Creatives Grab Coffee - Scale Smart, Not Fast (ft. HeeHaw) #98

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

On episode 98 of Creatives Grab Coffee, we chat with Toby Trueman, Managing Director of HeeHaw, a Scotland-based video production studio known for its blend of live action, animation, and motion design.TIMESTAMPS00:00 – Intro and Guest Welcome: Toby Trueman from HeeHaw03:01 – Toby’s Path to Managing Director and HeeHaw’s Evolution05:03 – Rebuilding HeeHaw: From 5 People to 47 During COVID07:42 – Mistakes from Rapid Growth: No KPIs, Forecasting, or Structure11:03 – Scaling Challenges: Broken Systems and Need for Strategy15:55 – HeeHaw’s USP: Hybrid Live Action and Animation17:26 – Growing Pains: Management, Hiring, and Team Structure23:54 – Shifting from Generalists to In-House Specialists25:03 – Finding Their Niche: Playful Brands and Creative Focus29:25 – Future Growth Pillars: Hybrid, VFX, Experiential Content33:36 – Adapting to Economic Shifts and Boutique Studio Rise35:38 – No Retainers? Surviving in a Project-Based Model37:24 – Outbound Sales with a Lead Gen Partner43:06 – Inflation, Budget Cuts, and Losing NGO Work46:01 – Competing on Value: Scale, Quality, and Trust47:53 – Pricing Strategy and Balancing Internal Teams52:38 – U.S. Expansion, IP Projects, and Future Vision56:27 – Why It’s Called “HeeHaw”SPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140🎞️ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/#CreativesGrabCoffee #videographyhacks #videography #videographer #videoproduction #businesspodcast #videoproductionpodcast #lapseproductions #videomarketing #videoproductioncompany #videoproductionservices #videoproductionbusiness #internationalvideo #videoagency #lapseproductions #GoogleAds #videostrategy #businesspodcast

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And now, let's begin the show. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Creators Grab Coffee. Today we have Toby Truman from Hee Haw. Toby's from Edinburgh, Scotland. He's one of the only Scots I was able to get on this show. I reached out to like I think maybe 20 people and like he's the only one that said, all right, I'm interested. So Toby, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Ironically, I'm not even Scottish. So I just live here. That's why no one from Scotland really wants to talk to us originally. I don't know what it is. I don't know if we offended them or something or they're just shy. I don't know. Just shy. Just keeping their heads down. Exactly. All right.

So let's just dive in. Tell us a little bit about how you got into the video production industry and then I guess how you started your company. Well, I came to Scotland originally from Northwest England and I came up to Scotland in 2001 to study photography actually and then moved into film as a module on that. I spent a bit of time freelancing after I left uni and joined He-Haw as a junior editor in the post department back in 2009. And then within about two months, I'd moved into producing and directing

in the production team. And then fast forward to now saying yes to a few things and I run the company. So yeah, a bit of a curve. So one of those rare times where we have someone that didn't start the company company joined it and then took over That's right. Yeah companies 25 years old So yeah, it been going for a good nine years before before I started and it was it was very different

It was more of a digital agency. So it's doing brand design print websites And the video element was quite small within that company and And then we grew it, specialized in video production from 2015 onwards. Me and my business partner, my ex-business partner, and we've grown it since then, just focusing on video animation, motion design, live action. I guess just tell us a little bit about that, because we haven't really heard this type of perspective before.

So how did you integrate yourself to the point where you just took over the company? It took a while. I was in the post department, like I said, for a short period, and then from working as a producer, director within the video department, it was quite small. So it was easy to move upwards quickly,

because there was only four or five of us in that department. The company at the time was maybe about 18, 19. And then after a few years I was sort of head of production within that video department, still quite small. And come sort of 2014 the rest of the business wasn't doing so well. So there there was a lot of competition on the web development side of things on the branded branded design packaging side of things and the business wasn't doing so well so the original directors decided to call it quits and at the time the last remaining director asked me if I wanted to buy in and we'd take the name and we'd start again and we'd just focus on video production only and that's what we did we took the name and we'd start again and we'd just focus on video production only.

And that's what we did. We took the name, started a new office with the five people that were left and then built it back up from there. Then he left in 2022. So now it's just me and the senior team. We've got a staff of about 17. You grew from five to 17.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. We did. We grew to 17. I mean, we have been a lot bigger. We got up to about 47 at one point in 2021. And then had to shrink back down again. But yeah, that was that's an interesting story. Maybe not here to tell. That's why we're here. Well, I mean, when you go back to, you know, 2019, there was probably 19 of us going into just before the pandemic. And up until that point for the like previous or 10 years, the WHO had actually become our biggest client. So even before COVID kicked off, we were already working with WHO, we were working a lot with the other UN agencies there as well, in Geneva. And then when COVID happened, there was a lot of communication that needed to come from WHO, as you can imagine.

So loads of it just came spilling into us. There was a massive influx of work from the rest of the United Nations and all of their different agencies as well. So we just expanded to cope with the level of work and it kind of felt like things were taking off a little bit, right, that Covid bubble. But then of course, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, we were making quite a few big mistakes. And we just didn't realize it at the time. What were some of those mistakes?

Well, I mean, the main ones was, you know, it's easy to run a business when times are good in a way, right? So like when times are good, work just comes to you. You offer a good service, you have a good product, you do it in a good way, you send it out, you get more work and that's how it is. So it's when times are really, really tough. That's when it really exposes the weaknesses in your business and the weaknesses

whereas we're entirely centered around financial forecasting, proper KPIs, real planning, real financial management. And when you don't have those things in place, when you're up, you know, a couple of million turnover with 40 plus staff, if you don't have those in place, it's just starts to crumble. But you can't see where or why. And that's basically what happened. So, you know, my business partner left to do other things. We got the, you know, the invasion of Ukraine. We had the energy crisis, the cost of living crisis, the crisis with the writers and the actors and had a knock on effect over here too. So it was just crisis after crisis for like, you know, two

years, two, three years now. And through that time, we had some people that left organically, but then we had to do some redundancies. And yeah, it was tough. But at the same time in the background, I could see where we were going wrong. And I brought in some financial support to really help tighten the screws and really sort of line things up on the back end to make sure that we could really see where we were going and make decisions properly. And that's what we did.

So now we're solid now. We can see where we're going. We've got much more stronger forecasting. We're much more clear with the team. We're much more transparent with how we're doing. It's just better all around, really. do you feel that one of the main mistakes and I've noticed this with some companies as well, when, as you said, when times are good, you know, everything kind of comes a little easy, but I guess one of the mistakes that sometimes companies make when a huge influx of work just comes in all of a sudden

is that they go into mass hiring and expanding the team rather quickly, but not very sustainably. If you were to go back and do that again, what would you do differently in that scenario rather than like say, would you rather maybe just hire like more freelancers to help support that in the short term? Or do you feel like maybe just not making as many hirings? Like what would you do differently there? Yeah, that's exactly it.

It's building freelance teams and just not being so expected that this is how it's gonna be. I would wait longer to really see if these trends were rock solid. If there was a load of work coming in and perhaps taking on a few more shorter term contracts rather than just hiring everybody on like, right you've done three months you're in forever

you know that's not sustainable at all and you know we just didn't see it but I think if you could build that's what we're doing at the moment is we're trying to be smaller and more nimble and build on the freelance pool that we've got but still retaining the focus on the studio model that we have because we're very Because we're still very much talent led by the artists that we have in house, and that's not going to change. But when bigger projects come in, we'll look to see if we can get specific support. And then if things continue over time, then we'll know, okay, right, we're much more considered about hires going forward. Do you think it was easier to kind of grow the way you guys did because you had that other

partner that was still involved with your company and they kind of had like, I'm assuming the team of Hee Haw before all the other directors left was pretty big so they already had systems and processes in place? Not really. Like when we started, when we sort of started again, for want of a better term, in 2015, we had our own way of doing things in terms of our own practical process for running a project when leads come in right through to the out. And we just ran with that. And actually that didn't particularly help either because when you find when you scale, you take a lot of these things that were like fine when you are much smaller, but then when you try and times up on a much bigger team, then you know, it doesn't equate

and the cracks start to show. So, you know, you can take a lot of bad habits with you. But we didn't really have, we didn't have like a real sales pipeline as it was. I think work would just come to us. You know, we had really good relationships with our existing suppliers. And the good thing about WHO is at the time, because we'd worked with them for so long, the managers would leave and they'd maybe go off and work at some of the other UN agencies, because they're all in the same spot in Geneva and they just take us with us. So it's really just, you know, it was down to doing a good service and offering it in a good way and good customer service and having a good product and that's what that's what saw us through. But then of course when the Covid bubble burst

WHO ran out of money. A lot of the UN agencies, they're funded by philanthropy and countries that pay into their accounts. And they were running out of money too, because of everything that had happened worldwide. And we just saw that kind of work just vanished. I guess in a way to kind of label what might've happened for you guys was that you kind of got too comfortable and stuck in working in your business rather than on your business itself and in growing it and developing it

in terms of like the lead generation and like business relationship development beyond like your existing relationships. Do you feel like that's kind of a little bit of what might've happened, like just kind of getting stuck within working with the people that you already had rather than trying to expand?

Yeah, like I kind of like, we didn't, we grew so organically over those years, the work just found us, it would come in through the website, we'd share what we did online, we put it out on the social channels and maybe people would see it there, but we didn't do a whole lot to promote ourselves. It was really repeat business. But as we grew, we were finding

that we needed more time to work on the business rather than in it. And we made that decision in 2021, I think, where we put like a bit more of a structure in place with two of the senior team members, head of post, head of production. And basically ensured that operations was taken over by those two guys and the senior team below them so that we could work more on strategy, business development, how we wanted to expand the business,

where we wanted it to go, what could we look at, new markets, that sort of thing. And that's been vital. Even though we're smaller now and the team has changed a little bit, excuse me, it's still a really important structure to have in place because now it's just myself and as a sole director, there's a lot of different things that I'm exploring at the moment. There's a lot of different things

that I'm exploring at the moment. There's a lot of strategy that I'm working on, a lot of different things where I'm trying to push the business into. And of course we've been having to navigate so much over the last couple of years. It's been so challenging, but I've learned more about business in the last three years

than I have at any point in my 20 year career. So when you said we're a lot smaller now. I mean you're still 17 people. That's like massive in our industry. I guess trying to stay at that level. Like you guys are like, and I would say in terms of like company sizes, you guys are in like that top percentile in the production industry, at least in like the corporate space, right? That I guess, yeah, you do have to be thinking several moves ahead if you want to maintain that or grow because like, it could be anything. It could just be like, imagine like you drop in the SEO rankings, like less leads come

in through the website. Now, boom, there goes a chunk of your income. Or, you know, like you said, your big whale clients, they suddenly stop getting funding, they can't afford to get your videos, like that's it, you got to start cutting the team, right? So yeah, you definitely have to think several chest moves ahead and like try to utilize all possible avenues, like, you know, not just focusing maybe on like organic growth, you got to pay into AdWords or pay into social marketing, do more networking outreach. So yeah, it's very complex, I think at your stage. Yeah, it is.

And I think it's important to like, you know, have a USP and a specialty. You know, we're, we're very much sort of multi-platform, multi-disciplinary specialists. So we have our own motion design team, our own animation team, and we tend to enjoy merging all of that together with our live action production work. That's kind of like our USP. We enjoy the hybrid productions, and especially if it's, we get to do some more multi-asset delivery packages with people as well, where it's not just one film, it's a suite of films and it's a suite of photography archive

and maybe there's some branded print work that comes along with that as well that we can work up and then deliver it as a whole. Or maybe we're supporting a campaign that's going on over 12 months with hundreds of different outputs across that period. That's the kind of stuff that we really thrive on. And then through that we've actually started moving into doing more VFX as well for original content.

We've done VFX for a couple of features and some shorts and a lot for our promo work. And then we've started moving into doing broadcasts, supporting broadcast shows as well with VFX. So we're hoping to really sort of capitalize on that a little bit and continue to push onto that. Because it fits in so well with what we do as a business. But you've got to be looking for these avenues and these niches. Otherwise, you know, you can blend in. And the worst thing you can you can blend in. And the worst thing you can do is blend in. Yeah.

I want to double back to like the employed growth though, because I've mentioned this on another episode, but there's, I'm sure there's like extinction barriers along the path of growing. So I'm just wondering, like it went from five people to 19 to then 40. Like, did you find any extinction barriers along the way? Because I know you mentioned, oh you might bring bad habits in terms of your systems and processes, but you still went through some heavy growth within your team, right?

You could have run into major issues within having 10 employees or 12 or 15, but you guys kind of proceeded all the way to 40. Was there anything that you noticed along the way to getting to that point? When you're up at that size, weirdly it felt easy enough to do it because the work was there. If we hired someone, we could put them on the job straight away. So it didn't feel too much of a challenge, but we also didn't really know what we were doing as it turns out. You know, if you look at our,

if we had the KPIs in place that we have now, we'd have seen that where we were was not sustainable at all. Like we didn't have the right turnover amount for the level of staffing that we had in place by quite a considerable amount. And that's the first mistake that we made, but we just had no idea because we were filmmakers and not perhaps the best at running a business as it were.

So it's just like on the financial end that there was an issue in terms of like longevity, but I guess in terms of like longevity but I guess in terms of like the the processes you had in place and like the systems those were those must have been pretty good then right? Yeah once we you know once that that's when you really need to lean on your structure you know so we have a really good sort of you know head of department you know level we had the two the two most senior guys in the team and then we had the the the hod's under those guys and we were all working together to then filter out into the the separate

departments below so everything worked really well in that structure and we would catch up regularly and we still do even though it's like we're smaller again and that that that really worked so keeping the communication going making sure that the communication between the team and up to the senior team is working well. But, you know, at the same time, when you're at that level, my job had changed quite a lot. You have a lot more people management to do. Because when you're at that size, there's a lot of different people, there's a lot of different personalities, which is good, but sometimes those personalities don't mix and that's something that you kind of have to work through.

And that gets especially tricky when times start to turn sour and then you have to deal with, you know, that kind of a, you know, HR issue as well and trying to keep the team and the culture together can be a real struggle if you don't have that sort of level of transparency and control in place. And that's certainly what we found. You know, the issues that we had as we were sort of starting to climb back down were all based

around the fact that we didn't really have answers for people as to why we were doing so well or why we couldn't bring people up and, you know, why we couldn't pull people through this you know cost of living crisis that was knocking on the door. So that was a bit of a big learning curve but we're there now. Transparency in the culture is strong. So in terms of like suggestions you might have for other companies that are in a similar position, what would be helpful for them? Is it like hiring an HR person to kind of handle that or? I don't know what I think in the in the first instance, you have to have your financial reporting rock solid.

So and I don't just mean like cash flow, have your cash flow, but make sure you're doing it right. Like I was doing our cash flow for a long time, and it turns out I wasn't exactly doing it right either. But make sure your cash flow is sorted. Make sure your financial management or your forecasting is sorted. And make sure that you've got your KPIs.

If you haven't got your key performance indicators and your percentages, for example, if you don't know where your payroll costs are coming in relation to your turnover, if you don't know what your payroll costs are coming in relation to your turnover, if you don't know what that level is where you're going to start to suffer as a business, then you can't grow with any sense of security because you're going to get yourself into trouble. So that's something that I mean, if you're on say, I don't know what it'd be like, 800,000 to a million turnover,

I think the first thing you should do is hire a finance manager straight away. I think that needs to be your next hire because as a business owner, especially if you're active in production, you should be leaving that to someone who's dedicated for that task, even if they're only part-time.

Oh, even part-time. I guess that's something a lot of people haven't thought about as well as like bringing on people on a part-time. I guess that's something a lot of people haven't thought about as well, is bringing on people on a part-time basis. Everyone thinks in this industry either freelance or full-time. It's always the one or the other kind of business model. But on the last episode, we were talking with someone about how they would bring in people for certain contracted periods,

like three to six months to test people out first to see if it's going to work. Um, not only like as, as a team, but also financially, right? Because bringing in someone full-time or even part-time, it's a huge financial commitment for the year. It's a guaranteed number of, um, how do you say, costs that are gonna be coming out every month and to kind of know that you're gonna be good for each person that comes in is a little bit difficult. But we've also heard that once you've had at least, once you've gotten to like 10 or 15 people,

bringing in new people is a little bit easier, but it's a lot harder to kind of grow when you're a much smaller team, like going from four to five people, you're increasing your costs immediately by 25% for the business, which is huge, you know? Did you find that that was maybe also part of the reason why as you kind of started growing,

it became a little easier because it was just incremental initially, and that's why it didn't seem as bad when you were growing and then once that work went away that's when the it just looked like it was a big drop in in expenses. Yeah and I think like when you're smaller you tend to be forced into hiring more generalists you know like you when you're small you kind of need people to be able to do a little bit of everything in a way but actually what you want, like when you're small, you kind of need people to be able to do a little bit of everything in a way. But actually, what you want to do when you're a little bit bigger is then get those specialists in. You know, a lot of people

that, you know, grew up with us are still with us. And they've grown into more like senior roles. But they're able to specialize more now than they were doing perhaps back then. You know, back then we were doing, I was doing everything myself as well, you know, me and my business partner were both sort of directing, producing, going out and shoots and sometimes shooting it ourselves and you know, when you're doing that, you can't really focus on your growth properly. And the same goes when you with the rest of your team as well. It's like if you if you really want to knuckle down then specialists it's definitely the best way to go. So now that you're at this age like have you found that even with the type of work you're doing you've had to specialize

into like maybe specific niches or you'd like still like are you like a generalist company? No I I mean, we get hired. I guess we get hired for specific things now, but a lot of our work is still repeat business. So a lot of our sort of higher end production work is through our clients and Legend Hospitality. But then we also get brought in to work on our USP of the hybrid live action animation side of things through some of our clients like Lee Kum Kee and Red Bull and the more sort of playful brands.

So we seem to be able to now to lean towards more playful brands than we did before. I think say maybe five years ago, we were perhaps a little bit more just through the nature of the work with the United Nations, we were a little bit more straight down the line, a little bit more serious, a little bit more corporate. Whereas now we're very much leaning into what we do and the way we do it, and we're a lot more playful. We're quite proud of that fact, and we're quite open and honest with people and be like, look, if this is what we do and this is how we do it and if you like that as an option then let's go for it but if you want that kind of thing over there like we don't do that so you know best of luck going you can go with someone else and that's totally fine. So we've become a little bit more

you know dedicated to going for the kind of work that we really want to do or if something comes in that we think we can steer to our you know our way of doing things and that we can put our sort of spin on things, then we'll try and guide a client down that route too. Because they're the best, you know, they're the best relationships, right? Where they're open to hearing your thoughts and views and as long as you manage their brand well and, you know, you're respectful of who they are and what they're trying to achieve and their audience then you know it's the perfect perfect outcome and was that like an organic thing that happened or did you guys start to like pivot a bit more in that direction it was kind of organic like we started we'd start we'd always dabbled in sort

of motion design alongside our live action but But then we started really getting into animation and sort of 2015. And we did a lot of animation, like just animation projects for a long time. Never really combining the two. It's been only until like, you know, the last, you know, eight or so years maybe that we've really started to try and lean in

on doing more hybrids type work, just because it merges both departments and it's a great use of everybody's time. It's just good fun to do. But that only came about because we'd hired a couple of full-time animators on the team at that point, and we're just sort of pressing on what we could do and trying to challenge ourselves to do things differently. And we you know, we're very, we're led by the talent that we have in house, you know, our artists sort of help dictate the kind of work that we do. So we, that's very much a route that was driven by the team. It's interesting hearing how like you grew to a big team, it got difficult with work,

you scaled way down and then decided to be a little more picky with some of the projects you started to take on. I'm obviously kidding here, but I guess it's one part of the whole process, where it's like, once you start figuring out what doesn't work, then you have to start gearing towards certain types of business or work that you think you can start focusing

in on more, and then sure, other projects might start to come in, but kind of like having a focus as a business will help you kind of steer your strategy and marketing goals a little bit more. Like we've been hearing that a lot of companies are doing that more and more to kind of find, and they're finding good success from it. Doesn't mean that they're gonna turn away necessarily

everything that, like anything that's not that that's coming in but figuring out ways to kind of make those projects work or at the very least like hey like like sometimes like there might be times where you know it's a little bit slower and you might need that other work to kind of keep you going because you know you can be um you can be niched down to an extent, I feel, but over time, it's good to at least leave some doors open in case things pivot. Because businesses pivot all the time, depending on the market, depending on the work coming in.

And if there's no projects coming in for that specific type of niche that you're trying to work on, you can't just say no to anything else that's coming in, right? So do you feel like that's kind of like what you're also planning in the future, you know, cause it's not gonna be a hundred percent positive all the time, right?

There's gonna be ups and downs constantly. So you said that you're basically trying to figure out how all these other types of projects, you can kind of steer with your style, but does that mean like you're going to be completely closing it off for other opportunities or no? No, not at all. It's like you say, it does depend on what comes your way

as well, you know. We're just trying to, all we can do is try to drive it in a certain direction. You know, so our three sort of main pillars of growth really at the moment are the sort of multi-asset delivery packages I was talking about before, just because they're multi-disciplined and they really tap on everything that we do as a company. We're also trying to do more sort of experiential and digital out of homework.

We're doing quite a lot of work with a couple of companies in the States at the moment and it's doing work for video screens in theme parks and that kind of content, which is good fun to do because it's challenging. The screen might not be 16 by 9, it could be 40 foot long and 2 foot wide, you just don't know. So it's an exciting problem to take. And then VFX, because I think it's quite an exciting time to be working in visual effects. I know that if you're our size, it is anyway. Like I think if you're one of the big post houses, I imagine there's a few concerns at the moment. You know, we've got quite a few post houses have closed down in the UK recently, the bigger ones, you don't know

if you heard about that. What, why? How come? Well, I think there's been a huge knock-on from the strikes over the last couple of years and the popping of the COVID bubble when it came to digital commissioning and the streamers all scaling back on their commissioning and that had a massive knock-on impact across some of these bigger places. And then I think there's been stories of perhaps some of the senior management of a couple of these groups wasn't exactly doing the right thing. I don't know, that's not my place to speak on that, but there's been quite a few big places that have shut down, like the mill and

PC closed and I think jellyfish has just gone into administration so there's all of these VFX houses and post houses that have been struggling a little bit but I think if you're small enough so I think you'll see a rise of these we'll see a boutique a rise of the boutique I think is coming where people are niching a little bit and they're offering a certain thing in a certain way and certainly it's something that we're looking at doing a little bit more of as well being open to to the AI tools that are coming down the pipeline as well. Because it won't be long before, you know, at the moment, I wouldn't say they're commercially viable for a lot of this gen AI stuff, but it won't be long before that kind of market is

thriving, I think, on that side of things. Terrifying, but you've got to look at the opportunities at the same time, right? Yeah, and the one challenge with post houses is that when you think about it, they're also in kind of like the chain of connections between like the client work is that they've introduced another barrier in terms of like, how do you say it? Like another middleman almost, right?

Because they're relying on production companies and agencies to shoot the content and then give it to them, right? Whereas like you as an all-in production company, you can get the client to come in, you do the creative, you produce it, and then either you edit it, or you can send it off to post houses to do the editing. So if there are all these other issues happening

that are affecting production companies, that's gonna trickle down to the post houses pretty hard, especially, right? Because what happens when hard times come, production companies try to hunker down and try to do as much of the work in house as possible to kind of like save on costs and things like that. And as a result of that,

big post houses are gonna suffer as a result of that. So that's probably why, as you said, they're probably starting to dissolve, and the rise of the boutiques are kinda coming up, because then it's more survivable for a lot of businesses, right? That's it, yeah. And I think diversification, I think, is key as well.

Some of the ones that are up here, they might work in games as well as post, or they work in production at the same time. So that they can, when one thing is doing poorly, then hopefully another side of things is doing okay. It's like when we first hit the pandemic, we had everybody off that was in production. And then we just turned ourselves into an animation studio overnight. You know, we took all the production work off the website, just left all the animation work up there and just focused on that. Because, you know, that's something that we could do from our bedrooms. You know, everyone was away from the office.

Everyone was locked up in their room. And, you know, we just turned ourselves into an animation studio for a few months. And, you know, that sort of turned us around whilst we were waiting for the world to get going again and for production to kick back off. If we didn't have that facility and that sort of service line, our situation would have been very different. So I think, yeah, you're right, you've got to see what's coming and you've got to try and put your feelers out there. Drive for what you want, but if you have diversification within your portfolio, then it's good. It just gives you more stability.

Yeah, I guess at your level too, you have to be fast acting because, yeah, like you mentioned, during the pandemic, your production team basically couldn't work. It's like, what do you do? Do you just lay everyone off or do you just pivot the company really quickly to be able to still have a cash inflow? Right. And yeah, it's, uh, it's something that like, I guess for smaller companies, it's not something you think of. You just kind of go like, well, can I weather it?

Like my costs are low. I guess I can't even if I get a little bit less, I'm still surviving, but at your level, it's like, it's like we mentioned before, you've got to be thinking a couple steps ahead. Is that something you've made as your mandate in terms of trying to see into the future and be able to be very versatile and malleable? Yeah, to a degree.

As with all production companies, we're still project-based. We don't have regular income. We're not on retainers with anyone really. I can never see really more than two months into the future, which I try not to think about because otherwise I lose enough sleep as it is. Do you know what I mean? So I don't want to lose anymore. All you can do is just make

sure that you've kind of got that, that you're sensible with your finances and you've got enough in the coffers that you can weather a certain period and that you're just making decisions quick enough to make sure that you're always staying ahead and then just trust that the work will come. You know, we're doing a lot of, we'd still do our digital marketing, you know we put stuff out on LinkedIn and you know Instagram and we have our AdWords and stuff going on Google and you know we have, we work with a lead generation company, you know we try and look after our clients and keep in touch with them to see how they're doing, see if there's other ways

we can help and then at the same time we've got these other little niches that we're pushing into and trying to do more work with the States. I've been doing some outreach there, doing a couple of trips over there to meet our clients and see others. And so you've always got to be kind of like trying to move things along to make sure that there's something coming down the pipeline and just, just be nice to people, it sounds silly, but like if you silly, but if you don't treat people respectfully and like human beings,

and if you treat someone poorly and give them a poor job, they're not gonna come and work with you again. So you've got to look after people and they'll look after you. Then just hang on, hang on tight. You mentioned you're using a lead generation company. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so basically I work with someone, they work for us maybe sort of eight days a month.

And they're going out, we have like a list of target sort of industries based on our sort of specialisms and the kind of clients that we're working with at the moment. And they're're working with at the moment. And they're just another part of the team. So they're just dedicated to inbound sales. So they'll go out and try and look for new business and reach people and try and get people to come in for a meeting and we can share decks and we can share work and that sort of thing. So it's the last 10% that we could never get

with our digital marketing, you know, when you put some stuff out on social channels, even if you're doing like paid promotions, you can see the kind of company that's looking at your work, but you can never really see exactly who, and certainly you can't get a hold of that person. So, you know, we're working with specialists and proper sales agents that actually can get hold

of these people and try and get that meeting booked in. It's the one thing that we've never done ourselves, we've never been able to do ourselves, so they're a bit better at it than we are. So they did, like they talk to the potential lead, or they just kind of like make, like just connect you to, and they're not involved in the... No, they basically, you know, she'll see what's going on in the in the market at the time at looking at our individual strands and seeing what the market news are seeing what the movements are seeing what's happening out there and then seeing where the opportunities might be

at the same time as looking for brands that kind of fit with us that look kind of kind of playful could be up for you know doing something a little bit outside of the box we kind of try and approach a lot of those kind of playful, could be up for doing something a little bit outside of the box. We kind of try and approach a lot of those kinds of brands as well. And then she'll just get in touch and just see if she can arrange that first meeting. And then she'll bring me in

or she'll bring someone from the senior team in and then we'll do a little presentation and just see if we can get a relationship going that way. Oh, interesting. Okay. So in terms of that meeting, like you guys, see if we can get a relationship going that way. Oh, interesting. OK. In terms of that meeting, what are you presenting to us? Who your company is and everything? Or are you trying to find pain points with that lead as well?

Yeah, we always try and find out how they're using video content on a wider scale, like what their strategies are, and seeing what support they might already have. You know, a lot of the companies that we work with are already working with the marketing, they have their own marketing team, but they might also work with an incumbent agency as well. So it's finding a way of, you know, we don't want to take work away from that agency, but we can certainly work alongside that agency. You know, for Hilton, for example, we work with their, they've got two big incumbent agencies

and we work with both of those guys. So, you know, they come up with the strategy and the marketing plans and they pull us in to do the content. And that kind of a thing works really well. So when we're in a meeting, we kind of just touch on that a little bit talk about how we work and how we work with bigger companies or companies of whatever size, the person I happen to be speaking to, and then run through a deck.

We don't tend to, if it's a zoom call, we don't play anything online because obviously playing through a zoom call is a nightmare. So I just run through exactly what we do with stills and then send them some stuff afterwards and try and just keep the keep a little ember burning there where we can try and get relationship going. That's interesting. And they're not part of your team. Like they're a separate company, right? Technically, but they are. They are. They're all in the team. They have their own dedicated email address and yeah, it's like a part-time employee almost. Yeah. Oh, I see. So like they're when they're sending out emails and everything, it's with your with your email handler. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it like a full, sorry, if I understood, was it like, is it like a big company or Is it like a full, sorry if I understood, was it like a big

company or is it like a small team of like one or two people or like just one person that works kind of freelance that's working with you? It's a company and it's then just one person that works for me. From the company, okay. Yeah. Oh I see, so you have like your own like advisor or whatever? Yeah exactly. Yeah. Yeah Essentially is it has it been working really well or? Still early days. It's only been a few months. So we've had a good few meetings But nothing's really converted yet

So, um, but you know, it's been a it's not been the easiest of times either that we started working with the company You know, it's once you're working towards christmas and stuff like that. Oh yeah, that's the, that's a bad time for decisions. No, no one's buying video in, in December. The December work comes in like July, August, September, you know, in prep, right? That's exactly it. Yeah. So good that you're doing it though, because you gotta like, you to try everything, see what works and exactly at least they're doing something that you maybe you didn't have time for or whatnot, right? Like at least you're just exploring every possible option. Yeah, we had to give it a shot because it was, you know, this year, thankfully, seems to have been like a busier year so far.

Last year was pretty bad, you know, 2022, 2023, 2024 were bad years for us. You know, industry-wide, it wasn't just us. The UK creative industries have taken a real kicking. Last year was a struggle. So, but this year, certainly, this seems to be a little bit busier. So I'm taking that as a positive sign. You know, the score.

Well, it's good you pivoted too, because if you were still with WHO, I think with the US probably pulling out of that, and then tariffs, it would have been even worse, right? Yeah, that's it. Exactly. And I mean, the hand wasn't even really, I guess it was kind of forced on that one. They just dropped away.

And a lot of the everything became the problem with when you're working with an agency like that, like an NGO, they have a lot of people on their supplier list. You know, you can sometimes be in competition with like 15 different companies on that supplier list or pitching for the same job. And you actually have everyone from a freelancer all the way to a massive studio and everyone in between and you just don't know where you're going to lie on the proposition. And I think what happened was it was just a big, everyone was struggling with the rise of cost of living across the world, right? And rates of inflation were going through the roof.

It was the same everywhere so I think there was a renewed focus on right well if you've got a pitch that's come in at that level then take the cheapest option and you know being a studio but we can't compete with freelancers with their overheads and lack of so yeah so how did you disappear away so how did you remain competitive like before before like all these crises that popped up because they still had those like vendor lists prior right? Yeah they did. Any freelancer to studio involved like? I think it felt like there was a little bit more acceptance on quality. I think like people would actually select a pitch because they actually thought that was the best option. It wasn't just a pricing option.

So I think it's reverted to a little bit more of a price sensitive model. Not to mention the quality control that you probably had because if they were probably looking for a lot of content they were looking for someone who could handle a lot of work and have a consistent level of quality. Because if they, for example, hired like a few freelancers that did, not to say that their work wasn't necessarily good, but it's going to be different compared to the level of detail and attention you as a bigger company can do. So they probably- Well, even the scalability, right?

Like a freelancer can't handle like 200 videos in the span of three months, for example, right? Yeah. If they need 50 videos that look roughly the same and a freelancer can only do three, they're not going to give the 47 to Toby, they're going to just, just 47 to Toby, they're going to give all 50 to Toby because he can handle it, right? It's one less person that they can, um, that one less person that they need to reach out to, because that's another thing a lot of companies sometimes don't

realize is that clients and, uh, when they're looking for vendors, they're sometimes looking for people who can handle all the work at once because it's going to make their lives easier, less meetings that they have to set up. I'm seeing sometimes with some of our suppliers or if any small ad agencies that we work with, we're one of the video production partners, but they have to also go with the events team. They have to go talk with the events team. They have to talk with, they have to go talk with the photographers or graphics teams.

Like there's so many people that they would need to reach out to, right? Sometimes a company prefers to have one person handle all the workload, whether it's the same kind or different kind even, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think when certain clients appreciate, they understand that there's a crew of people behind the project as well, you know, in terms of the structure, the structure

is there so that they know it will be handled if someone suddenly falls sick for whatever reason, their colleague will just pick it up and there'll be no interruption to that workflow. So I think there's going to be, you know, that's the kind of work that we're trying to go for. Because we can't compete anymore, but the bottom end of what we do has completely gone. You know, one, because we're priced out of it just through necessity. And, you know, the smaller production companies, maybe like two, three people that don't have an office, but they're all incredibly talented and can make an incredible product.

You know, they've just taken away that, you know, that entire bottom layer to the work that we do. So that's been another reason for us to kind of like pivot towards the work that what we can do and the work that we do do as a studio and really kind of hang our hat on that and make sure that that's the kind of work that we're going for. Because we can't compete with the stuff at the lower end of scale anymore. But that's the kind of work that we're going for. Because we can't compete with the stuff at the lower end of scale anymore. But that's okay, that's okay, you know. We'll take it.

Yeah, I mean, like once you get to the year level, I mean, probably even just when you're looking at the numbers, you're like, it doesn't even make sense to take it on because if like these are the budgets we're dealing with, this is what it's gonna cost us to do it. To cover the team, salaries and everything. Once you have like, as you scale up,

your costs per project also increase, right? So if like, for example, it's gonna cost you as a business, $5,000 to work on a video project for a client, you're not gonna be taking projects that make you break even, or even like barely make a profit. Like you need a certain amount, so you have also safety nets and all that.

Like maybe once in a while, if it's a client that you've been working with for many years, which is the case, like sometimes for smaller companies, if you've been working with this client for many years and they need something small scale one day, you're gonna help them out with that obviously, right? Even if you kind of like somewhat break even,

don't make too much money on that small project, but you know that you have other work coming in from them that will make you a lot more money. Then in those situations, it makes sense. But if you're working with new business, you can't take on projects that are gonna cost you more money over time, because then it's not sustainable.

And then you kind of go back to that same issue of like when you have like a big team of 40 people, that cost was too high, your projects were coming in lower. So you had to lower the cost per project down. So do you have like, I guess that might segue into another question I might have is that, how do you go about how you price out your projects for these clients? You know, with such a big quantifiable team, how have you kind of broken down what is like a good

minimum for you in that sense? It can be a bit tricky because, you know, we're not your standard production company, you know, because we do animation and motion design and technically we're capable of doing jobs where there's no third party costs at all. We kind of have to then adjust where our target gross profit sits. Whereas, you know, if we were just focused on production, it would be much lower because obviously

with the cost of production, it all goes on screen for the most part, right. So we do have a sort of target level and then we try and like aim for that like say 20 percent 25 percent sorry just go for that and then you know let's start there and then if you know with some projects if there's going to be a it's a big international shoot with a lot of talent a lot of additional crew and resources needed, a lot of expenses, then that's fine. We know that's just gonna disappear. But then at the same time, we could bring in

a multi-episodic educational animation series. And then there's hardly any third party costs at all. So it balances back out again. So we kind of take each case as it comes, and then we're very, very sensitive to doing too much of one thing that's not profitable enough. But it is a balancing act, because sometimes, certainly in the last couple of years, there have been times where, you know, production's been going really well, and then animation perhaps has dropped off a little bit, and then it's swung back around the other way and things have been dry on the live action front but animation's doing great so it's about seeing where the teams can support each other as a whole

financially and just sort of keep that just make sure we're hitting our targets and making enough sort of you know remaining profitable is obviously cool. Yeah, that's what I'm curious about because also when there's no third party costs, you obviously can technically charge whatever you want. Like I know how it is when Dario and I take on a project, if we don't have to hire anyone else, we have a little bit of flexibility in terms of like how we can price out a certain project

depending on how much time we think it's gonna take from us if we were to do it internally. bit of flexibility in terms of like how we can price out a certain project, depending on how much time we think it's going to take from us if we were to do it internally. But it's always tricky sometimes as well because of also whether how busy you are, how not busy you are. But we're talking, I'm talking about two people. It's a lot easier when you're talking about a team of up to 20 people. You mentioned something about a target of 20, 25%. Is that so that would that be profit on top of what your quantifiable expenses are per project? Or is it kind of like what you think it would cost

to hire external people and then 20 to 25% on top? Like how do you kind of go about that? It's basically making sure that the expenses and the costs for the projects doesn't exceed 25% of the budget. So if we start there and aim for that as like the milestone, then great. And with an animation project that's really achievable. With a project that we can shoot using our own internal team and our own kit, it's still really achievable. It only drops away when you get onto the bigger stuff like a big TV spot

or you know a multinational shoot where then it just bottoms out and that's fine because we still we're not making a loss because we're still being paid for our time and we still make this 10% studio fee on that so they're still you know it's still profitable per se but the reporting says something different. So you have to adjust where your KPIs are depending on the type of project that you come in. So it's a movable beast and you've got to make sure that as a whole, it's working still in the right direction.

I think we're getting close to the end. So I guess let's just talk about next steps for you. Like what's your future plan with this company? So, yeah, I think I mentioned, you know, the sort of three pillars that we're trying to push onto, you know, we're really trying to push into the effects work, developing that side of things, really hoping to carry on with our experiential digital out of home. We think that's quite a growing sector within our industry, you know. As video screen technology develops and improves, so does the creative that goes

around that. So we want to ride that wave as it goes along. And then really double down on the multi-asset delivery packages that we can do for these bigger campaigns that people have. So that's our push. Seeing if we could do more work with the US. We have a long-term goal to move into doing more work in original content. So we have a separate company that's sort of developing IP, and we've got a couple of feature projects on the go there as well. So we're trying to create closer ties to LA and the Hollywood indie scene,

and through that there's some corporate clients, some animation clients over there as well. So just trying to be a little bit more international in our outlook and not be so reliant on the UK market. I mean we've always been quite international as a company and it's definitely served us well over time when the UK has not been doing so well. So yeah just stability really. Stability, slow growth if we can make it work. Make sure that we're reacting to things that are coming in and coming our way and staying on top of technological developments and seeing where we end up, I guess.

Thanks. That's good. Yeah, if another 100K a month whale comes in, don't add another 40 people onto the team, right? Yeah. Yeah, I have, my fingers have been burned enough times now not to make that mistake. to add another 40 people onto the team, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My fingers have been burned enough times now not to make that mistake. Yeah.

I mean, like once you've gone through something like that, like you'll have a much better idea of like what works for you as a business and like then you can keep it as like a small organic growth rather than like a really big one. And yeah, 100%. We have to be careful, all of us in this industry because you never know how things can just kind of flip on you and one thing you mentioned also is that you don't know what your forecast is usually

between like maybe two or three months out. That's how it is for most of us and we just have to keep that I guess maybe naive positivity, you know, positive outlook to kind of be like, yeah, you know, something will turn up, you know, we'll make it work, we'll make it happen. And honestly, you need that to kind of push you on as a business owner in this industry because otherwise it's crazy to see that even at like, like at your level, that's still the case. Like at our level, we don't know two months out at your level. You don't know two months out.

Strange industry. Yeah, I know. You just got know two months out. It's always a strange industry. I know, you just gotta keep hustling. That's it, that's it. Keep working, keep speaking to people and keep smiling. That's all you can do. This is why a lot of other industries are sometimes scared of how we operate. It's like, I don't know how you guys are doing this, right?

If you wanted to apply for a loan or anything like that, they're gonna look at your financials, like, what do you mean you only know what you're gonna make in the next two months? You have like 20 employees, what do you mean? The hard numbers don't make sense to other people, right? I know, I know. You just gotta kind of look back on the records and go,

look, we've been in business for 25 years now. So like, we know something's gonna come in. We just sort of- Working two months at a time. Exactly, exactly. You know, paycheck to paycheck, it's gonna come in. We're just working two months at a time. Exactly. Exactly. You know paycheck to paycheck, it's month to month, you know, as a big corporate video production company, right? That's it. That's always the way. It's a life we love.

Kind of love it. I guess one last question we'll also ask you. You kind of answered it before we started recording, but like how did you come up with Hee Haw is the name of the business? What was the original? Yeah, so it's nothing to do with American hillbilly TV shows and it's nothing to do with Don Quixiva. So it's very disappointed. I know, I apologize.

It's a it's Weston Scott's dialect for nothing. So if you've got Hee Haw, you've got nothing. You got Sado. So because we're filmmakers, we make something from nothing. So yeah, something from he, who. So yeah. I like it. That's where it came from.

It's a very deep meaning. I love it. I was not expecting that initially with that name. Like when Dario told me about our episode, I was like, oh, what state from a state from the U S are we interviewing? And then I saw Edinburgh, Scotland. Oh, I did not see that coming. But yeah, anyways, Toby, thank you so much for joining us and, uh, and sharing your fairly unique, uh, kind of like journey in,

in this industry with your, with your business. Right. So thanks again. Pleasure. Thank you. Hopefully I can use this episode as a way to lure out the other Scottish companies because God knows why they don't want to come on the show. At least I got one, but I need to get the rest. But again, he's not an actual Scotsman. Yeah, he's from England originally, so he's not technically a native Scottish person. But he's got a bit of the Scottish accent going on.

Yeah, a little bit. I've lived in it for 25 years now, so it's over half my life. So there you go. There you go. Well, anyways, thank you again, Toby. Cheers, guys. Take care. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Scrap Coffee. Cheers guys. Take care. based in Toronto, Canada. Creatives Grab Coffee is also sponsored by. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment.

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