Episode 13
The Business Skills Creatives Overlook (ft. By The Booth)
Garus Booth and James Murday come from By The Booth, a Toronto animation and motion graphics studio that Garus founded in 2003 to turn clients’ stories into animation, motion graphics, and live action. Garus is the founder and creative lead, and James joined to run marketing and new business, which makes the two of them a useful illustration of a lesson a lot of creative founders learn the hard way: the person who makes the work is rarely the best person to sell it.
In this early episode of Creatives Grab Coffee, Garus and James join Dario and Kyrill to talk about the business side of a creative company. They get into the business skills most creatives overlook, why delegation and hiring for the skills you lack beats trying to be a one person band, how By The Booth turned its own live show into an outreach engine, and why an animation-first model let the studio work with talent around the world and keep going through the 2020 pandemic with barely a change to its process.
Key Takeaways
- Selling is a skill, not an afterthought. Most creatives do not know where to start with selling their services, and treating sales as a real discipline rather than a chore is the first step toward a healthier business.
- You cannot be a one person band forever. Doing sales, accounting, and the creative work yourself has hard limits, so the smarter move is to find people who are genuinely good at the things you are not.
- Hire for the gap you feel most. Garus knew he needed someone with sales and business management experience, which is exactly why James joined the team.
- Turn outreach into content. By The Booth built its own live show to interview creatives, entrepreneurs, and business professionals, turning networking into a repeatable content and outreach engine.
- An animation model travels well. Because the work is animation-first, By The Booth can collaborate with creatives anywhere, including partners based in Europe, not just Toronto or Canada.
- Remote-friendly work is resilient work. That same remote animation process meant the pandemic barely touched how By The Booth operates, while many production companies had to rethink everything.
Selling Creative Work Is Its Own Skill
The team at By The Booth was candid about the business skills that most creatives are missing. Making great work is one thing, but selling it is another, and most people who start a creative company do not know where to begin. Trying to be a one person band, handling the sales, the accounting, and the creative all at once, only takes you so far. Garus was clear that he needed someone with real sales and business management experience, which is exactly why James came on board. It is the same realization behind putting a price on creative work, developing real sales strategies, and building a team around your gaps instead of trying to cover everything yourself.
The By The Booth Live Show
One of the more interesting moves By The Booth made was to turn its outreach into a product of its own. Garus and James created the By The Booth Live Show, where they interview and chat with other creatives, entrepreneurs, and business professionals. It doubles as content and as a networking engine, a way to build relationships in public rather than cold emailing into the void, which is one of the more durable new ways to generate leads a small studio can lean on.
Animation, Remote Work, and a Global Team
By The Booth built its business around animation content, and Garus and James explained how that choice shaped everything else. Animation lends itself to consistent work and, crucially, to remote collaboration. That means the studio is not limited to hiring in Toronto or even Canada, some of the creatives they work closely with are based in Europe. An animation-first model, and a clear animation production process, makes working as a distributed, fully remote team far more natural than it is for a traditional live-action shop.
How Animation Made 2020 Easier
That remote-first setup turned out to be a quiet advantage when the pandemic arrived. While most production companies had to overhaul their in-person practices, By The Booth barely had to change its creative process at all, because so much of it already happened at a distance. It is a small preview of the lessons the industry would take from those years: the businesses built to work remotely were the ones that kept moving when everything else stopped.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are Garus Booth and James Murday?
Garus Booth is the founder and executive creative director of By The Booth, a Toronto animation studio he started in 2003. James Murday joined as VP of Marketing and Business Development to lead sales and new business.
What is By The Booth?
By The Booth is a Toronto animation and motion graphics studio founded in 2003. The team turns clients’ ideas and stories into animation, motion graphics, and live action, and works with creative talent around the world. Site: bythebooth.com.
What business skills do creative founders overlook?
In this episode the main one is selling, plus knowing when to delegate. Rather than being a one person band, the advice is to hire people who are strong in sales, accounting, and the areas you are not.
What is the By The Booth Live Show?
A show Garus and James created as part of their outreach and content plan, where they interview and chat with creatives, entrepreneurs, and business professionals.
How did an animation studio handle the 2020 pandemic?
Because By The Booth’s animation-first process is already remote-friendly and works with a global team, the studio did not have to change its creative process much when the pandemic hit.
The Hosts
Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov are the co-founders of Lapse Productions, a Toronto video production company, and the hosts of Creatives Grab Coffee, a weekly show about the business of video production.
About
Creatives Grab Coffee is a podcast about the business behind video production: sales, strategy, pricing, team building, and everything that happens off camera. New episodes every week on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Lapse Productions is a Toronto-based video production company serving tech, finance, healthcare, and manufacturing clients with corporate, promotional, event, and testimonial video. New to commissioning video? Start with our guide to the types of corporate video.
By The Booth is a Toronto animation and motion graphics studio founded by Garus Booth in 2003. The team turns clients’ ideas and stories into animation, motion graphics, and live action, collaborating with creative talent around the world. Learn more at bythebooth.com.
