Creatives Grab Coffee - The Path to B Corp and Networking | Creatives Grab Coffee 73

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

In this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee, Dario and Kyrill sit down with EriK Croswell, founder of Bridge City Media, a Portland-based video production company. Erik shares the accidental origins of his business, which started in 2016 as a side project before evolving into a corporate-focused video production company. He discusses the importance of collaboration in Portland's video production community, detailing how he shares a studio space with another company, enabling synergies between music and corporate video projects.Chapters00:00 Introduction02:18 Erik Croswell’s Background and Company Origins03:25 Transitioning to Corporate Video Production04:45 Growth and Challenges of Running a Business07:16 Collaboration and Sharing Studio Space09:11 Synergy with Other Production Companies15:13 B Corporation Certification Process19:53 Benefits of B Corp for Business Relationships25:08 Cold Outreach vs. Networking Success35:33 The B Corp Auditing Process47:12 Effectiveness of Networking Events56:58 Conclusion and Erik’s Final ThoughtsSPONSORS: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/

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creatives Grab Coffee is hosted by Dario Nuri and Kirill Lazerov from Labs Productions. Our goal is to share knowledge and experiences from video production professionals around the world. Whether you're a freelancer looking to start your own business or a seasoned business owner aiming to scale your company, this is the show for you. Join us as we develop a community of like-minded creatives looking to learn and help each other grow. Welcome to the business of video production.

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Before we get started with the show, let's go over today's sponsors. Do you have a shoot in Toronto? Do you need crew or a strong production partner to help you with your project? Laps Productions is one of the top production companies in Toronto and your go-to video partner. With our strong creative skills and extensive network, we can help you achieve your goal. Laps Productions is able to offer you production services, white label services, or finder fees for project handoffs.

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Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativescraftcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Matt. Welcome to Audio Process. We are a boutique audio company doing location sound, sound design, post sound, ADR, Foley. We service equipment. We do all your audio needs here in Toronto. We got you covered.

Come on down. AudioProcess.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you. I'll be waiting for you. And we're all going to have a real good time. And now let's begin the show. Hey guys, welcome to another episode. Today we got Eric Croswell from Bridge City Media and they're based out of Portland, Oregon. So Eric, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much. Glad to be here. So usually when we start these episodes, we just like to learn a little bit about our guests. So why don't you just tell us a bit about how you started and how you got to where you are today? Yeah, absolutely. We started Bridge City Media in 2016 and it was kind of an accidental company.

Just wanted to do a little bit of fun work on the side with an old friend of mine. We were both working at the same company at the same time and we decided that we wanted to try out doing some video. At first we did a number of business videos, a couple wedding videos, music videos, but then over time we found that business videos is really what we wanted to focus on. I took over the company about two years in and have built it since then and now we have grown it to have produced a few thousand videos for mostly Portland based companies and It's a variety of about videos promotional videos

commercials Any and all things corporate and how long have you guys been running? So you like two years and you just fully took control and how long how long how old you company basically? Yeah, we started in 2016. So a little over eight years now. Nice. Yeah, you're approaching the 10-year mark. Yeah, yeah, definitely excited for that. I think just getting past the five-year mark is always something that a lot of business

owners worry about and it's kind of a make or break point. But yeah, a lot has grown kind of once we got past the initial stages. So we're doing pretty well now. We're staying busy. We've recently been able to grow into a studio space, bring some more people onto our team and kind of slowly working from like micro businesses to small businesses to now small businesses, medium businesses and large businesses. That was actually one thing I wanted to touch upon with you is that we noticed that you have a studio space that you guys run, but specifically it's showed that you share it

with another studio, another production company that you work with. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. It was actually also kind of an accidental blend of things that happen. We were in the process of wanting to move from our space that we've been in for a couple years over on the other side of town. We're just going to find a regular office space because we don't typically need a studio

space because most of the time we're filming with our clients on site. But I needed to rent out a full studio for a series of informative videos. I went on Peer Space and I went around to a few different spots to find the right spot for these videos that we were going to be producing. I came into this spot just on a peer space and then I talked to the owner. I was like, you know what, let's get coffee and stuff. He only does music videos and we only do corporate videos. So I made an approach of, you know what, let's

just like, would you be open to just splitting rent? We decided like, yeah, let's do that. That was actually a better deal than it would have been to pay for those three days at the peer space. So we decided to start splitting rent to this place, but then over time we've just worked with each other a lot more. And so if they need music video or concerts, we'll be able to fill in and help them. And then we've hired a couple of people from their team on to help us with some corporate content. So we're in some early conversations about having a more formal business merging to come all over to Bridge City Media. But it's something that we're exploring right now. Some good synergy, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something that's really cool about Portland is that there's lots of different video companies here, but there's a very significant collaborative energy. We will frequently refer business over to what would otherwise be considered competition. A lot of people will work with like the same contractors sometimes. And yeah, I think that everyone has mostly the best interest of everyone else at heart. And we all like to get to know each other and help each other where we can. And I'm guessing since you jumped into that studio partnership, one big benefit must have been also that not as much of a startup cost for you guys in terms of slotting right in into the space because I

Mean Daryl and I have talked about it and a lot of other production companies We know I've talked about getting our own spaces, but the one thing that also is a big Deterrent is of course the startup costs sometimes to kind of get it set up to a level that you are able to actually use it can be pretty crazy. So was it like, I'm guessing they were already in there for like a while as you kind of joined in or was it somewhat similarly like they were kind of, they just opened recently type deal. Yeah, they'd been in there in here for about a year and like almost all the build had already happened so we helped with some like additional improvements over the past few months but

yeah, it was really nice to not have to start from scratch. Like this whole space is like built out with like lots of different grip opportunities and different shutters to bring in more or less light through the windows, all the things that you would want to have in a studio space and sound panels, things like that. So it significantly helped with making a decision of, should we get our own space or should we move in here? And the work's kind of already done and it's really nice because the other company, they only really need to fully have the space to themselves, frankly,

about for three to four days a month. And what's nice is they work with music artists and a lot of, especially like smaller music artists, they're doing their gigs when they get off work. And so like a lot of their shoots are not going to start until five. And in the corporate world, like all of our shoots are going to be done by five. So we've been sharing a space now for about nine months. And we've had a conflict of interest of like, we both wanted one time slot,

I think once in the course of nine months. So it's worked out really well. You've basically given an idea for a lot of production companies who are looking into getting a kind of space that they can potentially look at other partners, other production companies that like, unfortunately, a lot of companies do need help with rent, especially when business can be slow. And that could be a good way to kind of offset rent while also building a more collaborative

partnership down there. Obviously, it's different if like say both companies do corporate and both need a lot of the same time slots and timings, but at the same time, it's another option for production companies to kind of think about in the future. So very good for you guys to doing on doing that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's definitely something I recommend because I've seen companies, like over the past few years they will be so excited and they'll get their studio space and they'll have an open house and invite all the other beauty production companies and creatives to come by and then a year later they don't really release because they're like, ah shit, I couldn't

afford it. Or it just didn't pan out. I just didn't need a studio space So yeah having a studio space just for yourself seems like it might be a waste But if you're also renting it out to other people because that's what I tend to see is like people that open up their own spaces are kind of navigating more so into the We are a studio space company now. We we have equipment we rent out. That's a transition I see happening a lot of the time.

Yeah. But I don't know what it's like in other places, but it's also renting it out hourly or for like day rates, at least in Portland seems to be pretty saturated. So, you know, a few years ago, you could have a studio space that you pay your rent on, you deck it out, and then you can rent it out to people for day rates. You'll make like $100, $200 an hour, something like that. But now there's so many of them that it's like the rate has gone down and people need to be competitive. They'll say, I'll give it to you for like 60 bucks an hour or 75 bucks an hour and then and

then but then there's so many options that they don't actually even book them out so then there's just like so much availability and so like I would I think even the busy studio spaces in town that get booked up pretty regularly I doubt that they would be making more than like 500 to a thousand additional like dollars per month. That's nothing. Yeah, exactly. So then, and it's just like, and that's not passive income. You have to like facilitate and you have to clean it up and you have to, there's all these

like additional parameters with security and things like that. So I feel like sharing space is just makes a lot more sense, at least for us, because we were about to go down that road, we were about to sign a lease for having our own space. And then when it came to an understanding of in order to make this work, I need to incorporate a business model that I'm additionally renting this out to people in order to make this work I need to incorporate a business model that I'm Additionally renting this out to people in order to offset some of these costs like once I really audited it I was like, I actually don't think there's a business model here, you know I think that yeah, I think the market has come and gone and in Portland for that. So Maybe it's a little bit of a bubble that's about to burst but we see. But it definitely wasn't the right timing last year when we were making that decision. We were thinking of signing an office lease back in 2019. We were starting to

have conversations about that. And I just think that, man, just imagine if we were going to do that maybe a year before, signed it in 2019. Like let's say we had a year to think about it, then finally made the decision, started in 2019. What would have happened right after that? We would have been screwed. It's like what happened to a lot of other companies who jumped into leases.

I knew of a company that jumped into a lease like in February of 2020, right before the pandemic for like three years. And they had, and their lease was like 8,000 a month. And I'm like, oh my God, holy shit. Like I felt so bad. I felt so bad because their company got completely decimated as a result.

But, you know, the one funny analogy I was just thinking of was that essentially finding another production company to go into a studio space, it's like finding a roommate, like the business version of finding a roommate essentially, which is not too bad. You split the rent, you both get all the amenities and you host your parties whenever you need. Make sure the other one is not booking one on the same day. That's it. But that's probably a good way to go for a lot of companies. I think I've seen a couple of

different kind of like, almost like buildings or collectives where it's like a production company color it like a post production house, a colorist as well, like few different businesses that kind of help, they can kind of help each other all working within the same kind of space. That is also another model that kind of works, you know, to kind of help offset the cost. Because yeah, like as a single production company, it's very difficult to do that. But when you have other people who have some skin in the game, you know, it can, it's much

more doable, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. When we were talking a couple of weeks back, I remember seeing that you were a certified B corporation on your site and we had an interesting chat about that. So for those that don't know, can you explain what a B corporation is? Yeah, definitely. So getting a B corp certification means that you go through a third party called

B lab that does a formal audit of your business and it looks at what you're doing to treat the environment, treat the community around you, like how transparent you are about certain values or practices and then how you're treating employees and contractors. And there's all these like pieces of guidance of, you know, if you incentivize people to commute to work, you get a point for that. If you have like a proper process through which you're recycling batteries, you get a point for that. And so there's a lot of ways that you can get scored up to be B Corp certified.

Then you go through an assessment and then they go through and then they check. If you're a big company, they might do a site visit where they actually physically come out and they're like, all right, prove it. Show us where you're putting the batteries. Or they'll ask for your financial records. Like, okay, you said that you spent 15% of your cost toward women owned businesses. Like show us who exactly you gave the money to and stuff.

So it's a very arduous process. There's a lot of certifications like it, but this one is pretty robust and it takes a good amount of time. It was created as a means to have businesses hold each other accountable to try and encourage a movement of business being used as a force for good. I think that it's grown in progressive cities because of the additional marketing edge that it has with consumers that are a little bit more akin to wanting to vote with their dollars based on the values that they have. So there's a significant issue with greenwashing and wokewashing of different things of products

and services where people are like, oh, we're a great company. But then they can say one thing in a commercial and then do something completely different and they're not necessarily held to certain standards unless they're directly engaging in some sort of like puffery with their advertising. But B Corp allows just security with consumers trying to make that choice that, okay, someone else has gone in and they've like actually done their homework and they've really researched that these people are saying what they're saying or they're doing what they're saying. And in Portland, we have the most amount of B Corps per capita than any other city.

That's what prompted me to ask him about that. Cause a lot of the companies I had on my list, I was checking out the website. I'm like, okay, B Corp here, B Corp there. I'm like, what the hell is this B Corp thing? Yeah. Yeah. And the reason it's become so popular is just because it is kind of become at least locally a bit of a social club. So especially B2B service companies that are working with other businesses that are maybe like B-corps themselves are

like in the process of doing that, they are incentivized to want to work with other B Corps and so they will look out at okay like let's say I'm a marketing agency and I don't have video production as a service but I want to start offering like additional add-ons for packages that I'm like serving to my clients I need to work with another company that maybe is going to be more values aligned and maybe their marketing is going to fit well with my marketing that I'm reaching out to my clients for. Thus, I'm only going to talk to a B Corp as a potential partner that we're going to bring

into this space. And so that's very frequent here. And then that's kind of one edge, but then additionally another edge is there's this, I think there's just this underlying psychological presumption that if you treat your company that well, that you're doing all these extra steps to ensure that you're walking this talk, then you're probably going to treat my company well when I hire you and pay you thousands of dollars to perform some sort of service for me.

It's kind of in the same line of if you hire for an SEO company, they should have good SEO. If it's a video production company and they're making their own content, it's like, �Well, that should look good.� If you're hiring for a company that is trying to spread some sort of message about the values that their company has and why you should choose them as a product or service above something else, then it adds a little bit more confidence that they have a B-Corp certification because it's like, okay, these people are dedicated to doing that for themselves. Thus, they're probably going to help me out in the same way.

It's essentially like an external vetting process because one thing a lot of companies have to do when they're looking for vendors or partners or anything like that, they have to go through a whole vetting process. They have to look through them, they have to talk to them, they have to look through references and that stuff can take quite a long time. And this certification could be a great way to kind of expedite and save a little bit of that time for a lot of organizations because then it's like someone else has technically already done a lot of the vetting for them, right?

Where it's like anyone who's a certified B corporation now, they've already gone through a whole vetting process. So they should be trustworthy. They should be responsible as businesses. So I will be more inclined to reach out to them. And then it's just, the vetting process is going to be a lot less for me them. And then it's just the vetting process is gonna be a lot less for me. It's just like, do I just mesh well with them?

I know that they're already taken care of in other aspects. So I guess that's one of the big benefits from having that now, right? And do you see that more like mostly in Portland or is this something that's a little bit more broader in the US or is it unique to Portland? I mean, it's very concentrated here. I would say that if you ask other business owners in Portland, if they know what a B Corp is, I would say probably about as long as they've

been running a business for a little while, I'd say like 50 to 75% they can tell you exactly what it is. but it still hasn't really penetrated much in consumer markets. I think if you ask like regular consumers in Portland, like, hey, do you know what a B Corp is? I don't know. Five percent is going to tell you because they may or may not have gone to a grocery store and may or may not have noticed a symbol and like, oh, hey, what is this?

And stuff like that. So maybe if they go to the organic ones, they'll see it. The organic ones, the very expensive grocery chains. Well, that's more than half of them in Portland. Oh my God. But I think that it's definitely growing in a lot of other cities. I think LA at this point has several hundred B Corps, New York has several hundred B Corps. So it's rapidly expanded in the past few years and I think it's going to continue

to go in that trend as bigger companies come on board. Patagonia was a one early on, but then now it's attracting other larger companies. I think I've heard that Walmart was trying to become one somehow. We'll see. I think as we continue to go into this realm of having a difficult time discerning what is truth within all forms of media, people are going to be looking for audit processes to ensure, okay, if I'm someone who's trying to vote with my dollar for something, then I'm just not going to have time to actually do adequate research on this. I still think it's going to be a long time before it really penetrates B2C types of industries, but B2B, there's going to be like, especially larger companies, policies of, okay, we need to like, hire on this service to come help

us with this initiative over this campaign for the next few months. And they might make some sort of internal decisions about like, how can they be a better company? And how can they like have better PR? And so they'll say say, okay, well, let's say when we hire out externally for these marketing services, we have to go with a B Corp first. Those are the types of decisions. I've actually had for-profit companies reach out to us and they said, yeah, we have this internal process like policy now that we only can reach out to B Corp and we have to have three quotes from B Corp before we can even talk to other companies. And so I'm like, wow, okay, cool.

Like let's do it. So yeah, I definitely recommend, I think there's like a lot of other values that are affiliated with becoming a B Corp, but at the end of the day, you have to think about it as part of your marketing budget. It is a marketing endeavor. And I think that if you are in a more progressive leaning city that is over 500,000 people and you are a B2B service company, I feel very confident that it's a good bet that you're gonna get an ROI.

And if you do not meet those parameters, probably not, at least not anytime soon. Yeah, it was interesting you mentioned how it's more prominent now in B2B versus B2C. And I feel like because B2C is so much broader and so like massive, like a lot of companies also work outside of the US. Like I wonder if like those kinds of audits

would even be possible with some of those organizations. Like, can you imagine auditing Nike with this process? Like, I can't imagine all, and who knows, like you said Walmart maybe, but it's's like will Walmart even pass that whole process when you think about it with all the things you mentioned about how they need a recycle need to Encourage people to commute. I mean, I don't know what other what other specifics are involved with it, but it's it's interesting I wonder if there is one like that and I was just googling it right now I yeah, I think so like it's not giving me like a clear answer, but I haven't

like I Haven't really seen other companies. I've seen the better business No better businesses a bet. That's something completely different. I know I know probably the most useless like thing you could do Is the BBB has like no impact whatsoever on anything Yeah, it's dumb like I remember making an account on it just just cuz and then they're like Oh if you want to get like the official official one, you got to pay for it I'm like, what am I paying for it? Yeah, I think I've Like when we became a B Corp, it was it happened at the same time that

we kind of upgraded a little bit of our gear, upgrade a little bit of our portfolio, and then revamped our website. So it's hard to really trace what led to what but we doubled the year that we became a B Corp. I very much don't think that was the only factor, but I think it was a factor. Since we became a B Corp, I've had at least a dozen people explicitly express to us that one of the reasons they wanted to reach out to us was because we were, which I was very interested in. I really appreciate all the values myself, but I wouldn't personally

do that. I would be like, I need a good quality product and I need to make sure that it's within the cost that I need it to be. But I think that in the mindset of larger companies, there's more internal pressures to meet some sort of. Like value audit of adhering to making sure everyone feels good about like how companies are spending their money. So when they bring in outside sources, they're going to use those as factors. That's probably the deciding factor for them. Right. When it came to you, because they probably were looking at two other ones and maybe they weren't B Corps and you were and like the portfolios were good you know so they were like okay we can't make a decision prices might be the same or

whatever and they're like okay well this one's a B Corp so the other ones aren't that could have been a deciding factor. One thing I'm curious though about is that like I mean you, you obviously have a physical space. You guys have like a place of business that you, where you conduct in. How would this certified B Corp work for organizations like ours, which are more remote, right? Because there's a lot of companies, a lot of production companies work in that model where they work remotely, they work from home. I'm assuming that this isn't necessarily

something for them or is this something that is trying to kind of like break its way into that as well? I'm curious. No, no, Kyo. He said they don't show up to your workplace unless you're like massive. So yeah. Well, that's what I was asking about. That's what I was asking about. It's like, how do you measure it from a remote perspective versus, you know, like a company that you're... They're not going to come to your room and double check that you've been throwing the batteries in the right garbage can. Yeah.

Exactly. Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm like wondering what it is, like the parameters for one versus the other. Like, is it a different set of rules is what I'm getting at, Dario. That's essentially what I'm asking. Yeah, it is a different set of rules is what I'm getting at Dario. That's essentially what I'm asking. Yeah, it is a different set of rules and it's both easier and harder because it's easier in the sense of there's certain things that you like can't get docked on because it's like, I don't have an impact. I can try and talk about this in this way, but I don't know where the source of the energy coming through this apartment building

is or whatever. You can try and make an answer about that, but that's not something that you have a decision as a business owner in. Also, at the same time, you don't get points for that. You don't just automatically get a point for something that is not applicable to you. So the questions might shift around a little bit differently. And so because you can't get points in how you're treating a space, it might give you additional questions of how are you treating your employees then. So it tries to shift around accordingly to adhere to what your exact business structure is. And they kind of go through preliminary questions about it. You take this initial test, but I think I learned recently there's something like more

than 80 versions of the test because the questions that they're going to ask us is going to be significantly different than what they're going to ask Walmart because there's going to be questions they're going to ask Walmart that are going to be like completely irrelevant to a company like ours. Yeah, that's what I was asking about because like for example, you were saying like, do you encourage people to commute? Where it's like, I mean, we're technically work from home. My commute is from the bedroom to the office.

It's a different kind of parameter, technically speaking. But yeah, I guess it'll vary drastically. In that case, you're walking to your office, so technically you are commuting. But he said that you won't get a point for that technically, right? So that's the thing. Will we get a point for that? Do we get like plus 10 points for working from home? That's technically great for the environment. I think it'd be things like, for instance, it'd be something like when we go out and do a shoot with a client, are you carpooling or are you taking two separate cars to go

to the shoot with the client? Every car is a point deduction. Yeah, yeah. So if you say yes, then it'll be like, okay, cool. Well, then you get 0.25 points or something like that. So yeah, there's little things that'll stack up like that. I think the tough thing is like when I first did it, I was kind of... Because we'd done something before that was similar and I was like, okay, cool, yeah, we got it. But then when they came to actually audit,

I had something like seven or eight meetings with them to go through, and they asked for so many documents. I was like, wow, this is actually pretty tough. There's a lot of things that I just said yes, I'm like, yeah, that works for us. They're like, this is actually like pretty tough. And there's like a lot of things that I just said, yes. I'm like, yeah, that works for us. And they're like, no. And they just took it off. They're like, no, nice try.

Wow. Wow. They're strict. Have you seen those videos where people do like job interviews and they'll have like CHPT open and it'll be recording what the question is and then it'll like create the answer.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it's wild. The person that's reading the answer and the interviewer is like, oh yeah, that's really like you tell them like very impressed and everything. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it depends on what it is, but yeah, I've seen those. Should do that.

I don't think it'll work like that because what Eric is saying is you have to provide all these different documents, like your financial statements you were saying. What other temperate documents would they be asking for aside from financial statements? Emails? I mean, yeah. It is, yeah. It's private. They need to look at every email, every password.

I'm not kidding. That's what I was like, I was starting to wonder. Yeah, no, it is mostly like financial, or they'll like want to, if you have like agreements with independent contractors, they might actually like show us that agreement, you know, and like what are, like what are expectations for like how you communicate certain aspects of...

You can get a point for if you hire on an independent contractor and you are transparent with them about how much the total project cost that you're working on is. Really? Yeah. It's very robust and you have to prove that you share that with people, which is pretty interesting. So then it'll be like, all right, we worked on a $10,000 project but then we paid everyone who worked on it minimum wage. It's just like, yeah, you're not going to get great points for that. But then additionally, they're going to ask, do the people who got the minimum wage, do

they know that it was $10,000? So then they'll audit that. It's an odd thing to require. It's an odd thing to require. It's all too private. Yeah, no. It's a little bit interesting how they're kind of like trying to force like everything to be like, here's my entire business model that you like, here are our financials, here

are our statements. It's almost like, here's my skirt, let me lift it up for you. Do I get a point for that? Like essentially that's what it's almost sounding like. Yeah. I mean, essentially, essentially it is. Yeah. But I guess once you get the certification, like you just renew it every year, right?

There he is. Well, you all have a three-year. Okay, then every three years they come back and they ask you to live Oh my god. Oh my god. It's not a one-time thing there cuz I was Like a driver's license, you know you get it once and that's it. You just renew it every five years. Like, yeah, it's just kind of like, all right, let's like, let's see what you swept under the rug this time. You know, so it's like, oh, no, you put the toxic waste in there. Okay. You lose in the third, you know, and stuff. So, yeah, it's a you threw the double A batteries from the from the from the lab into the trash, that's it. It's over.

Yes, it's over. Exactly. So how many points do you need to pass necessarily? Is it out of 100 or is it 30 out of 40? Yeah, you need, I believe it's 80. You need 80 and you can get those from a bunch of different places. So but you can also like you can be You can kind of almost do nothing like barely anything more environmentally focused and you can be like Amazing to your employees and you'll pass, you know, so you can kind of choose things from different categories

It's not I treat Carol very well. So I think we'll pass But uh well so I think we'll pass. Yeah I mean like they'll ask like all right like what benefits do you have with your employees or like what uh like how do you like communicate to them and like what's your expectations for like time off and things like that so I think there's different things they're just not gonna work for different companies but then other other points will be like okay yeah that's kind of something that we're already doing. So it's probably easier if you're a smaller company because there's less.

Yeah, I think once you get bigger, it gets a lot trickier. Like it's just Carol and I. So like, yeah, probably be very easy to answer a lot of those questions. Yeah, no, for sure. Also, I'm wondering, like, do they do they interview any of the subcontractors that you work with to kind of figure out? Because you said, how do you communicate with your employees? How do you communicate with your freelancers?

Is that an aspect of it as well, or where they interview people or no? Yeah, they do. No, they do No, they do they I believe we had when we first went through we had one Contractor that they talked to and then they talked to one of our clients as well So yeah, that's yeah, and that's the thing. It's just like there's so many things that are like it But this this one is like they're actually gonna look you know, it's legit That's how you know, it legit. Cause they actually check. They're really looking up the skirt.

Yeah, they're really, yeah. They're shining the flashlight. Let's move on to something else. We were just talking about teams. So how big is your team? Yeah, we have, um, we have a mix of employees and contractors. So we have two employees other than myself, and then we have a group of regular contractors that we work with. Now contractors or freelancers or like are they the same for you? It's I mean we use the term contractor but yeah we have a variety of people that will pull on kind of out of blue. It'll be like a like a project here and there But then we have some independent contractors that we will work with

typically every single week, you know, so but they're balancing other projects too and They like being contractors in the sense that they have that flexibility so it's kind of like we do this corporate work and then, you know, it'll be consistent. It'll be like, okay, like do this edit, do these two shoots this week, you know, and the work keeps flowing through. But then every couple months they'll be like, oh, actually there's this big documentary that I want to work on for three weeks. You know, so I'm gonna go do that.

Cause that's like something I really want to focus on. And then the documentary ends, they don't get another opportunity like that for another year. And so they want to continue to do this work as like filler type of content. Okay. So who are the two, you said you had two employees then, right?

Yeah. yeah. So definitely, I mean, as a smaller company, everyone wears a lot of hats, but we have Elaine and then Cheetah. Elaine is a content manager, and so they'll do like editing and animation and a little bit of project management, a little bit of production management, a little bit of production assistance, a little bit of assistant directing, kind of some just like additional filling of roles, but mostly centered on editing and animation.

And then Anshita is like 95% editing, so she's just gonna be editing almost everything that we're doing and she's just constantly like going like one project to the next to the next to the next but then if it makes sense like and I want her to be a little bit more involved and understand a project I'll be like hey actually come to like the last day of filming and let's have you be a production assistant on this or if it's like a smaller project, then I'll be like, yeah, actually just come help me direct this.

And then we'll just, you'll walk with the footage immediately afterward and we can give it to them in the next couple of days. So I try to fill in people like that. And so we were gonna be really, really integrated as a team of employees. Then I have three – I kind of have like four videographers that I'll pass back and forth between. They'll range from being like a secondary cam-op to being a DP, depending

on the project. Then I've got a social media coordinator and they'll help with some sales. So I'll have them go out to networking events and things like that. And that's a freelance role that they're networking for you? Yeah. Yeah. And it is pretty freelance. I think the only general consistent expectation I have is we'll meet once a month and then I'll just say, �Hey, let's fill out the social media calendar. Show me what you're going to post here and then I'll give feedback on it.� I'm like, �Yep, that looks good.� Then as far as the networking goes, essentially they get an hourly rate, but then they'll get a commission on top of any sales that they connect with.

So they'll say, I want to go to these five events this month. And I'll say, don't go to these two because that doesn't really make sense, but go ahead and go to these two because that doesn't really make sense, but go ahead and go to these three. And so they'll go out to that event and then they'll try and like follow up and push on some sales. And then if they get it, they get an extra commission. But it's like on her own time. And she kind of makes her own schedule and fills it in with other things that she's doing.

How successful is she usually in and at least like landing you the lead Good yeah, she's she's doing really well. She's got a pretty robust background in like high-end fashion sales Which I didn't necessarily think was going to translate well, but it does and so there's especially like in our community, it's kind of an expectation that will show up at like some spaces. It's not, you can't really get much out of sales with in-person networking and things like that. If you just show up to an event one time, hand out some business cards and say,

please call me, you know, and then leave and never talk to anyone again. Going to a space consistently and then getting to know people and just being a nice, genuine, cool person. People have just really liked her and they're like, okay, I just want to help you out. Let me introduce you to this person and I think that they need a video and stuff or something that we really frequently find with going to networking events is

We'll just frequently come into these conversations of oh Actually, we've been I think we've been looking for a video You know It's like those people who are not in the active stages of looking to hire on, but they'll be like, oh, you know what? Like we've kind of been thinking about this for a while. And I really like you and you got great energy. So, yeah, maybe we can like talk about this next week and stuff. So it's it's been fruitful and worked out really well.

So you hired her with the intention of hiring a salesperson or was it just an additional thing that you're like, oh, Juzzle does sales, can you do some sales for me? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like we need the social media, you know, like, but very passively. It's not something that we need to be super active with. I don't really generate a lot of sales through social media, but with the sales,

it's kind of like if it leads to a contract, we just would not have had otherwise. It's like a low hourly impact as far as how much time it took to land that sale and then I just pay out a commission, then it's super worth it to me because it's pure ROI. So it's kind of like I don't need her to work a specific amount of time with anything, but if she is working and she is going to be putting in the time to try and find us new clients, then it's directly affiliated with new income coming through. So I'm definitely open to it, because 90 plus percent of our business

comes through Google, but there's just this extra little bit that you're only really gonna meet certain people in person, and otherwise they're just not going to take the time to like just have off hours at the office and be like, I don't know what else can we do? I'm just going to start like Googling around like ideas for things. I think there's this additional human touch where you can meet someone and you can tell them what you do and tell them like, like how you're good at it and why you'd be a good fit for them

and then just get them really stoked and then setting up meetings with them to explore that. I have a question then. If she's been able to get you like a good amount of work and it's been consistent and she's handling all your social media aspect, why keep her on a freelance kind of like a relationship? Why not bring her in full time?

Like it sounds like if she comes in full time, like she'll be unleashed, she'll do quite a bit for you. Or has it kind of been like a, like financially it doesn't make sense. Because it's networking sales. Like it's, cause if you're just going to networking events, it's different from doing something like direct sales. Maybe that's why.

Yeah, totally. It's kind of like, I have no success from cold outreach. Like doesn't work. Have you tried it? You must have tried it, right? Oh yeah, I've tried it for like a variety of iterations. I do not think it works now.

I think it worked really well for us maybe three years ago, but it's different now. Like I will wake up in the morning personally and I will do and I'll look at my email and I'll be like, okay, yeah, I have like 30 emails from random crap. People just like reach out and be like, oh, if you talk to us, we'll like generate 2X. Oh, those ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get a lot of those.

Yeah. Yeah. Or just people who are like Oh, yeah, you can outsource editing to us or oh, you know stuff like that so I Don't personally believe that there is a good cold outreach strategy and we've tried like Google and LinkedIn And I'll kind of revisit it every year or so I'll kind of revisit it every year or so. But I think this last round, we've done a pretty robust cold outreach campaign too on

both email and LinkedIn. Probably sent out 500 to 600 or so inquiries and nothing came of it. It took a while to find the right email, write a good copy that we know that we'd tested in the past that did work for us, but it didn't work this time. My theory is that it's just because that AI. It's just like 10x for everyone now. But yeah, when it comes to networking events, it's kind of, as I said, we will meet up once a month and she'll say, hey, I got these five events I want to go to. And then I'll tell her to go to three of the five, then these events are like a Thursday at four o'clock.

And so having an employee that will work, like only has to work at odd hours, handfuls of hours here and there, it doesn't quite make sense. It doesn't make sense. And she does kind of like other work that she likes to do. So she wants to have the flexibility to say, you know what, I got a lot going on this month. I only want to go to one.

Or like, actually I'm really kind of trying to go hard on sales this month. Like I want to go to 10 and stuff. And so her consistency of how many leads and how many closes she gets from when she puts the effort in is good enough that I'm like, yeah, scale up and down accordingly. But it's also not something that we

require of being able to stay afloat. So like, I think if she didn't do any of the work that she did, we'd be fine. Um, because we do get pretty consistent work that comes through Google. But, uh, when she chooses to, and she wants to push that, then we go from good to better. So, well, how much do you give her in commission? 10% or less or more?

It depends on how she, if it's like purely sourced through like her own genuine connections, then we'll do 15. Oh, okay. That's pretty high. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, sometimes it goes like like she she did that where she had just like a very personal friend That had his own business and he was like opening up like a cider

Tap house kind of like tasting room and so she's like hey, yeah like We're gonna do this and she pushed that relationship that she had already had before so I'm like, okay Yeah, that would have come nowhere close to being closed. Like he wasn't even interested or looking at a video, you know? So before she pushed that, so it's like, okay, yeah, let's do 15% for that. If it's like she's going out to a networking event and just talking with people that was already pre-established, then it'd be 10%. Or if she is just helping me tip the scale to something that we pseudo already sourced, then it'll be 5%. So that's kind of like the sliding scale that we decided upon.

And there's a cap. So if it's like – I don't remember at the top exactly what it is, but I think it's something like a 2K cap per project or something like that. So yeah, so if we sell like a $100,000 project, then it doesn't, she's not going to get $15,000 for that. But if it's something that is, because the cost of producing something like that is gonna be so much higher that chunk, that chunk is gonna be really difficult to... Gone.

Yeah, exactly. And it's on the first project, right? Or do you do it like, it's only the first one that she brings in, right? And then if you've built a relationship with the client, does she continue to get a percentage or is that kind of like handed off? Yeah, it is. It diminishes depending on where it came from. So like for instance, the cider one, when we do our next one, she'll get 5% and then if we do a third one, okay

So like there is like a bit of it because that was like a long-standing relationship she had prior So that's something that it's like, okay like like we really appreciate you like, you know Have like bringing that on so I want to have you feel, continue to feel really incentivized to look for those opportunities because that's going to pan out the best for you. And of course, that just makes the sale so much easier if you already have that personal relationship and stuff. So yeah, it kind of leaves a bad taste in someone's mouth. For instance, if it's like, okay, let's do the first project and it's like 5k and then it's like okay cool i'll give you like 15 percent okay the second project is 20k and you get nothing then it's like oh well shit you know so what do you do for the networking ones uh it's

same thing it's like 10 percent and then five percent for the second one uh no not for the second one yeah so only for like the close relationship ones, it's the second project they get something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And she also like for the networking events, you know, sometimes it costs money to go to these, it'll be like, all right, like $40 ticket or something like that. And so we'll cover that. And then I'll give her a little bit of hourly on top of it. So because I do want her to go and even if we don't necessarily immediately land a sale

from something like it's good to have this consistent person out in the community that's like hey we're Bridgestone Media, we're Bridgestone Media, we're Bridgestone Media and then like now I'll go to networking events and I'll talk to someone every now and then I'll go to one and they'll be like, oh yeah, totally. I think I talked to someone from your team before and she was so great. And then it just helps my conversation so much more than it just feeling like a totally cold connection. Yeah, it's good to get yourself embedded in some of these organizations or like marketing communities even sometimes like that where they have events consistently and then you

go there, you get to know the people and then even though there might not be something that yields a result right away, over time you build enough of a relationship where they know you as like the video guy someone that they can come come to and help and and then eventually when a potential big project can come through then you can come in and Work with them on it. So It's a it's a long game events and events and networking. That's a long game type thing and the one good thing about doing that as well as that it also helps grow like Events, events and networking, that's a long game type thing. And the one good thing about doing that as well is that it also helps grow the personal

brand as well within it. People get to know you more within these organizations and they can help recommend you. So it's not so much sometimes the company that they're going to be recommending, they're recommending you. So that's why it really works for you in that sense. You've invested in a person who builds those networks within these events. And because of that, they get to know you through her, right? So in business, you have to find a good balance of everything. Google can only get you so far. Sometimes people just need to see a face that they like. Yeah, definitely.

We're having a meeting later today with a very major local bookstore chain that she just met at the networking event. I was like, wait, what? You met the CEO at that? Why was the CEO at that? Why was the CEO at that?" I never would have gotten in touch with the CEO of this company just randomly online. They just never would have talked to us and stuff. That just cuts through because now we're going to have this conversation. We're going to say, hey, let's do this for you in this way. And we're not gonna wait until they get to a step

where they say, actually, we need video, let's go to Google, let's get five quotes, let's see what people charge for things and things like that. They're not gonna go through the shopping phase, they're just gonna go through this step with us of like, yeah, we like this relationship, we like you, let's see if we can find value immediately and we're not going to look for competitors.

Out of curiosity also, what are these specific networking events that you have found a lot of success in? Is it like marketing organizations, advertising organizations, or like, is there anything specific that you look for in these events? Yeah, I mean, there's tons of different types of flavors of events. There's B Corp networking events that we've gone to, and then things that are similar to that in nature.

There's marketing events, or it's marketing company meetups. events, or it's like marketing company meetups. She will go to emerging women professionals kinds of events. That's a space that I wouldn't be able to go to. There's little things like that which is pretty cool. Then there's very standard business like, alright, just entrepreneur meetups or we'll try to go to tech company meetups. We'll be like, oh, we're a tech company and then now suddenly we're talking to the VP of marketing of a 200% company or something like that. We're not just talking to someone who started their cafe a few months ago. There's a variety of really good spaces for it. A lot of the time

we don't necessarily immediately just make some sort of sale. We show up and say, hey, here's a cart. Oh, I need a video. Let's hire you and stuff. It's more so, oh, I really, really like you and I'm friends with someone high up at this other company. Let me make an introduction, just because I wanna help you out, because we had a good conversation, and I feel uncomfortable about not giving you something now. So let me make an introduction,

because it feels like a nice way to continue a relationship. So that's something that works out pretty well. Yeah. The key is to help connect people and try to help them first before looking for them to help you. That's what I found is the best way to kind of like get it started when you're networking, but sometimes it's difficult. And I've found these other organizations that are very like focused on networking and building relationships between companies. But to be part of those specific groups, they have mandatory recommendations as well that you have to have, which I was like, to have it mandatory on

a weekly basis, there's only so many accountants I can recommend to certain people as well. There's only so many connections I might personally have, but yeah, the way you're going about it definitely sounds like it's working. So it's great. Yeah. And I was part of a group like that for about a year and I had high hopes for it at the beginning. But then I think over time I found that our credibility was starting to get hurt, you

know, because it's just like, I'm like, oh, I'm not recommending you this company because I actually think it's a good fit for you. I'm recommending it because like, I'm worried about repercussions of not recommending them, you know. I think I know which organization. Yeah. I think if you're, I think if you, if you're part of a group like that where you genuinely think that everyone else in the group is really good at their shit, then awesome. And if not, then it's like, oh, you kind of trap yourself

into being someone who is going to rapidly tank your credibility with your community. Exactly. I attended one of those intro meetings just to kind of see what it was about because I heard a lot of good things from other organizations. And I think it really varied on like what circle of people you're in. Not every circle, like you said, is has got A plus people there.

It's like, I'm not gonna feel comfortable recommending people to others in my network if I don't 100% trust them as well. So after that meeting, I was just like, you know what? I don't think this is gonna be helpful for us. So took a step back and just left it at that. Yeah, no, for sure. I think we can end it here. So guys, if you want to find Eric, just go to bridgecitymedia.com and your socials are at Bridge City Media. So make sure to follow him there as well. And again, he's based out of Portland, Oregon.

So if you got a shoot there, make sure to reach out to him. So Eric, thank you for coming on. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was good to be here. Likewise. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app.

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