Invest in Marketing, Win on Retention (ft. 17 Projects)

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Dario00:00all right, guys, welcome to another episode. Today we got Rob Arevalo from Seventeen Projects based out of New York City. Rob, welcome to the show.

Rob00:06Great, how's it going guys? Thanks for having me.

Kyrill00:09Welcome.

Dario00:09Yeah, yeah. all right. Well I guess after this episode I really gotta diversify the guest list 'cause this is like the third or fourth New Yorker we've had in the house. in a row. but maybe we'll end it off on a on a high note. so Rob, just tell us a little bit about you and your company.

Kyrill00:19In a row.

Rob00:21Great. Sure. I guess how far back? How how how far back are we going here? Okay. Shit. All right. So you tell me if you want more details. I'll leave it at that. So yeah, I mean Rob Arevalo, again based out of New York City, 17 Projects is the company.

Kyrill00:35When you were born. Childbirth, yeah.

Dario00:35Let's go back to childbirth.

Rob00:52and I'll g I'll give you our general description. we're a video production company that focuses on providing video production services specifically to corporate clients. We do work with brands, do work with product lines, but most of the work that we do specializes around corporate clients. So whether that is company about videos or client testimonials, you know, anything along those lines. that's what we specialize in.

Dario01:26Nice. and then I guess just tell us like how you're yeah, like how did you get into the industry, all that stuff.

Kyrill01:27So how did you get into it?

Rob01:32Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I have probably not the most direct path. you know, after high school, I actually ended up joining the military. did that for four years. I was in the air force, I was doing airborne intelligence type of work. and after the military I I always had an interest in film and filmmaking. I would make a lot of, you know, films with my friends, you know, in high school, a little documentary. So I knew that I always enjoyed, you know. making videos. and after the military, you know, decided to go and finish school, I ended up studying film studies and business management at Columbia University in New York. and I mean I fell in love with the city. You know, there's so much to offer in New York. There's so many opportunities, both for creative for business. So decided to stick around. ended up getting hired at a very small video production company, which was actually great in that I got to learn a lot about how to run a small business, got to sharpen my technical skills, and really kinda saw what the blueprint was, you know, to to start my own business. So after being there for a couple of years, you know Figured I could probably do it myself and yeah, launch the company and that I launched the company in twenty twenty. I would say right at the end of January. Two months later, COVID hit. Yes. So and I I'm sure, you know, people have may probably had had some sort of similar story. But yeah, we had to I had I say we like, you know, I had a team back then, but yeah, I had to figure out what to do, right? So we did the virtual productions, a lot of tools came out.

Dario03:14Amazing timing.

Rob03:33think it was Vimeo Studio was the one that I was primarily using. But yeah, a little bit of OBS, you know, a little bit of Riverside, StreamYard, you know, all the different platforms. But yeah, basically, yeah, just find a way to add a line of revenue, you know, that could keep me afloat for the time being. But once things open back up, it was back to offering your regular type of video production line services. And yeah. you know, kind of start small, you gain momentum. what whatever you make you dump it back into marketing. Try to get a little bit more momentum and yeah, from from then I think at this point, you know, we've gone to work with hundreds of clients I'll brag a little bit here, but you know, includes Amazon, Google, Goldman Sachs, probably blank A16Z, big venture capital firm. and yeah, it's it's been kind of smooth sailing since then and you know, like always, trying to figure out what's the next thing to do, how to keep the business growing and yeah, kind of on that adventure like everybody else.

Kyrill04:48Wha what motivated you to keep going with the business when you started it? So close to so such a major thing that basically halted the industry? It's one thing for a company that had been around for a while, you know, it paused, you know, because of the pandemic and then tried to figure out its way through. But you were literally just starting out. Like what kept you dialed in to push forward at that point?

Rob05:10Sure. I mean part of it you know, I think one could assume that it was gonna be a temporary phase. No one knew how long it would be, right? And I think at that point I had already made up my mind that being a business owner was kind of the way that I you know, that's kind of what I wanted. So whether I had to wait it out for, you know, couple of months, couple of years, w whatever, I knew that whenever that phase was gonna be over, that this is what I wanted to do. So rather than kinda just leave it alone, why not just try to develop whatever I could at the time? so that, you know, when that phase was over, I didn't have to start from zero momentum, right? hopefully I would have built some sort of client list, you know, would have made a little bit of additional revenue and you know, a I I do say, you know, I I started in twenty twenty, but I didn't do it f fully abandoning other projects or other work, you know, that I had. it was one of those things where, you know, it was kind of a side a side hustle at the time. and then yeah, so it it wasn't as big of a risk as as maybe it sounds.

Kyrill06:18Right. So what have you done to kind of diversify yourself since then? You know, like now you've been in it for a little over six years, I guess. what like I said, what have you done to kind of diversify yourself? Like what have you been specializing in over the last little while?

Dario06:27Have

Rob06:41Sure. So again, coming from experience in video production, right, that's the primary service line offered. What does that include? You know, full pre production, production, post production services. on top of that, animation. I know a couple of guys that, you know, ha are Very skilled, very creative. we do animated explainers, very similar to videos, also photography. We offer photography services. so apart from that, it was just expanding, you know, those additional services that are kind of related to video. and at the other production company, most of my experience was already with corporate clients. And I just figured that having that experience and just, you know, being in New York, you walk around, you take a look at all these high rises, hundred plus floors, right? And each of those floors there's some sort of corporate company that probably needs video. There's just so many opportunities. It it just seems like a great place to be for for you know trying to target corporate clients. So figured that would probably be, you know, the the easiest path in. and then you know if I wanted to pivot to a different target pool of of clients, I could probably do so later on, but why not build momentum in the beginning where w I think it's the easiest, you know, to to get into. Where there's the most opportunity. and so yeah, I I I would say apart from you know these additional service items, I think it's just trying to see how you can offer a service in a better way, higher you know, higher quality way. Keep your clients happy, keep them coming back. because that's really I think where you start to see the business grow is You it's not always about trying to get new clients, but it's retaining your clients and yeah, I'm sure yeah, you guys have, you know, but it's really the client retention that helps your business grow. you know, you cast the net, maybe you catch, you know, five, ten new clients, right? In a given amount of of time. it doesn't really do much for you in the long term if none of those clients are gonna stick around. You say, you know, let's say even just twenty percent of those stick around. Next time you cast your net, right, you catch another ten. Well maybe you keep another two, right? You do it over and over eventually you'll have, you know, a a permanent inflow of of you know work coming in from these recurring clients. So I think more than trying to offer new types of services, it was just doing a good job that would impress the clients that would want them, you know, to to sign on long term contracts with us, so that we could just keep the business growing and keep the cash coming in and you know, things like that.

Kyrill09:46The conversations are always how do I find new clients? How do I find new clients? Where do I find new clients? But no one ever says, like, how do I keep my clients? You know?

Rob09:51Yes. Yeah. And and and I mean they're both important, right? But again, if you're trying to play the long term game, yeah, it's about client retention, definitely. so just making sure that you have processes in place that are, you know, professional, they're they're fast. you know, so from the initial inquiry that gets sent to you, like what's your response time, right? Do you have a system in place to basically organize all the inquiries coming in? You have a system in place to, you know, produce a proposal, you know, rather quickly. Are you doing your follow-ups? Right. from then it's you know are you educating the client on like, you know, the services, what you recommend? taking them through the entire pre production production process and then post production. Just creating a system out of that that the client feels like, you know, they're being given the attention that that they require for the project, that they trust, you know, the process in place, that it looks like everything's going smoothly again. Communication is a big key. so I would say just having a system in place that really makes the client feel like they're in good hands. Like that's the biggest thing.

Dario11:12As you were growing, how did you maintain a strong system for that? Because I think usually like it it's easier to keep your clients happy at the beginning when you got less clients, but then as you grow and you get more clients, that's where it really becomes tricky to keep everything top of mind, right? So how did you kind of work through that?

Rob11:29Yeah. So definitely, you know, there are a couple of platforms out there, whether it's a Monday or th you know, they can kind of all do the same thing, but one, just finding the platform that works for you. Key. Like absolute necessary. Whether that's from also on like the invoicing side, accounting side, like everything. but I think it it's seemed to just be very organic in that, okay, we're having more clients come in, more workers coming in, let's add more team members. You know? th so I I think it we approached it in a very organic way. We didn't try to, you know, grow beyond what you know beyond what we could handle. basically as we felt that we were hitting the limit, we would you know I'd I'd expand the team, bring on an extra guy. So it I think it's it's just kind of that organic growth, right? Not spending beyond what, you know, what we think we right? So like, yeah, now we have an office, but you know, for a while we're just working from home, right? so it's just I think taking it step by step. And yeah, you know, again, more work's coming in, you grow the team. try to repeat the process, grow even more and and so on so on and so forth.

Kyrill12:52So how big are you now? Yeah.

Dario12:52You did like controlled burns,

Rob12:55Yes. And sorry, what was that?

Kyrill12:57I was just saying how big is your team now? Like

Rob12:59So I would say it's two people that are handling client accounts and then for the projects, right, we have a roster of technicians, operators, whatever you want to call them, and then we bring those on. So I think our biggest production I think had twenty something people on it. Our smallest production, maybe we sent one videographer to, you know, to go film something. So it really just depends on the project. But doing like office client account management, things like that, it it's two of us. Yeah.

Kyrill13:32So full time it's just the two of you within the company. Okay. And is this person like a like a partner of yours or is it more so someone that is that works under you?

Rob13:40Yeah. I at this point I would kinda say partner. But yeah, but yeah, I mean we we hired but I've known this guy for for a long time. Shout out to Carlo, so

Kyrill13:46Okay.

Dario13:52Yeah, the in the background typing, I hear some typing in the background.

Rob13:54No no. He's he's busy right now.

Kyrill13:58Maybe you should turn the camera on him and then also have him say hello.

Rob14:02He's he's out of the office right now, but yeah. We'll insert screenshot here. Yeah.

Kyrill14:04he's out of office, okay. It's just like this.

Dario14:11you mentioned earlier how you would as you were growing, like you would get extra money, put it into marketing to be able to continue growing. I'm just curious, what what did you mean by like the extra marketing? Like what did that consist of?

Rob14:22Yeah, I mean when we when you know, I started it was me and and another guy, Fawn. Incredible D P shout out to Fawn. But we I mean, w right, we had no budget for marketing. And back then this was before all the automated AI systems that are now available to help you with marketing, but we were sending emails by hand. And I think we sent maybe in like one month over a thousand emails, right? We got a couple clients out of that. You know? We made a couple like I think it was maybe twenty something K ish, you know, out of maybe within like two months. That's you know, that's something. Right? And and again

Kyrill15:08It is. Yep.

Dario15:09Were they all personalized emails or did you just like just mass send the same email?

Rob15:13Probably a little bit of both, depending on who it was, you know. and yeah, like right, you exhaust all avenues and connections near to you. Right? So go through your LinkedIn. Send a DM to, you know, people that, you know, you maybe you went to college with that are now at a company. Hey, I see you're doing marketing at this company, like, I just started my video production company, maybe we can cut you a good deal, right? We just started you know, so really just exhausting every connection that we had, sending out email, right? And then right again, we had at the time we're doing it on the side. So, It wasn't a big risk, just like a little extra work that, you know, we're taking on. but now we have a little bit of money, right? We don't need it, you know, it's for for anything, like what what can we do with this to you know help bring in more clients, bigger clients, you're right. So then yeah, it's taking, you know, that small budget that we had and seeing what other competitors were doing, you know, other small production companies that maybe wanted to be like, you know, in a couple of years. Where are they advertising, you know? Well we see some people doing Google ads, we see some people advertising on clutch. We see some people on Design Rush or production hub or, you know, all these type of platforms, what names keep popping up on these different platforms. so you gotta take a little bit of risk. Can't say that everything worked worked. you're gonna burn some money marketing, you know, in the in the wrong places that just don't give you traction. It's part of the process. But definitely yeah w lucky for us we found a couple spots that worked wonders for us. It really changed the game. And had we not taken that risk, like, you know, w we definitely would not have gone to to where we are.

Kyrill17:09I'm not sure if you might have answered my question there, but is that was that the moment where you went and turned 17 Projects into from full part time to full time? Was it like making the right finding the right clientele f through that marketing? Like what was the moment?

Rob17:25One hundred percent. Yeah. W one hundred percent. It was again, investing in marketing, and I do say investing 'cause we we got great returns out of, you know, what we put in. those amazing clients that we got making sure that right, they are retained, they become long term. I think it was probably a year and a half after Right, you start making more money than you are elsewhere. And at this point it's an opportunity cost, right? Having it so then we're going full time, all in, 17 Projects. You know, we're we're we're making money. Right, figuring out again how can we keep the momentum going. and yeah, so but one hundred percent it's it was the marketing that that changed everything for me. I I don't I'm curious th what have you guys I guess maybe heard? You know, 'cause it's it's a lot of similar paths in some ways to with other video production companies. But I guess like I'm curious to hear also, you know, maybe even with you guys, like where where was like the moment where c things kinda changed?

Kyrill18:31Dario, you wanna start?

Dario18:31you know, before I get well before I get into it, I just want to say I have started a guides section on the website. So this is one of the upcoming guides that will be published at some point when I come back from my vacation. So if anyone's listening and wants to hear what other guests have said for this topic, it'll be over there on that page. as for what other people have said, I would say A to Z. like some people

Rob18:43Nice. Perfect.

Dario19:00grew from referrals or they got lucky with one client and kind of ballooned from there. And then that kind of allowed them to grow and everything based on the money they were getting from that. some people like you did marketing. Other people it was hybrid for us. I think what helped us was think we started focusing more on on SEO and that helped. We didn't really do a lot of paid advertising. I don't think the paid advertising was helping because how it was set up was not good. So we were probably just donating a lot of money to to Google.

Rob19:25Mm-hmm.

Kyrill19:34To Google. I mean, like the main thing was that like we kinda had like a little slap in the face with COVID, you know, and it w made us realize that we weren't doing anything right. forced us to really look at the business and talking to other production companies like yourself, hearing their stories, how they how they've grown, how they've persevered through different challenges made us realize okay, we had to we have to think of new ways to do this rather than just only referrals, 'cause that's what it was before, right? And so it was kind of like a part time thing as well. And then as Dario mentioned, we started focusing more on the business aspects of of running a business, you know, SEO, creating content, putting ourselves out there. And then slowly it that's where more of our clientele started coming from people simply finding us on Google, getting like to the point where we would we would get a call, a cold lead would call us. And then who knew that that would become a long term client of ours, for four years now running, right? So everyone as Dario mentioned it's A to Z for everything. Like we've heard so many different stories and I feel like there's still

Rob20:12Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyrill20:40so many other ways that people have gotten into this industry and what works for one company doesn't necessarily mean it'll work for you. Like this is something we've mentioned before many times. But yeah, it's very interesting.

Rob20:43Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah,

Dario20:54Have you

Rob20:54definitely.

Dario20:55adapted your your marketing strategy since since then or have you kinda stuck to the same methods?

Rob21:00No, definitely I it it evolves, it's different from year to year and it's one of those things where at least for us, we just have to keep trying things, see what works, if it's working, put more money into it until it stops working. but yeah, we've had platforms that were amazing for us in the beginning and for whatever reason they stopped performing, you know. and at that point right we just cut our loss like we just stopped marketing there. couple maybe like a year later they started performing well again. We we know we'll go back to them. but again it's it is just kind of trying, at least for we c we kind of just try a little bit with everyone, see what works and then if it works put more money in there, right? And yeah, new platforms are coming out all the time, new systems are coming out all the time. I'm sure you guys have heard of like places like instant is it instantly? Yeah, instantly or Apollo's, right? With automated emails. We're not doing too much of that now, but just again, with AI as well. new platforms, new systems are coming out. so we'd like to try, you know, a little bit of everything and and see what works.

Kyrill22:16Have you had

Dario22:16Do get the for for those emails, those mess sending emails, d so those still work for you? 'Cause like I I get a bunch of them all the time and like most of them go to spam or I I don't trust it. It just seems like badly written, do you know? Like if

Rob22:26Yeah. So s y right. So we launched one campaign so far and it did very poorly, which we kind of expected it to. 'Cause yeah, w I'm sure you, everybody else gets especially after, you know, all this whole AI thing, we get so many emails every single day. So we're trying to still figure out

Kyrill22:45Yeah.

Rob22:52Yeah, what we can offer, right, that would at least get get us a response, you know. but i I think it is it's it's probably a little bit trickier, but again, we're we're gonna keep trying different things and and see what works. but yeah, I mean I think we straight up probably got scammed out of a couple places that we tried, you know, or like

Kyrill23:16Every AI platform is the next big thing, you know? So that's that's what it is. I'm

Rob23:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dario23:22I just don't get what would why some of the the like those emails that we get, like I don't get why some people just don't don't put in like ten seconds of work on it. 'Cause I sometimes I look at out of curiosity I'll open it and I'm like, Man, like did you even like read this before you sent it out? Do you know what I mean?

Kyrill23:29Yeah.

Rob23:30yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah. No definitely. Yeah. Yeah, it's what you're offering them in return for their initial, you know, commitment to time and to set up a meeting with you because one people can tell it's an automated email, I think, probably ninety five percent of the time. So it doesn't even if it's personalized, you know, when it's even too personalized, you just know that it's some sort of bot just extracting like your name and your company name and like it has some generic description of you know, so I think it's the h the hardest thing is yeah, getting people to trust you right away from that type of email and to want to commit to setting up a meeting. So we're still trying to crack that and and figure out what works best.

Dario24:28Are you able to select like the type of person it goes out to?

Rob24:32Yeah, so I mean d again depends on the platforms. Some of these platforms what they're great for is just extracting potential leads. So apart from the automated email system, maybe you wanna figure out, you know you you wanna find the email of like all the marketing directors in New York that work in financial services, right? it'll help you extract like that information. So it's good for that. May maybe from there you can send personalized emails, but you know, it you can automate the process as well. But again, that's just like one of many marketing efforts that that you can do, right? There's the paid advertisement, there are the Google ads, there are the directories. but I would say yeah, for

Dario25:04Interesting.

Rob25:25I would say just like try everything. Like w I've got opportunities from like even like a forum of some sort. Like who uses forums nowadays, you know, and you know, they turn into a a great client that I'm still working with today and so really do just try everything would be my advice.

Kyrill25:45Nice. have you had

Dario25:45Have you have you done sorry, have you done have you what it what's it called? Have you done cold calling?

Rob25:55I have done cold calling. In New York. Out of all places. Where people are the friendliest. I think yeah, you gotta just gotta have thick skin. Some people will cuss you out. And some I I but we did I we did we got some clients doing it. Yeah.

Dario25:59Ha ha

Kyrill25:59Wow, and how was the success?

Dario26:02Ha ha ha. Okay.

Kyrill26:12my god.

Dario26:18Nice. Okay.

Kyrill26:18I mean if it works if it works like it i you can't you can't fault it, right? not everyone is able to.

Rob26:23Yeah, it's you know, like I try my best to, you know you know I think we even at one point invested in some sort of like sales classes or something. And yeah, you wanna stand out in what you offer. you know, but also, you know, a lot of it is timing, unfortunately, which is not what people wanna hear. But you know Being that it it is a a factor that you have to consider. I think just playing the numbers game, you know, is you ca you kinda can't fail. You know. You y

Dario27:00Nine no's to one yes, right?

Rob27:03A hundred noes to a thousand noes to one yes, you know. But hey, you know, d if if you really want it, I think you'll get after it. so yeah, cold calling. Can you get cussed out, you know, in a hundred different ways and still pick up the phone and call somebody else, you know, so

Dario27:06The one yes.

Kyrill27:21It really is a timing thing. And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize. It's not whether they're people are buying into what you're selling or not, because that's what a lot of people typically might think, but it really is just a matter of like, are they actually needing content at this time? And whenever people find you on Google and reach out to you, that first step is basically eliminated because now the timing for them, they're ready for video and they're looking for people. But when yeah, positive intent. But when they're not actively looking, it's much harder to make the sale, or like sometimes it could be one of

Rob27:34Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dario27:45Positive intent.

Rob27:51Yeah.

Kyrill27:53those things where someone is thinking, okay, you know, maybe we should start looking into video, and then you just happen to call like 30 minutes later, it's like, perfect. Someone that I could start exploring, right? That's that's the whole point of cold calling and cold outreach. And like you said, some people don't like that that truth. but

Rob28:06Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that being said, I do have to say, you know, one, you have to be prepared for that when o that opportunity arises. So you have to know how to talk about your company, you have to know what services you're gonna sell, right? Those clients. it's not just like, you know, waiting for the opportunity to kind of appear, right? You kinda have to be prepared for it. Two, there is something to, you know

Kyrill28:29Yeah.

Rob28:34like brand awareness. sure, maybe you sell try to sell something to someone, they're not ready for it. Make sure you stay on the radar because w the time you know, when they do need it, you wanna make sure that you're the company that pops in their head, right? Like, right, I finally need a video. who are those guys that were annoying me with like emails and phone calls? yeah, maybe, you know, their their content looked good, right? Maybe I'll actually call them, you know. So you you do definitely still have to do, you know, the the salesy you know stuff. some of it again just comes down to timing. I don't care how good your pit

Kyrill28:55Mm-hmm.

Rob29:12You know, if if someone doesn't have the budget or doesn't need a campaign like right now and maybe they're waiting for for a different time in the year, like you you just won't be able to to move them, you know, regardless of how good your your pitch is. you know, I think we have some good pitches, you know. And yeah, I I think I've had a client just straight up say like like this sounds great, but like I just we just r did a video, like I just don't need another video right now. You know, you guys look great. Maybe next time we'll call you guys, but so again Big factor is timing, but again you wanna make sure that you are prepared for that you're staying on people's radars. Your website looks great, right? and that when the opportunity comes that you take full advantage of it.

Kyrill29:54Yeah, or trying to do cold.

Dario29:54Yeah, even sometimes it's sometimes it's just the fact that like you might even pitch like a great idea, but it's your selling is good. It's it's now up to them to sell their boss or to sell the rest of the team on it, so there's always that gap. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But none.

Kyrill29:59Yeah. yeah.

Rob30:05Yes. One hundred percent also. Make sure you're talking to all the decision makers. Yeah.

Kyrill30:12And don't call during Christmas time, you know. They're not exactly looking for videos at that point, right? So that's a hundred percent

Rob30:16Yeah.

Dario30:17Ha well there are always Christmas parties, so someone's gotta film those.

Rob30:21Ha ha ha.

Kyrill30:21Yeah, yeah, depends. Depends. I I was actually also curious, have you had any success with government contracts or RFPs in the States? 'Cause we've been s slowly exploring that in Canada over the last couple months.

Rob30:35Yeah, that's a great question. something that's been an area that we're that we've never really tried to commit fully to, but that we are aware i is there and it's you know, I I think we we're planning on on looking into it. We've done a little bit of dabbling into it.

Kyrill30:56Okay.

Rob31:04Yeah. Th there right we we need to figure out a way to navigate 'cause it it's a little bit more involved. there are the process a l is a little bit lengthier, you know, to to actually win these contracts. There are also additional requirements, at least on our side and the state sides, you know, to to be able to work on these projects. so yeah, it's something that I think will probably just take a little bit more We have to kinda just learn a little bit more education on our end of how to best navigate and again what platforms to use. We have like attained a couple in the past. but that was just from people reaching out to us. It wasn't from us like going on these, you know, websites and seeing what's popping up and bidding and, you know. we're aware of like what the process works like, but we haven't actually delved into it. But yeah, definitely it I think it's an area that

Kyrill31:45Nice.

Dario31:51Mm-hmm.

Rob32:02it could be very fruitful i if you figure out how to, you know, work it and gain momentum and kind of be, you know, the the company that people kind of go to on those platforms.

Kyrill32:15Yep,

Dario32:15I used to think there wasn't a lot of proposals they were doing for for video stuff. 'Cause we checked it out like years and years ago. But we signed up for it again recently. I signed up to all the different bidding sites here in in in Ontario at least and there there's a lot. Surprisingly like a surprising amount of like RFPs that they that they publish. the only annoying thing I noticed recently is that a lot of them you gotta pay for it. So it's like seventy

Rob32:27Mm-hmm.

Kyrill32:34Yeah.

Rob32:35Yeah.

Dario32:43bucks apiece and I'm like, Man, you try for ten of these, it's already seven hundred bucks and it's like if you're not if it's already like you competing with like two hundred other people, it's a lot of money gone for no reason, so

Rob32:44Mm-hmm.

Kyrill32:45my god.

Rob32:54Right.

Kyrill32:56And and my my favorite part of the whole process is also not only getting the RFP but also getting the evaluation criteria part of the document. It's like, man, I feel like I'm back in school. So once we finish the RFP and go through the evaluation criteria, I'm like, did we do enough of this? How many points are we gonna lose if we don't have this slide in there? Yeah.

Rob33:04Mm-hmm.

Dario33:06Yeah.

Rob33:09Right. Right. Yeah, it's a lot more involved in that sense,

Dario33:14Yeah, yeah.

Rob33:17maybe less competitive because these are all kind of barriers to entry to compete in that space, right? So I I do think that you know, and again, I'm talking from no experience really doing this, but it seems like if you get through all of that and you do become a player and a trusted player, you know, i in in government contracts, so you could do really well.

Dario33:23Yeah.

Kyrill33:23Right. Ha ha.

Rob33:42being that again. probably not as competitive and once you establish yourself, you can kind of, you know, know how to play the field, being that again, there's so many things that you have to play too in that space. So yeah, I think long term it's probably a a good investment. But yeah. Yeah, I think again, you kinda have to take that risk. You might burn some money. Again, that's our philosophy, right? Yeah. I yeah I see. You know. And

Dario34:03I was like, at least let me read the document. Let me see if I could even like, you know, apply for this thing. They're like, no, you gotta pay to see the what the requirements are. I'm like, come on.

Rob34:12You know, and the government contracts are known for, you know, some of being pretty big. So if you know, if you do land if you end up, you know, burning four thousand dollars, you know, applying to, you know, forty different ones or or whatever, then hopefully you get one that's, you know, bringing you a decent amount of, you know, of work. So

Kyrill34:31matter what you do, it's gonna cost money. That's the thing about running a business. Is that we're always trying to find the most inexpensive way to get new clients. And it's always frustrating when we still have to pull money out of the bank account to do it. But it's just a it's like a friendly reminder to us that we you gotta you gotta invest. It's another form of marketing basically, right?

Dario34:37Mm-hmm.

Rob34:50Yeah. Yeah. And again, i even if you end up you know, losing money, at least you've learned that hey, this is not the way to go. And eliminates, you know, one area that you know you need you can ignore from now on and you move on to the next one. So it it's good. I think it's always better to at least get to that point rather than like sitting there and being like, I wonder if this works, I wonder if this works and like you know. So

Dario35:19That's true. And I guess now with the Claude and everything it'll be easier to apply to these RFPs compared to before. Like when we did it a couple months back, we had to do it all manually and that was like a a mess. my god, it was it was it was messy. Like I had to get I had to get Gemini at the time to just translate what it was even asking us. I was like, I don't I I was like, I don't know what they wrote. Like this makes no sense. Like explain it to me like I'm five, please.

Rob35:27Yes. Yes. Yeah, right. Your forty page proposal and yeah. Executive summaries and yeah.

Kyrill35:37I wonder if they're

Rob35:44Yeah, no, I I will yeah. Yeah, thank God for for AI for that, definitely. You know, I think we well actually maybe I'm not a lot we worked with a very large government entity pretty early on. And you know, the the work itself it wasn't a huge, huge, huge job. But just to land that job, I think we actually wrote a forty page proposal. It was insane. And probably not worth the time. but you know, if anything, maybe we broke even if you think about all the time. but it was yeah, to try and tr you know, long term, right? Hopefully they work with us once and then long term we we can yeah. Turn him into a good client, it's a good client that we can also, you know, maybe not on a public platform like this, shout out, but you know, we're talking to similar clients and we mentioned that we've worked with this client, they say, awesome. so yeah, it's it is what it is.

Kyrill36:51Well the one good thing that RFPs also give you is that it Tell they tell you what information the client is looking for or values more in your proposals. So like say for example before if you were emphasizing on putting too many different like say for example you put your entire portfolio there's like here's our entire portfolio to look at, but then in their criteria they say we only want two or three examples of this type of video, then it makes you think about okay, in future proposals, maybe I only need to show two or three

Rob37:03Yeah.

Kyrill37:25examples rather than my entire portfolio. Like that's like a very simple example, but it basically help they help you figure out how to improve your proposals over time. And anytime Dario and I work on a major RFP or a major proposal, it helps us improve or like think about okay, what should we include next time? What should we do differently? And yeah. It's all a learning experience, even if you don't get the project.

Rob37:28Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Definitely. Now that's a good point that you make. Also, you know, again, I it seems like you guys do mostly corporate video, right? We do mostly corporate video. Corporate clients are very corporate. What I mean by that is, you know, like when it comes down to proposals, yes, video is creative, yes, we're creatives and you know. But they're more looking for a company that looks established, trustworthy, has a system in place, professional, all those things. So when you send your proposal, you know, one thing that we notice is we actually have to like tone our proposals down from like the creative design assets of it. You know, make it look boring in some ways where it's just like you can extract you can ex you can extract the information that they want rather easily, right? And of course they're gonna check out your content and make sure it's up to par and that it's creative. But more or less, you know, they're just looking again for those very specific, you know, items and they just wanna right be able to read it.

Dario38:45Do you hear that, Kyrill?

Kyrill38:47Clean and simple.

Rob39:10Extract the information fast, send it to other decision makers so that they can read it, extract information fast, and no, not have all this fluff, decorative fluff, that it just kinda gets in the way. But again, you work with a brand, right? You're shooting a commercial, you better have something that it looks creative and is well designed, especially once you get into, you know, your your pitch decks. Right, you gotta s have reference shots. So it really you kinda have to play to, you know, to the different segments, accordingly.

Dario39:45Do you know how many fights Kyrill and I have had about this? Like, cause he wanted to add more stuff and I wanted to take out more stuff.

Kyrill39:45Sometimes Yeah.

Rob39:52Just depends on the client. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it just depends on the client.

Kyrill39:53It always depends, yeah. But the my my favorite one though is when we've had when we've And we've put proposals together for clients and they wanted to see very specific examples of where it's like, We want and I think this was more early on where this happened where a client was like, We want this type of video for this type of client exactly like this. And it's like, We have the exact same video, just not in a finance sector, but in a software sector. But it's like, No, no, no, that's not the exact example that we're looking for. It's like but it's the same type of video that they were looking for. It's th when Yeah.

Rob40:22Mm-hmm. Yeah. We ran into that, but again I think that just goes to show that for f you know, for clients like it's just like the trust factor. Yeah, and it's just the trust fac like right, maybe you've done amazing interviews that are client testimonials, right? But they want interviews that talk about a product line instead, right? Obviously the what they talk about is a little different, but this from a technical standpoint, you can execute it, right? If y

Kyrill40:36It's very corporate. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob40:59But they don't wanna they want someone talking about a similar pro right. So then it's just like yeah, it's just I think trying to eliminate risk on their end. and maybe they're not as educated. They don't realize that you can you know, you can execute it. So yeah, I think for for a lot of clients it's just eliminat eliminating as much risk as possible when choosing who they go with.

Kyrill41:09Yeah. Especially if they're pitching it. Especially if they're pitching it up. Yeah. Yeah that's

Dario41:24We had that at the we had that at the beginning. We had that at the beginning, but then after we I I honestly what fixed that solution for us was just adding more examples in the in the examples section. So for example we would have like the reference videos, like maybe three and then another link that kind of links to like a big folder of different like maybe different industries, but it's still like for example

Kyrill41:50More projects.

Dario41:52Like interview videos, right? There might like ten or twenty over there. So that kinda like I haven't really had any pushback from leads on that front anymore because of that 'cause then they go to that link, it's got everything. Like one of those is gonna look similar to what you're looking for, you know?

Rob41:56Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, definitely.

Kyrill42:07It gets easier over time, but yeah, like as you said, it's all about eliminating risk, especially because they have to they have to pitch you to their higher ups and they have to convince their people, all right, let's spend fifty thousand dollars of our marketing budget on these guys. It's like, Really? Why is that? And they wanna find exactly what they're looking for. So we we get it. Yep.

Rob42:16Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it makes sense, right? It yeah, makes sense. Can't you know, can't really blame for yeah, just trying to make sure all their money goes to to the right place, so

Kyrill42:37One thing I'm also curious about is so you're based in New York. Did you always know you wanted to be you wanted to work right in the heart of Manhattan? or did you ever consider maybe going to some other cities or places? Like what made you stay there?

Rob42:53I I I I personally just like New York a lot. There are a lot of apart from it being a great city from, you know, culturally entertainment, everything, there are a lot of opportunities here. So I figured, you know, it's I mean it is the biggest city also, so it's I'm already i I went to college here, right? So it's

Dario43:18Biggest market.

Rob43:22I'm already familiar with it. I know I like the place. I know there's a lot of opportunities. It just kinda makes sense. so never really considered not necessarily moving, but we started doing marketing in LA, Chicago, Miami. got a couple clients, other cities, but our hub I think will always be New York.

Dario43:50Why did why did you try to expand to those markets?

Rob43:53j I mean, right? So what you see a lot well yeah, so you guys have probably seen this model. It's right, like the video agency model, it's you right, find local crews.

Dario44:01Do have like a presence there already or?

Kyrill44:03Like how did you expand?

Rob44:13that you trust that maybe you've worked with, you educate them kind of what your expectations are, your processes, right? Your the quality that you're going for. and yeah, if you can land clients in these other places, you hire those local crews, right? You handle the post in-house, you know, wherever your central hub is. So it it was basically a little bit of that. just we haven't taken it to the extent that maybe, you know, some other companies have. we ha we do have a lot of clients in in LA and San Francisco sometimes we'll travel out from New York, but other times we have our local crews that we worked with before who are freelancers that basically will hand handle it for us.

Dario44:55So it was like kinda like the client is already needing you there, so it just made more sense to just start to set up operations. Right, right.

Rob45:00Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And and yeah, yes we initially, you know, looked there 'cause we knew that there were opportunities, but also we did have clients who constantly wanted content that were theirs. It just didn't make sense for us, right? To add this additional, you know, long form travel expense. 'cause they'd probably honestly go with somebody local if, you know, they had to spend a couple extra thousand dollars flying, you know, some guys from New York all the way to LA, you know, every other month. So it just made sense, you know, for for our clients' sake and for our sake as well.

Kyrill45:39Yeah, you it's always good to find ways to make things efficient for your long term clients. That way it guarantees more work, right? As you said. If if you if you keep doing work there, they're more inclined to go with you if you're able to eliminate a lot of those costs. So

Rob45:53Mm-hmm. Yeah. They appreciate it, you know, obviously. They they see that you're kinda looking out for them.

Kyrill46:01Unless they really love Rob and then they're like, nah, we need Rob. Go get over there. Yeah.

Dario46:05He can always go for the big projects, yeah.

Rob46:05Sometimes that happens. Sometimes that happens. Yeah, you know, and it's flattering, you know. And you're like and sometimes I think why I've even asked them like, you know, you could just go with somebody local and you know. But again, that I think you get to the point where you've just like again, really taking care of your client and you know, if it's if it's a big project and there's a lot at risk, right? It's all about eliminating risk. They don't the budget isn't even an issue anymore. It's just we need to deliver this So that all these higher ups can approve and then our client's client can approve and, you know, they'll you know, at at that point budget becomes like, you know, something that it's not even something that they worry about, so

Kyrill46:49Second, the CEO, the CMO, or anyone high up is involved, they find the money to make sure that they look good.

Rob46:55Yeah. Yeah. And and we're more than happy obviously to travel we actually do quite a bit of traveling. and yeah, we'll we'll make sure that things get done, you know, up to the standards that they want.

Kyrill46:59yeah. Nice.

Dario47:08being in New York City, there's a lot of competition. So how do you kind of deal with with with that?

Rob47:15Good question. There is a lot of competition. At the same time, there's a lot of opportunities. So maybe it evens itself out. at least I expected LA to be more competitive. Giving in our marketing reports, it does seem to be more competitive. So one, it's not as competitive as LA. but there is still a lot of competition. But again, I think there's just a lot of opportunity here. So yeah how how how did we deal with it? I mean study your competitors, see what they're doing, see where you can improve. I'm sure we're not the only ones that did this, but pretend you're a company, send you know, feelers out to your competition, see how they handle response times, right? Like

Kyrill48:07Yeah.

Dario48:10interesting.

Rob48:10You know. what are their proposals look like, you know? I'll admit, yeah, we did that, you know, and you get you kinda get to see like all right, like how do our proposals measure up to these proposals, right? yeah, I mean you gotta do a little bit of intel maybe that's just my Intel military side, you know, coming out of me where Yes. We actually got hired not just getting hired competitive now.

Dario48:26That's right, he did he did recon, right?

Kyrill48:26Recon. That's what we call recon. Ha ha.

Rob48:34No, but you know, just basically yeah, see again like how you stack up to the competition and where and where you can improve. you know, I think sometimes you wanna compete on price, other times you don't want to compete on price, right? it's a kind of a slippery slope to go down if if you know, if that's what you're competing on. But sometimes you have to. so it's I think it's having a good sense of what everybody is doing. Yeah. Figure out what everybody else is doing, how well they're doing it, what their prices are, you know, that'll give you a good idea of what maybe strategically you should be doing as well.

Dario49:15Interesting. Okay. let's do how you came up with the name.

Rob49:21yeah. Not an yeah, not an exciting story, you know. But it's just my favorite number, you know, it's something that I've always gravitated to and seems to be working out, you know, so so far, so I think we'll stick with it. But yeah, I gotta come up with with some sort of sorry. And I'm always honest about it too, 'cause a lot of people ask. I think there's always

Kyrill49:21Yeah. Why seventeen? Yeah.

Dario49:40Just say you like blackjack, you know it's always your winning number, seventeen.

Rob49:44Yeah, tell that to a to a corporate client. I'm a big gambler. Yes. No, but yeah, just a good number for you know, for me in in my life, so seems to be to be working out so far as well.

Kyrill49:46That's when the dealer that's when the dealer holds when they hit seventeen.

Dario49:59Nice.

Kyrill49:59So another question to follow up on that. On your website, do you have seventeen killer projects that you have on your portfolio there? And it's always like a curated list.

Rob50:09No, but maybe we should we should implement that. I like that.

Kyrill50:12There you go, there's

Dario50:12Mm-hmm.

Kyrill50:13a little idea. But yeah.

Rob50:15I like that.

Dario50:17all right, so I think we can probably end it off there. so your website is seventeen, the number, projects.com. One seven projects dot com. and your socials are at at seventeen projects.

Kyrill50:21Yeah.

Rob50:26Yes.

Kyrill50:26One seven.

Rob50:34Yep. I think it's an underscore seventeen underscore projects, yeah.

Dario50:38Yeah. Yeah yeah. At seventeen underscore projects. So make sure to give a follow and reach out to if you got anything in in the green apple.

Kyrill50:48New York.

Rob50:49New York. Yeah, that's right. Well yeah, thanks for having me. love what you guys are doing. Again, I was telling Dario this, but like you know, for you know, medium, small to medium sized companies, it's great to see what everybody else is doing, right? Doing a little bit of that recon, right? So yeah, no. Really?

Dario51:09That's

Kyrill51:06This is our recon.

Dario51:09right, yeah.

Rob51:10Really, you know, it's yeah, it's just smart, right? You should educate yourself so you know, get to see what everybody else is doing. so I th yeah, I think it's awesome what you guys are doing and for again, people like me, other business owners, it's th everybody should be watching this and like it's literally like taking notes on every episode and I know you're you talked about the guides that you're pub you know, publishing. Yeah, those are making it even easier. So yeah, awesome stuff that you guys are doing here.

Dario51:26Yeah. Yeah.

Kyrill51:38We appreciate it.

Dario51:38Yeah, and I I I d honestly I did it kinda for myself too, 'cause I was like, I don't have time to listen back to every episode and go through all the notes.

Rob51:42Yeah.

Kyrill51:44Yeah, we don't remember all the conversations. It's it's been like what almost a hundred and twenty episodes now, Dario, right? This is one eighteen, yeah, so we're almost there, but Yeah.

Rob51:47Yeah, yeah.

Dario51:51This is one eighteen. Yeah, nearing one twenty. you're right. Yeah. I should you

Rob51:53One eighteen. One seventeen would have been better, but

Dario51:59shouldn't have postponed that other week, then you would have been one seventeen. but yeah, I've I've even been like for those listening, I I've also been updating the website. Like I've I just have the first nine episodes to fully revamp, but everything else has been updated. The network is live too, so anyone can go and see who's

Rob52:01Yes. Yes.

Dario52:20Who's based out of where? Even Rob, if you wanna go check and see you know, if you got shoots in other places. LA I haven't targeted yet, so unfortunately, no one there yet. But

Rob52:23Yeah. Yeah.

Kyrill52:27We'll we'll get there eventually.

Rob52:29I'm sure you'll have no problem finding people there.

Kyrill52:31I thought we had someone from LA, at least one. Technically, yes. Yes.

Dario52:33Well now we got him. Now we got him. So

Rob52:35Yeah. Yes. Yeah, if you guys you know we do have a team down there, so but yeah, awesome again. Thanks for having me in. Best of luck with everything and really big fan of what you guys are doing.

Kyrill52:40Awesome. Thanks for joining us.

Dario52:44Thank you. Thank you.

Kyrill52:47We appreciate it, Rob. Thank you for for chatting with us.

Rob52:50Yeah.