How to Build Relationships & Manage Budgets (ft. Offbeat Films)

This transcript was auto-generated from the episode’s YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. It is not speaker-attributed and may contain small errors. For chapter deep-links into the video, use the Timestamps section above.

0:01guys hello we're alive so kind of continuing into our uh into our journey into the us today we have offbeat Seattle which is a seattle-based video production company that focuses on a what was it authentic human voice on the authentic human voice welcome Thomas thank you yeah I'm excited to be here I I have I'm curious am I the first American interview that you have or second second second you're the second that's why you said we're continuing the journey we're we're slow we're slowly making our way uh through the us right now see if you didn't cancel your original uh recording date then you would have been the first but ah dang it

0:41dang it so gotta I gotta fill the shoes of whoever went first uh I was actually curious uh about like that little description uh on your company I'm like what does it mean by specializing in the authentic human voice like uh let us know for our listeners yeah I think it's funny because we're actually going through kind of a brand um revamp at the moment trying to better communicate to people who visit our website or really anybody um what it is that we do and kind of the type of work that we do um but I would say that's just kind of the type of work that we are passionate

1:13about and so what we the type of projects that we love to do um specialize in in bringing out the human voice usually has like one character one person that's a real person out in the Wilds that we tell their story and we we pride ourselves on being able to get to know that person and tell their authentic story um rather than just kind of showing up on shoot day you know getting whatever we get and then leaving and never seeing them again um you know we try to build a relationship and get to know them and so that we can justify their story with with the product that we make so this is

1:51something that you kind of uh do uh with like your corporate clients or is this something kind of like more so in like the documentary realm or in more creative type projects yeah I mean I think a little bit of all the above um I think there's obviously like all production companies out there there's there's kind of a lot of the work that you do that's not as um maybe glamorous or or we call it cutting the grass you know you maybe you have to do internal corporate work or stuff like that that helps pay the bills but that's the type of work we we try to pursue I would say and and the projects whether it's a corporate client or a non-profit or even narrative work

2:30um that's the type of stuff we we pursue to to do but it's not the only work we do I think there's still kind of other stuff we just don't put that stuff on our website as much right I I love all these different analogies that companies from different parts of the world have like yours was cutting the grass type it's a new one for us right it's just the mundane stuff that you're not you know you gotta do it you know you got to get the grass cut but maybe it's not your favorite thing to do I like on your website you have a section called the voices and that's where you're really putting a good chunk of the uh what do you call that documentary style of video right can you tell us a

3:08bit about that yeah I think I appreciate you saying that because we actually get a lot of feedback on that with people who find us uh just on Google or you know not meeting us first just finding us randomly they talk about that voices page which I think is a really strong page for us to share a little bit about who we are and a little bit about what we care about so I think that that we created that because of what I've been saying like we're passionate about um telling those types of stories and and being authentic with the type of work that we do um so that's why we created this page and we're like hey let's let's talk

3:43about the voices and and how we value everybody's voice but also the different ways a voice can impact a life you know like singing or maybe they're telling a joke or um you know you know talking about a trauma traumatic past that they have it can be powerful and impactful in so many different ways and it's just one person's voice so that's kind of why we created that page and we want to keep that theme going and this new revamp um hopefully in the next couple months we'll be relaunching our website with even more of that type of stuff you know what I also like about that page is that each one is sponsored by different companies so you did the genius thing of doing like a passion project but also

4:22getting paid for doing it which I totally that's that's a goal right like how did you pull that off absolutely the goal I think that's that continues to be the goal uh as much as we can it's funny because a lot you know a lot of uh the first projects we get now we've been in existence for about six years 2017 was when we we started um so back then it wasn't like we were getting you know bigger corporate clients so we would do smaller non-profit work or small businesses and budgets were embarrassingly low but part of our strategy back then was hey let's take on all the work that we can and and create the type of work that we want especially because if it's a low budget

5:05thing you might have a little bit more creative say um with the client so we kind of started there and then it was because we made those that corporate clients would see the work um and say you know Alaska Airlines as an example they're they're a big Airlines uh here that is headquartered in Seattle and they saw a project that we did for a non-profit called Assistance League we probably did that project for a thousand dollars you know it wasn't much maybe it maybe it paid for all of the things that we needed to get the job done um but they saw that and they actually literally said we saw that project and that's why we want to choose you uh

5:45because you have the ability of telling an emotional story um and then we got to partner with them and do this great you know kind of campaign of multiple videos and multiple cities across the country um so it's funny you know the work that you can put in for even if it's little to no pay can can pay off on the back end if people see it and like it I love the strategy that you had in mind with these smaller projects from the very gecko because a lot of companies and a lot of people that kind of jump into this industry they take on whatever work they can and they're also kind of also trying

6:17to figure out what what they want to do as they go at least like for us that's kind of like how it was when we began with the smaller projects we see what the asks are yeah we were able to be a bit more creative in certain aspects but you guys are already thinking talking from a strategy perspective at that point was there like did you guys have a lot of experience going into it as you started the production company or was it kind of like you started the production company as you're getting into the industry yeah I mean that's a good question because I think we were really young we started uh we we started

6:50probably two or three years after graduating from uh College we went to school here in the state of Washington at Gonzaga University I don't know if you're familiar with that the basketball team is their kind of what they're known for but uh we spent about two and a half three years in the industry separately my business partner nice who I'm talking about Danny is his name separately you know I was in Dallas Texas he was in St Louis Missouri and we worked for production companies in those places and kind of got to take things in and learn um but when we started we were pretty young so I wouldn't even say we had even honestly hindsight being 2020 looking

7:31back I I kind of wish we spent more time in the industry before we started to learn more because we've learned so much over these last couple years that I wish we knew but you know that's kind of life in general but I do think when we were starting out we did understand that you know our strategy needs to be to create as much as we can in the type of things that we want to get hired for we were also young enough to not have too much responsibility so I think that's important too like we didn't have families or a mortgage or anything like that so it's like it's okay to you know scrape by for now obviously we don't

8:09want that to be the forever but if the next year or two is like that then that's okay as long as it again it kind of works out in the end so so far so good but I would also say you know you throw in a global pandemic and that kind of shake things up at least a little um in terms of having to adjust but you know everyone out there relates to that yeah it's not like it was a unique situation to everyone everyone had to kind of figure out how to how to move past it and now now that we're kind of like past that point it's almost like what have we like learned over the last

8:40few years how can we change how can we adapt how can we Rebrand and as you mentioned you guys are doing the same thing now with your kind of like voices idea at the Forefront of it right yeah and I think you're you're totally right like it's a matter of it's always going to be adaption and and change and and and um thankfully humans are really good at that but yeah I'm curious to hear from you all you know when you started uh lapse did you have any sort of similar strategy or did you go in with a lot of experience as well or was it similarly like we don't really know what we're doing but we're gonna do it either way

9:11the that last part exactly what you just said there yeah I mean when we first started it was really just us kind of like freelancing to be honest like uh we've talked about this on the podcast before where up until the pandemic it was almost as if we were just two Freelancers working together on a lot of things we were still kind of learning the industry kind of like as you said you know how you said um you wish you were in the industry a little bit longer before you started the company we had the company name but it was like we were freelancing and being in the industry within that time frame at least for

9:43about six years because we started it while we were still in University not really knowing that this was even a potential to actually be making money right because we started the company in 2014. that wasn't really like a lot of independent production companies were not it wasn't a thing back then I've often wondered what would have happened if uh we like you were saying Thomas what if we spent the first couple years just maybe working more so as Freelancers instead of starting the company and I've often wondered if that would have been a better uh

10:15better uh course of action for us and I don't I don't think it would have helped in anything aside from maybe just improving your technical skills when you're filming because it won't teach you about the business side of things unless you go work for someone else so if you went and worked like under another video production company then you would have learned how they operate and everything but you would have had to work on the back end not so much the the on the front end or like the shooting side right so completely agree yeah I know oh go ahead I was just gonna say I never thought of it like that where if we ended up doing that Dario that we wouldn't have really learned too much the business skills side of things or at

10:53least it would have come in a different form but definitely not in the perspective of trying to keep that mindset of like starting something yourself right yeah maybe if we did go that route maybe we never would have actually started a production company or even this podcast yeah I think there's there's certainly aspects that you grow from when your backs are against the wall right like when you're trying to figure things out and you don't have an instruction manual in front of you there's incredible growth that happens and lessons that are learned that you might not get if you're working as an employee or if you're working you know um and not to say that as an employee

11:31that that's a failure or anything like that it's it's just different and I think that the lessons you learn I remember I was trying to decide should I go to business school and get you know an MBA uh before we start this company um and someone gave me the advice of you know what you're going to learn in the first year of owning a company is so much more than what you would learn getting an MBA now obviously having a degree is nice if you want to go work for a company and have the MBA to help you get promotions and stuff but if your actual goal is to just own a company um he was like go start a company and learn as you go because you're going to have the lessons and you're and you're

12:13not gonna have to pay for a degree so anyway I I did obviously take that route and and I agree with that you learn a lot of the business um as you go along and you just figure it out a trial and error right what they teach you in school is the experiences

12:28of a lot of bigger companies or or larger experiences older experiences for companies that are of the size and magnitude that would not even apply to you maybe there are some small business lessons here and there but you won't really understand it until you actually apply it to yourself into your own business that's why it's all trial and error not for just to see if these principles work in general but if they work for you and your business specifically because well my work for one company does not necessarily always work for another company right totally like totally you want to know a good

13:00analogy for that is basically school is teaching you is trying to teach you about how to treat an elephant by teaching you how mammoths lived because like half the time everything is so out of date like right by the time it gets to you it's like that was like yesterday's news even my professors were saying like yeah probably what I what we're learning in this class today is going to be outdated within three to four years and I'm like so thank you thank you you know what I always found funny is that our school had an entrepreneurship program and I always thought that was the silliest thing because you can't teach it you either have it or you don't and if you have it you shouldn't be in that class and it's like

13:38the only person I should be teaching that class should be someone that is like an ex-business owner but if you're an ex-business owner I hope you sold it at a good price and not you kind of like abandoned it I think there are ways you can hone certain skills but I think you're right it is natural it has to be live within you because that's the only way that that heart beats is is and keeps you moving forward is the passion and the spirit that you have there are certainly ways that you can like hone skill sets or understand better you know business strategies but I agree that it's it's not really a teachable um in nature it's just more of like a teachable like certain little skill sets

14:18that are teachable um I'm curious there are two from you guys like one of our strategies that we'd started doing during the pandemic and have actually

14:26continued to do is um we have our company we have offbeat films that we you know preferences that we're getting hired by companies um directly with us to create the project from start to finish you know we want to be involved in the pre-production we want to be involved in the post-production you know some we do sometimes get hired to just do production or just do editing and those are great too um but you know offbeat wants to try to get clientele however in order to kind of address the issue that we're talking about in terms of experience before we started our company another thing that

15:04we do is we take on jobs as individuals outside of offbeat you know so I take on there's still freelancing then we freelance right so I take on jobs as a producer whether that's a line producer or producer or a production manager whatever it might be Danny takes on jobs either as a cinematographer or a camera operator he also does Steadicam so he does Steadicam operation jobs and what we have found we started doing that during the pandemic mostly because of we needed more income as individuals so we found that you you meet a lot of people you make a lot of connections with other crew members uh

15:43in in town so that that helps us you learn a lot you know you you can see uh sets that maybe you you wouldn't have had an opportunity to be on you know I've I've been able to be on 60 person sets for commercials or for uh TV shows or whatever it might be because of that so I we're both able to bring that experience back to offbeat and it helps we believe it it also helps our company move forward there's obviously a time management you know or deal with that and figuring out how do you commit to something else if you're also wanting to commit to your company so there's there's always that tension but I would advise that for folks I don't know if you all have done that before

16:22but it's it's it works that I I was wondering about the time management because how would you because you're going to take away from one one or the other right so how do you manage that but what are what is your process for that yeah that's obviously inevitable you know if you're giving your time to one thing you're you're inevitably giving taking away time from something else well it comes with really the the main thought of of kind of Roi in a way you know is it worth our time to take time away from offbeat and gain whatever it is that we're gaining um to bring it back so we've we've kind of set the standard of If all we're getting hired to do is a money making

17:01gig that doesn't teach us anything we've now gotten to the point where we don't do that anymore we did during the pandemic again because because of income needs we needed to just survive but now we're like if it's if it's just like a three-day shoot and you're sitting pressing record and and it's an interview like Danny you're not taking that job or or with me if it's like a little shoot that that's not going to teach you anything we need you to be focused on speed however if it's an opportunity that is going to teach you something or or give you more connections or resources learn about

17:34things we find that to be advantageous for offbeat we're like that is a worthwhile investment of our time with the one rule of being you know you got to get your offbeat done first like that still comes a priority that means staying up late after set to answer emails or whatever you know you got to get that done you got to get your your together for offbeat um as a priority but if that makes sense like if it's gonna bring benefits to the company then it is worth the investment of that time um but it's you know at this point it's not every single project that is worth that time so it just depends how often do you do that then is it the is it

18:14pretty often or just a very blue moon I would say it's you know it it depends as everything does but I would say you know I just did in January I actually did two projects um I produced a Pokemon commercial uh and a Microsoft commercial both in the same month which was great because offbeat didn't have major projects going on in January but with that said I probably hadn't done something like that in six months so like it can come out of nowhere and and happen fast but also it's not like necessarily like oh yep every month we're doing something and I would say Danny's probably more often than I am just because his

18:54um what he brings the tables is easier to hire you know it's easier to hire like a camera op or a Steadicam op than it is to get a producer obviously a producer takes more time or it just depends on the project but but yeah I would say it's common enough but it's not necessarily all the time yeah I mean to answer your question that's basically what Dario and I did for so many years where we were just mostly freelancing and then occasionally we would do uh projects under the lapse name for right a few years and then after the pandemic and we uh where we started to focus more on the businesses itself we have that same philosophy very similar where where we'll take on other projects

19:33depending on what they might be how much time commitment they are um and go ahead and do it as long as you're able to get the other work that's necessary done uh to kind of keep uh everything consistent and moving forward it's decreased a lot though we don't really do that too much like especially now considering we're getting like a where I mean we're salaried at this point so it's like we owe our allegiance to one end and that's the goal yeah right like that's the goal that you I think that we have too is to get to that point it's like you're doing this to

20:03gain experience and to gain you know credibility in your city and things like that but eventually you just want to be under lapse Productions or you just want to be under offbeat films and everyone's coming to you because they know you and they trust you and all that so that I would say that like that is the goal but for folks out there who are kind of starting out or earlier side I would say I would advise doing that because there are benefits to it as long as you're able to manage the time there are a lot of benefits to it I mean for sure especially like you were saying you were on a set with like 60 people it's going

20:36to be a while before Kyrill and I get one of those projects under our belt like through lapse so it's like it's good if you have that experience going into it because you will learn a lot of invaluable skills like going back to when we were freelancing there were definitely quite a few jobs where it was like whoa okay this is this is cool I wouldn't have gotten this on my own just yet right but you do learn a lot freelancing but again it's always from like the technical and and again depending where you go in but it's always on the production side there's always the post and the pre that are like

21:08I mean now we're really curious about what really happens in those stages because we're going through it ourselves and like every project you get you're learning one little thing here one little thing there but it'd be great if we're also able to get into those uh those parts of the production process but you can obviously because you'd have to be a part of that company to your point also is that because you're freelancing and working with all these other production companies and all these other different type of even small scale projects because we also do so many of those or like because we did so many of

21:39those we got very comfortable with that kind of scale of project as well and understanding what is needed to go into it it's like okay say you did a lot of corporate promotional videos where it was like a crew of three to five people and you did like say 10 freelance gigs that year you have 10 gigs of experience that you can bring to the table when you have your own project and say something like that comes through the door it's like oh I know exactly what's going to go into this uh this is probably how big of a group but again as Dario mentioned that's more so on the production inside there's still other elements on the pre-production on the post that need to

22:12be determined as well but you know as you mentioned the more and more you you put yourself out there in the beginning the more experience you will get and apply it later I think it also depends on what you want to you know I I you can be a video production company where your what you are selling is simply the production right like that is that can be your business model and that can work great you know we are a company that supplies you know crew members and gear to execute your X's and O's of your project and you go to agencies and you know you try to get clients that way and they they hopefully come to you they're doing all the creative work

22:52um and you're just kind of executing the logistics um you know and that's a great business model and I think you know we do that at from time to time but I would also say what we do is we we try to kind of be that agency at times too like we want to be a part of the creative we want to have those discussions and um come up with you know a script or um you know the storyboard or things like that uh just because that's what we're interested in and that's kind of where we're headed but that doesn't mean you you have to do that but I'd be curious you know for perhaps or do you what do what do you feel like you get more of do you get more of like through and through

23:29client is working with you from start to finish or more hey we need you to go shoot this project and someone else will edit it and someone else will do the Creative and you know what do you guys deal with more often I think it's about 75 to 75 percent where we handle all the way from Farm to Table so from ideation all the way to the final product and then 25 where we're hired just to do the production yeah it it varies but uh the one good thing about doing everything from start to finish from pre-production to post there's more longevity to the business when you when you go that route

24:08because then you're not uh you're basically working with the client directly and you're developing personal business relationships at that point I find that if you go with the direction of uh just sub simply supplying production you get into a into a completely different uh business model than compared to the other one because in that point you're just selling production which is a lot of the time is just simply crew equipment um like pretty in a way standardize things right and sometimes it's just a matter of uh price matching even with other not price matching I don't know if that's the right word but it's like um it's all about price at that point as well I mean it's kind of different

24:50because like the one like that 25 I mentioned it's literally like other production companies most of the time now that get in touch with us so it's it's like a whole different Ballpark and that you can say Kyrill that's still a relationship that you'll develop with that production company so it'll still be there as long as you do good work you'll still be the go-to right that's true it's a different type of relationship building that you're essentially doing right um because like working with another production company it's basically one point of contact but you're dealing with maybe a lot of different types of Brands and companies whereas when you're

25:28dealing with clients directly it's individual relationships with individual Brands and companies so yeah I feel like with any business uh or whatever Direction you take like you have to figure out what what works for you how is the time management aspect uh uh going to be for you as a company and for you personally what type of work do you prefer working what type how many relationships do you want to be juggling at the same time because sometimes that's a big issue if you're dealing with 10 calls a day from 10 different people it could be easier for someone to just be dealing with maybe two or three

26:01calls a day from someone so it it's a unique situation for everyone well relationships are I mean everything right I mean that's that's kind of yes

26:11you're selling video production or you're selling um you know these services but really at the end of the day what you're really selling is uh yourself and like if do people like working with you because we have to be honest too there's a lot of people who can get this job done right there's a lot of people who can get the job done well um and make it look pretty or make it look a certain way or feel a certain way but really you know the secret sauce is you know does your client uh like do you guys like working together or or even your crew members that we we really care a lot about treating our crew members

26:45well but also having a relationship there because you know sometimes you run into crew members that are just grumpy or or jaded or whatever it might be and that's fine I get it I get why there's there's um complaints or issues with this particular industry especially in a city that doesn't get a lot of like fulfilling work it gets a lot of corporate work um and corporate work can be fulfilling but you know what I mean like narrative work I'll take all but I'm just saying you know we we choose our crew members based on those relationships as well and like are they gonna be coming to set with a good attitude

27:24um you know are they going to represent our company well in front of the client things like that but relationships are so important in any business and also I was also going to comment on you're talking about time management with clients that's something I'm realizing now is I've built this relationship with so many clients in the past that are super meaningful and you know I care a lot about because we've done projects with them but they're also like non-profits or small businesses or things you know they don't have the same budgets that we're trying to move forward getting so now it's this time management of like

27:59okay I'm trying to create new relationships with with new people that potentially can bring us bigger budgets or bigger projects but also caring about and maintaining relationships with with some other clients but then you start getting time sucked away doing other smaller jobs with some of your past clients so it's this interesting kind of moral dilemma obviously you know what we want to do is is be there for people we don't want to just be like oh we're too big for that now or anything like that so we do continue to stick with these people but I do find myself seeing like oh man I'm

28:30spending a lot of time um working for this client that that doesn't have as much resources as as we would prefer remember have you thought about recommending them to another company well we what I usually do is we're so we're expanding um you know so we have more people on our team that I just get them involved so it's like hey let's try to have this seamless transition of you're still with offbeat I'm still gonna be here I'm still gonna be in these meetings but they're going to spearhead the project right like they're gonna produce what you're trying to make um and we've just started doing that I would say in the last six months to a

29:07year year of trying to to do that it used to be me producing everything that we make but now it's like okay we're busy enough we have enough clientele to where I don't have the time to do that which is good but you know you want to have the right person handling it that's still respects that relationship and things like that so that's kind of the way we're approaching it now and hopefully can continue to approach it that way as as we scale good thing that you're doing is that you're finding an alternative value to that relationship which I think is really great because it's very difficult to be able to do

29:40something like that with past relationships because one thing we've learned is that it's okay to sometimes outgrow past clients because that happens with every business you know that's just how it is sometimes uh values change budgets change resources change time Personnel right Personnel changes time management changes you know like things change constantly and I can completely understand where it's like you know like somebody you you've known for like half a decade you know they call every once in a while sure they may not have as like as much budget as the types of projects you do now but

30:15um if you have the time maybe you can find an alternative like you have done which is great helping teach other people within your team how to do it the way that you do it so that you can get them ready for the bigger projects down the road so it it's every situation is unique and I just think it's really great what you've done there oh I was going to say that I I think it also is important to keep in mind like fulfillment and you know because because I really I do think obviously running a business in a big reason to run a business is to to make a living right like that's that's a huge part of it but I do find fulfillment to be incredibly important because we work in a a business that you

30:54can actually have a lot of that like you can do things that you really care about and again I don't think everything you do is gonna it's not possible to always be like this is so fulfilling everything I do but I do think whether it's creatively fulfilling or you know on a personal relationship level it's like yeah this isn't going to pay the bills like we wanted to but it's for a really good cause or it's going to help a lot of people um I absolutely take that into account too because it it helps you feel proud of what you're doing and feel good about what you're doing and we have a industry

31:27that we can you know we're creatives right like this isn't life or death uh this isn't being a doctor or anything like that it's like we we get to like make cool things and and have fun while we do it and that's important to remember too I think yeah and tell stories uh I was gonna one thing I was gonna mention is that every client there's like a natural life cycle for a client I've noticed like we sat down last week and we listed out all the clients we've had since we started and then you know time we we started working with them and then time where it kind of just fizzled out and it was pretty interesting to see that our current roster of clients are all from

32:07just before the pandemic but not before like 2019. so it's like everyone we've had is like 2019 to 2023. 2019 at the earliest and that's just a handful they normally don't last but again also it's also because we were growing so back then we weren't charging a lot so we quickly outgrew them and now we're dealing with bigger clients and we've noticed that the relationships that we're developing right now we can see them being more longer in term than the ones earlier on but if I look back at those earlier on clients like we just wouldn't be able to even take them on unless we take a hit so I always try to look at the dollar amount because when you're running a

32:45business everything has a dollar amount attached to it like you sending out an email that costs a certain amount of money because you're spending time crafting it so if you spend 15 minutes writing it out and then finalizing it 30 minutes what's your hourly well it's half of that hourly right so I think you just have to sometimes take a look at what the cost of keeping that client is versus finding someone else and compare it to you know what they're even bringing in and then just make a decision based on that but it's good to do it like for you you're looking for that fulfillment aspect as well

33:18so I think in that sense it works because you're like okay I'm getting some content that makes me feel good that I can Showcase in my portfolio that I think is fine because that's what we're doing as well with certain clients like uh there's some projects we take on even now where we'll do them at a little less than what we quoted just so we get the client on because maybe there's like a cool product that's being showcased in that video and I I tell Kyrill hey we need more product videos so we got to take this one on you know there's like a purpose to to what we're why we're doing it totally always yeah I think it's really important to always keep the there's there's so much more that can

33:56come out of it than simply a bottom line you know if it's hey this might not be high paying for this project but is this potential lead gonna lead to a lot more work down the line you know that's something to consider or is this particular project that we're getting hired to do can we put like you said put that on our portfolio and get hired at other bigger companies to do that same thing you know I think that's always really really important to consider um you know when you're you're taking on jobs even as a freelancer I would say even if you're not a business owner I

34:29think I keep that in mind as a freelancer it's like hey is this just a one-off gig that is not going to bring much to me okay maybe I don't need to do it but hey is this a relationship that I could potentially have with Microsoft or with whomever it might be that can bring more work in the future you know that's just a important thing to to consider and maybe it's okay to get paid a little less up front um if it hopefully means a relationship moving forward this pretty much only works I think when you're early in the business development process like you know I consider us

35:03early I think you're in the same boat as us so we're the business is more flexible to be uh trying out new things and testing out new new methods right versus like I think when you're a bigger more established business like you're just not that flexible you have to really do think about it in terms of what the cost is right so and then because by that point you already have a portfolio anyways you've done everything I'm assuming by that point to get to that stage so you're like okay well it has to make sense on a dollar amount also because the bigger your business grows the

35:36the more management you have to get yourself involved in anyway so you'll be probably more detached from the creative and the shooting and more so just

35:45running offbeat Seattle right the the thing is the second you start uh bringing in uh once you start hiring people and being responsible for other people that's when you start to have a bigger focus on the on the dollar amount and Dario and I haven't hired uh anyone full-time other than ourselves putting us on salary forced us to even look at the dollar amount even more so that's a big step yeah that's a really big step yeah yeah I I totally agree once you start putting other people's livelihoods uh in your hands it's like okay now we really do um not that you know our livelihoods don't matter but it's like yeah you really have to pay attention to uh those

36:25numbers to make sure you can supply them because you're responsible for other people yeah at that point and you want to do good by them it's terrifying too because we're the same we haven't we have an intern that we pay hourly and then in the past we've hired um a friend of ours who she didn't work on a salary she worked basically here in the states we call it 1099 like a contract worker but was here pretty much full time um so we've never hired a salaried position yet to this to this day and that's because it's um one we haven't been ready for it but two it's it's terrifying it's like oh my gosh once once that happens it's it's real it's an

37:03it's hopefully this the next step we take but it is um it does bring some some fears for sure uh that'll probably keep me up at night maybe when you're not no longer terrified about it then maybe that's when you're actually ready to bring on people because when you realize hey uh we have this amount of work coming in and we need someone to help us uh work through these through these projects at least for a year then you then that might be the point where where you might be ready like Dario and I are right now looking for that moment where it's like okay when it when is that gonna be not

37:35yet okay let's see what happens in the next few months who knows right right playing it very safe I don't want to like rush into it I feel like the first one is going to be the hardest one to figure out yeah and then after that'll be easier but and that personality matters too of who that person is and like you know you you've you've both built trust within each other and and you can operate as a business you know Danny and I are the same like we trust each other we understand how we operate but once you bring you know a third full-time member into that it's like okay how are how are they going to respond and we're boss is you know

38:07that's a little bit different than like a 50 50 relationship it's like no technically we we have the say but we want to value your opinion you know it's kind of there's a lot that goes into it um that that we're I have a question for you all though and this might be a little bit of a vulnerable question but what would you say is like you're as a company your biggest weakness or or area that you need help in that you want to be able to hire someone to support oh that's a good one hmm that's a good one yeah because I mean right now whenever I you know what maybe animation would be something that would be good to kind of think about down the road but animator like getting into the

38:49animation world is is tricky and um it's it's a little bit of a niche compared to regular editing you know it's a lot easier to to hire out um editors for like live action type projects than say uh animation and like we have we've worked with some great animators uh on on a few projects but again it's only a small portion of our business and I don't think that's a good I don't know yeah like I don't know if we would really it's hard as an animator well no because animators you're they're what if they look for a different style you're still gonna have to find someone else that can do yeah that's yeah it's it's too it's too specialized of a job to be able to hire someone that's more

39:29General yeah I'm gonna tell you what really eats up a lot of my time at least as all the communication stuff like even

39:38just right like writing up the contract and getting it right right at the end right yeah I've noticed that too lately it does heat up but it eats up a good chunk of my day I gotta say because yeah I've noticed that sometimes we start a week out with like a list of tasks to do a lot of us just like stuff no no a lot of the a lot of the comes up and that's the issue right where it's like sometimes you you have to like say get some pieces of marketing content created get it out there start promoting or start working on some creative for a few different projects then a client calls it's like

40:12hey there's this happening um are we able to do something here or if another one is like hey like uh uh we're good to go on this project uh what are the details like there's so many things that could just pop up out of nowhere that it could eat your time throughout that day and all those other tasks no longer you can like you have to push it right and I think honestly if I had a secretary I would be way more productive well it I'm I'm super impressed because you guys got in about five minutes what took us like six months to figure out which was we were trying you know when we were we've been talking about like okay who's our first hire gonna be what what skill sets are

40:52they gonna bring what do we really need and you know we're like creative director or producer or you know we kind of thought of all these different uh kind of almost onset or project by project positions that we were like could bring us an edge or bring us an advantage and we kind of realized like really what we need is like a business Ops person like someone that can help keep things organized within our business and with external communication um you know all of that just cleaning all that up because when we're wearing so many hats it's hard you know here's one of the biggest scenarios that I have

41:27a hard time with if we have a shoot like last week we had a travel shoot we went to the other side of the state for a commercial and we were gone for four straight days um how do I respond to all of our other projects that are going on it's like I have to at night after set get on my email and respond to clients and if it's decide whether or not it's urgent or if I can let it wait till after I get back you know things like that and that happens all the time you know if you have shoots constantly what happens in those moments so we've talked about like how do we keep the ship sailing while we're off on a shoot so yeah I think I agree with Dario at least and maybe that's selfish because we probably do

42:07similar jobs but I was like someone that can help keep the business going I think would just be such a help and can just focus on the business while we can focus on like projects and clients and things like that it's I think that the more and more you go into your business and you work on it you start to figure out these other gaps as you continue to operate continue to operate that can help you down the road like other than that the only other position we thought of that could potentially be like a a full-time hire is either a junior editor and a senior editor you know because that's like the most uh like like absolute necessity position for any production

42:47company right and at least at least one editor you know but like with Kyrill and I have talked about how eventually we want to get one senior and one Junior as like a starting point and then see where it goes from there but yeah Business Development and management is good and I was going to say editing takes up so much time too that's why it's nice to have someone fill that fill those shoes because you know even just importing a project getting it organized or like if you're doing a interview b-roll type project you know cutting up the interview or getting sound bites you know all that

43:17take is is labor intensive and if it's taking what you know normally Danny's doing that work if it's taking away his time there then again back to what we were saying earlier that means he's not spending time doing other things um so I would agree that I think editing's another great place that you can always use support the only conduit is that for us editing is such a big profit maker because it if you're doing that if you're doing the editing you're just taking in the profit um whereas if it's production you know you're hiring people you're paying for gear whatever it is that you need to get the production done but the post-production sure sometimes on projects you might hire a colorist or

43:57whatever you might need if it's that level but if it's not that level it's just pure profit it's you know taking away time but it's pure profit so that's that's always been our argument against it is like well if we're paying someone to do the editing that's like taking away our biggest profit margin area you're probably not charging enough for the editing then we should yeah I think that's what that sounds like or even or even sometimes in the pre-production maybe you're not charging enough at that point right if there's a lot of planning that goes into it at that point at least this is if you're more so talking

44:29directly with clients because we found right the more and more it depends you know what Kyrill it depends how big is deliverables are yeah that's that is true too yeah because he deals with a lot of like long-form content I think so that's why oh yeah yeah I guess yeah you're probably not charging enough for for post though if that's that's the case or just all the above but I would just say you know I agree with pre-production too because that is sometimes depending on the client some clients get it they know how much things cost they know why it costs that way but

45:00not all clients do so I think it depends on that but like if you're trying to convince someone hey this is going to take a month of pre-production just to get ready for this shoot and that's going to take meetings and scheduling and planning and um you know you have to kind of convince them like this is why pre-production costs as much but I agree that would be an area I want to charge more in because that's also an area that I spend more of my time in um is getting all that prepped and ready we uh we we uh we had a lot of trouble with pre-production and what we started doing lately was and I've actually started to see some success in the lead

45:33calls is that we've done a complete breakdown of what we're doing in the pre-production process along with a cost breakdown okay and you share that with clients I share that with them well yeah because I I share that with potential clients or whatever right because I put the total amount anyway so I just give them the breakdown so even if we have like and I even break it down till like pre-production meeting one pre-production meeting two pre-production meeting three finalizing like you got we broke it down into like a 10 step itemization process and it's been really helpful for us because then they can see

46:14it and now they understand right and it probably helps you estimate too on the front end if you're if they're asking you for a quote you know your line items of being able to explain that is probably better I I unfortunately on most of my quotes I just put one line item for for pre-production but I should probably put multiples be like hey you know the meetings are for this or communication is this and you know stuff like that do you normally do like hourly charge estimate or do you do like flat rate there are some things that are listed as hourly for the pre-production

46:45we noticed lately that we were having a ton of back and forth meetings right for pre-production and and it got to a point where I was like Kyrill we're wasting so much time like and we're not billing for this right so we're like you know what now we're just gonna include like like I said three meetings one hour each um you can't go to the next stage in the pre-production process until you go through that meeting and everything after that one hour meeting is done via email communication if it's related to that first meeting so if it's like if it's like the scripting or the story development meeting right anything related to story development is just done via email after that just because

47:26we were thinking about and we're like hey if we start to scale up how are we going to even handle this we would just get like we would just have a backlog at that point so we decided we actually did a breakdown of what our process is and how much time we need to dedicate to it what the cost of each of each time segment would be and then we just added it up and we're like oh wait a minute we're way under charging for pre-production so we like up the amount so we're like what's going on here like because we broke it down again we got down to like the atoms of it you know

47:57like what what is this what are we doing with it how much time are we spending on it again going back to how if you want to run a business you got to figure out what the hourly amount of Everything Is Right the dollar amount that's what we did for pre-production it helped us like figure it out and develop like a funnel strategy where we can we can get through the process quickly and efficiently and that's what I communicate to them in my sales call I tell them basically this is the most like say like like efficient way for us to go to the next stage and especially

48:27when you're dealing with a very specific uh parts of the process that take certain amounts of time right we used to lump every I think this is what a lot of production companies make the mistake of doing is trying to lump the whole pre-production process into one thing you know like putting everything into one brief you're like this is the this is the the direction this is the story this is the script this is the uh storyboard and then all this kind of stuff so when we we started realizing that this kind of fell apart when we would do all that and then we would have a meeting about it and then they were

49:01like oh we need to make some changes to the script you know now that you've made those changes to the script that completely changes all that other creative that you did so what we realized was let's take uh like all the information that we have on what we have to do for the project figure out at least uh the first step which is like um the story and uh the outline of what needs to be done for the video what is the how long will the video be what is the tone what is the message you know get the parameters you know almost like the the Box you have to kind of work with it then if they're good with that

49:32then move on to the script once they're good with the script then you can move into storyboard oh there's a voiceover that needs to be done okay we're not hiring any voice over artist until the script is decided the storyboard is decided and like and all those other parts of the process are or the song is decided especially right like once you start checking off all these elements it becomes efficient and that's how we were able to break it down the way Dario mentioned where it should only take this many steps if we do it in this order some people will get a little bit too excited and try to do like one part of the process uh later first and then maybe add some other other elements in there as well

50:13basically as like we copied the sales funnel method and we just applied it to pre-production so same thing just how you would do a sales funnel same thing for pre-production you're just leading them down your funnel you can't get to the next stage until they pass the first stage and it's not like it's not creative and like like we don't want people to think that it's like yeah it's a sales approach but this is a way to kind of give structure to creative development because if there is no room for that to make time for it then it's gonna fall apart fall apart later

50:43especially if like say oh maybe we need to go back and change something because maybe it doesn't work now it's like oh then all that creative work that you did is gone then you have to go back to square one well yeah and I feel like it does a couple things like it when it protects your company it protects your time and and it values that which is important but two bringing that type of structure I think helps them understand what the process is going to look like and be like to get the job done and I think that's I I really love what y'all are saying and I want to try to integrate that because it's something I feel like I've lacked as like communicating expectations on the front end especially with a client

51:22that might not understand the process as well again for those who understand it this isn't as big of an issue but for those who don't you know it's like hey these are the steps that we're going to take here's kind of an outline of what it's going to look like leading up to production then after production it's going to look you know kind of setting that expectation because it also can help them realize like oh we're really paying for this uh wholesome service um rather than like oh a 30 second video that takes 30 seconds to make right like uh sometimes you just run into that type of thought process and you're like no

51:55like sometimes 30 second commercials take longer than two minute videos uh to make so uh that's that's a really great way of of doing it and you find that clients respond well to it too because yeah we've been testing it out lately and and they've been pretty receptive to it I've actually had actually one thing I noticed is that showing them the prices right from the beginning it's like they're getting used to seeing the numbers so by the time you get to the grand total at the bottom it's not a surprise they've been desensitized to it because I noticed a lot of people were getting like that

52:26shock reactions like oh hmm like that type of response do you all do like uh do y'all do like an uh we call it an eye

52:34test but when we're bidding you usually this will be for bigger projects not for like small uh being like not for like ten thousand dollar projects but like for like fifty thousand dollar projects or something or even bigger we try to do an eye test where it's like hey let's look at what it is we're actually saying we're going to deliver to them at the end of the day once we've kind of estimated everything let's look at what we're actually delivering to them and and think like would I pay that much money to get that product made and if and check your gut like if the answer is yes then you're like sweet this is good but we've had it where we like did this whole thing and

53:12it was like a fifty five thousand dollar um uh budget quote and then we're like that's too much this needs to be more like 35 like we just need to find a way to make it lower because they're not going to go for it it's just too much money for what they're asking always I don't know if y'all do that always I have I have a gut instinct when it comes to stuff like that yeah again I don't know what it is I always know how they're going to react to certain numbers because Kyrill's always like it should be that much I'm like trust me let's bring it down we consult each other on it we

53:44try to figure out like what this would be if done properly and then sometimes we figure out okay but like especially with whoever's been talking with the client uh gets a feeling of like okay this is probably what they can actually go for this is what they can afford is there a way for us to work within these parameters and if we can figure out a way to do that great everyone's happy but if we can't figure out a way to do that then we're just honest with the lead and let them know what the situation is and then if they want to move forward great if not then no worries because you're not digging

54:15yourself a hole trying to do a project for a budget that is not doable at the same time right I mean and you have heart like you have hard costs and then you have like soft costs the hard ones being you know you got to get the equipment you gotta hire the crew you gotta you gotta pay for these things that that's coming out of your company's budget and then you got just like your time or whatever resources you have that can be more flexible so that's why it's like okay should this project if we're going to lower this project down how much of that are we going to cut hard costs how much of that is just going to be like hey we'll we'll just make a

54:48little bit less or whatever I think that all goes into the decision of of how you quote but yeah you lose quotes all the time too it's like we we bid for a project with the Special Olympics uh about a month ago maybe two months ago this great project that would have taken us all over the world seven different countries um and we put together we felt like a strong quote and a strong bid and we spent you know probably a week and a half two weeks leading up to that bid we didn't get it and that kind of sucks and it's like damn we just spent so much time so you also have to take that into

55:21account it's like man the ones we win we want to make sure they pay for the ones we lose you know like the time that we spent doing the bid and the time that we spent creating this bid and all that um one one thing on the flip side though is like those jobs that you don't win with those rfps uh the one biggest Advantage is that you can figure out what works and what didn't work and we realized this when like a lot of people we've talked to say like rfps are a waste of time because you rarely win any of them but uh Dario and I realize that it's actually a good uh chance to kind

55:53of pitch for different types of projects that may not come through the front doors often and I remember we once did this one FedEx RFP where uh we thought we were we were going to get we thought we were going to be very close to getting it and finally at the end of the day it didn't it didn't work out we didn't get the gig but one great thing that Dario did was he reached out to them and asked like hey I know we didn't win uh we just wanted to know like was this at least somewhere along the right track of kind of what you were looking for and they actually told him that it

56:23was between us and one other company and it just so happened to be it like it was just like maybe like a minor thing that tipped the favor into the other company's favor but that was valuable information for Dario and I to realize oh I think we're on to something at least with this RFP at least we know that there's something here that works and why it probably worked yeah that's really valuable feedback because you don't always get that all the time we've gotten that a few times but I it is always that balance of like do do I ask and I have asked as well I also sometimes I don't it just depends on how I feel about that relationship

56:57and their answer can be different that that's something else we realize like with that Special Olympics RFP we they did say and they told us um price was like their number one reason that they went with someone else and we were like oh that I mean that makes sense we were we you know we're like oh we had we were within the range they said they wanted to be but a different company had a just had a lower price and we're like that's that's we respect that that's fine because everyone's gonna value something different for one company it might be that price like hey we really just have a tight budget it needs to be as cheap

57:31as possible but for other people we also think like they might see something else in your bid and sure maybe you're more expensive um but they value whatever else you might be bringing to the table I also personally believe this I don't know maybe not not everyone operates this way but I think if they're interested in you and price is an issue um they might try to negotiate or they might say hey we really like your bid but you know your price is higher than than others can we negotiate um you know maybe with that particular one they didn't feel that way but I do think it's okay to like give your honest price and if someone has issue with it

58:09um you know you you'd hope that they would come to you and say you know let's negotiate or we like you we like this aspect about it um but we we can't afford that much or whatever it might be honestly I think it just comes down to you when you don't

58:23win a project a pitch or whatever I think it does come down especially if it's a like a proposal type of thing RFP type of situation where you don't do your sales meeting with them I think it just comes down to your your your your uh your your brief just wasn't good enough you know because of that FedEx that FedEx thing I don't know why we thought we were gonna get it because you know what it is we were so dumb because we looked at the numbers and we got like oh my God like if we get this this is gonna pay for like so much stuff right we got into that mindset and I don't know why we let it get to that point

59:02it's done that's what I've learned to the point thinking oh my God if we get this gig we're gonna have this much work that you've already lost it at that point because looking back you know just thinking back on it that that wasn't a good pitch Kyrill like there were stuff that like compared to what we had yeah compared to now yeah we learned a lot back then because you learned from it yeah yeah no but we learned we then learned from it from that experience we learned from it from a future experience but it's because like the the it's not that it stunk it just it wasn't there I I think even the one we have now you know what's funny

59:35Kyrill was talking about how um he's like Dario should we even give out the uh our brief to like leads that we think uh where where we think they're not going to hire us anyways and I was like yes and I'll tell you why because yeah three months from now we're gonna look back at that brief and we're gonna think jeez that was hot garbage it's so true it's so true like like we that's what that I was like what doesn't matter so even if they pass it on to someone else like a competitor right knock yourself out that because that's going to be outdated by next week because

1:00:08we're constantly fixing it up like we're showing it to our mentors going like what do you think and they're like why do you have that like and we're like wait why do I have that in there I I also kind of take on the personal um thought of a high tide raises all boats and like a lot of people I think especially like here in Seattle as an example they protect their they protect things like their their clients or their contacts or their resources not everybody but a lot of folks do that and I understand why especially if there's scarcity you know in this city there's scarcity in a lot of ways um but if you have that scarcity mindset you do that but I I kind of think you know similar to what y'all are doing

1:00:48here you know we're we're maybe revealing business strategies or revealing things that make us offbeat or lapse but I think that that helps I think it helps everybody I think like I said high tide raises all boats um and it can help bring you know everybody success and and I I just like that type of mindset a little bit better too to your point because you're also going to change too like the things you can change now out there it's gonna be different yeah you know our business strategy is going to change once we hire that first employee or once we do that

1:01:18you know everything kind of kind of changes but here I was going to ask you you know you said that mindset of you know if we get this job it'll do this and that that's not a good mindset to have what would you say is a good mindset to have going in nothing don't it's like the fantasy it's like it's like thinking to yourself like what will happen if I win the lottery and you just waste 10 minutes there thinking to yourself the what you might buy what you're gonna do and then after 10 minutes you realize yeah I didn't even buy a ticket like I'm not gonna win the

1:01:52lottery I didn't even buy a ticket they call that they call that mental masturbation and it's just no purpose no purpose yes don't get stuck in that I was gonna say maybe I'm just a helpless romantic but sometimes it's fun to go off into this oh no no it's not it's not good because it hurts when you come back to reality I know yeah it does I'd rather get a huh okay yeah no no with business too like you really can't have any emotions attached to it yeah because think about how many rejections we have to face if you got if you got like emotionally you could like uh if you got a emotional about every rejection you

1:02:32had to face you'd never get through the day we had I can tell you right now we had the what like since the start of the month probably like I don't know 20 leads come in how many of those do you think we closed probably like two or three right but that's all we need at the end of the day right that'll help save like whatever we need but like right it just goes to show if I got like sad about each one of them I'd be depressed by the third of the month right right am I gonna get no that's true you definitely you definitely like naturally learned to have a thicker skin and yeah and you

1:03:04know to your point like not even getting emotionally attached to certain things we have we have had products where I'm like oh I really want that thing that you don't get and that does suck and and I maybe need to learn better about that but there's also plenty you know even honestly Special Olympics when it was like yep that wasn't meant to be you know we'll move on you know would have been a fun project to do to travel but you know we don't we're not broken because of it you gotta you gotta have to kind of have that skin and move on so some projects you will not actually be thinking to yourself more so like oh I would really want to get this one in

1:03:37particular because it might be good for other reasons but just doing it for just the mindset of like oh how much money we're gonna get that's where it's gonna sting even more because you're also doing it for the wrong reasons like of course we're in business we're doing this to make money which is great but I've noticed it was just a pattern in the dark and I noticed the second we think to ourselves that we might have a job it never happened until until it is signed we don't consider anything absolute because they're honestly until we get that first deposit that that's when I'm

1:04:08like I'm still nervous until the money comes into this because yeah I get you I feel like the contract is when I'm I'm nervous until the contract is signed but yeah because it's like all right once they sign it like they have to pay it right um I know what you're talking about because we have the same the same issue we actually started doing a new thing now where we have like a pay-to-play model so it's like we broke down the production process is three steps right so three different invoices and basically like proof needs to be made before we start one of them payment needs to be in the account before we

1:04:41like before uh the production date stuff like that like we've kind of timed it out where it's like we get all the money uh before we have to worry about it because again I don't want to be like on the hook for paying crew because then it comes out of my pocket because I pay them I pay them the next day right so I don't I don't ever want to be in a position because it'll eventually happen statistically it's

1:05:04bound to happen to us one day Kyrill where a client won't pay and I don't want to be in that position at all we noticed that when we it was early on and as a young company like where a company tried to take advantage and not pay us for the work that we did even though it was um like back then it was like we were maybe on the hook for maybe one crew member at the time but it took eventually six months for us to get them to finally pay us and it wasn't it wasn't a lot of money now looking I mean at the time to us it was a lot it was 4g's Kyrill it was still a lot like even today I'd be like very bitter about that

1:05:37yeah yeah yeah and and uh when you're in a if that happens often and you're strapped for cash and cash flow is an issue that can that can destroy a company over time absolutely so you have to put in safeguards because if if a company and and why Dario and I are implementing this kind of approach is where uh This is how we do business would you respect us and how we do our business and if they do then great that actually that is like actions speak louder than words right like if if you respect us we'll respect you if there's no mutual respect then I I don't think that's a right uh

1:06:11relationship I I can actually go into what it is because it'll probably help out other companies so essentially there's three invoices they're all issued when the contract is is signed by them right so invoice one covers the project management fee and pre-production so that's uh uh but that has to be paid proof of payment needs to be made before we start pre-production so and then we need to get the the money for that uh I think I put 72 hours before the production date but the key thing there is the proof of payment as long as they do the proof of payment whatever for the production though proof of payment needs to be made

1:06:49right away uh uh but the the production date is not locked in until the payment is made so then that way at least we're safe knowing that the crew is paid that's my main thing with that forget my my rate as long as the crew is paid that's the thing I'm most worried about right because we're booking people we're booking people we're we're taking them away from other potential jobs as well right and it's not us right like uh technically speaking it's technically the client we're just facilitating it right and if like because there have been situations where uh a shoot day has

1:07:27been set and then um something happens where like it has to be moved like obviously if it's like extraneous circumstances early on early on not not last minute we haven't dealt with one nothing last minute yeah in a while nothing last minute but and then the post-production one is issued at the same time and then uh uh proof of payment needs to be made by the production day but the money needs to be in our account before we show the rough cut okay so and is that it is that all your three invoices that's the that's the three invoices so you get 100 by the time by the time they get the rough cut okay I've already gotten 100 so the benefit of that is that I don't have to wait till the very end of the project to

1:08:08get the remaining amount I've gotten everything all the crew members have been paid the company has been paid right like if anyone else out there wants to copy that formula great go for it because it'll standardize things yeah across the board yeah and I won't have questions but but like you know what I I was actually speaking to a lead and he's in in um yeah he's part of an engineering firm and he told us that he was perfectly cool with it he's like that's actually how they do business I'm like oh okay so it makes sense then so other people do business like that and you know it makes sense too because you're if you don't do

1:08:41it like that you're left on the hook at some point because we I I figure this out because I was running the numbers and I'm like wait we do we were doing 50 50 right and I'm like Kyrill by the time we finish shooting we're 70 in the hole yeah that's true because that 50 goes to the crew yeah so I was like what the hell we're 70 in the hole why are we doing 50 that doesn't make sense so I figured let's break it down three invoices they tend to be smaller amounts anyways because it's broken up right so average amount it'll be probably like two two and a half for pre five thousand for crew and then whatever three to thirty

1:09:19five hundred for the the post so it's broken down into smaller amounts rather than like a full thing of like ten thousand all at once right or half half like it's better that way I I agree I like that uh we do it similar but slightly different but for the purposes of sharing it you know the way we approach it is when you take on the project when you sign the contract you have 50 down sometimes 40 if it's depending on what the number is that's due right away like they have to pay when they sign the contract it's 40 to 50 of the total cost as a down payment to like basically Reserve our company's Services uh then our second

1:09:57invoice comes after production so you know we have all the pre let's say that takes like a month to do pre-production and then you finally shoot maybe even a month and a half depending whatever it is so then that second invoice comes which is another 25 percent um after production which I like what you do which is like your money's already in the bank it has like proof of payment rather than afterwards but we do that also to just like have 75 in before we do the post but then we don't do our final invoice till after completion of the project so the last 25 percent uh see the problem with that is through my

1:10:31way you might wait a long time yeah that's that's the biggest issue I think did you get that from uh from the future and Christo because I I've heard that mean no no I'm asking Thomas yeah because I've heard of that breakdown I think either on that on those YouTube channels or in some other ones because I've heard that one no I don't I don't know where I got that I my my dad is a lawyer um so I know he helps a lot with our business related questions so he probably advised us to do something along those lines um but I don't remember exactly we've been doing it like that for for a while and most people are fine with it but I agree with you Dario like it also puts it on you to track like the worst thing

1:11:11is tracking down these invoices and that's that's the thing I hate is like because I know they're good for it and I know it's just a matter of things yeah like yep I hate that someone's fault you know what's really helped us is that you know what's really helped us is when I say Okay so let's get this in so I can lock in that so like let's Okay so let's get the money in so I can lock in the production date as soon as they hear that it means that the production day is not locked in so they they immediately get me that stuff the the other thing that I think it's important to keep in mind for folks is it depends on the company if it's a non-profit this might not be true but

1:11:50like they probably care less about paying you the money than you care about receiving it meaning like if you're dealing with a company or a corporation or whatever it might be they just have their budget that that company's paying it's not their personal money the way it's our personal money so when we're like hey we need this money like Oh Come you know uh to then they're like oh yeah like I just you know I'm Microsoft I need to send you the check like Microsoft is handling it you know what I mean like it's not their personal money that's why you got to protect yourself so if again like if using the the new

1:12:21one that we're testing out like you don't you can't move to the next stage unless the money's in there right so it's like I don't have to worry about it it's less stress for me you know less stress for me means a better product for you at the end of the day yeah and at the end of the day like uh talking about money and budgets it shouldn't be a stressful or complicate as complicated as probably a lot of people make it out to be it's just one part of the whole process that it like lets things kind of move forward right it's like it's almost like going to get materials if you need to um if you need to like say build a fence for a house right you know it costs money to buy the materials you know I

1:13:00think what why people are so sensitive sometimes to talk about money is because we're dealing with creative services and uh Services no it's because no it's because people have emotions attached to especially money yeah that goes back to like you gotta disconnect from that yeah it's just a number at the end of the day disconnect from the money HP points in a game you know like yeah you just need it I need it for this but again like I can't uh if I want that power armor I need to upgrade I need help it's like that yeah that's how you gotta look at it like you get a disconnect you gotta

1:13:31disconnect from it it's funny I play no games no I I do agree with what you're saying too of like how it's um you know money can be your livelihood so you have those emotions attached but also to your point of the creative I think there is in general that you can run into like a lack of respect for what we do it depends again on on the client some people totally get it but some people again if their experience of video content whatever that might be is a 30 you know reels on Instagram or on Tick Tock and they don't understand what quality production actually takes um you kind of deal with that too where they don't it's harder for them to connect the dots of like oh wow this

1:14:13costs much more than I would have ever imagined why does it cost so much it's only a 30 second thing like that doesn't make sense so it's part of it I think is also dealing with that and and certain clients that are that are potentially like that that don't understand the amount of work it takes um to get a job done and to get it done well at that point you're getting into the process of like figuring out how to filter out maybe leads and people that you're getting in contact with who don't understand it like obviously some clients don't understand it as much but then and there's a certain threshold where you know there's only so much time

1:14:45you have with every lead to to talk to where if you only have five minutes with each lead how much can you really explain to them you know like I'm not going to spend half hour educating someone about how the video production process works if they can't even afford it at all at the end of the day right so I mean but that's that's another topic for another day as it is yeah there's also one terminology that we try to steer

1:15:09ourselves clear from which is videographer yeah and I hate that one too I think that you know if you are out there and you consider yourself that I think within the industry there's respect there but it's more of Just The Way We project ourselves to others because a videographer like entails to someone all of these different departments all of these different skill sets into one person and like that's not what we're selling we're selling a collaborative effort where we have our cinematographer and we have our production designer and we're you know ideally we're trying to sell this collaborative service that is video

1:15:41production but it's not just a videographer so we never tell uh you know I never say I'm a video I'm a producer like that's my job I produce that you know he's a cinematographer or you have an editor now maybe we play we wear different hats but that's just a terminology we try to steer clear from whenever anyone's like looking for a videographer or you know like oh that's not what we do you know we're a video production company um but my friend you know Jimmy can do that for you or whatever you know whatever it might be but and that means no disrespect to any videographers out

1:16:12there it's if again within the industry there's respect there I think it's more of just the way you project yourself to people outside of it people who present themselves as videographers usually are early on in their careers with it right because right uh I feel like that that term got coined when uh not always Kyrill yeah not not old like present themselves as a videographer to me that wasn't with only usually experience maybe yeah I know it's actually another yeah no I think it's a pet peeve in the industry as a whole being referred to as a video that's what I mean like unless you're a beginner you know what I know

1:16:51where I know where it started from it 100 started with clients going like I have I have a photographer yeah I need a video guy video rapper a video prefer videographer that's what it is I need a video photographer I remember I remember like very early on when I went to London for a shoot and I and I went up to the Customs agent and he looked at my uh my form and he said you're a videographer and I and I like and and I'm just like oh yeah he's like okay enjoy London and I'm like all right but the way he said it just it just sounded very wrong videographer I'm like yeah that's such an odd term well I guess I guess we found out who refers to

1:17:37himself as a videographer yeah that was in 2014. this was one year ago it was one years exactly I agree because I feel like when I was when I was young I feel like I said that too but now we're like oh no we don't want to be referred to as that the second you're a company you're like no no no no I'm the producer or the cinematographer the director yeah videographer this what is that role when you think about like what like as you said you do everything as someone who's a one-man show it's a one-man show it's a handy it's the handyman of the video production World

1:18:13sometimes people need that if that's the budget they have um you know but I think when you want you know proper Services it's not it's beyond just one person I gotta take to collaborative I got the ultimate metaphor you know how when you're hiring a band you know like you're you're getting the guitarist the drummer right right the singer you're hiring weirdo well hold on I have something I have something even better instead of you're hiring the band you're hiring those um buskers that are like have like a drum on their back the the accordion and then they have like the harmonica at the same

1:18:46time yep and they're playing like five instruments just by like tapping their foot yeah which is impressive it is impressive right yeah that's that that's exactly what it's like um but yeah that's funny that's hilarious every videographer is gonna hate us after this yeah I know we love you guys they've stopped listening if they heard if they heard correctly it's an impressive skill to have this it is it is you're holding all those hats at once you know what's funny a lot of them are actually just cinematographers but they get grouped in with that you know that's what I mean you know like the

1:19:20second they realize that they're actually DPs they stop saying videographer and that's and that's the sit that's why I'm saying nobody refers to themselves as a videographer unless they just got into the industry for like the first few years honestly it's a it's strictly a term for clients that's how I see it yeah exactly who don't understand it but also something that's like so

1:19:42overlooked in our industry is audio oh yeah like like the value of having like a sound operator or even a sound operator and a mixer you know if you have that budget it's so valuable to have clean sound versus just like whoever's dealing with the camera is also dealing with miking people up and also you know it's like it just makes a huge difference we've made it we've made it standard this year where it's like if we're recording interviews we bring audio but but if it's like a brief 30 minute thing I'm not gonna tack on the thousand dollar expense for the client like it's

1:20:20one of those like look will the uscp you know how to do audio right yeah I think subconsciously if you're watching if you're watching if you're consuming any sort of video product if if the audio is bad you immediately discredit it like subconsciously you're like that's this is low quality even if it looks beautiful if it's like crackly or whatever audio is so important but people don't always think of it because when they think of video they think of the visuals but it's like man professional audio you really shouldn't notice it if you don't notice the audio that means it was a job well done if you if you're like oh man this sounds weird

1:20:59or like it's just gonna discredit people's you know they're gonna be like oh this isn't a good video because it doesn't sound good what are you doing it's like it's literally like a small part of the shoot date you're gonna need an audio guy for like let's say it's like I said like maybe just one small interview what do you do in that situation I I feel like we haven't had that experience in a while however um because we like to also have like wild sound for b-roll so if we're doing like interview b-roll where you're usually in audio guys there but um we'll just operate it on our own like if it if it's in the past that's what

1:21:31we've done I we haven't done that in a while but like I'll throw on the boom or like you know if it's an interview as an example you could either mount it on the camera or you can put it on a c-stand like there's a lot of ways you can do it where you don't even need an operator um but yeah just you don't need the person I think the person is valuable if it's the right project but if it's not needed then you can do it yourself pretty easily I feel like we could

1:21:55dedicate an entire episode to just this whole debate and discussion and we like I will say this like we've already hit the hour 20 Mark and I know you mentioned you have to run in like literally four minutes so it's all good so I I figured this would be a good point to kind of like uh cut it off but honestly Thomas like thank you for joining us on the show like this has been such a great discussion and you know I I look forward to our shoot with you in Seattle next week as well you know that's the one little uh benefit you know like we get to know you a little bit through the through the podcast before we even work together yeah no I appreciate you guys asking

1:22:29asking me to join and and one little plug I wanted to throw out there is I'm launching my own podcast called Seattle speaks um it's going to be hyper like local for the city of Seattle people who um live here but I've already interviewed like a Seattle Mariner who's a baseball player and a CEO the CEO of T-Mobile and some musicians so I have some good names in there I haven't launched yet but I'll be launching hopefully by the time that this episode airs so that just want to throw that that plug out there and anyone else who's listening if you're in Seattle you know give us a hoot or a

1:23:00holler and and we'll happy to chat nice that's awesome unfortunately since we're in Toronto I guess we we don't make the cut then no that that you're welcome too and we're also really excited you know for Monday when when y'all come to town and uh how long are you gonna stay by the way we should try to like show you a good time I'll be I'll be there on Sunday Hey listen he two beers and he's done I'm just letting you know right now two beers is limit hopefully we have good weather I don't know it's hit or miss this time of year but if we get some sunshine it'll be a

1:23:34nice time sounds good yeah and honestly best of luck also with the podcast we can look forward to seeing it and uh let us know on LinkedIn we'll we'll share it as well awesome well thanks y'all