Episode 77
Balancing Creativity and Business Growth (ft. Tripwire Media)
Some founders measure success by headcount. Doug Darling is not one of them. As founder of Tripwire Media, a Winnipeg video production company, he has spent the last few years making the business leaner, more intentional, and less dependent on him personally. He first joined Creatives Grab Coffee back in Strategy and Building Teams, and this time he returns to talk about what changes when the goal shifts from doing great work to building a company that can do great work without you.
In episode 77, Doug sits down with Dario and Kyrill for a wide-ranging conversation on balancing creativity and business growth. He covers running lean through an unpredictable market, building a vetted crew network instead of over-hiring, the founder's struggle to step back, the accountability and process habits that keep 115 projects moving at once, and why owning a mistake fast can build more client trust than never making one at all. Woven through it is a personal thread: investing in yourself, from stand-up comedy to a global speakers academy, and letting that growth feed the business.
Key Takeaways
- Headcount is not the scoreboard. Tripwire peaked at 15 people and now runs around 13, using a vetted freelance network across Canada and North America instead of carrying full-time staff through slow seasons.
- Build the network before you need it. Pre-vetting directors, producers, and crew in other markets lets Doug staff a shoot on short notice without gambling on whether someone is as good as they claim.
- The founder is the best salesperson, and the hardest to replace. Clients respond to hearing from the CEO, but leaning on that forever caps growth; the real value is a business that keeps running when you step out of it.
- Give every responsibility a single owner. Accountability means one person is responsible for each role, even when others help, so nothing gets dropped or handled twice.
- Process is what carries you through the busy season. A 90-minute Monday leadership meeting and a 10-minute daily standup let Tripwire keep 115 projects in flux moving without anything major slipping.
- Invest in yourself, then show your work. Doug's public-speaking and storytelling training feeds back into the business, and documenting that growth on LinkedIn became his most engaging marketing.
- Owning a mistake fast builds more trust than never making one. A quick, honest fix with a clear plan turns a slip into loyalty and gives the client peace of mind on the next project.
Timestamps
Team size is not the scoreboard
Like a lot of studios, Tripwire rode the second half of COVID up, when budgets shifted to video, and then felt the fallout when clients diverted spend back to in-person events. The result has been a few genuinely unpredictable years, some very busy stretches and some very dead ones. Through it, Doug landed on a lesson that runs against agency instinct: the size of a company is not the measure of its success. Tripwire got as high as 15 people, dipped to 11, and now sits around 13, because staffing only to the busy peaks meant burning money holding onto people through the slow summers.
So instead of over-hiring, Doug built a network. His full-time roles concentrate on the things that need to know the company's process, account and project management plus writers and directors who own the story flow, while the rest scales up per project through a pre-vetted roster of directors, producers, and crew across Canada and North America. One collaborator in Denver will drive up to eight hours for a shoot; others cover the south and the east coast. The point is confidence: when work lands last minute, and it always does, he can staff it without gambling on whether someone is as good as they claim. It is the same partner-network logic Lapse leans on through its production and white-label services, and a theme guests keep returning to when they talk about scaling a video business.
Sales, cold outreach, and why the founder closes best
For its first ten years, Tripwire grew almost entirely on referral and inbound, helped by a clear positioning around storytelling in a market that was not yet crowded. That market has since saturated: more competition, more freelancers, and more companies hiring video in-house. So Doug now does more outbound than ever, though he is honest that it is not his natural gear.
I don't like knocking on doors. I like walking through them.
Doug Darling
What makes it work is structure. He runs a real pipeline in a CRM and hammers on it early in the morning when he is fresh and undistracted, because momentum, not volume, is what actually surfaces opportunities. He also makes the case that the founder is often the best person to send it: clients respond to hearing from the CEO rather than an account rep, because the passion comes through and there is no one better positioned to sell the business. That same dynamic is what clients weigh from the other side of the table, which Lapse lays out in its guide on how to choose a video production company.
Getting out of your own way
The catch with being the face of the company is that it does not scale. Doug frames it through an exit-readiness lens even though he is not selling: if you pull the founder out, how quickly does the business start to lose money? Building real value means making yourself less integral, not more, so the work, the relationships, and the operations can run without your fingerprint on everything.
He is candid that he mucked this up at first, jumping back into projects late and undercutting the very people he had hired to own them. He compares it to pulling frozen fish out of the freezer on Kitchen Nightmares: the moment process takes something out of your head and things start happening without you, the urge to grab it back is almost physical. Learning to sit quietly when a project has a problem, and to let people fail enough to grow, is one of the most common walls founders hit. Guests talk it through in the growth stages of a creative business and in empowering your team and elevating morale.
Accountability and the true cost of a meeting
The fix Doug keeps returning to is accountability: every role, every responsibility, has one owner. It does not mean that person does everything alone, only that they are responsible for it, so the team never lands in the two-headed-dragon problem of both people grabbing the baton or both dropping it. Dario and Kyrill describe the same shift in their own studio, where splitting sales and creative between them, rather than both sitting on every call, unlocked a real jump in output.
Doug also points at a hidden tax most teams ignore: the true cost of a meeting. Put three people whose time is worth fifty dollars an hour on an hour-long call and you have just spent a hundred and fifty dollars, so it is worth asking whether everyone needs to be there. The flip side of splitting work is the risk of little islands where nobody knows what anyone else is doing, which is why ownership only works on top of a shared process. That balance of systems, margins, and mindset is the whole subject of one recent episode.
Process is what carries the busy season
Doug admits he spent years dismissing process as the enemy of creativity, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants energy that makes the work fun. Now he is on the other side of it, and it is what let Tripwire survive its busiest summer in memory. With 115 projects in some state of flux, from first call to final delivery, almost nothing went significantly wrong, and everything that did was flagged the moment it happened. The engine underneath is a pair of meeting cadences: ninety minutes with the key leaders every Monday, and a ten-minute standup with the whole team every morning.
The tooling matters less than the habit. Tripwire runs on Productive.io, which pairs project management with a light CRM and QuickBooks integration, after moving off Workamajig and Float and comparing options that included Monday and Asana. Doug's take is that these tools are like camera gear: most perform the same core function, and the choice comes down to preferences and the pain points you most need to solve. If you are formalizing how projects actually move, Lapse maps the full arc in its guide to the corporate video production process.
Investing in yourself, and showing your work
One of the more surprising threads is how much of Doug's business growth traces back to personal growth. A former musician who loves performing and teaching, he learned the science of storytelling, started getting asked to teach it to clients' internal teams, and turned that into a positioning play. Two days of storytelling training with one company led, months later, to one of Tripwire's largest contracts when the marketing director moved to a new employer and brought Tripwire along without a pitch or a competition. He is now leaning further in, trying stand-up comedy to sharpen his stage presence and heading to a global speakers academy in Lisbon.
His argument is that investing in yourself is not a splurge, it is marketing and business development that happens to be good for you. Reward yourself with growth, then document it: his LinkedIn post about the speakers academy pulled roughly 6,000 impressions against his usual 2,000, and every one of those was a conversation starter and a signal that he is trying to get better. As he puts it, if you do not advertise yourself, no one else will. Building a second engine out of your own expertise, rather than depending only on the next client call, is exactly the mindset behind diversifying your video business income.
Mindset: competition, comparison, and gratitude
Doug is refreshingly open about the mental side of running a studio. An entrepreneur's job is partly to hunt for what is broken, which can quietly tip into depression, so he actively works to hack his brain toward the good through therapy, meditation, and reading. He points to The Happiness Advantage as one of the few books he has read cover to cover, on the idea that becoming happier actually makes you more successful, not the other way around.
The trap he fights hardest is comparison. Seeing a competitor land a dream client or post gorgeous work triggers an instant why-did-they-get-it reaction, and he has learned to reframe it, often by publicly celebrating the other studio and pulling inspiration from the work instead of resentment. Dario's framing lands the point: hating on someone else's success is usually an excuse for not giving your own goals full attention. Competing on your own terms, rather than obsessing over a rival, is a theme the show explores in competing, niching, and thriving.
Owning mistakes to build client trust
The through-line of the back half is customer service. Doug is blunt that a video company is not just a group of filmmakers, it is a service business, and the leader bears responsibility for both the wins and the misses. When a mistake happens, the move is to own it fast, hand the client a clear plan, and communicate proactively rather than defend being technically right. There is a real opportunity in it: a well-handled slip can strengthen a relationship more than a clean project would have, because it shows the client you will figure it out next time too. He draws a hard line between a mistake and negligence, but for genuine mistakes, the fix is almost always relationship-building.
If you have to ask where something is at, then we have failed you.
Doug Darling
That is why he over-communicates schedules and flags a delay the day before, not the hour after, so a client is never left waiting on something they were promised. It also underpins the value conversation. When a client asks him to match a cheaper competitor, Doug points back at every reason they just gave for choosing Tripwire: you do not pay Civic money for a Honda Pilot and expect Pilot value. The best business development, he says, is not cold outreach at all, it is the clients and former colleagues who go to bat for you and refer you as they rise. If you want to turn that goodwill into an asset, Lapse breaks down what a video costs and videographer day rates so you can hold your pricing with confidence, and it turns happy clients into testimonial videos that do the selling for you. The relationship craft underneath all of it is the subject of the art of client relationships.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Doug Darling and what is Tripwire Media?
Doug Darling is the founder of Tripwire Media, a video production company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is a returning Creatives Grab Coffee guest, first featured back in Strategy and Building Teams.
How does Tripwire Media stay lean without turning down big projects?
It keeps a small core team and a pre-vetted network of directors, producers, and crew across Canada and North America, scaling up per project instead of carrying full-time staff through slow seasons. More on this in systems, margins, and mindset.
What project management software does Tripwire Media use?
Productive.io, which pairs project management with a light CRM and QuickBooks integration. The team moved to it from Workamajig and Float after comparing options that included Monday and Asana.
How should a video company handle a mistake with a client?
Own it quickly, give the client a clear plan, and communicate proactively before they have to ask. Doug argues a well-handled mistake can strengthen a relationship more than never slipping at all. The show digs into this in the art of client relationships.
How much does a corporate video cost?
It varies widely by scope, crew, and deliverables. For a plain-English breakdown, see Lapse Productions on what a video costs and day rates.
Hosts
Creatives Grab Coffee is hosted by Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov, co-founders of Lapse Productions, a Toronto video production company. Each week they sit down with founders and operators from the video industry to talk candidly about the business behind the craft.
About
Creatives Grab Coffee is a weekly podcast on the business of video production, covering pricing, sales, hiring, niching, and growth with guests from studios around the world.
Lapse Productions is a Toronto video production company producing corporate, brand, and commercial video. Learn more about Lapse Productions.
Tripwire Media (tripwiremedia.com) is a Winnipeg-based video production company led by founder Doug Darling, known for storytelling-driven corporate and brand work and a lean, network-powered production model.
Full Transcript
Read the full transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and lightly edited for readability. It may contain small errors. Jump to the chapter timestamps to navigate the episode.
Kyrill02:19All right, so today on Creatives Grab Coffee, we got another CGC alum, Doug Darling from Tripwire Media. Welcome to the show again, man.
Doug Darling02:29Great to be back. I miss you guys. look all, we all look so different. Actually, I think I just have more gray on my beard. I'm trying to think of the first time we did it. Had I had I shaved my head yet? I think I had. I think, were we in the pandemic? Yeah, I had a hat on then I had shaved my head then.
Dario02:35Hahaha
Kyrill02:40You had a hat on. You had a hat on. Yeah.
Dario02:44We all had… We always had hats on.
Doug Darling02:48This is my youthful approach so people don't see how little hair I now have.
Kyrill02:48Yep.
Dario02:52trust me, on RN2, it's not good.
Doug Darling02:54No, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me back guys. I'm really happy to be here.
Kyrill02:57I think it was.
Doug Darling03:04I it's like two. think it was, yeah, I think it might have been, yeah. It was a while back. Was it like 25 or, was like, see, or episode 25 or 26 or something.
Dario03:04It was a while back. I think it was season two.
Kyrill03:10Yeah, was two years ago. Wow, okay.
Dario03:102022. 2022.
Kyrill03:17Time has flown.
Dario03:17We're on 70, this one I think is gonna be 77 by the time it releases so, wow, almost 50 episodes later.
Doug Darling03:23Yes!
Kyrill03:23By the time it's released, yeah.
Doug Darling03:27Wow.
Kyrill03:27wild to think honestly but anyways like for our new for our viewers tell us what's new you know like i i know you've you've had a couple awesome projects come through over the last few years we've collaborated a couple of times since then a couple awards maybe as well like the one in the background we see like what's up with you
Doug Darling03:42Yeah.
Dario03:44One in the background over there.
Doug Darling03:47that thing? No it's been…
Dario03:49Ha ha ha ha.
Kyrill03:49Hahaha
Doug Darling03:51It's been a bit of a ride. think, I don't know about you guys, but we've had some ups and downs post COVID. we actually, I think like a lot of video companies did well on the second half kind of a COVID when people really, budgets were being put towards online things and video focused things when getting in person wasn't a possibility. And then of course there was a little bit of a fallout from that. We actually had some clients going like, we're just diverting everything to in-person events.
Dario05:28Has your team grown from the last time we spoke in? Cause I remember you were in, you were in the midst of adding more team members. And actually, I think I remember back in 2022 or something, you're mentioning how you wanted to also expand to like, I think you were saying Toronto or something like that.
Kyrill05:29So what?
Doug Darling05:45Mm-hmm. We've learned that the size of a company or the success of a company isn't necessarily in the size or the amount of people. And I'm not even saying this myself, but a lot of people say in the agency world, especially, that it is kind of an old school.
Dario09:49Mm-hmm.
Kyrill09:53And it always comes very… I was just gonna say it. always…
Dario09:53How did you go about – sorry go ahead Kiel. Aww.
Doug Darling09:56That was cute, you guys. You guys asked the questions at same time.
Kyrill10:00I was just gonna say that it always works out like that where something comes up last minute, like always when you least expect it, like when you're ready to go, that's when it always seems to be the quietest, but once you don't expect it, that's when things kind of just pop up out of nowhere. And there's a big growing need for businesses to get a lot more lean. And like we've been talking about this over the years where people, lot of businesses need to be.
Doug Darling10:12Yeah.
Kyrill10:28lean enough to be able to kind of like push through the slow times. But you know it's very true when you start seeing a lot of the bigger agencies start to adopt that same mantra. Because like you said, it was the old school way for to seem big and very powerful as a business or as an agency, you needed to have a big team of people and manpower to really help execute upon clients needs.
Doug Darling10:38Hmm.
Kyrill10:51But then you hear about a lot of the big agencies starting to kind of like scale back or merge with other agencies because you know, like there's clearly not enough work going through. I feel like there's a big talent pool now of people that are flooding the market because of all these different mergers and agencies shutting down. So now there's gonna be also a big pool of freelancers also there ready to work with not only the big guys, but also with smaller independent agencies and production companies.
Doug Darling11:42Yeah, it works both ways in a sense of so, you know, if we have, have, and, I…
Kyrill13:38Yeah.
Doug Darling13:49It's just unpredictable. just last like I keep using the comparison of last summer versus this summer. We were busier than we've been in many, many summers this summer. And a lot of it is just based on the type of work that you're doing. It's not like, hey, it's really predictable or there's some sort of global push in this sense because it's just like, well, no, there's these things that need to happen on the initiatives that our clients have that sometimes are annual. And a lot of them aren't. A lot of them are one offer. A lot of them are special for whatever reason that may be.
Kyrill15:21And finding that balance is always, it always keeps changing because you could find the balance for your current circumstance and you're good, but then you could either get more clients coming through in the next month or two or less clients. And then your balance is off kilter. So it's kind of like finding that balance that works in highs and lows.
Dario15:22Are you do –
Doug Darling15:28Yeah.
Dario15:41Are you doing more cold outreach for sales? Are you relying a lot on inbound?
Doug Darling15:46you know, lot of our growth was basically referral and inbound, you know, for the first 10 years. And then I think that that partially was because,
Dario16:37okay. Do you know why?
Doug Darling16:41I think it's because it depends. think it's subjective. think it's because they don't know necessarily how to manage it. It's like if you go, we need to have in-house video. have a marketing team or a very small marketing team. I'm going to bring in video. OK, well, A, we have to keep that person justified. So we have to have them making enough content. We also have to be knowing the content enough to tell them what to make. And so we've worked with actually a lot of clients where they have in-house
Kyrill16:44you
Dario16:59Busy.
Doug Darling17:11Marketing they have in-house video and they can only get it to a certain point Sometimes they're asking for help or sometimes they're asking, you know We need to do the larger stuff, which is fine. Like actually people are very apologetic. They're like, really sorry We do make some of our own content in house. I'm like absolutely totally should be but when someone's maybe spending anywhere from 50 to 100 thousand dollars on a salary and they're going like we're making web content and vlog content like in that case then you might as well it's I see a similarity to
Kyrill17:13Yeah.
Doug Darling17:40When websites really kind of started to blow up, then a lot of companies started bringing in their web capabilities in-house. And then they realized maybe they don't have the right people doing that or that it was an expense they didn't want because they don't have to always, always, always be working on their website depending on your company. then I feel like web companies and digital marketing companies started to then, you
Kyrill17:44Yeah.
Doug Darling18:02grow again. In terms of, to answer your question on Biz Dev, yeah, the last few years I've had to do it more than ever to, you know, kind of keep things going. It's better that I have now a CRM and a structure to it versus like I was pretty chaotic about it before. I was kind of like, what am I?
Dario18:19I just I just I just signed up for HubSpot the other day so I can see the difference immediately going from what I was doing before which is chaos utter chaos
Doug Darling18:23Yeah.
Kyrill18:31Yeah.
Doug Darling18:31I have basically like a pipeline and so actually I was doing a little bit of it today. Sometimes I get up really early in the morning because it's just like there's no distraction. I'm very easily distracted. So I will just hammer on like going through my lists and it's, know, and you're just sending out notes. And I think actually through some of our dead times, I noticed that that's actually probably when I'm not spending as much time on it. When I start to really put some efforts into it, that's when, you know, we start to see people just like it's everything.
Dario19:10Mm-hmm.
Doug Darling19:31that's, you know, to be like, wow, who knew, right? I think obviously with much larger companies or companies that have a sales process, of course, this is even just just breaking the ice on what, you know, a lot of people do. I don't think I could do this all day every day. I don't like cold calling in general. I don't I always say I don't like knocking on doors. I like walking through them. So I have to be the other reason I think I do it in the morning is I'm kind of like in a good space and a good energy. So that's where I'm kind of hammering on. Like, hey, you want to talk about like I just want
Dario20:13You gotta put Glen Gary, Glen Ross on the background.
Doug Darling20:17Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get some steak knives if, unfortunately I'm pretty much the only one on the team doing it, so I guess I get to either both get the steak knives and fire myself. But, but yeah, so like, yeah, exactly.
Kyrill20:18Hahaha
Dario20:28Ha ha ha.
Kyrill20:30You're awful in the mirror.
Dario20:32Ha ha.
Doug Darling20:33But yeah, sometimes it can be like, you know, like the really good salespeople. A lot of my friends who are like, they're just, they're hunters, right? And I'm not necessarily, I'm a little too empathetic and I take it a little personally because it's my own company. So sometimes I have to be in the right head space, but we've, we've actually just worked, we were hiring someone who's helping with both the account management side, but also has some biz dev in her. And she's one of these people who has no problem going up to people, networking, contacting people. So getting the right people in the right positions, of course really helps because sales was never my
Dario21:10Yeah.
Kyrill21:18People wanna talk. Yeah.
Dario21:23Yeah.
Doug Darling21:38Yeah.
Kyrill21:52like reaching out, you know, like they might be thinking because it's, it's not like a big corporation, like say a bank where it's like, you can't expect to be talking to the CEO about every little thing, right? Whereas with a smaller business, it's kind of like, they're kind of coming to you for that more personal approach to, trying to connect with a very specific creative team, you know, behind these businesses, maybe that's, they might feel more comfortable. It's like with the CEO as well, or like the person running the business, it's like you basically have final say.
Doug Darling21:52Mm
Dario22:20I don't think it's that complicate. I don't think it's that complicated, Kyrill. I think it just depends on who's on the sales side pitching properly.
Kyrill22:29Maybe, maybe. I'm just saying it could be like that.
Doug Darling22:29It also comes down to… Yeah, it can be… Yeah.
Dario22:32No one's going to be able to sell your business better than you. That's the end of the line. So.
Kyrill22:35That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Like they will feel more of the passion through you personally. Yeah.
Dario22:39Yeah, yeah.
Doug Darling22:40Now the challenge of course with that is when you become the face of your organization and often the main point of contact and the relationship manager, it's very tough to scale. And if that is your goal, if you, there's lots of very successful video companies who stay like three or four or five people, the leads and the owners are the key creative people and they just keep raising the rates and do amazing work. Others who look to scale in terms of size or book of business. A challenge for me, and you know,
Dario23:57Hmm.
Doug Darling24:07that you can't do it all, that you can't be the face of it, you can't answer all the emails and look at ways that you can start to move your way to it because it was really hard for me at first and I actually mucked it up pretty good by jumping in and like not even letting the new people who were building the relationships and helping and I still struggle with that being sometimes quiet when there's a problem with the project. I still get brought in just like bringing in a manager when there's something wrong with the food at a restaurant but you know supporting
Dario24:53That's come up quite a bit actually. We've had several guests mention that they had trouble stepping back and letting, putting trust in their team members to be able to do their jobs properly.
Doug Darling24:59For sure.
Kyrill25:01Yeah.
Doug Darling25:04It's one of the most common things in any business in growth and it's why a lot of companies don't grow. There are some, you know, there's some good books out there. We're integrating EOS into so entrepreneur operating system. Their main book is attraction. There's other similar ones like scaling up or other, you know, ones that people kind of operate on. Then of course, there's lots of different books out there, you know, built to built to sell, plan to win those types of things. And they will tell you a lot of the time.
Dario25:56show.
Doug Darling26:02And he's like, we're not doing that anymore. And if the owner is the chef or like in the back of the house in any kind of way.
Dario26:03Calamari
Doug Darling26:10There's always this moment where he freaks out or she freaks out and she goes into the back and pulls out frozen fish. Of course they leave the frozen fish there so they do that. like it's that panic into like, you know, when we built process, when we had to get stuff out of my own head because I couldn't be the only one doing it. And then all of a sudden, you know, things are happening without me. I would jump in and change stuff very late in the video or I would jump in and say that we can do something when to for a client that I didn't know there was contacts before that they were either being very difficult or something had already been promised.
Kyrill26:38Yeah
Doug Darling26:40like and that idea of thinking you're the only one who can do the thing that you do or that you like is just a, it's an ego issue and it's acting like there's no one else in the world who can do the same thing that you do because you're so special and so lovely and your mom hugged you a lot. And I don't know why I went there on that. My mom.
Dario27:05Sopranos, we're… We're Dr. Melfi right now, he's Tony.
Kyrill27:12Yeah. It's like, why do you feel that way today?
Doug Darling27:16Yeah, we're not recording this, right? This is a test drive? Yeah, yeah, great. I… No. Good to know. I have a lot to get off my chest right now. No.
Dario27:19Of course not, of course not. We're definitely not 30 minutes into a talk.
Kyrill27:23Yeah, 30 minute test call, you know? That's it.
Doug Darling28:13Yeah.
Kyrill28:29have to look at it. once we started figuring out who what each of our strengths were and we split up a lot of the tasks and responsibilities we noticed a huge surge in productivity as a result. Like Dario is now able to be on a hell of a lot more sales calls and lead generation calls than than me. He's not listening you know.
Dario28:47Doug, I hear you clicking.
Doug Darling28:50Yeah, I am, I was getting that, I realized that I don't have my Do Not Disturb on, so I was getting a phone call and it was messing with my headphones. Yeah.
Dario28:51It's not listening.
Kyrill29:02I love it, I love it. I love it.
Doug Darling29:04It's like a good foot and a half away. This is a good microphone. Wow, that's great. Yeah.
Kyrill29:08He's disturbed by the do not disturb, you know?
Dario29:08You
Doug Darling29:12I turned on Do Not Disturb. was the phone was like trying to like steal my headphones and it was like a spam call from Georgia. So I'm like, okay, you gotta turn that off. Sorry about that. I'm back.
Dario29:12You
Kyrill29:22You know, we should actually answer one of those spam calls if it actually happens on an episode and just be like, all right, who is it today?
Doug Darling29:26Yeah, I'm like, finally you're here. How are you gonna help me? Please? You want my credit card number?
Dario29:31It's gonna be one of two things. It's gonna be two things, either the Chinese people or the Arduct Indians. It's one of those two always.
Kyrill29:38Yeah, it's always one or the other. yeah, as I was saying, Dario now has a lot more capacity to handle more sales calls in a higher volume, and he's focused on that, and he's gotten really good at that. Whereas I'm able to manage more creative projects and client projects, get them through from pre-production to post, and just manage that entire process with the creatives. And this way, we're able to handle a higher volume of work to come through, thus generating more.
Doug Darling29:39Am I? Yeah. Well there you go.
Kyrill30:08revenue and profits for the business. figuring out how to who to relinquish that those certain responsibilities can help maximize your time.
Doug Darling30:12It's an.
Kyrill33:13Yeah
Dario33:14Ha
Doug Darling33:39The other problem that can happen is you turn into these little islands of things happening and you don't even know what each other is doing. And that can be problematic as well. then you need, communication is another issue as well, right? Where you're not over communicating, you're not under communicating, all those types of things. And it can be overwhelming and it can be frustrating and stressful.
Kyrill35:01wow.
Dario35:03Nice.
Doug Darling35:11We have to have that process and we have to have everyone knowing what they're responsible and we need to be correcting in the moment when someone is stepping out of their lane, often me by the way, and making sure that everyone's doing what they gotta do and that we know who's responsible for what so we can all move together. So it's been a lot of work to get there, but boy is it worth it.
Kyrill35:33One thing we've also –
Dario35:33Which project management software to use?
Doug Darling35:36We use productive .io and it actually does have a good CRM in it, like not nearly as good as a HubSpot or a Salesforce or anything, but for us, it has just multi levels of your engagement. And then once it goes in, it does pretty good. works with…
Kyrill35:36yeah.
Doug Darling35:56QuickBooks, well, our last one didn't. It has some scheduling. We actually brought scheduling into it. We were using a different scheduler. So for the most part, it works really well for us. Plus, they're not like a massive organization. They've actually taken some of our input and ideas and built it. And so it's worked well. We looked at lots of different ones, including Monday. And we used to be on Workimajig. And I think we looked at Asana as well.
Kyrill36:02Mm
Dario36:25That's the one I'm using right now.
Doug Darling36:27Okay, yeah. We actually had not looked at productive and one of our colleagues who were in the same building, run a web wizard or a web and digital marketing company called Web Wizard, sorry. Chad kind of reached out. He's like, you guys are looking for one, right? We just integrated this like a month ago. And so he helped walk us through it, gave us a very good demo of it. And yeah, it's been really good for us.
Kyrill36:27Yeah, we're on that.
Dario36:52Why did you not choose to go with Asana? I'm just curious because I'm like two weeks into it and I'm having like the time of my life.
Doug Darling36:59yeah, no, I mean, we just basically chose about five different ones and I was not part of the vetting process. So we actually had Colin, my executive producer, our creative.
Dario37:06Mmm.
Kyrill37:06Mm.
Doug Darling37:12operations, he was an account manager at the time, sorry, but in our creative operations manager who is no longer with us and I think one other person and they did, they got on calls with everyone, they did pros and cons, like a big sheet was given to us looking at cost, all that kind of stuff, not to disparage any of them. And a lot of it was like, it really was down to very small things. It just came into like, hey, and we had enough pain points on the last one we were on that we knew what we wanted to solve.
Dario38:26Okay.
Kyrill38:27Yeah, I think when it comes to these types of softwares and everything, it all comes down to preferences a lot of the time. It's like camera gear, you know? A lot of them are performing the same function. They're all relatively in the same level of quality. Not major differences. Sometimes it's just personal preferences, ergonomics, file types, X, Y, and Z.
Doug Darling38:42Yep.
Dario38:52Yeah.
Doug Darling38:54the inputs and outputs of a whole bunch of people, need to be tracking time, we need to track profit. If you're dealing with either bigger projects and smaller crews or smaller amounts of people, then you might not need that. Actually, we were coming from one that was just too robust. had too much functionality. It wasn't very user-friendly, but it was just too many features. We didn't need all of them, and it made it very, very confusing. We needed something a little more streamlined. And so I know my…
Kyrill39:15Yeah.
Doug Darling39:23a very close colleague uses Monday. They love it. It's great. It's for their digital marketing company. They swear by it. You know, again, yeah, to each their own.
Dario39:34So what's next for you then? Like you're in the process of strengthening your processes for your company. Like you have like a solid team of 15 or so people. What do you want to do next?
Doug Darling39:40Yeah
Kyrill39:44Actually one thing one thing I want to highlight for him I've noticed is that someone's become a little bit of a public speaker I've seen a little bit in the in the space. I also saw what you're traveling to Europe later this year or did you already go there for for this conference?
Dario39:51yeah, on LinkedIn.
Doug Darling39:54Yeah.
Kyrill41:44Yeah.
Doug Darling41:44Also positioning yourself as a leader in the subject matter that you want to be and so when you know if it would be the same way that I think if I started doing public speaking on like technology if we were really trying to like a Camera technology if I was trying to build for instance like what chef Shane Hurlbutt's doing which is more of a training thing My case I really like being able to help clients because so many people come to us going like we know we need to tell our story We don't know how so that's where I kind of anytime I can help I kind of pause
Kyrill42:21I was gonna say, yeah, like how was that experience? I saw you made a post about your first standup routine. I was like, okay, I gotta talk to him about this.
Dario42:21yeah.
Doug Darling42:28It w
Dario42:29Give us a little taste, what's your opener?
Doug Darling42:31It wasn't to be to yeah, it wasn't my very first I tried it last year. was like even though I Spoke in front of hundreds of people I've played music You know in front of in front of a couple thousand before this like doing it last year's this competition at a you local Comedy bar and I I felt like the first time I'd ever gotten on stage like I was about to throw up before and so it was a good exercise I've been up I've been a fan of stand-up comedy since I was like, know 13 watching evening at the improv
Kyrill45:03You're developing, you're doing self-development, you're growing, you're improving your skills, and that is one thing people need to remember to keep doing when they're running a business is like, yeah, you could do a lot of things for the business, but sometimes you gotta make time to grow your skill, your knowledge base, try something new, learn something new, because how you go about doing that, the experience that you will gain from doing that.
Doug Darling45:07Mm-hmm.
Kyrill45:30you can bring it to the business. When you think about any business that you start, you don't just start it out of nowhere with no experience whatsoever. have, what makes your business yours is also, comes from the experiences that you have and your particular knowledge and skill set, right? The way you started your business is very different from the way that we started our business. Sure, we all make videos, but we all do it differently. Yeah, certain same elements. We all hit the record button.
Doug Darling45:33Yeah.
Kyrill45:58on a camera, we all have a lighter too here and there, you know, and we ask a couple of questions, but there's a different side to it. There's a different personality behind the business. And the key is to keep fostering and growing that because it's like, there's nothing worse than being stagnant with the business. I find that sometimes when I feel like if the business has become a little bit stagnant and it's like, okay, think I've, I think Dario and I have not personally developed as well at the same time. It's not just the business. It's like, what can we also be doing to learn and
Doug Darling46:08Yeah.
Kyrill46:28expand more.
Doug Darling46:29I found in my time that any time I get bored with the business, it's usually because I'm not learning. It's that I'm not growing and by…
Kyrill46:36Yeah, exactly.
Doug Darling46:39You can grow financially, but if you're just like, it's the same old thing and that's how we brought in the science of storytelling through through muse storytelling, where it's just like, feel like I'm making the same thing every time. I'm not learning anything from this. you mean like don't just show up and shoot and just put something together or don't, you know, a structure when a client comes and tells you they need something to be able to help them actually do something better or to understand the why and the goal in the audience, all those types of things. That was one step. Well, this is kind
Kyrill49:01It's also…
Doug Darling49:10this for us and this should then add to the security of the company and also the happiness of me which is very important.
Kyrill49:17It's also important to remember to also document and showcase that personal growth and development. I think that is also something to think to yourself. Is this something that I would like to promote on the business of social channels? It's like, hey, we're just invested in learning this type of new technique and stuff. Or one of our key team members has really dived into this, and this is what they've learned by doing this.
Doug Darling49:25Yeah.
Kyrill49:43I'm starting to think that could be a good criteria to think is like, if this is gonna be helpful for the business, would this be something that you would want to kind of create content and document and promote? Or like you, for example, you're going to Lisbon to learn about public speaking and stuff like that. it's like, hey, you're promoting it on LinkedIn, that we saw it. So your clients are seeing this too and they're seeing the different aspects that the people of Tripwire are trying to do to grow the business because they know ultimately they're doing it for the clients.
Doug Darling50:02It. It.
Kyrill50:12and for the projects that they're going to produce for them.
Doug Darling50:15It's why I promote it. It's why, actually, I don't like, even though some friends will laugh if I say I'm not like, you know, I don't like to talk about myself. I don't like to publicly talk about myself. If I'm in a group, I'll talk about myself all day. But like, I feel weird going like, hey guys, look what I did. But the…
Kyrill50:32I know.
Doug Darling50:33The engagement that I get when I'm, A, when I'm kinda talking about things that I'm doing that have any kind of connection, like you guys aren't the first ones to go like, hey, what? You're doing this GSA thing? That's amazing. I'm like, great, this conversation starter. It does also show that you're trying to continuously better yourself. And then this is also when you're sharing things that are a little bit authentic, that don't feel too fake or too braggadocious, that people connect in that. so,
Kyrill50:56Yeah.
Doug Darling51:00It is just, it is all marketing. Like we actually will put this in our marketing budget, this GSA thing, as well as maybe like learning and education. could be considered sales. I'm going to meet 50 people or 40 people, sorry, from around the world who are like-minded in different kinds of organizations and worlds. Like you're going to build this network. Like all of this should come back for the money that I'm spending. I should be able to make this back, I would say in a year's time quite easily if I really put my mind to it and I action the things that I learned from it.
Dario51:56Hehehehe… Hehehehe… Hehehehe…
Kyrill51:58Ha ha ha ha ha!
Doug Darling52:00And you're gonna make it real hard for yourself. So you have to get over it. And I have to get over being like real, you know, again, like, I'm pretty self-deprecating. So for me to be like, hey, everyone, look what I'm doing, it feels weird, but…
Kyrill52:03Yeah.
Doug Darling52:14This is actually very strange. It is easily the most engagement I have gotten in all of my LinkedIn posts. It was something like 6,000 impressions. I think the most I've ever gotten is 2,000 on anything else of actual substance. Maybe LinkedIn rewards people bragging because I think that's all, there's way too much of it anyways. I just also got a lot of congratulations, a lot of support, people saying that I'll be really good at that. And so you're creating these engagements, these relationships, and maybe it's not going to be specifically right after like, you're going to GSA, we should do a video.
Kyrill52:31Yeah.
Doug Darling52:44But it's gonna be like, tell me more about this and you're continuing a conversation and down the road, someone's hopefully then of those people are gonna, let's work with Doug on this thing because it seems like his head's in the right space.
Dario52:56We had a client who was a motivational speaker and I gotta say, if you're ever gonna pivot, Doug, that is a very juicy career to get into. The amount of money that guy was making per talk, I sorta got, and I looked at each other, we're like, we're not charging this guy enough.
Doug Darling53:01Yeah.
Kyrill53:04lucrative, very lucrative.
Doug Darling53:08I… I know… yeah.
Kyrill53:14Yeah
Doug Darling53:14Yeah, I know. I know a few of them and I know what they charge. is actually it's it's become a very highly competitive market. But yeah, those who have you have a best selling book and and you start to really get some gigs out there like, yeah, I it's pretty crazy what an hour of a rehearsed written.
Kyrill53:23Yeah.
Doug Darling53:36presentation will get you. It's pretty wild. So yeah, mean, hey, that also could be a great benefit if I can actually really go forward on that. I have to figure out what my book would be about. I can't tell you. have an idea. I'll tell you guys offline.
Dario53:49Listen, I saw what they wrote. It was very basic. Like I remember looking at it going like, my God, this is so simple. Like we could do this.
Kyrill53:50What's?
Doug Darling53:53Yeah.
Kyrill53:58It's all packaging.
Doug Darling53:58There's a there's a good double episode. Yeah, not to talk about another podcast on your guys's podcast, which is awesome But to Bob I know two Bob says I think two two episodes about writing your own book and what you should and shouldn't do but nowadays Nowadays, it's it's it's kind of like this like entry-level thing that you have to do In fact, I think signing up for this thing before getting upset accepted They're like so have you written a book or are you writing a book? Like those were your two options. It wasn't like
Dario54:05Sacrilege.
Kyrill54:05It's all good.
Dario54:12really?
Kyrill54:26You're in the process immediately.
Dario54:26We had…
Doug Darling54:28There wasn't a third one. It's like, I guess I'm writing a book. All right.
Kyrill54:32Well, it's like, what are you gonna sell there? What are you gonna sell there otherwise, right? Cause that's like one of the quickest things to actually sell at these events. Like usually when you're speaking, you're pushing people to, there's a call to action usually, right? And the speaker's call to action is buy my book. You wanna learn more, buy my book. That's the thing, yeah.
Dario54:37Yeah.
Doug Darling54:37It… Yeah.
Dario54:47Hehehehe… Hehehehe…
Kyrill54:57alma mater.
Doug Darling55:04digital media entrepreneurship. And so actually I almost made that course and I actually kind of joked that all it was was cautionary tales of what not to do rather than what to do. That could be a book, right? It could be like, here's the things that you've learned. I could take the processes that we've done with Tripwire. can take the…
Kyrill55:43They're getting thinner. I've noticed a lot of like people who have written books and like they've, they've, went from like 400 to 300 to 200 and I'm seeing a hundred.
Doug Darling55:48Well…
Dario55:50It's cause chat GPT, it's cause chat GPT can only reply so much, Karel.
Kyrill55:54hahahaha
Doug Darling55:54Yeah, well, it's just like honestly like who reads through like I I've read enough of these enough of really actually very helpful books and by the time you get about halfway through it you're like I think I got it like there's just a lot of anecdotes or kind of like yeah, they're definitely fluffing it out. I will actually
Kyrill56:07Yeah. Fluff. Yeah.
Dario56:13It's not backed by anything either. Like a lot of the times it's just personal experience that they're going on. So you're like, this is not scientific. Like, you know, it's not like another book where they have like a science behind it and say, no, this is backed by data and everything. A lot of times just like, this is what I did.
Doug Darling56:18Yeah.
Kyrill56:20unless you're looking for like a perspective.
Doug Darling56:29Yeah.
Kyrill56:29But then again, we're also having this podcast where a lot of people share how they started their businesses, what worked for them, what worked for them. Doesn't mean it's gonna work for everyone else here, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Doug Darling56:36Yep.
Dario56:38No, but it's the way it's pitched, Kero, because all of these books, the way they pitch it is like, follow it and you will be successful. Just follow these steps. Our thing is just like, we're just having conversations. It's up to you to take what you want out of
Kyrill56:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Doug Darling56:45yeah, yeah. It's a… It's a… A lot of it can be snake oil. There are obviously some really great ones and they do actually back with science. There's a…
Dario57:29Haha.
Kyrill57:35Yeah.
Doug Darling57:57people do as entrepreneurs and one of the challenging things as an owner and as an entrepreneur is that our jobs are actually to focus on the bad, to find what's not working. And as a result, like a lot of entrepreneurs get depressed, whether it's because their companies aren't working or it's just, it's really hard. So if there's ways to help you hack your brain into finding the good, because I've had to do that through fit therapy, meditation, reading books, all that kind of stuff, I can come off very happy here, but man, what goes on in this brain sometimes,
Kyrill58:12Yeah.
Doug Darling58:27in the early mornings when you're just again on sales like nobody likes me. And it can get a little dark there. See, this is the therapy session we're doing, right? You guys still aren't recording, right?
Dario58:38I was gonna say He mentioned the mother he's depressed now he's Tony soprano, I'm telling you
Kyrill58:38Exactly, exactly. This is our ongoing unrecorded therapy session.
Doug Darling58:47And he over shares. Yeah.
Kyrill58:48There's a thing that it says here, for example, where it's like how a positive brain feels success in work and life, that's its whole motto. it's interesting you're mentioning about how you have to try to keep positive, especially in our industry where it can get very pessimistic. we've all seen it firsthand how people in the industry can get.
Dario58:49Hahaha
Kyrill59:10very pessimistic and very negative about the work in the industry that they're in. And once they start doing that, you see the business decline. Like you actually can see it decline from the sidelines. it's a shame because it's like, if only they did this, they would be doing really well or they just changed their.
Dario59:28We've seen it twice where they basically ended up closing the business shortly after. I'm not going to mention names with Carol, you know who I'm talking about.
Kyrill59:31Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've seen it happen.
Doug Darling59:31Yeah.
Kyrill1:00:01Yeah, right. Google rankings.
Dario1:00:01On Google. I'll tell you what he meant. On Google. He wanted to move up past them.
Doug Darling1:00:05Sure, anyways, we found out we were at the top of the list and so that was actually very flattering. But there is this like, I'll go online and I will admit, we all have like kind of, there's just times where because you're so competitive with yourself, you're trying to do your best and then you see, say another colleague, call it a competitor or another person in your market that are doing work.
Kyrill1:00:47Yeah.
Doug Darling1:00:59them publicly and just write like, this is amazing. And because it is, they've done a really good job. They're, they're doing the same thing we're trying to do. They're trying to do their best work. And then if I do decide to share it with the team, it's not like, look at what these guys are doing. How are they doing this? It's like, Hey guys, I really like their use of light in here. This makes me think of like something we could do, blah, blah, blah. And I'm pulling inspiration and trying to make ourselves better because that's the only way we are is we just learn from other people and inspiration, whether it's from someone in New York or it's someone who's a block away from us. We shouldn't have to.
Kyrill1:01:38Yeah.
Dario1:01:38Yeah.
Doug Darling1:01:45you know, gratitude for the things that we do have because rather than focusing on the things we don't, you don't want to be just someone who's happy with whatever on the other side. Happy go luckily. You need that that drive, that competition in you to, you know, I've really I heard this from like a CEO of actually a pretty big car manufacturer. And he's like, you know, the best the best CEOs are the ones who are never happy with themselves because they always continue to improve. And I'm like, that that is true and wildly depressing.
Kyrill1:02:11Yeah.
Doug Darling1:02:15Because you know that means you can never be happy. So it's like well, what's the point? So trying to find that balance and you know again I'll still have more of those moments and then I'll try to reframe them I'll allow for them to be you know, allow for that moment to you know, not just deny myself to say hey Yeah, you're going to feel jealous. You're going to feel insignificant But then you need to reframe that because if you're just gonna go down that hill Yeah, you're right. Like it's just gonna you're gonna compete for the wrong reasons. You're gonna do the wrong stuff you're gonna be terrible to be around and
Kyrill1:02:33Yeah.
Dario1:02:44Yeah.
Doug Darling1:02:45and you're not gonna grow and you're gonna get petty as well. I have to fight that as well, but yeah, so.
Kyrill1:02:51The pettiness is like the thing you have to always make sure you're catching yourself doing or catch yourself. Yeah.
Dario1:02:54Yeah.
Doug Darling1:02:54Yeah!
Dario1:02:56That type of mindset comes from the fact that you see someone doing something that… It comes from the fact that it's showing you that it is possible to achieve those goals. So hating on it gives you an excuse for not achieving them, you know? Because I find that in the past we kind of had that, it was because… But we dropped it quickly because we realized, hey, you know what? We're not giving it our full attention or our…
Doug Darling1:03:14Yeah.
Dario1:03:23are all right so once we started doing that we started seeing better results.
Doug Darling1:03:28It also like, it's a good reminder, like, you sometimes you also look at someone's stuff and you just go like, hey, that's really good. I wish we could do something as good as that. And you actually have to like look back at your own stuff. I remember sometimes if I felt a little down on the work.
Kyrill1:03:50Mm
Dario1:04:14best work too.
Doug Darling1:04:14LinkedIn.
Dario1:04:35Yeah.
Kyrill1:04:35Everyone's circumstances are different and it's like, think everyone is trying to kind of romanticize their situation to everyone else. And then sometimes people do get into that thing where it's like, not that you're jealous more so, but it's exactly what you described where you're kind of like feeling like, why am I not getting to that level? You know, like this, I'm clearly not good enough. Like you can easily go down that spiral. And the key thing is to catch yourself. I like what you do, which is celebrate it, especially if it's people you know.
Doug Darling1:05:14Yeah.
Dario1:05:25Mm-hmm. Yep.
Doug Darling1:05:26Yeah.
Kyrill1:05:28So it's not about the fact that it's not about external factors. It's putting the responsibility on you. know, like a lot of people try to kind of like put the responsibility on something else. It's like, it went off. The only reason we didn't get this is because they charged less money. External factors is just because they did this, they did this, the client did this. And it's like, sometimes a lot of that is a little bit true, but you can't completely dismiss yourself from responsibility. Ultimately, if you're doing…
Doug Darling1:05:29Yeah.
Dario1:05:37Yeah, exactly.
Kyrill1:05:57the type of work you want to be doing, it's all on you at that point, right? And like, if you're gonna wanna do those kinds of projects, you have to figure out a way to make it happen. And that's something that we always keep in the back of our minds. And then it's like, if we really wanna start doing that work, are we ready to do it? Let's do it or whatever, and we'll figure it out.
Doug Darling1:06:14Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it could be like a…
Dario1:06:16The leader bears responsibility at the end of the day. It's always going to be your fault things are going bad and it is going to be your fault if things go well as well, right? So you can't, I feel like you can't grow even as a business owner if you aren't willing to accept that because imagine you start growing, adding employees and then what? You're going to blame them for problems that at the end of day are yours? Like it doesn't make sense. That's why businesses like that fail at the end of the day.
Doug Darling1:06:19That's
Kyrill1:06:26It goes both ways.
Doug Darling1:06:30Yeah.
Kyrill1:06:43Yeah, when you're talking to a client and if one of your crew members makes a mistake, you know, one of them didn't hit record, knock on wood for our team members. Yeah, that's what I saying, everybody knock on wood, knock on wood. If a mistake happens in the business, you're the one ultimately responsible for it in the client's eyes. How is it gonna look to the client if you just try to throw one of your team members under the bus? It's like, this person's a shitty leader.
Doug Darling1:06:46Absolutely.
Dario1:06:54your jinx does cure all I gotta knock on wood to now.
Doug Darling1:06:57ha.
Dario1:07:10Yeah. Yeah.
Kyrill1:07:12You know, would much rather someone where they're like, we're so sorry about that, we made a mistake, this is what we'll do to rectify it, don't worry, we will adjust it, right? Like things happen, know, like mistakes happen and then if you fix it, the clients will be grateful for that because then they understand that you can recognize when a mistake has happened, you're able to own up to it, which a lot of the time, that's what people want. People want people to just simply take responsibility and own up to their mistakes, which.
Doug Darling1:07:14yeah.
Kyrill1:07:39Nobody does these days, I feel. know, like a lot of people don't do it.
Dario1:07:40Mm-hmm.
Doug Darling1:07:41There's such an opportunity when you make a mistake to actually better a relationship because if you own it, you own it quickly and you give them a plan on what you're gonna do and what you're gonna do might be just like fixing it, getting on top of it, still getting it to deadline, maybe it's a discount, maybe whatever and even just checking in with them, then they're gonna appreciate that and I always think way, way more than you try to go like, this guy really screwed up or it's not our fault and like you guys.
Kyrill1:07:47Exactly.
Doug Darling1:08:09Actually, well, we maybe did this, but you guys did this, like taking ownership and accountability, even when it's not personally, physically your fault, going like, well, they work for me, so I take accountability, because it goes up. There's a lot of character in that. And so we try to do that at all times. We don't want to over-apologize. I get guilty of that sometimes, where I'll just take the blame on something we truly didn't do. But it's also like, there's no winning and being right, right?
Kyrill1:08:13Yeah.
Doug Darling1:08:39We are filmmakers, yes. We are in customer service though. And I had a few people on my team who didn't really see the same as me and we then very much didn't agree on the things like if the client was late on a delivery, well, we had people on our team, well, they've lost their calendar. They've lost their schedule. Well, no, we can't do that because often the person that we're dealing with is not the one who's actually at fault for the thing happening. Our job is then to try and save.
Dario1:08:44right.
Doug Darling1:09:06or get it back on track. If we can't, then we'll talk to them about it. And we have enough of process now that we talk about like, here's what happens if you miss deadlines and stuff like that. Like we'll try and help, but after a certain point we can't. But like our job is to save the day whenever we can because we're in customer service. We are not just filmmakers because if we just said, sorry, you lost your deadline. Well, our person on the other side is now caught.
Kyrill1:10:14winning.
Doug Darling1:10:37one person telling me at NAB, it's like, hey, you hire a sound person, let's say for 250 bucks, and it's their second time, and then they don't record, or they screw up, or they mess up with an interview, for instance, versus the $500 person that you know for sure is gonna do it. Well, at the end of the day, was it worth saving that 250 bucks to put the entire project at risk? Well, if that screw up happens, yeah, that's your fault. You were being cheap.
Dario1:11:00Yep.
Doug Darling1:11:04So those types of things are worth considering, even though we're always looking at the bottom line and all that kind of stuff. Super fun, hey?
Dario1:11:11Hahaha.
Kyrill1:11:11But what people also need to remember, it's like when the one big benefit of you fixing a mistake that you made with a client is that one, you're gonna be building loyalty with them in the future and you're also giving them, which is the biggest thing, peace of mind in future projects. Because when you're working with someone, especially someone new, you're always trying to anticipate where a fuck up or a mistake might happen, right?
Doug Darling1:11:22percent.
Kyrill1:11:37and you're waiting for it to happen, you wanna know how they're gonna handle that, how they're going to push past it, right? Because then up until that point, you're kind of like, all right, they're doing good work, but you don't have always the peace of mind, right? This is how I feel sometimes when we're bringing on new editors or new shooters, we're just trying to kind of like feel them out with some smaller projects so that we can kind of understand their workflow, their whole process. And with clients,
Doug Darling1:12:01Yeah.
Kyrill1:12:02If you make a mistake and then you fix it, you've now given that client peace of mind on future projects where it's like, hey, if a mistake happens, Doug is gonna figure it out. Doug will figure it out, he will solve it. I don't have to worry because mistakes happen and sometimes clients, when mistakes happen, they feel like they have to, they're always gonna be the responsible ones to kind of figure it out. It's like, no, you're supposed to be that next point of contact that can help alleviate those challenges, know, solve that problem, you know.
Doug Darling1:12:57As I said, there's the opportunity to actually build the relationship, strengthen it. Hopefully it's not too massive a mistake that you're really, really screwed up and that one, you know, there's obviously different levels of, but.
Dario1:13:09There's a disclaimer to the I will accept responsibility for this.
Doug Darling1:13:13Yeah, well, or just like the, like, we didn't show up to her shoot kind of day thing or something like that and everyone is ready for you. That there are some ones that… Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but even then…
Kyrill1:13:13Yeah
Dario1:13:18Yeah.
Kyrill1:13:18Okay, that, yeah, that's not a mistake. That's negligence. There's different. Mistakes and negligence are different.
Dario1:13:24Negligence, that's right.
Doug Darling1:13:28Whatever the offset is and say it is a big mistake, then you better be prepared to own up that mistake in a bigger way than say, hey, we're going to be a half day behind, but I'm here to communicate with you that we are well in advance of that. That's a good example, right? A micro mistake. And I see this a lot, like whether stuff coming to me or coming to us, and I'm not saying we're perfect in it, but let's say the thing that you need to deliver a V1 cut of something on Thursday by four o 'clock.
Dario1:14:16Yeah.
Doug Darling1:14:26Well, that's not even that great, because they might actually be waiting for it they can send it to someone. So now they have to actually go, sorry, I thought I was getting it now, I'm not. So you either make them look dumb or incapable, whatever. Versus the day before where we go, hey, we're running late on this. Is this a problem or can we push it to Friday? That's such great customer experience. Most people 90 % of the time go, yeah, no problem, all good. Or they go like.
Dario1:14:31Yeah.
Doug Darling1:14:51we're really, really banking on this because we have to show it to these people and we told them we're getting it. Great, we'll work extra hard today. We'll do the overtime or whatever, we'll make it work. That is so much better. Either way that you've given them that communication. We have a rule and we're pretty good at it by now through our process, which is if you have to ask where something is at, then we have failed you. If you needed to know, hey, when are we getting this thing or where is it at even?
Kyrill1:15:14Yeah.
Doug Darling1:15:17It means that we haven't communicated our schedule properly or that we haven't given it to you mind you we do get the questions and like we very politely refer them to the schedule we sent that happens to but There's this idea of what is it? The tell them what time the three o 'clock train is like that's a it's a Disney thing I got that from Bill O 'Reilly actually or said Bill O 'Reilly. She's not Bill O 'Reilly Yeah, My gosh, can we edit this out?
Kyrill1:15:20Yeah.
Dario1:15:39we're gonna get cancelled now.
Doug Darling1:15:44I have a picture of him right there. Terry O 'Reilly, my gosh. Very different, very different version. he talks about like, just don't be like, as per my last email, blah, blah. So anyways, all that kind of stuff goes a long way. And you're building fans and you're building people who will either go to bat for you when maybe a new hire up on their side says, hey, we should.
Dario1:15:45I'm
Doug Darling1:16:10maybe look at working with these people instead. We have one client that we've gone through so many different.
Dario1:17:27Yeah, that's good. I'm taking that one.
Kyrill1:17:27Yeah.
Doug Darling1:17:36some expensive car, but let's say I'm a Honda pilot. drive a Honda pilot and you want to, you want the price of a Civic for it. Well, no, we, we offer more, so we need to be paid for more. So that, you know, the whole value conversation is something else, which is always fun. But yeah, it's just that those are the things that, that keep business strong, get strong. Yeah. I don't.
Dario1:17:52Should have chosen like Mercedes and like Civic. The pilot. I was like, the price difference is like, Mar –
Kyrill1:17:55I know you went from Honda to Honda and I'm what? Like 5,000.
Doug Darling1:18:00No, no. Civic and Pilot, I'm in the Honda family. I'm just keeping it within the…
Dario1:18:04I'm looking at the Civic hybrid lately and that thing's like almost 50. Like it's wild.
Doug Darling1:18:10Yeah, but like you're just building relationships nothing works better and like cold calling and all that kind of biz dev stuff the best thing that works is people who go to bat for you the people who refer you or even like
Kyrill1:18:12I don't know why I'm
Doug Darling1:18:25You got someone at maybe a lower rung of the company at the beginning and they don't have a lot of sway. Well, they will at the next company that they go to and they will grow and they'll become marketing directors and CEOs or presidents. like, you're just, it's just relationships and it's being good with those relationships that that's what gets you. That's what keeps you in business and gets you working with people that you want to. We have people who just swear by working with us and they will go to bat for us and do testimonials for us and all that kind of stuff.
Kyrill1:18:33Yeah.
Doug Darling1:18:55That is the best biz dev.
Kyrill1:19:10Yeah.
Dario1:19:28On that note, we should end the show. I've been standing up for an hour and 20 minutes. My back hurts. I think it's time to end it.
Doug Darling1:19:31We've covered everything! What?
Kyrill1:19:41Yeah.
Dario1:19:46You
Kyrill1:19:58Yeah, standing is good for a little bit.
Doug Darling1:19:58Alright, well then I'll let you go. Yeah, I hear that. Anytime.
