically, if it's like a 5K project, we're doing 50 to start, 50 upon completion. Now, on a bigger project, say above $15,000, I would first speak with the client and kind of propose a payment term. So for something above $15,000, I would say it'd be 25%. And then at a certain portion, if it's a two-month project, we want to keep cash flow coming into the business. So I would say it'd be 15% and then to 50% and then a bond completion up to 100%.

But I mean, I think just speaking with your client and finding something that works. But like I said, on the lower end, like 5 to 10K, I think it's like 50-50 is pretty reasonable. That's kind of how I approach that. Because we're right now moving in the in the 10 plus range so i want to implement this new format i did have someone give me resistance on the 50 50 and now i think and i noticed like you know even though you say like 50 percent do on on contract signing it still takes them a little bit to process it through right so my new thing is going to be you give me 15 once i receive it then we start

the pre-production process right and i'm really going into a break i really i'm breaking down the pre-production process for them because it's like a 10 stepper for us right i don't know how many steps you got for you it's about actually if two of them could be removed depending on if they need actors or whatnot so it's about eight to ten steps so that's one thing i mean by the way i wanted to mention something one thing you were doing with the 50-50, you do 50% when the project is finished. I'd recommend you stop doing when the project is finished. Just move it to when you deliver the rough draft for them. And I'll tell you why.

Sometimes before you get to the final, like the, you know, offboarding, this is the final version. It might take quite a bit of time because you got to wait for them to give you their revision notes and everything. You know, our standard is like 48 to 72 hours, but some guys, you know, some clients need like a week or more. So it delays your cashflow process, I guess, in a way, right?

Because if you're expecting it, it's like, okay, I'm supposed to be done this project by that point. If they take a lot longer, then it's like, boom, I'm now getting it like two months later than I expected it, right? You need to pay the editor, you need to pay your overhead, whatever it might be. And this way, it just kind of like standardizes the process a little bit for you in terms of how you get it.

And at that point, that shouldn't be an issue because you're already creating the project with the client and you are both serious about it. So, uh, at least sending it through is, is key because a lot of the time they have 30 day pay periods as well. So if you wait till the offboarding, which is Dario said could delay from like two to three weeks after who knows, you know, like they, the main person, the main point of contact doesn't see it in time. It's a weekend, then it's a long weekend. By the time they send it to their superiors, then they take like another week. By the time all that feedback gets to you, it could be another two weeks. So that way, if you send the invoice with the first draft, you at least start the 30 day clock so that you actually get paid pretty much around the time that you actually finish the project, technically speaking. So it's more so to take that into account.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good tip. I was actually going to say, this is probably a good point to kind of, uh, to end off the call since we've already hit about an hour and 20 minutes. We usually try to keep it around an hour, but like, you know, sometimes these discussions, you know, they get really good. So we don't want to, we don't want to stop them and liam honestly thank you so much for for joining us on and i like how he was asking a lot of questions like this is this is good i like this you told me you told me to bring some questions and then i wrote down four bullet points and then i asked a ton of questions so yeah now it was cool you know um to get your feedback on a lot of different stuff and have

this discussion today it's super cool i want to you know appreciate you guys having me on here. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.