Creatives Grab Coffee - Providing Strategic Video (ft. V Strategies Inc) | Creatives Grab Coffee 24

Episode Date: May 3, 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. This weeks guest is Jeff Bradshaw from V Strategies Inc. V Strategies Inc is a Calgary (Alberta, Canada) based Video Production Company that has been operating for over 25 years. They provide their clients with a combination of outstanding creative, innovative solutions, first class service and a results driven video product. To view the post for this episode, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/providing-strategic-video-creatives-grab-coffee-24/ Timestamps: 00:00-11:06 - Intros 11:07-15:27 - Shift in production companies approach clients 15:28-20:43 - walking the fine line between being a production company and a marketing agency 20:44-26:57 - Clients that want to be cheap / Live-streaming 26:58-29:32 - V Strategies target market 29:33-37:15 - Video Sales Process 37:16-49:17 - Team size / The transition production owners will need to make as their business evolves 49:18-54:22 - Challenges faced 54:23- - things you would do differently if you could go back in time / Outro To 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/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 Instagram: @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

Welcome everybody to Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we're joined by Jeff from V Strategies based out of Calgary, Ontario. Oh, Ontario. Calgary, Ontario. See, take one is usually my best one and then take two. It's like, what? It's just all downhill from here. Dario threw you off. Yeah, it's the pressure, you know, the pressure's on now. Just staying in, by the way. I'm not going to edit this out. I love it. Anyways, welcome everybody to Creatives Grab Coffee. We're joined by Jeff.

Oh my God. Wow. Dario really has messed me up at this point. What is this? Don't you just love this? We're usually on the other side of the camera and it's like, it's easy. Don't worry. Just do the video until you, yeah, I'm with you.

Like I said, Phil, this is all that we're going straight into. He's from Calgary, Ontario at this point. We're continuing. Calgary, Ontario. That's what it is. All right. Jeff, how about you give us a little bit of a background on who you are, who is V Strategies and the type of work that you guys do? Yeah, absolutely guys. Thanks for having me on. I mean, so V strategies, uh, I started the company going on 26 years ago. I used to be with CTV, um, prior to starting the company and I sold advertising there. Um, always had an entrepreneurial bug. So we've been in business, like I said, just over coming up to 26 years, um, do full service video production. Um, you know, we, we kind of, we changed our name. We used to be zoom communications. When we started, we changed it to be strategies about eight, nine years ago.

And the reason for the V strategies is really about visual strategies. And we just found that it was more about more than just producing videos. It was about creating strategies for clients, which, you know, I know you guys are doing a lot of people are doing these days. So there's more to it than just producing a video and and giving it back to a client so um yeah we do a lot of corporate work um we do tv commercials we used to do a bunch of broadcast work um but these days is primarily corporate stuff for online distribution so be honest with us did you sell the name to zoom is that what no you know funny story with that is it

so we used to be zoom communications or else you used to be a toronto company called zoom media which were the bathroom ad guys so they did the urinal ads and there was a jeff that worked over there in calgary so we would always get these ads and people wanted to put ads up and over top of urinals and i was like no that's not. We're not in the crapper yet. And so we would swap phone numbers and back and forth. Anyways, it was just kind of that. And that was just the change in the marketplace that we just found the timing was right. So the change to, to V from zoom, but you're right. I should have kept the rights to it because,

or I should have came up with a conferencing solution like this. It would have been more financially beneficial. You should have just held on to the domain name and then sold it to them okay no kidding you know i've always been what i've always been curious is like all these ads that are in the bathrooms these days who actually makes these ads you know it's like the it was like at the back of my mind one time i was thinking to myself is there like a company that specializes in this? Is this like a niche that all they do is bathroom video? I know it's a big market. It's surprising. I mean the zoom media, I think they end up getting sold.

I'm not sure if they're even around, but I mean, yeah, it's a big business. Well, look, everyone needs a bathroom. That's a lot of urine at the end of the day. A lot of foot traffic as they go through there, you know? And you have to watch it what else you can't skip the ad right that's right yeah you know what are you gonna do like you got their attention for exactly one minute at the most yeah you have you have no chance of skipping that ad that's actually brilliant when you think about it it's like those ads where it's

like um uh if if you're reading this ad you're you're you're stuck in traffic but it's like those ads where it's like um uh if if you're reading this ad you're you're you're stuck in traffic but that's right you're reading this right in the washroom yeah it works oh man so jeff 20 26 years like almost a quarter of a century that's a long time right you know what it is it's crazy amount of time And it's funny because a lot of the young folks that work with us and work for us and everything. I mean, I started back in the day when CTV was still real to real editing. The software, you know, the hardware that we use was crazy big, heavy cameras. You know, the first camera we bought was a betacam sp camera i think we paid about 90 000 for the camera another 40 000 for the lens and as we all know our our phones these days record

you know footage that's 100 times better um same thing we our first edit suite we bought was an avid edit suite and i think we paid you know300,000 to get that edit suite put in. For an editing suite. Yeah. We still have a deck downstairs, an HD cam deck, but I think we paid $90,000 for it. That is totally useless. You still have it because you spent the money, you know, you got nothing to do with it.

I'll put it into a museum i wonder i've tried i've tried ebay i can't even get any money on ebay for it so i figured i might as well just keep it so yeah so i mean i think it's it's interesting how it's changed over the years for sure i've seen a lot of changes i can only imagine we actually funny story about uh you know buying expensive stuff they look back on now and it's pretty much worthless. We had the same kind of thing happen with 360 video. So we got into it before it became hyped up or it was in the process of becoming hyped up just before that. Early 2016 it was. It was right in early 2016. It was right in early 2016. We blew like at the time it was like 15K,

which doesn't sound like much compared to your $300,000 suite. But for us at the time starting out, that was a lot of money. Percentage wise, yes. To be honest, you know, like if you're making like 50 to 100K a year, 300,000 is what an extra what 66% on top of that. Whereas like with us, we were making only like a certain amount where like 15,000 was a huge dent in our, in our bank account. I started, you know what? And it's, so go ahead. I was going to say, I remember going,

I still remember going to Vistek and saying, yeah, so we want to get the six GoPro Hero 4s and paying the 4,000 bucks for those. I was like, Ooh, this, this one stings a little. Remind you, we were just out of school at that point. Well, you know what though? It's interesting though, because that's the funny thing about these days. And it's, you know, maybe it's something to talk about is you guys have an agenda here. So I'll, but you know, when we got into the business, when I got into the business, there was only three, four bigger production companies. And the reason being is because the technology like it was so expensive.

And so, you know, we took loans out and, you know, we took a big risk in investing the money into the equipment. But that gave us an edge because not everybody could get into the business. So as the technology started to change and as we were going to the nab shows in vegas every year and we started to see all this dslr technology i remember we bought the first versions of the gopros and we're going oh my god like we're done because everybody can buy this equipment and we are totally out of the business because our advantage of having this expensive equipment had kind of been lost and the interesting thing about is what we found is that and I remember this real quick story but I remember watching a photographer who was a sports illustrated

swimsuit model photographer and this guy had these great big thick glasses and he would shoot all of the photos on this little instamatic 35 millimeter camera and the whole story was about everybody else has these great big cameras these great big lenses and how could this guy be a professional photographer because he had such bad eyes and he says it's not the equipment it's who's behind the equipment so you can give anybody a camera it doesn't mean they can produce great quality video and so that was one of the things that kind of I remind you remind myself when the technology got cheap it didn't matter you still had to have the people like the three of us behind the technology to make it work. So it's just an interesting transition over the years.

Yeah, it went basically from the value of having the equipment was the big selling factor for a lot of companies to it becoming how are you creating the content? Like, what is the content that you're filming at this point? Because as you said, anyone can buy a camera these days and just kind of jump right into it, but it's, it's the experience and, and the strategy mind you that goes behind the, that goes into the videos that really makes the quality of what it is these days. Right. How did you find, how did you cope uh, evolution? Cause like for us, we basically just kind of like grew with the growth. Whereas you went from like the, the, the previous type of work that you did, and then you had to evolve it over time. So how was that,

how was that transition for you? Well, you know what, it's, it's one of those things I've always, you know, I'm, I'm a little bit older than you guys.'m I'm into my 50s um and a lot of people have have this mentality of oh I don't understand that new technology right it's too confusing I remember even guys going you know what I'm not going to stop shooting film these HD cameras this DSLR crap won't catch on I've never thought of it that way I'm constantly curious about new technology and what's coming out, even though I'm maybe an older guy. I think that to succeed, you got to stay curious and learn about the new technology so that you can stay current. And that's what we did. We, you know, I learned all the new technology, stayed up with it. it you know I used to be a partner in a company here in Calgary

um that's doing great Mammoth XR they do um VR and AR stuff um I learned the technology so that's how we adapted we just we we went great let's take these DSLRs let's take these GoPros let's learn how we can use them how we can adapt them and use our old school knowledge of storytelling and distribution of content with these new tools that we have so and but i we've made lots of mistakes you know you guys said you put some money into the 360 stuff i mean i i dumped a ton of money into streaming we started a streaming company in 1999 called jet stream Digital Media. This is when most people still had 56 dial-up modems, none of this high-speed crap, you know, and we were trying to send video signals over these 56K dial-up modems.

And that's how like a guy like Mark Cuban got his start, right? With broadcast.com. He got into the streaming business. He sold out at a really good time and obviously now a billionaire. But so we spend a lot of money on technology, made a lot of mistakes, but you just keep learning and keep adapting and keep driving forward. And you know, here we are 25 years later and, you know, still going strong and looking ahead as to what else is new and what kind of technology can we tap into to bring to our clients? Yeah, we talk a lot about technology, but I feel like nowadays it's, yeah, it's the barriers to entry are so low, anyone can pretty much enter it. But the strategy part is the

one that really, really matters. And a lot of the companies we've been talking to on this show, they're always reiterating that point, how they're trying to be very strategic with their clients in terms of the content they create for them, right? I'm just curious to, like, I mean, you've been in this industry for so long. I'm just curious as to what you've seen change on that end, right? Well, yeah, absolutely. You guys are bang on. And I think that's the critical part of it i mean we we've had a tagline we've used for a lot of years called story first medium second and the meaning behind that is that if you can tell a good story it doesn't matter every medium works whether it's

print you know web video everything works even coupons you know if you're advertising everything works it's just a matter of the story you tell. And I think the problem being is with video guys like us, visual guys, animation guys, is that we're a bit of an afterthought. So a lot of the agencies will go and develop these campaigns and they'll develop, you know, the strategies and the key messaging. And we tend to be a little bit of an afterthought. And we kind of, you know, we always say that we need a guys like us need a position at the big kids table. So when you've got your ad agency or your PR firm or your digital agency coming up with the strategies, the visual guys should be there as well. We should be at the

table talking about the strategy for, you know, the content development, the stories you're developing and how you're going to distribute that content. And that's where I think it's changed. And that's where that strategy comes in is because we were, we're generally better off knowing new platforms like Tik TOK or, or reels or anything else and how the content needs to be produced or pre-roll ads. And so why aren't we at that table coming up with a strategy? And so a lot of agencies don't like us being at the table because they'd rather put us in the corner and tell us what, you know, what they need. You know, we don't deal with a lot of agencies. We're happy to deal with agencies. We love working

with agencies, but not if they're going to put us in the corner and, you know, kind of control us and let us speak when it's our turn. We'd rather be at the table and say, no, no, here's some ideas as to how we can integrate, you know, your video into your overall, you know, when it's our turn. We'd rather be at the table and say, no, no, here's some ideas as to how we can integrate, you know, your video into your overall, you know, whether it's a marketing campaign or a corporate communications campaign. Well, did you, uh, uh, you mentioned that you don't work with the agencies too much, but like it, was there like a period where you did kind of work with them quite a bit where

you kind of like started to see like the importance of being at that table as you say like uh like what at what point did you realize that how key that was well you know we didn't purposely not work with you what i found with the agencies is that there's probably a few incidences maybe 10 15 years ago that you know where one specifically we had a client come to or we had a client a corporate client come to us directly and ask us to produce a video we gave them a quote I don't know it was $35,000 or something because it was a bigger project um they said oh we're going to get our agency involved the they got the agency involved the agency came back and said great we want to do this creative which was our creative and they said we have eight thousand dollars for production and I kind of went wait a minute how did it go from a thirty five thousand dollar budget

to eight thousand they're like well we need to put you know we need our markup and we need our spin and I was just kind of like wait a minute how are we supposed to produce so we were expected to produce the same quality work for you know less than a third of the budget and I just I went back to the client directly I said you know this is what's happening. This is, this is ridiculous. And the agency didn't like that. And we haven't worked with that age. I don't even think they're around anymore. Business practices like that. I'm not surprised to be honest. Well, yeah. And I'm not,

so for us we do work with agencies and we're happy to work with agencies, but we want to make sure that again, you know, everything's upfront and we're able to, you know, provide some value and, you know, bring our expertise to the table. So again, we do work with agencies. It's just, we don't work, there's other companies in town that rely heavily on agency work. We just, we tend to work with clients direct. We just have a better result doing that. Yeah. I've always wondered this, this new direction our industry is going in where because we have to develop all these strategies or, you know, we, we do like to implement a bit of strategy into the content we produce for our clients. it feels like we're walking this fine line between we're a video production company that can, you know, create your video and help you with a bit of strategy, but we're not really a marketing agency. So it's like, we're kind of dipping our

toes a little bit over there. So it's this like weird transition, I guess everyone is kind of going into where we're kind of like mostly video, but with a little bit of marketing expertise thrown in there. Right. And then it seems a little bit of marketing expertise thrown in there, right? And then it seems a little weird because if you do start to offer marketing services, then you kind of become something else entirely, right? Now you're in a different pond. Well, part of it, Dario,

is also that a lot of clients and a lot of companies essentially have, they have their own marketing teams and more and more is being asked of them these days compared to what it used to be. It used to be believed that, you know, you have to go to the agency, get them to create a brief, do this, do that, do this, do that. But now a lot of companies are starting to have bigger and more capable marketing teams with their own graphic designers, their own copywriters, like their whole team. And so that's why they are kind of like creating that bigger

creative at this point, and then bringing us in to kind of give our input. So there's that kind of collaborative effort I've noticed, where the agency's role has kind of almost been like split into two, where like one goes to the client, and then the other half goes to the to the video production company. At least that's what I've seen so far. Well, you know, and I think that's a great point. I think it's knowing where our limitations are. The agencies that we work with, you know, these are brilliant people that they know strategy,

you know, from an overall communication strategy. They know print design much better. They can tie it all together. Nothing but respect for them. We know how far we can go down that line before you're right where it kind of gets confusing but I also think the other thing too is that it's about everybody fighting for this piece of pie a lot of the agencies now are taking their graphic designers and now offering you know video production services and they're doing explainers in-house you know because somebody somebody who knows Photoshop and Illustrator can get into After Effects and start creating.

And so all of a sudden, because they're going, well, if we can keep part of this budget, so it's all about this fighting over the budget. And our belief is it's not about fighting over the budget. So providing the client with a solution where you grow that pie. So we all get more money, right? We can all, you know, take our fair share. When you got to start kind of going, well, no, no, we'll do the, we'll do the marketing strategy, even though we don't know how to do it just because we want to get an extra, you know, 20% on the budget. Well, that's, I think that's your, you're going to run into some problems there potentially,

unless you have the skillset to do it. Yeah. I like what you mentioned about like how everyone's trying to fight for budgets typically, but you did mention also like, you know, sometimes you want to try to elevate that budget, you know, based on the value that this project is going to give the client. And I've noticed that too, where sometimes like a client may have like a certain budget in mind for a project,

but they haven't really thought about what value this project might give to them. And then once we kind of talk to them, figure out the solution, as you mentioned, that, uh, that suits them, they might see the bigger value in it and then realize, Oh, we might need to pull in more funding so that we might be able to bring in this team and this team and this team. And then because of that, like there's going to be a much larger value at this point for this project. So then because of that, like there's going to be a much larger value at this point for this project. So we got to bring in more money. So budgets are not always set. You know, as long as you can communicate the right solution and the right value, then, you know, the sky's the limit at that point. Right.

Absolutely. And I think that's, that's everybody's job at the table, whether it's the agency, the video producer, whoever it is, the PR firm. It's about making sure, I mean, whatever we can do, if it's a client that's selling some widget, if we can increase their sales, they're going to have more budget for us. I mean, if we can increase their sales tenfold, they're just going to keep coming back. I always joke with clients, too, you know, I always say, you know, I can't retire off your one video project. I need multiple projects over the years. So I have a vested interest in seeing you succeed because the more I can help you succeed, the more money you're going to spend with me, you know, $100,000 video project isn't retirement money. And so that's just, you know, we're pretty

open about that. And it really is about helping the client to achieve those goals. And again, even, even, even internal communications is if it's about getting more engagement from your employees or, you know, getting more engagement from, from shareholders. I mean, all of that stuff, there's, there's gotta be that ROI on it to justify the money they're spending. Cause some of the stuff we do isn't cheap. You know, there's costs too. I think that's a whole other topic as well as just the cost and the value of what we provide. A lot of people don't understand, you know,

we don't get it all the time, you know, where they say, well, I, you know, I got somebody who can do it for a quarter of that price. Great. But generally you're not comparing apples to apples. It's like, sure, go ahead. There's always someone that can do it cheaper you know yeah and that's what we say if they if they can do it for you cheaper by all means go go to them it's like you know like we can't do it for less you know toward the best of our abilities you know it's like sometimes asking it's like it's like going to a restaurant asking for a sandwich and then saying oh sorry but i

only have this much money it's like okay let's take off the bread let's take off the meat here so here there's a salad you know that's essentially what what that kind of negotiating is at this point right it's like i can't give you the whole sandwich we only have two bucks for it you know yeah and even even some of the things we're seeing that even when it comes to the the explainer videos and animation stuff, you know, we're getting people going, Oh, well, I found this site online that, you know, I can get it done overseas for, you know, $300. I'm going to go for it. Like, you know, good luck.

And we've had clients that have tried things like that and they've come back to us and said, okay, yeah, you know, you guys returned. Yeah. You guys returned our phone calls and you know so. Now they spent an extra $300. That's the thing. It became more expensive doing that. So you can go test it out. Sure. But it's going to cost you more doing that. And especially time. That's the biggest thing, all that time and opportunity costs wasted

going down the cheap road because those are always like the ones that go even much longer than usual as well. Absolutely. Yeah. That must be very humbling for a client to come back though and say like, yeah, it didn't work because we actually had a guest a show or two ago and they were talking about how they do follow-ups with clients that do want to do that route, just to see if they actually did end up going that way and if it worked out or not. And like they, they, if they say no, they'll tend to go back with them, but I'm just curious to do that too. Or do you just wait? You know what we we've never really followed up. I mean, generally it,

cause it's not our regular clients. Usually it's a random phone call. Somebody calls us and says, I want to do this. And you know, I can get it done for 300 bucks. We did have a couple of clients years ago and it was more on we did add one with animation. They just came back and they just blatantly said, yeah, we made a mistake. We shouldn't have done that. Some of it too is even with some of the streaming stuff we did years ago with

guys found, you know, cheaper solutions for streaming. And, um, they came back and said, yeah, you know, we, we didn't realize how difficult it was. Streaming is special. That's something we were always scared to do. Cause it's like, yeah, it's just, there's so many things that can go wrong with streaming. It's just, it's a stressful type of, cause it's not in our control. That's the biggest thing.

The good thing about our job is that most of the things we do are within our control, which is why we're very certain of what is and what isn't needed. When it comes to streaming though, how is the locations internet service is always the first question that is asked. It's how strong is that? Cause that's something that's just not in our control typically. And anytime we get requests for, for streaming streaming like if it's something much on a smaller scale we try to take it on of course but if it's something that needs something with much

more manpower then we we just send it off to like people in our network because that they're the experts you know like as to your point you got to bring in people that are experts in their respective fields for this well and the streaming side i mean streaming is it's live television right and when things go wrong and i think the russian government found that out a couple of days ago when that editor ran onto the screen um don't know if you guys saw that or not but oh i didn't see this with the sign yeah um editor ran on and said don't believe this propaganda and i think she's been arrested and but you know that's live television and when something goes down you got to react and unfortunately with the streaming stuff so we're doing a project right now for a client where

um they did it live last year and it it went okay but it didn't go great you know they had some delays they had some hiccups so what we're doing this year is we're pre-recording a 90 minute show um we're not it's kind of a simulated live we're setting it up is we're pre-recording a 90 minute show. It's kind of a simulated live. We're setting it up as if it's going to be live, but it's all going to be pre-packaged. We're going to be able to test it in advance. You know, when the time comes, we hit play. You know, it'll be seamless as opposed to, you know, the risk of, like you say, local Internet, you know, the bandwidth in the building you're in crapping out on you that's a great solution especially unless it's a newscast i've always wondered why a lot of people or like a major event of course even newscasts i've always wondered why they don't just shoot it like i don't know three hours before it airs like that's more work for them that's why you know how much work

they have to do as a newscast like i've heard of situations where they basically have to edit something within 30 minutes to get put on the show, you know, but I get it for newscasts but like for something like you just mentioned, Jeff, that you pre recorded it's perfect you get it done exactly the way you want and then you just simply stream it live you know like I feel like that's the right approach for anything that isn't like a once in a lifetime, obviously event, you know, like a conference or if it's a newscast or something like that. I think those are the only ones where it kind of warrants that. Otherwise, that's the best approach. Yeah. And even though the one we're doing, we're doing some of the recordings of some of the speakers kind of closer to the date. So if there's anything that happens in the world that's going to impact, you know, know their business they'll still be able to provide an update um but so they'll do that and then what they have is they're going to have a live chat at the end of it so they can take any questions and address any questions but it's not going to be a live video feed it'll be more of a you know

an online interaction chat session so and again that's just us having that experience and like you guys you know we've had so many webcasts go down on us. We just, we avoid live, you know, at all costs. We have done some of them. We've had some good success, but it makes me nervous every time. Yeah. No matter how much experience you have, there's still a margin for error. Not from you, as I mentioned before, you know, external factors.

That's just, that's just the nature of the game. And that's why anytime people ask any production company, how are you guys about live streaming? And it's just like, we're always going first. Okay. All right. Let's, let's figure this out. Yeah. So Jeff, again, since you've been in the industry for 26 years, I'm just wondering in terms

of the clients or leads that you've, you've the, the, for 26 years. I'm just wondering in terms of the clients or leads that you've, you've the, the, the difference in, in leads that you've seen over the years, because we have seen, I mean, obviously like nowadays, everybody is doing video for their businesses, right. Versus like back then, I can only imagine due to, again, because it was a high high barrier to entry for a lot of companies, the prices for regular videos must have been a lot higher than probably what they are today for the same type of video. So now that the prices are a lot lower, I'm just wondering what kind of transition you've seen in terms of the leads that approach you for content? You know, we are generally dealing with kind of mid to large

companies. And that's how we've differentiated ourselves in the market a little bit. We're structured to work with larger companies. So when we get smaller companies come in and are looking for production work, they generally have smaller budgets, which is totally cool. But we have other groups that we can kind of pass them off to. We tend to be more structured, even though, so I guess what we're doing is we're still going after that mid to large size company and we're doing more videos. So the cost per video is coming down. Whereas years ago we might spend, you know, a hundred grand, 200 grand on one corporate video.

Well, now we're stretching that same budget into 50 videos, you know, throughout a year. And again, we're just getting more creative with it. So, you know, we still get the calls, but we always, you know, we try and qualify the leads so that we don't bring it. If somebody has got, you know, a thousand dollar budget and they want to, you know, five minute corporate video with multiple locations, we're just not the right guys to do it. There might be some other people out there,

or we try and explain to them the costs and what's involved in it. But I would say our business, I mean, we, we don't get a lot of incoming inquiries. We're going out to get the business. You know, we know who the customers are. That's the one. I mean, my background, I'm not a video guy. I started in advertising sales at CTV. And so I don't have a production background. I just learned everything over the years and being in the television side of things.

And so I've always been big on the fact that in any business, it doesn't matter whether you're a production business or an accountant or anything, I think you need to be constantly out, you know, pounding the pavement, looking for new prospects, coming up with new offerings, you know, reinforcing the value that you provide the clients in the marketplace. Yeah, the sales process is definitely very important. I think luckily nowadays we do have other means of getting leads. I've always been curious about the sales approach, though, because I feel like it's a little tricky for our industry because you aren't selling exact. I mean, we are selling a product, but it's all so specialized at times.

So I'm kind of wondering how you go about your sales process. Well, for us, again, because we kind of have defined our market, we either have, you know, know marketing advertising people within companies depending on the type of company they have or we're going after the corporate communicators so you know we use things like linkedin um we network you know because we've been in the business for so many years we have a pretty good sense as to kind of who's in the market and it's just it's constantly touching base with people letting them know that you're there you know feeding them new ideas we we have a blog site called think visual on our website if you guys get a chance to check it out we started this about six seven years ago and think visual was just you know great campaigns videos that our

team finds online and we just share it and it's no secret isn't it we're not positioning it as our work we're just saying this is great video content we found online. And we use that to share with clients to say, here, use this as some inspiration. You know, here's some ideas as to what some of the top production companies around the world are producing for clients. And so we use that as just kind of giving them ideas. So it's not a hardcore sales, you press hard three copies sign now kind of a sales approach it's just constantly being out there and providing them with value and ideas and giving them ways that they can use video and animation to improve their marketing and their

communications lately we've been focusing a lot on like advertising on Google, like Google AdWords, a lot of SEO. And we've we've like the main way we get our clients is through either like our website, like they just find us or through referrals. Like it's mostly for us, it started out a lot as referrals and now it's transitioned to more leads from our ads or just from Google. But sales is definitely something I think we need to start thinking about. But it's like, yeah, we're still trying to nail that one in. It's an ongoing process, essentially. And what I was actually a little bit curious about, you said that, uh, you do a lot of, um, outreach yourself and you, you said you have a very good sense of what the market is like and who might be looking for video content these days. Uh, is that maybe potentially a reason because of like

how big, maybe necessarily the Calgary market is for, for this kind of work or is it, or is it kind of like almost comparable? Obviously it may not be comparable to Toronto, but is it kind of like to a level where like you have a much like more in-depth knowledge of like the entire market that's there, like personally? I would say, yeah. I mean, Calgary is not a huge market when you compare it to a Toronto or even a Vancouver. I mean, we're a bit smaller, but I still even think in a Toronto or a Vancouver, larger markets, you know, or even some of the smaller markets, if you're in a,

you know, a Red Deer or a Lethbridge, I think it's just about trying to identify, you know, the people that have a need to communicate, whether it's to, you know, employees, investors, to customers, and really just giving them ideas as to how they can use video. Anybody, I always say that, you know, everybody has a message to me. Everybody has an audience. So if you, if you're a company that has, you know, 500 employees, well, you need to recruit people. You need to train people. You need to get, you know, town hall meeting messages out there.

You have all this stuff. And, and so our, we're just out there saying, well, here's a way you can do with video. If you're trying to sell a product, well, how about an explainer video or how about some pre-roll ads for YouTube or how about, you know, a video for your email signature so that, you know, when you're sending all those emails out, people can actually log in and see what you do. So it's just, it's giving people ideas. And so I, you know, I have a pretty good sense as to who's in the Calgary market, but there's also a lot of companies we don't know, but that's what we're constantly prospecting. We're constantly reaching out. We're scanning LinkedIn to find out who the, you know, the communications VP is, or, and then trying to figure out how to get some

information in their hands. You know, we, we just did a video that we talked about, you know, we've by far probably interviewed the most number of senior executives in the city over the years, you know, hundreds and hundreds of senior executives. And so we just did a short video and said, we know how to interview people. We know how to deal with senior executives. We know how to make them feel comfortable. We know how to, you know, make them look good on camera. deal with senior executives. We know how to make them feel comfortable. We know how to, you know, make them look good on camera. And we take that video and we're blasting it out to probably four

or 500 prospects to say, if you're doing videos with your senior executives, we're the guys who know how to do it. So again, just getting creative and, you know, building trust with, you know, existing clients and prospective clients. Do you find any challenges, uh, like, or at least what are some of the challenges that you might face when you are trying to kind of reach out to them? Do you get a lot of kind of pushback, you know, especially with cold outreach, you know, it feels like sometimes 90, 95% of the time, it's like, Oh, thank you for reaching out or not even an answer at all whatsoever. Right. So like, how do you kind of like navigate that or even push past that to kind of get those get those sales?

Well, funny, real funny story. I got a 19 year old daughter who's looking for a job right now. And she says, dad, I can't find a job. I said, how many resumes you sent out? She says four. And I was like, okay, there's the problem. She goes, well, I had two interviews and I didn't get the job. I said okay there's the problem she goes well I had two interviews and I didn't get the job I said there's the problem people are so afraid of rejection you know and again I started in sales I'll send out this video to 400 people and if nobody gets back to me I don't lose any sleep over it and I you know I'm respectful I'm not a pushy sales guy I'm just like well

obviously it wasn't of interest to them so I'll come up with another idea three or four months from now and reach out to another 400 people and I think so many people that get into business and I don't know where you guys's backgrounds are but people get into especially the video business they come out of broadcast school or they go to a film school and they come out and they love their craft they're great at their craft they love the business they start a production company and they don't put enough emphasis on learning how to sell their product or they're nervous about selling nobody likes everybody's going oh i don't want to be a salesman you know there's that old you know perception of sales is slimy it's not it's about we're providing solutions to businesses to help them, like I say, communicate, to sell more product.

We're not forcing anything on anybody. And I think that's where a lot of, you know, so we do, we get pushed back. We get ignored all the time. Every once in a while, I get an email and somebody say, don't ever send me any information again. That's fine. I don't care. There's a million other people out there I can talk to. I don't care about that one individual who's grumpy.

And so we just keep plowing through it and we keep reaching out to people because, but we're not pushy either. You know, we're not trying to force anybody in it. And then we're just saying, look, we provide a great service here. We have great solutions. If you have a need to, you know, communicate with customers, employees, investors, here's some solutions that could help. And we get, you know, that's really what has allowed us to succeed and stay in business over the years is that just not being afraid

of rejection and just constantly pushing. Jeff, how big is your team? So you started the company. Do you have any partners? No, no. I started the company. Do you have any partners? No, no. I started the company. I had a partner in the first year I bought him out. I'm the sole owner.

We were up back six, seven years ago. We were up to close to 30 people. 2015 here in Calgary, when the energy industry started to tank, we started to pare back a bit. And we were down to about 15 people pre-covid when covid hit we unfortunately let go of half of our team um just because we knew it was going to be you know downside so we're now eight nine full-time people but then we're using a lot of the people that we unfortunately laid off we're using a lot of the people that we unfortunately laid off. We're using a lot of them on a freelance basis. So we have anywhere from 20,

20 plus people kind of going at all times. And I got to be honest, like, you know, having a smaller team and using freelance is actually a bit of a relief because, you know, when you've got 20, 30 people on the payroll, there's a lot of pressure, you know, every month just to keep cranking the cash out just so you can break even. And as a business owner, at the end of the month, you're sitting there going, Oh, I hope I made something. You know? So, so it's, it's been scaled back,

but we're, like I said, we're, the market's starting to come back. Now we're starting to feel, you know, even just since January, COVID seems to be passing and it seems to start to level out a little bit in Calgary here, the $130 a barrel oil helps the market for us guys. So hopefully we can start to kind of build that team back up. I don't think we'll ever get back up to that size again, just not because we won't have the work.

It's just because I just think we like to be a little bit leaner and meaner yeah that definitely seems like to be the trend with a with a lot of companies because darren and i have always have been talking for years about how we can potentially kind of scale up because we can't be just the two of us like full-time forever necessarily you know we're trying to figure out what might be some like good uh rules to kind of first bring in down the road because like we're a very similar situation you know we're're trying to figure out what might be some like good, uh, rules to kind of first bring in down the road. Cause like, we're a very similar situation, you know, we're nimble team, just the two of us right now is the core. And we have like 10 or so freelancers that we're working with on a consistent basis, depending on obviously the projects. Um, but if, if you were to, well, what was like the first kind of hire that you found was like the most beneficial to you

when you were trying to scale up? Like, what was the first thing that was on your list to do? Or did you learn was the right one to do? Yeah, there's probably not one person, there's probably two or three. And to me, in our business, you know, the where you make your money are the people that are billable. I'm not billable. I mean, I kind of am, but I mean, I'm not really. But, you know, when you've got a great animator, shooter, you know, editor on staff that can crank out some amazing work and you can keep them billing, you know, when we were, you know, to the size of when we were larger, you know, we had, you know, a team of six or seven editing and we had a couple of shooters and that was good so that was critical but I also think

having somebody from an or you know a management side of things I've got Jamie that works with me she's been with me for 17 years you know and being able to coordinate and keep all the details in line because I'm not a detail guy I'm the the big picture guy. And I come back and go, let's do this for a client. I throw out these crazy ideas and then I come back and it's people like Jamie who put all the pieces together and go, Christ, how do we do this? You know, but then make things happen and keep it organized. So it's kind of twofold. There wasn't really one hire.

I think it's a matter of, you just got to get to those complimentary people. I've always been out selling the projects and coming up with the ideas and building the relationships. I bring it back and then I just have that trust in the team that they're going to be able to pull off whatever crazy idea I talk to a client about. Do you still direct a lot of your projects or do you just kind of like uh run the business yeah i i've never direct i mean i have directed and i would say you know even though i'm not trained i didn't go to film so i don't i don't actually have any post-secondary i'm sorry i meant like directing producing so like are you on set at all for your projects or very not very often no I I I um like I say my my main background in the business has been running

the business I'm involved in the creative and the strategic side of things with clients but we have directors and producers that actually do the work um and pull the projects off so like i say i i have no formal training i i came out of high school and i got a job as a sales guy and just kind of fell into the tv business so um i know i could direct and i have directed the odd thing but i wouldn't call myself a director um i've more taken the role i guess of the executive producer while i'll sit back and you know but I'm also very critical I'm critical to the work we're doing and I know what looks good and what doesn't and you know just from years of being in the business. When you were first starting out though

were you like you were probably like on on like you were producing directing then right and then you transitioned to this being behind the scenes? Yeah, no, again, I came out of selling advertising for CTV. The guy that I partnered with first off, he was a producer director, more of a producer, less of a director. We were partnered for the first year. He didn't like the idea of being in business for himself.

He couldn't handle the stress. So I bought him out and then i hired two producers and then we were freelance directing everything for the first four or five years so again i was always on the street generating the business and i'd bring it back and again i've been on set lots but i'm not that's i hire people for that um essentially you're like just, um, you're managing different teams of people, depending on the projects. It's like, here's like three projects running at the same time. I'm going to put so-and-so and so each running, uh, each of those projects, they build the, uh, you allocate the team and the people there. Uh, the thing I'm

curious about though, as you mentioned, you're also dealing with a lot of the creative, um, with the clients. So because you're doing that and mentioned you're also dealing with a lot of the creative with the clients. So because you're doing that and then you're kind of handing it off to the team, I guess, obviously, is because you've had like many years of of working with them that, you know, what kind of work they would produce. But like typically with us, whenever we're dealing with the creative, we're kind of seeing it through all the way to the end. way to the end uh how do you kind of maintain that quality or like you know that the director uh understands your vision you know as it goes along is like how do you manage that relationship between you and the director um again i you know i have i know our directors and kind of the the skill sets that they have and who's good at what and so when i'm in talking to a client you know depending on the path we go

down will result in the director that will recommend bringing in for the project um we I work so closely with the directors when I come in and say hey we're looking to do this kind of a concept for the client it's not much of a stretch for them because I already know their strengths um so I don't you know if it's something you know really out of So I don't, you know, if it's something, you know, really out of scope, if it's some, you know, crazy comedy piece or something, or something really out there, I won't go too far down the creative path of the client without bringing our team in. And then it's a collaborative effort, even, even, you know, I always believe, I don't believe they're just, you know, there are some amazing directors out there and amazing creative people but i still think even the most creative people

still rely on people around them to really fine-tune their ideas so it's more of a team effort yeah that's that's what i was kind of curious about yeah it's it's so interesting we know we haven't run into a um another video production company that's being run like yours is being run but it makes so much sense because yeah, like eventually the goal would be to get to the stage that you are in, right. Where you're running the business, you're doing the sales, you're handling part of the pre-production and then some you're overseeing the post,

but you're not going to set because it doesn't make sense for you to go set when you got to run everything else. Right. It's almost like, like I'm thinking in my head, like if you own a movie studio, you're not going to go all 20 to all 30 days of the production shoot day. You're not going to be on set with the director and everything. You got to run the studio, right? You got a whole bunch of stuff to worry about. Generate business.

And that's a challenge that a lot of people in the industry have. Like for you guys, you go sell a project with a client, then you got to come up with a creative, then you go to go on set. Well, that might take you out of the sales cycle for two months. And you see it that you're out of the sales cycle for two months. And then that project wraps up and you're like, oh, crap, we need another project. So now you got to spend another month to get another project. And so if you can start to step back a little bit and bring some people in. So for you guys, you know, maybe you get, you know, a great production assistant who can do a lot of the legwork for you. So while you're coming up with the creative and you're actually going to be on set, maybe a lot of that other stuff you get somebody else to do and you're looking for the next job while you're waiting for the upcoming shoot,

you know, so you can start to build on it. So that is, we are quite unique. I mean, I've got a good buddy of mine that we're actually kind of competing companies, but we also are business partners in a real estate in the building. Matt used to be really heavy into the production and now he's kind of stepped back and act as more of the executive producer and is having a lot of success because he's talking that he's one that works with a lot of the agencies he'll go in talk to creative figure out the project he'll bring in the various directors um and then he'll kind of go great my team's got it he'll go to look for the next project while they're out on set, you know, create, you know, shooting a commercial.

But it's catchy, you know. No, the system you have is like, it's the way you're supposed to do it. I think the way a lot of companies go about it is kind of the way we're going about it, where you start off as, I mean, the process is you start off as a freelancer and then you start to get a lot of work. Then you turn into a company and then you slowly start hiring people that come to your projects and then you know you start growing a bit but I feel like I think most of the companies we know like the people that are running the business still go to the shoots right and I'm I'm thinking

like the reason for that I guess is is because we like to be involved. We still have that like we love being on set. We love having like almost like, you know, you have like a power, almost like you're on set. You're the guy directing. You're the guy producing. You're the guy that's important. You're an important wheel in the car.

Right. But definitely, I think what a lot of people fail to see is probably that transition that they'll have to make. You know, it's like, OK, now it's time for me to kind of take a step back and kind of just do more big picture stuff, which I think is a hard thing for some people to implement. And it's probably very hard for them to do as well. And I guess it really depends on what your goals are. I mean, it's, I know some guys that are creative and charge a lot of money for their services because they're amazing at what they do and they love being on set and they're artists, they're creatives. And they make a really good living. And yet they're still on set and they're creating the content because that's what they love to do. that's what they love to do. I'm personally just for me, I'm more of a business guy, more of an entrepreneur. And so I'm more about, you know, building the business and pulling the teams together to be able to figure out how to grow the business. Less about the creative.

Being in business all these years, I'm just wondering, do you remember any key challenges that you faced over the years and then how you overcame them? Oh, you know, there's so many challenges. I think that there's challenges when it comes to people, you know, finding, we've had some amazing, we've got some amazing people on our team. We've worked some amazing people, but we've also had some people that have been challenges, that have maybe cost us some business, that haven't really acted or put out the content that we expect for clients. So those are some of the big challenges that we've had, and not fun ones, right?

So there's that. I think that even changing with the technology is a bit of a challenge, you know, even though we've made it through pretty well, it's you know, getting undercut from people when all the new technology started to come out and get an undercut and trying to always prove your value to clients, you know, it's not a, it's not a real challenge. It's just, it gets tiresome after a while, you know,

when guys are coming in constantly, but that, you know, I complain and then I'm going, you know what, look at the restaurant business. I mean, there's a thousand restaurants in Calgary. If you want to talk about competition, our competition isn't nearly as bad as, you know, the restaurant business and some of the other ones out there. So, but I don't know. I mean, overall, I love the business. I mean, when we stop and think about what we do for a living, we are pretty fortunate. You know, we go out and shoot videos and have fun and talk to people.

It sure gets stressful like everything else, but I don't know. We're pretty fortunate. Yeah. The one thing I really like about what we do is that we're always able to see all these different types of jobs that, you know, like it makes you think like, okay, if I went in that industry in that particular role, that's what my day would look like, right? It's always interesting to kind of like just see what other people do, you know, that's what I like. too that's the other that's what i like seeing some uh as well because it's like we have like an idea of like what it might be like to work in certain industries and then when you when we go behind the scenes and create the content board it's like whoa this there's a lot more that goes into this than than most people probably realize right because they don't show as much sometimes

right well and i think the cool thing is too is i mean like i you know and i don't even think about it but i mean we've we've played a role in some pretty major companies and some major campaigns you know like i'm sitting at home sometimes watching a hockey game or watching the news and i'll see three or four tv commercials that we've produced um you know that we're helping influence you know buyers to to go and you know go to a certain restaurant or buy a certain product or whatever. And it's just kind of interesting. It's fun to kind of get behind that and have that kind of influence on a market. I think it's pretty neat. How did you feel the first time you saw one of your ads on the big screen?

Well, you know what it's funny because because i started in the tv business um back in the day when television and newspaper were like a really big deal they're not such a big deal anymore um it was pretty neat but yeah the first the first couple of spots we did and when you saw it on tv as a production company and that would have been back what 1996 97 was pretty cool you know um and i i was pretty young i was what 27 when i started 26 27 years old um so to be able to sit back and go wow look at you know we're doing this stuff and and you know we do a lot of photography work too so you know as i flip through magazines i'll see photos that we've done and it's just it is So, you know, as I flip through magazines, I'll see photos that we've done. And it's just, it is even today, you know, today, it's still exciting to see stuff that we've done. Yeah. We noticed one thing in your portfolio is that it wasn't just video that you guys do,

but we saw that you also develop some websites as well. Occasionally now you're saying you also do a bit of photography. So is it kind of like a little bit of everything that you guys are doing, or is it still like mainly video and then occasionally do other projects? Yeah, and we kind of went down that path of being more of a visual communications agency about five, six years ago. But now I mean, the bulk of it is straight up video, we do a fair amount of animation work, you know, explainers and whatnot, like you guys um and we do websites but they generally are micro sites or kind of video centric websites um you know it that's we don't do just straight up websites like landing page kind of type uh ones right like those for video yeah yeah yeah um like

we did one for opa uh which franchise a greek franchise out here fast food restaurant and it was kind of the power of good foods and had a bunch of different video content on they're all kind of promoting the brand so that's the type of thing that we'll do um but not and again it's all based around video type work i'm just wondering if you could go back in time uh like what, it's a cheesy question, but I actually am pretty curious because you seem like you're, you're pretty much, you sound like you're at the peak of like your, your video career. So I'm just curious if you could go back in time, what would you do? Like, is there anything you'd do differently? Like any,

I don't know, anything. I'm probably past the peak, but, um, you know what? No, I, I wouldn't, I don't think I would. I mean, it's, it's been a great business. I mean, I think, um, you know, if anything, if we could have adapted more over the years so that we wouldn't have had to deal with layoffs because of the energy industry or COVID or anything like that, those are the situations that I would have done differently because when you're impacting people's livelihoods, that's the stuff that sucks. But as for what we've done with the business, I would say I'm pretty proud of it. And I would say I have no regrets. You know, you make the best decision at the time. And to go back and say, oh, I should have, or would have, or if I did, you know, you know, we,

we started our company Jetstream digital media in 1999 right back when guys like Mark Cuban and we were around streaming before YouTube was around. So, you know, had I, you know, would I have liked to have been the one that created a YouTube? Well, of course, you know, but no, I got no regrets. It's, it's been, it's been great. And I think, you know, it's exciting to see the content that's being produced out there. You know, and, and one of the big things that I find interesting though, is it also that years ago, we found a lot of our people wanted to leave our business to go

and create movies or, you know know create more dramatic type material I think nowadays what I'm finding is that people like us can take what would be traditionally corporate boring corporate content and do some great storytelling around it and bring that skill set of great filmmaking to the corporate world and I think that's what you're seeing more and more of when you take a look at Vimeo and what some of the producers and directors are doing on a Vimeo, I think that's what's exciting about the business and hope to see more of that into the future.

Yeah, I think for sure we are seeing a lot more that we're not, many of our peers maybe aren't going into films, but they are implementing those techniques and skills into the corporate world. And it's making the content a lot more interesting. You know, it's not, it's like corporate content is no longer, I would say it's no longer boring.

Like I think everyone's kind of trying to outdo themselves with how creative they can make corporate videos. Yeah. And it elevates the industry, you know, it elevates the standard, you know, of what, what is and what isn't good work. And it elevates the industry, you know, it elevates the standard, you know, what, what is and what isn't good work. And it pushes, like, it pushes all of us to do even better work, you know, it's, it's harder to do, like, it's harder to do a simple video these days, you know, in terms of like, very basic corporate, you know, like, we have to think about always like, Oh, how do we make this stand out? What platform is it going on? So how can we film it in a way that, that makes it stand out from the rest, you know, and this is where the video strategy comes into play, right?

It's like, what can we do that works and lends itself to the strategy? So yeah, it's, it's really interesting where it's going. No, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And I think that, you know, I see it even more so into the future i mean when i started the television business you know you put tons of money into production works you could go and sell them a 30 second tv commercial to support it and now i think with you know the old term of branded entertainment um we're seeing more and more of that where why don't these brands just start creating great content and sharing it with people you know and you're starting to see that more product placement but you're starting to see more brands getting involved with actually

creating unique content like a red bull you know everybody talks about a red bull but it's brilliant you know they know who their target audience is um they sell an energy drink but they're also providing content for a very very targeted market so if you can see even more of that i think that's that's what the future holds in my opinion. Speaking of the future though, like what, what do you see happening in our industry going forward next? I don't know, five, 10 years. Cause you've seen, you've seen quite a lot of changes throughout the years, right?

You've seen it all. Well, you know what? I think that, I think it's just the storytelling is going to get better. I mean, I think you're going to start to see programs, you know, you're already seeing things like the voiceover business, right? You know, we used to have to hire a voice and go into a studio and record it. And we still do that sometimes. But now you got things like voice one, two, three, where you can go out to the world and get voice recordings, which also opens up the market for local voice talent to go around the world. I think you're going to see programs, you know, kind of like what Canva has done for the graphic design space. I think you're going to start to see, and there's already programs out there that can start to do some automated editing for you. So I think there's going to be some of that technology out there that will start to change the business and make it easier for the content so i think the focus is going to go back on to that creative storytelling

you know need that i don't think you can not yet maybe 20 years down the road 50 years down the road the ai side of things will do it but i don't think you're going to replace that creative minds behind it goes back to my story of the photographer with the 35 mil camera it's not the technology i don't think we can have computers creating great content i think that's what the future holds is people like us continuing to get creative and be able to tell interesting stories and then use the technology at hand to enhance it, the mediums are going to get better and better. Like, there's no doubt about that. I don't know how much of an accelerated growth that will be, you know, I don't know if it'll go as far as the digital, the DSLR revolution, you know,

in terms of that type of, how do you say, if that big of a change, but it obviously will get better and better, you know, like how iPhones get better and better every year, you know, but as, as to what you said, storytelling, it's always going to be super important and it's always going to be based on the strategy and the story behind the content that will make it important. Okay. Well, I think we're at the one hour mark, so I think let's just end it off there. I think that was a good way to close, tie things off. I think let's just end it off there. I think that was a good way to close, tie things off. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you guys. I love what you're doing with this. And I think it's a great idea and just opening it up and talking to different people. I totally appreciate what you guys are doing. So thanks for having me. Always. We appreciate that. And we're glad that, and we're glad that you could join us and you know, hopefully within another year or two, we'll check back in and see and see where you're at in another episode. Right. Perfect guys.

All right.