How to Diversify Your Video Business Income (ft. Digital Spark Studios)

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.

0:00today we have Adam Sewell from digital spark Studios I hope I said your last name right as I was saying it I was like I don't know how close we'll call it close enough huh it's been butchered all my whole life so it's fine how do you say it properly it's Soul it's just like tool yeah just kind of flow through all the letters and it just becomes one mush one one much um why don't we start with a little intro about who you are and and a little bit about who digital Spark is sure so uh we're based in North Carolina Charlotte North Carolina we're a video production company down here um we started out about eight years ago

0:41now 2015 is when we filed for our LLC officially uh back then we were working full-time jobs I say we me and my partner Joshua um we were working for a 3D printing company in the manufacturing space one of the biggest ones in the world and they had a very small marketing team uh and it was Joshua and I who are in charge of doing all the Global Marketing for visuals so video photography Motion Graphics graphic design that kind of stuff we were in charge of handling that side of the business and uh from there we basically said all right we're traveling around a lot we're doing some cool projects they're sending us all over the world to do this stuff this is great

1:17but it kind of gave us a taste as to what could have been so when I came into the company and Joshua was already there we kind of immediately like gravitated together and was like all right let's do this but on a bigger scale let's serve more customers tell different stories and that's kind of how we got started and again so eight years later we're still doing our thing just trying to improve every day nice nice so eight years it's uh you and another business partner um we don't often see a lot of other companies that have two business partners so I'm just wondering how is your dynamic with each other I I

1:50understand why and Joshua would say the same thing uh trust me so we've gone through difficult patches and it's like it's like a marriage there's there's compromise there's communication obviously at the Forefront of everything uh the dynamic to start with was you know we both did everything for everyone we kind of had a little bit of a handle into into the business and into the to the creative process but you know that was we were first-time business owners so we were making it up as we go along like you know like most people and we still kind of are doing that today

2:20even though we have a little bit more experience um but it was probably about four or five years ago now that we really sat down and figured out what we want to do and how we make this a little bit more official and make this a little bit more structured and that's when I took control of more of the client-facing communication side of things talking with clients bringing in new clients onboarding and everything up until the creative discussions start I still have a handle in that but that's where Joshua comes in he's one of our lead directors he directs most of the stuff that we do to a certain scale until we need to

2:52bring in external help so yeah Joshua kind of oversees the project from start to finish from a creative standpoint where I project manage per se from more of a client-facing financial kind of standpoint it isn't so familiar to like us in a way because we it was also for us same thing like about four or five years until we kind of sat down and started restructuring everything and um I guess we're just basically like maybe two three years behind you guys I guess based on what I'm hearing all right Kyrill yeah I mean like for us it was partially because of the pandemic which forced us to really

3:30reflect on that was there a similar kind of aha moment for you guys where it was like okay this is how we've been kind of operating for the last five years like you said as if you're doing everything how do what was the thing that kind of got you thinking oh maybe we need to re-look at the business and how can we actually treat it as a business was there a moment like that uh I wouldn't say that was one specific moment more of a culmination of small moments that came to our head um to put it you know in in that way you know like that was you know an element of maybe kind of resentment on both our parts between like what we were doing

4:07in the business like obviously now it's so clear that Joshua is more like creative leaning and I'm a lot more I guess you know yeah more worried about the relationships on the front end and building those and creating a good first impression with clients and getting them on board and getting them understanding what we can do and what our capabilities are so it was through trial and error and going through those rough patches that it really just came out the other end in that all right we've got to change something and that ultimately led us to being like okay we're a business

4:42let's be a bit more serious about the way we structure this thing I think it's uh very common with a lot of the companies especially with there are more people involved as you start working together more and more you start understanding how the business works who has strengths in what areas and it's good to let people kind of lean into those a little bit more that way like no one can do everything on their own you know you have to let certain people take the lead on certain aspects of the business in order for it to grow down the road absolutely absolutely and just embracing that and just if

5:12anyone is you know even a few years behind us and where you guys are just like embracing that early on is is I think only a good thing you know when you're very early on you're wearing a lot of hats anyway and that's still going to be true uh very early on but just deciding like which kind of you know if there is a lean or a decision on this in a certain side of the business maybe one person takes it and the other person takes the other stuff I think just kind of starting off with that at the Forefront of your thinking is a good way to move forward for sure that definitely happens too when the workload becomes greater because if you are wearing all

5:50those hats and the workload starts to increase then you realize after a while you're like I don't even have the patience to like fight for that type of this it's like look if you're good at that just you take care of it I don't care like I got other stuff to focus on you know yeah it's knowing when to let go on certain parts of the process where it's not necessary to fight on like I remember when we were first starting out every single step of the process it was like we had a committee meeting Dario and I where we were like all right should we make should we cut

6:18out this shot from the video and then we would both be like talking about whether we should or shouldn't whereas like now we've gotten to the point where we've worked together long enough that we can trust each other's judgment on a lot of aspects of the whole process where it's like if one of us says they can handle something trust them to handle it so that you know you could focus on other things because there's only like eight to ten hours in a day that you could spend working you know you can't do every single part of the business or dedicate time to it yeah and you naturally want to focus more on certain things as time goes by you're like okay I like

6:53like you Adam like you were saying you like more of the client relationship side of things so you want to focus more on that so you're like I'd rather deal with that than dealing with maybe like the accounting or whatever right so you're naturally drawn to different sides I was just gonna say that accounting is something that you should still always be well versed in no matter what I was trying to think of an example instead of accounting well I think that chapter we'll call it of starting a business early on I think going through that chapter is really important and it's something that

7:27you should kind of experience to understand the inner workings because essentially like you go from working a desk for a company next to someone um for a long period of time and you get to know them on a certain level but you go into business ownership together that relationship takes a quick you know it amplifies significantly and to go through those chapters where you're kind of butting heads and maybe kind of stepping on each other's toes and kind of like you said in the room just kind of making like hashing out decisions on a granular level for every decision that needs to be made I think that's important but you know equally as

8:06important is coming out the other side with like you know a solution to what that is because I think going through that helps you understand people on a different level for sure what would you say you're dealing with now as like you know back then you were dealing with uh how do you split roles between the partnership and everything like what are some of the issues you're dealing with now not even issues but like maybe challenges or like bumps bumps on the road bumps I don't know if I'd call bumps one of the main things that as a video production company and

8:35I'm not sure if you experience this so I know a couple of production company owners that do is the infrequency of cash flow and what I mean by that is there is no telling what next year is going to look like from a forecast standpoint really you know you can understand that you're growing year over year great but what does that year look like is February going to be amazing next year for no reason is it going to be May because May is usually quite a strong month for us or is May going to go quiet having that kind of forecasting is really at the Forefront of my mind and that comes from you know just trying to make it a little bit more consistent looking

9:15forward you know always having in the back of the mind that this could be potentially a sellable entity one day and having that forecast and that predictable cash flow is really important with that in mind so like diversifying our income is a big thing so I mentioned before we decided to talk like rental equipment Studio like we just built a studio at the beginning of the year that is now available for rent for production companies and for clients directly as well they can come in and use it so stuff like that which is a little bit more control where we can put things out there and say okay these are

9:49available and that gives us different ways of bringing in predictable income rather than just relying on you know whether a client needs a video because you've probably experienced that you can't just necessarily put a Facebook ad out and say hey we do this video okay how much is it oh it's over ten thousand dollars I'm not going to make that decision on a whim right that's not going to happen it's something that needs to be nurtured um and something that is you know it's it's hard to master and I'm not ashamed to admit that it's something I'm working on every day is to figure out how to make that a little bit more predictable for sure you were mentioning

10:24about the importance of diversifying your income and I think that's something a lot of production companies struggle with because of that lack of knowing what to predict in the coming years right and I find a lot of the times like what was our average uh income in this year okay let's not expect that and let's plan for if we had like say half of that or less than that you know and then that way if you do better then you can do better but one part I actually like that you mentioned was opening up a studio and kind of leaning into that almost like as its own business because that is actually

10:57something Dario and I have talked about a lot and I'm sure a lot of production companies are thinking to themselves like what would it take to actually start a Production Studio specifically like a space of like say 2000 square feet three thousand square feet whatever it might be like how did you guys go about that process and how long did it take so we've been in this space this Echo chamber that I'm sure you can maybe hear a little bit of um for three three and a half years now um and it's a great space 25 foot ceilings you know lots of room to just kind of do you know host video

11:33shoots so lots of opportunities and stuff but we didn't ever have anything that was like official like a production space in here we've got our desks we've got seating areas we've got storage space for our equipment and stuff but we're like okay this is something that we could utilize it's like a two-fold thing right like we could definitely utilize it and others could definitely come in and rent it and utilize it themselves as well so it's like a win-win it seemed like it was just something that we probably should have done sooner um just because we're in a

11:59space that lends itself well to it and we just said okay how can we do it and how can we do it right so we put a lighting Grid in we have some pre-light uh lights attached to it that are part of the rental rate and we have a seating area for clients where they can stream what's coming out of the camera to the TV how do we do it right yeah so that's kind of like what led us to it and to kind of go back and answer your question is like we should have done it sooner like that's really what it boils down to I wish we did it a couple of years ago but we just weren't really sure if this was the space that we were going to stay in for long enough to do so

12:30um so yeah we built it ourselves from the ground up uh lots of two by fours and um lots of dust in the office for a long time but it's great now yeah love it how did you guys uh get a loan to be able to make all those modifications and changes and additions or did you guys just set aside money and then over time just you guys had a big fund to be able to get everything yeah because it's a big investment it's not something that you can just like pull out of like your bank account as a business especially when you have such uncertain cash flows over time you want to make sure you have enough to keep the business operating properly is it like

13:07something you had to set aside as Dario mentioned I don't like loans um so no we didn't get a loan or anything this was just we were in a fortunate position to have enough cash on hand to do it um and we looked at it it's like all right cash and then in a spreadsheet like what do we have to do how many shoots do we have to book on this thing to pay it back and you know it's just going to be a working document so uh it's looking at it as an investment more than an expense so it's you know it should pay itself back over time yeah but I mean one fortunate thing for you is that you guys were already in a space that luckily you

13:46can kind of adapt to what you needed um like right now we're still kind of we're still pretty remote with the way we work and a lot of production companies are in a similar boat where typically like you don't always need a Production Studio so a lot of the time people will rent it out depending on the client projects that are needed at the most I'll have like an office space or whatnot but yeah actual like Studio space is not that common I would say well I don't know maybe maybe it is more common we don't know because like I'm wondering how it goes like how you can go about finding like that right

14:17space where you'd have to rent but then also you have to make all these modifications to do it it's almost like a much bigger lump sum like I'm glad to hear though that for you guys it probably wasn't that bad because you were already in it and it was just a matter of modifying some things as you went along rather than one thing completely at once yeah you know I mean you nailed it there it's really it's been a long term project and that's probably why we didn't do it sooner is because we looked at it as like a bigger project that was gonna incrementally improve and serve what we needed to serve over time

14:50um and another thing I didn't mention I should have mentioned earlier is that one of our co-tenants in this space okay so we walk in like an industrial park type space um is also kind of benefiting from having it here as well so they want Photography they're in like the uh flame retardant apparel industry and they need like photography and video of their apparel that comes out um so it was also like a guaranteed kind of consistent Revenue stream straight off the bat from them because they need to churn that stuff out and we have the space and they were like all right yeah

15:26if you build that space we've got work for you that helps mitigate the risk it's that's really good to hear that uh you know because Kyrill and I were talking about it and it's in our long-term plan but it's good to see like how other people are doing it and another thing I really liked is that you were mentioning the diversification of income because I don't think it's something a lot of us think about too often because we just think okay we do video production so we'll obviously just provide videos to our clients right but like you were saying you got to think about other more stabilized sources

16:03of income so like the rental space you'll be able I guess over five plus years of doing that you'll be able to gauge like an average of what the monthly income from that will be and then you were also mentioning equipment rental right I guess the key takeaway uh for people listening is that you don't have to do everything all at once and plan for it in kind of stages and I think that's what will make it a lot more digestible like say for example first find a space that you can work out of see if that works financially then slowly add other aspects to it maybe you can get it to that point not everyone has like a hundred grand that they could just drop

16:40on renovating a whole space to be a studio right I mean there's probably more than that that they spend on of course but like the other thing is like uh especially with these places because you're renting these uh or like you're leasing out these spaces for like three to five years what if you put all that money and investment into that space and then all of a sudden the landlord says oh sorry you're going to have to yeah you're going to have to move out and then so that's another concern you have to think about later so how does that work with you Adam like have you guys haven't guys haven't bought the actual no space you guys are leasing it um

17:16and that was in our thought process as we were putting it together so we built it in a way so that we can reuse a lot of the materials that we used so you know it's all two by fours that are screwed together so we can just disassemble it and reuse the material um again we've built it ourselves so um it was kind of the labor was essentially zero um and yeah I kind of want to reiterate what you just said there is that you know we didn't start yesterday and build this right you know like we've been doing this for eight years we worked in the spare bedroom of my house when we first

17:53got started it was three of us we didn't even have three desk chairs we didn't have you know like one of the guys that was working with us at the time like he was sitting on the floor like HDMI into one of my TVs that I had in the room you know it was awesome like I love looking back and seeing that time but you know this is not something you know that I would recommend even for people to try and get into early on go through those early phases get to understand the business get some cash you know get the bank account where it needs to be and then figure out what the right investment is it's probably not a studio

18:28space to start with like just figure out what you want to do yeah it's such a slow burn how are you managing like because now okay you have three sources of income you have the video production side of the business uh equipment rental and the location space the studio rental space how are you managing all those three because in a way they could all be three different businesses right it's uh it's a lot of time you know it takes a lot no sleep yeah well I don't get a lot of sleep I've got two little kids at home so I don't get much anyway but um you know when I'm awake

19:00I'm barely here uh honestly like to be fully transparent the rental side of the business is definitely a supplemental income it's not something that we put a huge amount of focus on it's there it's like we have it on ShareGrid for example and we get a decent amount of rentals on a monthly basis through ShareGrid although they are Crooks and they take away most of your money through the commission side of things um and then the studio rental is just getting up and running right so it's still very early and in its infancy and the business side of that is still developing you know we

19:31have the legal stuff in place and the contracts and everything but this is something that is again going to develop over time and how we're going to push this out to the masses and really figure out what we want to do with that so I like to say the main focus is still a video production company you know like if there is a production company here in Charlotte that does the rental business and the video production company and they do it so well like they have a great reputation awesome awesome guys over there and they just they've really nailed it like they're some of the best guys that you could work with on the rental

20:09side of the business but they also have just an incredible production company as well so it's doable I know they've got full-time employees on the rental side of the business we don't have that we're kind of just going to tackle them both um so definitely supplemental on the rental side on both studio and gear wise yeah one thing I just want to highlight is that when you're diversifying your income like this you don't have to have each different source of income be its own business at the end of the day sometimes it can be like you're doing it as a supplemental thing where it's very minimal effort but to at least get

20:45something in return because you said for example you're using it through a certain website these rentals so yeah they might take more of the cut but they're handling all the messaging all the chasing people all the stuff that would take so much time that it would take away from the Big Money Maker which is the production company itself right that is at the end of the day the main source of income if you can get rentals for a like say an income of a thousand dollars a month for just a couple emails here and there a month that's pretty decent whereas if you did two thousand dollars

21:19of income a month but you have to spend like two hours daily making sure you're operating that process well it's just the point is like you have to be able to figure out how much time and effort will go into each of these um sources of income right like even if you did like affiliate marketing or something like that if it's something as easy as just creating a link you know it's low effort some reward you just have to balance it out for sure and then I kind of would say to that also like it doesn't necessarily even have to be like a different line of business it could also just be focusing on the video production side of

21:56your business and saying how can I get a little bit more consistency and predictable income and you naturally will probably lean towards more like a retainer type agreement consistent ongoing work over a period of time uh as and we look at that as like a foundation right it doesn't have to be it's not all going to be elaborate but it's not all going to be car commercials it's not going to be like that type of thing but if you have to do like corporate videos for you know a waste management company that can book you in for 12 18 24 month contracts and you can just then start to forecast say all right we know we've got this can we allocate a percentage of this

22:30towards marketing can we bring someone in there's a full-time employee because of this guaranteed income that we're going to have um that is also a really good way of saying all right we're a little bit more confident about the way that we can go into things we can take on some more creative projects that are going to be in the portfolio but we know that we've got this fallback work that is going to give us a certain amount of money on a monthly basis as well so I mean it doesn't have to be a rental business or a different business it can be just tweaking the business part a little bit you mentioned uh retainer projects uh

23:00have you found a lot of success with those reasonable reasonable the reason it's reasonable is when we don't we don't like to be like that A La Carte kind of cut and paste production company um our retainer models are a little bit different they're essentially a a bucket of money that depletes uh over time but guarantees our availability um so say it's a 12-month contract hundred thousand dollars they've got our services for a hundred thousand dollars over the course of the next 12 months and on a quarterly basis we'll kind of revisit and say all right this is how much we've got left what project's next if it's a

23:40testimonial that costs them ten to fifteen thousand dollars all right that just deducts from the hundred thousand dollars but guarantees our availability so we'll just have to move around things to make sure that they get it but clients will pay to know that you are there at the drop of a hat and that's the way that we structure it it's like a credit it's like a credit system almost in a way and that actually just reminded me of like a recent client uh project that we've kind of signed for the year as well where it wasn't phrased as like a retainer model but then if you

24:11look at it it really kind of is it's like for four quarterly videos in the year you may not be getting paid on a monthly basis but retainers don't have to be like a monthly thing specifically it could be like a quarterly thing as well it's like we know every quarter with this client we're going to do this project then this project and this project but I like your approach too where it's like it's like buying a gift card almost in a way like a gift card that's a hundred thousand dollars you know and you can also like you want to incentivize them right as well right

24:39maybe you give them a 10 discount so they're getting you know a hundred and eleven thousand dollars worth of stuff for a hundred thousand dollars so they're not going to sign it unless there's an incentive like other than the convenience of you being available I don't think that's enough to convince someone that they should sign that big of a contract but if you say all right over the course of the year you're going to save ten eleven twelve thousand dollars then you know the accountant team will pay attention buy four videos get one free yeah however you want to word it right like I mean there's definitely ways yeah absolutely I want to look at the

25:14financial side of that so like you're locking them in for like let's say 100K like as soon as they signed a contract are you doing like they do quarterly payments to you or is it monthly exactly yeah monthly payments yeah and it benefits us so much as well you know like if their initial project is going to be a 30 000 project and they want to get started right away then we would have that conversation say all right let's do like the deposit of you know 50 of the entire retainer and then once we catch up to six months down the road or whatever it may be it's or we you know we may get

25:47five thousand dollars a month there on out um for the rest of the duration of the contract so how do you go about uh bringing up that type of uh agreement to a lot of clients because you know what Kyrill to add on to that uh do you find a lot of success with new clients or recurring clients great question no it is definitely you want to have a relationship right you want to make sure yeah 100 I would never pitch oh I would maybe mention it in passing very casually in some of our earlier conversations um as something to look forward to or something we can explore down the road

26:24after initial one or two projects but it's definitely something that would hit a lot harder once you start to develop an ongoing relationship because then they can see the financials if they've spent twenty thousand dollars with you over the course of two videos and they've got 20 videos to do this year and they know it's going to be ten thousand dollars every video you can easily show them the value um over time if you were to do it that way you don't want to scare them right off the bat and the funny thing is I just thought of an analogy it's like imagine you go on a first date and immediately the first thing you're talking about is getting married it's

27:00gonna scare everybody away that's a great analogy yeah it's so true dude like I mean and yeah you want to make sure that you're just knocking those first couple of projects out of the park building that rapport with you know those human connections with the people who are gonna ultimately vouch for you internally if it's like the director of marketing yeah whoever it may be they're the ones that are going to be taking that up to the higher-ups and say hey if we do this with these guys who are really good and have done great work for us in the past we'll save this amount of money over a period of time I mean if you just look at it from how they're gonna

27:35present it to their internal team who they have to get approvals from it makes a lot more sense that way well it comes down to numbers right because if they then go and present it and they're like look we're gonna save 20 000 a year you'd have to be a fool not to take the vendor up on that option because you're saving money right that's a whole for sure name of the game they have to go through your process they have to go through it and they have to see if they even like working with you at the same time because that will help them kind of justify other parts of the process like I feel like once we've worked with some

28:10clients for uh multiple projects over time you also feel comfortable pitching ideas to them because the one thing is that they will also appreciate is that you also understand their business a lot more you can understand better what their needs are what might work for them versus what might work for someone else so that you're pitching something a little bit more tailored and that relationship can build even more over time do you ever uh like get in touch with your clients like I guess obviously the ones that you're on good basis with and try to like see what their marketing goals are for the

28:45year and whatnot and see how you can kind of fit into that picture absolutely I was actually gonna bring up that point I'm glad you did um I always try to take it as someone who's interested in the bigger picture because that's ultimately what we do as video creators like we're just a part of the puzzle that is their marketing plan throughout the year and to show that you have an actual interest in that early doors like early on in the conversation is to show that you care about how they can get the best product to ultimately go towards that goal of that marketing plan so yeah trying to understand what they're you can even ask them you know like ask them about budget you know like

29:22what is their marketing budget going forward I'll ask that and you know sometimes they'll tell you sometimes they'll you know scoot around it like everyone else does so um but you know that's like pulling teeth getting budget talk pulling teeth yeah it really is but you know to answer your question yes absolutely talk about the broader marketing plan show that you care show that you have an understanding of other parts of the broader marketing plan and how you might fit into it so I think and that is just going to be like oh that's actually a really good point I didn't think about that you'll get that

29:52response a lot it's a collaborative effort over time right and it's not like you trying to pitch them something you know you also have to hear from them like what they need and what will probably help them over time as well absolutely probably just pitching it as like a free consultation call like you'll sign an NDA whatever just so you can get a bird's eye view on their whole marketing plan and then kind of see where you can help them in right yeah I personally probably wouldn't bring up an NDA I'd just try and make it as conversational as possible and just let them volunteer information if they're not I wouldn't force it too much but just showing that you're actually interested

30:27um in that sort of stuff early on is uh that's kind of how I would take it but for me by all means try the NDA that's a good approach showing that you care about your clients and how they're doing as well because that I think going from that approach makes it more casual as you mentioned not making it too formal especially if nothing is in the works at that point right and it will also help them understand uh how the video will fit into a campaign that they maybe haven't even thought about they've got like companies at a certain size they've got multiple campaigns running throughout the year and they maybe haven't addressed like okay we've got a web

31:04landing page we've got some graphic design we've got some photography little scale but we haven't really thought about video but a video for this campaign would actually work really well and it would just maybe get if you can get them thinking about the ways that they can use you it's you know they're obviously going to convince themselves a lot more than you're going to be able to convince them we kind of we deal with a lot of B2B clients so I'm finding that a lot of them don't have too many like crazy marketing campaigns uh on the books but they do need video content still and a lot of

31:33them we're finding that there's a lot of different types of videos that they're lacking so we were just talking amongst ourselves and we were thinking of like maybe once uh every quarter or like once a year just hitting them up and saying hey we were just thinking about you guys we developed like a list of these types of videos that could benefit you because that's what we're noticing right now with a lot of our B2B clients they would probably appreciate the suggestion right the direction I mean we get clients a lot where they maybe haven't even started to explore video they've got a pretty decently built out marketing team but

32:09they've not really moved into the video space yet so anytime that you can provide suggestions based on experience and industry knowledge most of the time they're going to be appreciative of that and if it means you know touching base once a quarter to make those suggestions then I think they would take those suggestions and run with them you know if they don't take them at least you'll be at the Forefront of their mind again yeah the other thing we're also finding a lot of success on is uh providing additional services like photography services and right now with the podcast effect that we're developing this

32:45network of businesses like not just across Canada but now into the US and you know next month probably into the UK as well like a lot of our clients are like oh okay you know we might have a headquarters over here would you be able to grab some video footage for us and it's nice to know these uh trusted Partners in these other cities because then you can also go to your clients saying like hey we've built a relationship with this company in say Charlotte and uh they can probably help us out with this kind of project if you need help there having all these different kind of

33:19relationships built can really help in that sense as well absolutely get that wider footprint let's talk about the market over there in uh in Charlotte like what's it like over there so in terms of like Film Community we have a great film community in Charlotte it's and obviously it's not like Atlanta and it's not LA but in terms of just the talent and the people that we have at our fingertips here it's really cool like it's quite a tight-knit community like most people know most people in the space which is really cool there's not many egos um which is obviously one of the main things that we look for when we're hiring crew

33:59um so it's awesome in terms of industry down here Charlotte's one of the banking capitals here so we've got you know all the banks you can imagine really um yeah so that's surprising wow that's our main main industry down here there's banking there is a fair amount of manufacturing um here as well um so there's a lot of businesses in those spaces and yeah it's really cool and we're not far from Atlanta as well so sometimes those things kind of filter down this way because like in Canada at least from our experience and people we've talked to a lot of the time everyone tries to get to some of the bigger cities because there is a little bit more work but then when

34:40we have guests who are in smaller communities it's very interesting to hear that kind of dynamic and how tight-knit the community is and how there's more of like a camaraderie I find from what I've understood that everyone has and it's interesting to hear that because in the bigger cities like here in Toronto it's a very hustle mentality that a lot of people have in comparison so it's just interesting to hear that I think it makes sense naturally if you think about it if you're in a small community everyone knows everyone you're not going to get anywhere if you're a jerk

35:15right you can't because your name is just gonna get tarnished so quickly and you know we have that good old southern mentality as well where most people are mostly nice even though most people aren't from Charlotte um you know for the most part most people are nice down here but once you get to those bigger communities there are so many people to choose from and you know not everyone knows everyone and you know that leaves room for people who don't have everyone's best interest in mind and egos can develop so yeah ego is a big killing force in the industry and

35:50a lot of people are trying to you know get ahead as quickly as possible and like we get it you know everyone wants to move forward in their careers they want to grow their companies but I feel like sometimes some people forget about the importance of building proper relationships over time and that is one very key aspect in our industry at least for longevity absolutely I will work with someone who is nice and hard working over someone who has an ego and maybe does a little bit better work every day of the week you know they have no interest in working with people who are hard to work with absolutely zero they should be having fun working with the

36:24people that you work with it shouldn't be too transactional I guess the second things seem a little too transactional and there's no like chemistry between crew members and team members then like what's the point of us even doing this at the end of the day right exactly I mean that's why we got into it right we enjoy what we do and why would we move it into any other way or bring people on who challenge that but tell me a little bit more about the Toronto Market I'm curious I want to know about you guys specifically like the story behind you guys and then a little bit more about like the Toronto Market as well Dario

37:02okay I could do it you got no you got I was wondering if you got tired of saying it yeah you know what's funny is that we've gotten to ask this question so many times now on the show that it's becoming like a song and dance like and I remember the very first episodes we would be going into very big detail and then with each time we're asked it gets more condensed more condensed let me change the question then yeah interesting to avoid just mind-numbing people um so like what excites you in in your day-to-day job today as opposed to yesterday like what is exciting you in running the business and in the production space of what you do oh okay that's a good one

37:40on my end uh on my end I actually the one thing I like about every day is that there's a potential for something new to come through the front door and that's what I like about our industry is that like you'd be working with some clients one day and then all of a sudden an opportunity can come walking through the front door that just happens to open the door to something completely different you know and this especially happened when we started focusing more on our SEO and trying to get more searchable and so now we're starting to get more and more leads from

38:14different industries that we never had before because we used to be all um word of mouth right our industry is a word of mouth industry and it's very rare there's people in similar industries that were getting recommended to but now it's like very Diversified yeah so now it's kind of like there's that exciting factor where it's like I don't know what's gonna come through the front door in the next week the next two weeks the next month and uh you know it just keeps you going I really like the client it's funny I'm like you Adam I really like the client Communications part I don't know what it is it just energizes me I always

38:48feel like a lot of energy at the end of those calls and I love talking to them about their project and everything and uh the other thing I like as well is that whenever we are shooting it's always something different so we're experiencing something that I think actually I think we have one of the best jobs out there because we get to experience so many different jobs that I don't think anyone else has that opportunity it's almost like we're in the Multiverse it's like oh if I went down that career path I would have been that's what my day-to-day would have been like if I went there it would have been like

39:23that that's the part I like as well is that every time you're on set it's always different you get to see what other people are doing in the world and I don't know I just really like that I also get bored easily so it's like the perfect you know a funny thing that I realized this actually really early on even back in 2014 2015 around the time we started because we started while we were still in University at the time and I remember everyone was we went to business school and everyone is working to get into a lot of these big corporations you know you have to start at very junior levels before you could even get the opportunity to work closely

39:57with some of the VPs or the CEOs and everything and what made me laugh so much was that I'm still a student technically yet somehow I am interviewing CEOs for these videos that other people really have to bust their asses to get to that point it was almost like a cheat code I felt like I hit at that point because I mean like starting in 2013 2014 like because I imagine Adam you started around a similar time as well where that wasn't a time where like the video production company like the smaller one model was really established as a possibility and it was almost like

40:33you're figuring it out as it goes and you're kind of growing with the industry so it was interesting to kind of see how that growth became more normalized and like now it's like anyone can grab a camera and then open up a corporation name and boom there's a production company right there yeah yeah it's very different now but that's cool I'm glad you guys shared that what about you what uh what excites you I so I come from a background of sport I played soccer in college I played soccer every day my whole life between the age of six and 22. so very much in like just incremental improvement so just

41:12like every day improving the company and its processes just slightly you know like I'm not in any rush to do anything you know I just want to just improve incrementally so like at the moment I'm in kind of a phase of just improving our client communication and improving the communication that we have at different phases throughout the production and just making sure because you know we're picking up bigger clients now and different price points with different expectations and they need a certain level of you know customer service throughout the journey and they need to be involved at certain places where other smaller clients

41:49wouldn't you know they couldn't care less about maybe the versions of the script that were being iterated early on but once you get to a certain phase and these are National broadcast spots they have a big say in how they want um things done so um without bombarding them um with Communications but also conveying the messaging that they need to receive is a current like thing that I'm working through and kind of like trying to move throughout the company as well so very boring answer I understand that but it's just like the incremental changes to get to somewhere ahead of where we are today

42:27tomorrow you know the one thing I like that you mentioned is the incremental improvements because I feel like a lot of the time in our industry we get bombarded with so many other production companies especially on Instagram and everything you're seeing like all these massive commercials or major projects that a lot of companies are doing and you're thinking to yourself like oh man I feel like I need to do this so then okay I have to go out there and create like a massive commercial like this right now it's like yeah you can't just do major jumps and things like that to improve like the key is to do small steps because if you put too

43:02many large goals that you can't attain within a certain amount that can almost be demoralizing I don't know if that's the word no no yeah demoralizing and then if you can make it to the point where you're at least improving something in your business on a daily basis even if it's small like the small changes add up to something big yeah like you can't just wake up tomorrow and say like I'm gonna start a podcast and start a show and be with like 50 episodes within like 50 days like it doesn't happen like that and we also learned that in our own way you know by

43:37actually doing it you know the other part of that too is that you need to be prepared for when those opportunities do come through the door right because if you do get that chance and you blow it well that's gonna tarnish your rep and also just deep down you'll go damn I really screwed that one up right yeah so you don't want to ever be in that position yeah you gotta put those reps in you know to be able to come out the other end and be able to do it when called upon but I think another way to do it is like we've been talking about this like over the last couple of years just like consistently working with people

44:15who are considerably better than ourselves at what they do right so you know bringing in like it's not something that we have done too much in the past is work with outside directors but this is definitely something that's at the Forefront of our focus if and when the opportunity presents itself obviously there's a budget thing that needs to be you know achieved in order to do that when it comes to a certain level of director but it also unlocks the opportunity to explore a reasonable sized job you know multiple at the same time you know like so they can control the creative and the pre-production process and we can be

44:50doing two three four good sized jobs with good sized crews in different locations at any given time and it's something that we haven't done but we're currently going through right now and it's been a great experience just working with these incredibly talented and experienced directors um I think that is one way that you could maybe LeapFrog a step in the process is just handing it off and getting it to the people who have done it before yeah because you'll learn things along the way that you normally wouldn't have on your own absolutely right just because their work when you're talking about those types of directors they're doing that constantly

45:25and they're used to a certain standard and you know we started from watching YouTube right we just aren't going to learn that stuff unless you're on those bigger sets which those guys are on almost all the time right so it's almost like we're stealing or not even stealing knowledge which is copying knowledge you know it's like peeking into it because they live and breathe it right if you get a master someone who has mastered that one particular job and you bring them in to execute it you know you learn what works in your process even over time as well when you have to start bringing in other people

45:58and uh like when Dario and I were doing the whole production process from start to finish including the shooting rarely hiring other people you know everything was very generalized because our roles were generalized but then the second we started hiring people which we started doing about a year ago like making it almost like a mandatory thing to have our crews be at least four or five people at a minimum it allowed us to start breaking down the roles breaking down the creative that goes into each of those roles and realizing what works in the process what doesn't work in the

46:30process how to manage it with the client how to improve it over time as well the second you start bringing in other people then you can see the flaws in your whole process and learning from the crew because every now and then a crew member would suggest something that we never even thought about like I'll give you an easy example uh our gaffer was asking us if we use the slider app to scan the rooms and everything because we can create setups that way and we're like what is this thing that was wild so it's called Polycam and it's like a lidar app for iPhone if you have an iPhone 12 Pro you can use it and we've been doing that for location

47:05Scouts ever since because we just scan the rooms create floor maps like it helps a ton right so but that's something we wouldn't have learned on our own you know what I mean it's something that someone else brought in with their experience right everyone has different experiences that you could always learn from like there have been even times where like when we've hired DPs to help us shoot a few things we've noticed like oh that was interesting how they decided to light that interview at least as an instinct right oh that's pretty cool how they went about doing that shot

47:34like oh this gives me ideas on things we could do for other projects like you got to learn from the people you work with I feel like that is a good way to do it and like you said surround yourself with people that can do it better and you will learn and Elevate yourself over time as well 100 uh so we're nearing almost the hour mark so I will answer your Toronto question yeah uh the Toronto Market question first then I'll ask you one last one then we're good um so with the Toronto Market I think it's very Diversified from what we've noticed there's a bit of everything I don't think it's like one of those cities where like if you go to the middle of Canada it'll be very

48:14agricultural focused or it'll be a bigger portion of the pie um or if you go to like the last guest we had on is in Seattle uh over there it's very um Tech focused from what they were telling us here I would say it's very Diversified you'll be there's a strong financial Tech uh you know maybe not a strong agricultural part to it but there's about everything here so I don't think it's too focused on a particular industry I would say at least from what we've experienced and from the other toronto-based companies we've spoken to you got a pretty good Film Community that too huh yeah yeah we're New York we're Canadian New York so you have people

48:56making movies here there's a ton of companies here doing corporate as well um it's funny like when we started the podcast that was one of the things that we were interested in doing is just networking with other local production houses because it's like there's a ton of us out there we kind of all know about each other but no one ever talks to each other here no one does you almost never run into them like sometimes you might be bidding for the same project but that's bidding sometimes you have to be bidding for the same project you might not even know it it's like it was one of those types of situations but

49:31yeah the amount of work that is here I would say there's a ton of work I mean every company needs video at the end of the day and not just one they need a ton of video content and there are a ton of businesses here in Toronto yeah especially if you're starting out that's actually the point I was gonna make you mentioned on one of the previous podcasts that you were kind of concerned about the Canadian budgets compared to the US market is that still the case like is it pretty significant so they do listen to the episode they actually do listen yeah I like that he's bringing in these points I mean yeah like

50:05the what we were talking about in that episode was essentially like the companies that are US-based that have offices in Canada you can't expect them to be it's not the headquarters so the budget isn't going to be that high right also if they're marketing to the Canadian market like we're a population of what 35 million how much do you think and then a smaller portion of that is their actual target market compared to the US where it's like 350 million population like you can't compare to that right so it could happen I like I don't even know if that's the the budgets are that different down there that's just what I always assume

50:42just because you know the company headquarters are all down there so they probably reserve more money for stuff there right that's what I always assume but I don't know how it is like just to kind of stress this is only for like a specific type of clientele this wasn't like a general comment in terms of like all the companies that are in Toronto it was more so like some companies that have like a small office in Toronto or like uh you know it's more remote well no you know what it is it's basically if it's a business that is headquartered it's not applicable to businesses that are headquartered here I would say but most

51:18businesses are headquartered in the US major ones at least major ones if you're a Fortune 500 you're headquartered in the U.S most of the time got it well it's something that I mean you guys you'll find the bigger budgets you know if you just keep going you know they'll come across it just seems like yeah I don't know one day maybe I don't know yeah a big one will just land and you'll have to be like holy yeah I don't know yeah most of our projects are in the medium range now like we're kind of like small to medium still um but you know that terminology Kyrill it differs depending yeah

51:59because our version of medium is probably way different from his version of medium here's the funny thing I feel like every production company in their own minds they're always in the small to medium range you're always no matter what stage in your career you're in in your mind you're always going to be in the small to medium that's fair so what are some next steps Adam for you guys in terms of like what are some things you have in the works or want to do this year so we want to keep developing relationships with agencies marketing and ad agencies just kind of build out those relationships something that we you know

52:34we've done in the past and we have some agency partners it's just that's kind of the direction that we want to go because we want to get that type of work that they have um so reaching out connecting grabbing lots of coffees and lunches with these key creative directors and producers at agencies is one thing that is at the Forefront of our networking game um in terms of just production side of things just keep improving keep I think the main focus for me for the company is to just keep bringing on talented and better creatives keep bringing in the jobs that enable us to

53:12work with the best of the best essentially and I think just with that mindset in mind you know things will only improve across the board we'll learn a lot from them our portfolio will improve the client experience will improve um it's just like there's a ripple effect that comes from working with the best people obviously that comes from getting the jobs that attract the best people as well so nice yeah that's a good Mantra to keep going you know and continue those uh incremental and minor improvements on a daily basis right that's essentially it absolutely absolutely okay so right before we end off um tell us how you came up with the name

53:54digital Spark you know I'm not crazy about the name like first of all like most people don't understand what I'm saying when I say it because of my accent uh and that's a big problem when you're trying to tell people where to find you uh so it was really just like you know me and my business partner 2015 just kind of sitting across the desk from each other just trying to think rapidly Googling things that are available on uh GoDaddy as available domain names and just yeah we know we wanted like the word digital in there and it just evolved from there it was just a little bit of a riff off

54:29until we got to it but not crazy about the name but it's stuck now there's no changing it we can't do anything about it now I like it it's always cool to hear like uh it's almost like the origin story I wish I had someone more interesting to share about it but it really was quite just uh all right we need a name let's go to town on Google and figure out I actually have one more uh question that I did want to ask uh and I wanted to ask it right from the gecko but like so who's the who's the Arsenal fan over there who is the fan this guy this guy oh all right all right so

55:05you're buzzing right now aren't you I am on cloud nine I can't even begin to tell you like and I really don't like how much they impact my overall mood I'm Arsenal day one man my whole life been following a lot so Jesus yeah considering Arsenal had like this uh this soccer team went through like a period of like three years where it was just constant disappointment because I have an Arsenal friend too and just seeing the pain on his face dude 12 years 12 years like it was so bad yeah yeah it's been bad I've also been suffering too on uh what was it like an eight year period or nine year period and now it's starting to actually kind

55:47of slowly come back up guess which club I support okay so eight period come back is it coming back up now or is it oh why did you let him you should let him know I'll let him guess again if you're on the way up it's got to be man united right yeah oh man yeah you've been going for that rough I've been I've enjoyed like laughing with you but while crying about Arsenal uh over the last few years so yeah man it's good for it's looking good for both of us right now yeah if we could just nudge City out of the way then it'll be back to like the Glory Days in the mid-2000s right when it was just United and Arsenal that was

56:28a legendary era that was the good times right there yeah we should connect you with Judah Hernandez from Blacklight media uh who was on the podcast last year I think he's episode 20 something uh he actually used to be a soccer player before he switched into video production and he opened up an office in the US uh production company in Miami I think in Miami oh that's a bit further than Charlotte though but he's going out to Miami for his stuff that's actually a good idea if you want we could connect you to Judah yeah for sure connect us that'd be great okay well Adam thank you so much for coming

57:04on uh if you guys want to either rent equipment or rent a studio space or hire Adam's company for your production then hit him up at digitalsparkstudios.com uh or just uh get in touch with us and we'll connect you to him yeah that's probably the easiest of anything anyway thank you again Adam thanks guys really enjoyed it I really appreciate you getting me out of like a backlog of meetings this is really fun all right thanks man all right guys take care take care bye