Transitioning from Generalist to Specialist (ft. Umault)

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Kyrill00:00Ha ha ha!

Dario00:02Starting on a high. Okay. Hi everyone. Today we got Guy Bauer from Umaltz. Guy, welcome to the show.

Guy Bauer00:09Thanks for having me.

Dario00:11We were just talking before we started recording about the names. I thought for years it was Umalt. But apparently I found out just like a minute ago it's Umalt.

Guy Bauer00:21Umalt, yeah, it's the umlaut is that U with the two dots that makes the U sound. But yeah, it's when I was changing the name, I actually had a consultant, David C. Baker, who was guiding me through this whole like rebrand that I was doing. And I said, hey, I like the what do you think of umalt? He's like, it's a terrible name. It's hard to spell, impossible to pronounce. And I didn't listen.

Dario00:56How did you even come across – like how did you come up with that? What is it?

Kyrill00:58Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:00I didn't actually come up with it. We used a design agency. and I said, Hey, be weird. Here's what I want. Like our whole vibe to be. And, they came up with it. And so my philosophy on brand names is that you fill the brand name with meaning, you know, the brand, the name actually doesn't really mean much without you filling it with meaning. but

Dario01:16But what's it mean?

Dario01:27Yeah.

Kyrill01:28Right.

Guy Bauer01:29Basically, it's an app. It's a play on umlaut. The umlaut is the U with the two dots. So we're umalt. And it's kind of just like, hey, you look at something and we're just kind of twisting reality a little bit. I don't know. That's like the post -rationalization of a crazy name. You know what I mean? You got to come up with…

Dario01:47You

Kyrill01:50You know, that's like, that's like our name. That's exactly like how we did it with our name. Cause we came up with our name being something really, it just sounded cool. And it was the only thing that sounded different back in 2014. We wanted to get just laps, you know, laps .com, but that was taken. So we had to add productions to it. And then Dario.

Dario01:51my god, I have a funny story about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guy Bauer01:57Yeah.

Guy Bauer02:02Right.

Dario02:11But even how we came up with Labs, it was from a short film I was working on called Relapse. And I was like, you know, it sounds cool. It's just laps. And I didn't even know what was out. I don't remember. But it was just was it just laughs. I think it went through a couple of name changes. And then if you think about the name for the longest time, people are asking us about it. I would like we would have to fill it in like.

Kyrill02:20Wasn't it just called lapse? It wasn't relapse, it was just lapse from what I remember. It was just lapse. Yeah, it was just.

Guy Bauer02:37Right.

Dario02:37Okay, what those laps mean? Like a lapse in memory where like, okay, so like the videos are so good that like you don't notice the time that passes. It's like we're just trying to fill up the… And then, but that was like our like on the spot like elevator pitch. But eventually a couple of years back, a couple of years back, we finally came up with a better one. I came up with it after Kyril's New Year's Eve party. I'm lying down in bed, like drunk.

Guy Bauer02:45there you go.

Kyrill02:46Yeah, exactly.

Kyrill02:54Which was not bad.

Dario03:06And I had this, I just had it come to me. I was like, L -A -P -S -E. I'm like, we should do something with the letters. So lasting, amazing, pictures, sounds, and experiences. I'm like, this is so good. I was like, I'll tell Karel tomorrow morning about this, right? And I'm like, I'm about to go to see him. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm gonna forget. I have like the memory of a Goldfish. I'm like, let me write it down. So that's our modern one.

Kyrill03:20Yeah

Guy Bauer03:32That's, I mean.

Kyrill03:45Yeah, working within certain boundaries or creative boundaries as well. It's like, all right, we're kind of stuck with this name. What can we do to make it really good? Cause we all know rebranding is a whole pain in the ass. Like, I mean, luckily we're all very small businesses. So it's not as hard as like, say a bigger company is, but just even the process of like, say you had to just like, cause I've always wanted to even like tweak the logo just a little bit, even just a little tweak. Then you have to update it on every single social.

Dario04:11Hehehehehe

Kyrill04:13You have to get it in the right format size. You have to export it in certain settings for certain websites. And it's just absolutely crazy to do that. Not to mention the videos, all the promo videos.

Guy Bauer04:27Yeah, you have to have the knockout version.

Dario04:27We were thinking of changing the name a while back, but then we went, we were trying to come up with different names and we're like, these all stink. And not to mention the URLs aren't available either.

Kyrill04:36Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bauer04:38Yeah, that was the other reason why the agency liked Umalt was that it was available because it's just a cockamamie name. But, you know, like it's a six letter word that was available. Dot com, you know, when does that ever happen?

Dario04:44Yeah.

Kyrill04:49Yep. Anytime a company is trying to say like, yeah, this is our name. We chose it because of this. And it's like, we all know that you spent hours on godaddy .com testing to see if that URL was available or not. And that's the only one that was left over. Day by day, it gets even harder. It gets even harder because more and more people are taking URLs here and there and yeah. But.

Dario05:01Hehehehe

Guy Bauer05:08Pretty much it.

Guy Bauer05:17Totally.

Kyrill05:18Anyways, let's get into a little bit more about like the company behind the name. So tell us a little bit about Umalt.

Guy Bauer05:27Yeah, so Umalt's been around since summer 2019 and it came after essentially the downfall of my previous production company called Guy Bauer Productions, which is a little like, you know, what's the word where actually there was, I'll never forget this moment. I had a huge sign in lights for our office called, and it said Guy Bauer Productions or it said

Dario06:14my god. That hurts.

Kyrill06:15Oof.

Guy Bauer06:20It was all self -inflicted. So, Umalt came out of the ashes of Guy Bauer Productions. I started Guy Bauer Productions in 2010. I had always been into radio, TV, film, just kind of an AV guy. I'd been making videos since the seventh grade. Got into a couple TV shows in the early 2000s and then moved on to producing a morning radio show. But video was always my hobby. It's what I did with my friends. We made goofy music videos and…

Dario07:20Yeah

Kyrill07:21I remember those articles.

Guy Bauer07:21And yeah, right. And there was this little thing about if you have a hobby, you know, you can go on these freelance websites. Back then it was called Guru .com and Elance .com. Elance .com turned into Upwork and you can go get little freelance things. So I made a profile and my first gig was a $50 puppy video edit back in 2010.

Dario09:21That's insane.

Guy Bauer09:50and tried to kind of square this whole thing of like, well, I know that like I'm good at video. I know that I stink at business, but I'm good at video. And I just tried to like put this whole thing together. And we brought in a consultant named David C. Baker and he helped me guide. Yeah. Yeah.

Dario10:07Is he the guy from 2 – Is he the guy from 2Blobs? Okay, yeah, okay.

Kyrill10:09That's what I was gonna ask. Wow.

Guy Bauer10:14So that was the best money I've ever spent ever actually, because he essentially saved my like, not life, but like saved my business or my like line of work that I do. And that was Umalt. Umalt was like, all right, I'm done making, I'm done letting clients drive because when clients drive, you end up making corporate videos because they don't know creative. It's not because they're evil or mean or anything. They just don't know what they're doing.

Dario10:59Yeah.

Guy Bauer11:15And that's it.

Dario11:17How can you say you're bad at business though? Cause you went from like just starting out to 32 and 30 plus employees. Like that, that means you're, you must be good at business. You know what I mean?

Kyrill11:17I love the ear video.

Guy Bauer11:19Ahem.

Guy Bauer11:28I think I'm good at selling and I think I'm awful. Like if you actually look at the numbers, the amount of money that I lost is kind of mind blowing because there's, you know, there's, I think there's sales and then there's like what you do with the money and how you use it and how you deploy that money. And I think here's the thing. Am I good at business now? Probably a lot better than I was 14 years ago. So I think that's

Kyrill11:46Yeah.

Guy Bauer11:56But one of the reasons why we had such a huge disaster in 2018 was fundamentally because I had no idea what I was doing. Every time we hired a new person, we became a new company that I had never managed before. And I didn't know the dangerous waters I was heading into every time we grew the company. And…

Dario12:14Hmm, interesting.

Dario12:21What would you say was the danger? Like every time you added another person.

Kyrill12:25Was it like you didn't know what you were hiring for? Like you were hiring without a plan for the hire necessarily and how that would impact your business?

Guy Bauer12:35Biggest, the biggest, the best way I can say it is this is, hmm, how can I say it? I would make, I would be in temporary pain because we would oversell. So I would oversell because I couldn't say no to any opportunity. My internal goal was to, I don't know, be a billionaire or something. I don't even know, just to be the best, to win video production, just win the game.

Dario13:23Yeah.

Guy Bauer13:32I was very, if you've ever read the book profit first by Mike McCallowitz, he talks about managing your company through the bank account. So I would look in the checking account. If it had a lot of money in it that day, I'd be like, right. I've won business. I'm great at this. Let's invest something or buy something. And then if it had no money, I would be like, we're going out of business. And I was very public about this too, in front of team members and just everybody, like just a complete.

Dario13:59really?

Guy Bauer14:02disaster of management. And that's what I would say is like, it was this, and then eventually it got into this thing where I had to feed the beast. Like I had all these people and, and they did nothing wrong. They were great. Like they're all like doing great things right now. but I just, like, I had to take on whatever work to meet payroll. And then that was completely unprofitable. It required way too much labor.

Dario14:38How was it at the beginning when you were hiring people? Because again, you ended up with 30. But like, how was it early on? When you're adding like your first couple employees.

Guy Bauer14:48Yeah, and that's essentially where I made the mistake. There was two paths that I took back in. So I hired my first employee in 2012. And the way I see it is that was a fork in my life. And I took this way. And essentially in 2019, I was like, whoop, that's bad. I like walked all the way back and then took this way. So basically the bet I made or the decision I made was, okay, I'm…

Dario16:23Interesting. What was the advice that David C Baker gave you?

Guy Bauer16:29He was like, you're a month away from bankruptcy. This is I can't. He was like, he was like shocked at how awful it was. And he's like, my gosh, like, dude, what are you doing? And he gave me this kind of ten step thing and I still have it. But he was like, yeah, you have to like you. I was trying not to lay anyone off and he was like, no, no, that's that's not going to happen. Like you have to. Yeah, like, yeah. And.

Kyrill16:32my god.

Dario16:54That ship sailed.

Kyrill16:55Not in the cards.

Guy Bauer16:59So that was it. But then he was like, you have to, you have to specialize. You cannot just be a video like Guy Bauer Productions was we'd make a shoe video next to like a thing about the fourth industrial revolution and digital manufacturing and design next to a thing about like a new Kickstarter video next to a music video with violin people. Like just whatever we would just do video production. We, you know.

Kyrill17:28Jack of all trades basically. Yeah.

Dario17:28Generalists, right? But most of us are like that, right?

Guy Bauer17:29Exactly. Totally generous.

Kyrill18:15Yeah

Kyrill18:20It's straightforward, yeah.

Guy Bauer18:28Everyone else can make an event recap video. So it forces you to compete on price or just wanting it more than everybody. So meaning you're going to over serve, you're going to do wait, you're going to bring in like a drone and like this and that. and, and the other thing is that little did I know that all this equipment I had, I thought once you buy equipment, well, now you could just use it for free. It's free. So what does it matter if they're not paying us to use the gear? I already bought it.

Dario18:42Yeah.

Guy Bauer18:58but the equipment is depreciating. And basically all of these balance sheet and boring accounting things caught up with me in 2018 where I just couldn't oversell myself out of it. Like I couldn't, I was always relying on like, I could just get more sales and more sales. And what happened was is yeah, eventually companies started in housing. They started building their own production companies that made crappy corporate videos.

Kyrill20:01And from what you're explaining, like I see that in the about video that you guys have on your business. I've never, it's been a while since I've seen a video production company have a very concise about us video that's 15 seconds that very creatively shows what you guys are all about and how you niche yourselves. And I love that little tidbit where it's like, stop doing.

Dario20:32Hahaha

Guy Bauer20:34Yeah.

Kyrill20:57you know, if something's coming your way, it's like, here, do you wanna do this event recap video for four or $5 ,000, right? If nothing's happening in that month, you're not gonna say, no, I'm a general, I have a niche, I'm not gonna do it, right? It's hard for a lot of companies to kind of say no to business like that, right? So like, from what you've learned now doing the generalist approach, and then now going into the niche approach, what is like probably,

Guy Bauer21:34So what's interesting is I feel like sometimes when I'm up at night, I'm like, if I could go back to 2010, would I start with our positioning right now? And maybe the answer, I think most likely the answer is like, that would be a gigantic mistake because you have no idea what you're doing. And there's no, it's impossible for you to come up with that positioning anyway. So I feel like the generalist to specialist,

Dario21:51Agreed.

Kyrill21:57Yeah.

Guy Bauer22:01is actually a very natural organic career path. If you think about it, you know, I started as a PA, a PA, you're a complete generalist. You're like, one day you're in the art department, one day you're with crafty, the next day you're with talent and the camera team, like next day you're pulling focus, like they'll use you in whatever way. And it's a great way to figure out what do you like? And you know, where do you want to be?

Kyrill24:09Yeah, you really nailed it on the head and you just said something that I think a lot of video production professionals need to hear is that there's no rush to have that specialized company and like Dario and I in the past have even ourselves tried to think about it. It was like, how can we niche down like based on what we've done? But then we realized, we haven't done enough of this to really niche down, which is one of the big factors. It's like you have to do enough of that niche before you fully niche down.

Guy Bauer24:43Yeah.

Dario24:52And even if you've done even if you've done 100, it still has to be a financial decision at the end of the day. Like, are you getting enough inquiries to do products where you can just fully just focus on that?

Kyrill24:58Exactly.

Kyrill25:04Well, I'm wondering though, it's like, if you haven't niche down, it's hard to get that much of that one type of consistent, how do you say, inflow of leads. Like maybe once you've done enough, then you can kind of focus on it more and pitch more to those types of clients and leads. Maybe then you'll get more leads. But like you guys said, like you have to have enough experience in the industry, tried many different things to understand what you want to focus on.

Guy Bauer25:45Mm -hmm.

Kyrill26:02because different industries need different kinds of videos versus other ones, right? It's like one might need more promotional videos, others might need more social media videos. It really depends, right? And you really just have to go through the motions of getting more experience before you can decide that.

Dario26:19There's also a difference, Kirill, between like doing, like you mentioned, the nuclear power plant stuff and just having that one whale client. And that's why you just do all those types of videos. That's also a distinction.

Kyrill26:30Yeah, yeah, I'm just using it as an example. But that's the other thing. That's actually a good point you're bringing up is like, be careful of that pitfall where all your business is one client. That doesn't make that your niche. You have one client that does all that. And there are a lot of companies that build their businesses based on that. And that's how they grow to like a big team. And then if that client leaves, then their team gets decimated. Like, Guy, did you have that?

Guy Bauer26:31Mm -hmm.

Dario26:38Yeah.

Kyrill26:59kind of with your previous business as well where you had like a whale client that helped you grow or was it like a lot of like medium or smaller companies?

Guy Bauer27:06I'm like, you're you hit it, man. You hit it. You struck a nerve. Yes, we did have a whale client. Here's here's the other huge thing that the other gigantic mistake I made was the whale client every. So many months or every year would go, hey, we want a pre bill. I didn't know what that was there. Can you send us an invoice for one hundred thousand dollars? And I was like, yeah.

Kyrill27:12You

Guy Bauer27:35That's awesome. Sure, I can. I had no idea. But what they would do is basically like getting budget off their books so they don't lose that budget next year. But what I would do with the 100 grand is I go, well, this is a lot of money and they're going to have a lot of work for us. So I better hire to anticipate the influx of work. But they would never send us the work because it was just kind of like.

Kyrill27:36You

Dario27:44Yeah.

Guy Bauer28:02They were just trying to get it off their books and we were essentially a bank. So.

Dario28:06So it was just like free money? Like they would never…

Kyrill28:08You got free money and spent it on people, just that's it.

Guy Bauer28:12To anticipate the people, you know the the work coming in I was I was a I'm telling you This is what I'm saying. Like I was Here's here's how I describe myself like I'm the worst Board game player or like because I I think very in the moment like I only think one move I'm only in the move I'm in So I Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll destroy me so

Dario28:16Yeah.

Kyrill28:28Hahaha

Kyrill28:32You

Dario28:35I need to play poker with you man, you'll go all in and the first hand is great.

Kyrill28:37Yeah

Kyrill28:41He would be interesting as a poker player, actually. Every time.

Dario28:43All in. We don't even have our cards yet. I'm all in.

Guy Bauer28:43Ha ha ha

Guy Bauer28:48I actually play like that. I play blind. A lot of times what I do is I don't even I pretend to look at my cards because I'm like, well, if I know the cards, I'm not going to have courage. So I'm not going to look at the cards and I'm just going to like play people and just bet like I have pocket Aces anyway. And so, yeah. And so now I know and maybe you guys know this. I didn't know this is that pre -bill is not revenue. You have to do the work before you recognize it as revenue.

Dario29:01Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bauer29:18I was a very, cause where I came from, I was very not, I was, I went from mom and pop companies to this gigantic whale overnight and mom and pop companies, when they give you the deposit, you do the work and then, you know, the, the cycle is like six weeks, eight weeks, whatever. But then when this whale company came, their cycle is like years. we still have pre -bill on our books.

Kyrill29:50wow.

Dario30:05How long does a pre -build last? Like is it usually like a one year term or no, it keeps going.

Kyrill30:11What was the contract?

Guy Bauer30:17and you just have their money and it never expires. You can't like, it's not like a retainer where every month, you know, you chew into it for $10 ,000. No, no, no. It's just a gift card. It's a gift card, essentially.

Dario30:25I didn't know that. Okay, okay.

Kyrill30:31Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But like you didn't do a contract. You didn't do a contract with that. They just gave you money and that's, and the understanding is that it's forever. What happens if that whole department leaves or gets the, like fizzles out? Like what happens?

Dario30:33Yeah.

Guy Bauer30:33They bought gift cards.

Guy Bauer30:38That's it.

Guy Bauer30:45It's happened. It's happened across many companies, actually. There isn't just one. This is like a game. I'm not going to name any names, but this is a game that everybody plays. The big companies plays they because they don't want to lose their marketing budget for next year. So they get it off their books this year. And essentially, it's a gift card. And what going back in time, what I would do now and the by the other, by the way, the other bad thing about accepting pre -bill. So if any client wants to pre -bill, do not accept it. I'll tell you another bad side effect of accepting pre -bill.

Dario30:47So it just.

Dario31:13shit, we just did that recently.

Kyrill31:15We just, luckily it's a small amount, so it's not like a lot. No?

Guy Bauer31:17Don't do it. So there's, I'll give you so many bad things about accepting pre -bill. The biggest one, at least I know you're in Canada, but in the United States, they tax you on profits. So if you accept $50 ,000 of pre -bill and then don't do any work and you just took $50 ,000, you're going to get taxed on $50 ,000 profit. That's what the government sees as profit. Profit, at least in the United States is taxed at 50%.

Dario31:41Holy shit, okay.

Guy Bauer31:47So they gave you a $50 ,000. They bought a $50 ,000 gift card of which you have $25 ,000 left to do the work. Meaning like you're now like, you know, you forget about taking any money for your agency. You're just basically doing this job for free. The other side effect is this. Don't do it. I'm just telling you the pre -built it's because you're like, there's so many times when you run a video production company, you're like starving.

Dario31:56you

Dario32:00Yeah.

Kyrill32:05my God.

Guy Bauer32:16You go through seasons and if some client comes around going, hey, pre -bill, you're like, yes, yes. But it's not your money, it's their money that they're letting you hold and pay tax on.

Dario32:27What if in your contract, because in our contract that put in a clause that says, you know, if it's been this many months and nothing's happened, then this thing's forfeit and we keep everything. OK. OK, then we're good, Carol.

Guy Bauer32:39then that's brilliant.

Kyrill32:40Yeah, yeah, because that, yeah, then we're, yeah, we're good. Okay, yeah, yeah. So that's the thing. It's like, when you said they pre -billed you, because I thought doing a pre -bill, you should still have a contract in place in terms of like what that money is gonna be allocated so that there's an understanding. It's like, this is what it's gonna be used for, for certain work that's gonna be done for the next few months or the next like year or so. Like if it's, I think in your case, what you're,

Dario32:54Yeah.

Kyrill33:07just to clarify for the audience is that getting pre -billed without any set projects, deadlines, goals, and then just an invoice, it just opens you up to so much liability.

Dario33:20So you didn't have a contract, it was just like you sent them an invoice, they paid it like that?

Guy Bauer33:26That's it. And we had a statement of work with like a kind of essentially like a understanding that we'd figure this out later. And that's the other side of bad side effect of pre -bill is that the team who pre -bills you, they say, yeah, we want to make this cool thing about like spaceships. Right. And you're like, yeah, I'll do that. By the time they use it a year later, they're like, no, I remember that spaceship thing and that cool thing. No, we just need explainer animations and we want.

Kyrill33:28my god.

Guy Bauer33:55like 50 of them, or a lot of times they'll go, can we use your pre -bill? This is another bad side effect of pre -bill. Can we use your pre -bill for you to pay a different vendor? Like we don't need a video. We wanna buy signs. We wanna buy signs for an event. So you know how we gave you $50 ,000? What we want you to do with that 50 is just pay this other vendor for us.

Dario34:20What? You are a bank, yeah.

Guy Bauer34:20I not only has it happened, it has happened to other agencies. I know it's not just me. So you.

Kyrill34:28That is so illegal. What do you think about it for that business?

Guy Bauer34:32No, it –

Kyrill34:36It's not?

Kyrill34:43Jesus, they must…

Dario34:44It sounds, yeah that's bizarre, I never knew all this stuff, that's wild.

Guy Bauer34:47Just don't do it. It's a bad practice. Cause the other thing is it's almost like, and then it's like this, it's like a slippery slope of because they gave you money last year, now they're going to give you money the next year because they didn't spend enough from last year because they gave it to you. And they just need to keep giving you more and more. And…

Kyrill35:10It's a never -ending cycle of you holding money as a bank. Isn't there like some kind of regulatory laws about holding money like like banks?

Dario35:11Yeah.

Dario35:18You know, the other thing I'm thinking of is that one guest brought up the fact that they don't do retainers because they don't want to take on like the depreciation cost of the money itself, right? Because it loses 2%. Should lose 2%, right? So right off the bat, if they're giving you 100k, you're losing 2 % of that every year. And if it takes them three years to do it, like it cuts into your profits at the end of the day, right? But.

Guy Bauer35:30Mm -hmm.

Kyrill35:39to grant.

Guy Bauer35:44I haven't made a dollar off of any of that pre -bill. Zero. That all of it was a complete curse and a distraction. And, you know, and again, I only have myself to blame because I didn't know what I was doing, but that's still no excuse. So, I mean, yeah, I would just avoid. I've learned and I'm telling you now, please don't do it. There you go.

Kyrill36:02but you learned and you've learned and you're warning other people. That's the whole point of why we're having this discussion. It's like, we're taking our experiences, explaining like, this was a big mistake, don't do it. Cause like Dario and I, we were thinking about, we technically want pre -booked work or pre -built work technically. But although we were thinking like, obviously probably a contract needs to be in place at the very least, but it's like,

Dario36:34I didn't know it would go in like in perpetuity until it was fulfilled that I didn't know about but the difference of what we did was that like number one we're gonna keep doing this going forward like everything was defined going into it like we knew what the project was and I put all the details on the contract and our contract also has like a clause saying like you know but that is mostly if they they stop communicating with us and we don't know what's going on if it's been a set number of months then

Kyrill36:39That's wild.

Guy Bauer37:00Mm -hmm.

Dario37:04cut the core type of situation, but wow, okay. This, I'm putting this as one of our commandments. Never accept pre -build.

Guy Bauer37:10Yeah, just don't do it. It's it's.

Kyrill37:10Yeah, no, no, no pre -bill with without a set contract in place with an understanding of what that money is going to go to because

Dario37:18But even with the contract cure, like what if that thing takes forever to do? Like what if it's like out of the 100k, they've only used up 40 and now they're still 60 and sure they're still keeping in touch with us. So you can't use the, huh?

Guy Bauer37:20Yeah.

Kyrill37:29but you had the timeline. You had the timeline. It's like, I think the only way where pre -bill will work is like, okay, we can accept this pre -bill as long as there is a clause where it needs to be used by this date next year in terms of work. Otherwise, otherwise, if nothing is used by that point, it's been forfeited because at that point, they're getting the advantage of pre -billing, but also there's a stipulation. It's like, it's not, you're not,

Dario37:42Otherwise we keep all of it, right?

Dario37:50Yeah.

Kyrill37:59doing it without some kind of consequence where it's like, you've committed to 100 grand. We're gonna work on it, we gotta use it up, and it's gonna be based on our pricing and how we bill based on these things. So you're gonna come to us with a project, we'll tell you how much of it gets used up, right? Because it's like, we had one guest before from the US also who, it was kind of like a retainer where they basically got a pool of money of 100 grand for the year, and then they just kind of depleted it over the course of the year. That's how they did it.

Dario38:06You gotta use it up. You gotta use it up.

Kyrill38:28And that's the only form of pre -billing which I think legally and safely works for everyone. But it's kind of, yeah, but that's kind of like a retainer, right? But it's like when you break it down, that's like really the only way that makes the most sense for it. Like if you're just blindly taking pre -billing, it's like, yeah, sure, here's an invoice, thank you. How is it like, also like in what world is like that understanding where it's like that can be used for the next 10 years? It's like, but I don't know, it's such a mess.

Dario38:33But that's retainer. That's a retainer, no? Yeah.

Guy Bauer38:35That's a retainer, yeah.

Guy Bauer38:57It's. it's there's so many tricks. There's so many tricks that companies use. And like I said, I'm not the only one. The other thing about pre -bill, even if you have a contract in place, a lot of times what they'll do because I started doing that, I said, you have to use this or else, you know, you're I didn't say I'd take it all. But like we're going to charge you a fee or whatever. But a lot of times they then they learn to bait and switch. So they, you know, they they.

Dario40:06Yeah

Kyrill40:23Yeah

Guy Bauer40:24Now they have to like go their boss is going to yell at them. It's I'm telling you, it turns it into a thing that and you're like, I got into this to be creative and make videos. And now I'm in Excel, like, you know, looking at interest and stuff like, come on now, just know. At least that's my stance.

Kyrill40:41I didn't even think of it from that. I didn't even think of it from that aspect where like, even like say you had that pool of money that is dedicated to work and then they'll ask you to do something. So then you take those billable hours from the pool. It's like, wait, wait, that's, shouldn't that be just something quick or included? Why are you taking it from the pool? It's like, my God. I didn't even think of that, that conversation that might happen, but wow.

Guy Bauer40:58Yep.

Dario41:02I had a client, I learned about that recently because I was helping one of our clients find some graphic design agencies because I've been meaning to do that for the business anyway. So I was just like, yeah, sure. I'll help you out with that. And one of the agencies was pitching, because I was in their sales meetings after I connected them. And one of the agencies was pitching retainer, right? For their design work. And I was talking to the client afterwards.

Kyrill41:51Ohhhh

Guy Bauer41:53Yeah.

Guy Bauer41:57Absolutely. It turns you into like an hour counter, which is like what? I don't get into this for that. And yeah, exactly. There's so many side effects, so many consequences.

Kyrill42:09Yeah, wow, charging for a quick email. It's like, who are you, a lawyer? Like, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense because that's the kind of business relationship that turns two parties in, right? Where it's like, how else are you gonna track the work, right? Because it really is, it's like a unit of measurement, right? Once the money has been paid, what's the next measurement? Hours, essentially, right?

Dario42:14But you can see why it goes into that stage. Like it makes sense, right?

Guy Bauer42:14Yeah

Dario42:36Yeah.

Kyrill42:38It's like a different form of currency, oddly enough.

Guy Bauer42:41Well, I'll tell you what, what I used to see when a client would give me money, I used to see that as, yes, we won. This is sweet money. I used to see that as now, like I used to see it as like a huge win, like a total asset. Now when a client engages us and that money comes over, it's a liability actually, cause it's a promise. It's like, I have to do this work to a certain standard, all the pressure.

Dario43:30That's so old school.

Kyrill43:31Boom shark!

Dario43:38You

Guy Bauer43:39And then post David C Baker, the bell was only rung when a project was delivered, because that's when you actually make your money. You don't make any money until the project is delivered, clients accepts and says, great job. And that was a huge lesson I learned. And that's why pre -bill is terrible because how many months or years is it until you get to ring that bell? And every month, every day is a liability. It's just sitting there. It's promises.

Dario44:15We're very similar to you in that sense because when we first started out it was, yeah they said they wanted to go through with us, great we got the project and then it got to the point where it was like let's get the contract signed and then that means we got the project and then it got to the point where it's like contract has to be signed and deposit has to be sent before we get we say we got the project.

Kyrill44:36But to his point, it's not like, he was treating that deposit and the contract signing as the bell ringing, right? But he's saying it's not until it's done. And that's kind of how I always think about it too. It's like until the final video is delivered, then I go to Dari, I'm like, all right, project is done. How much are we making off this? Then I'm thinking, okay, now is the way. And usually the second deposit is for that. But it's like, yeah. Yeah.

Dario44:42As that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dario45:01Sub -Archins are always good though because we go into it knowing exactly what we'll make, right? I'm never, I'm always like, great, we got it, money's in. Now, Carol, here you go. Let's go back to the sales room.

Kyrill45:06We know what… Yeah.

Kyrill45:14Yeah, exactly. So, but at this point, guy, is it just you now or how big is your current team?

Guy Bauer45:22current full -time team is me and my wife. We work out of our basement. Her office is 30 feet that way. Maybe not 30, 20 feet that way. And, and then what we do is we bring in, freelancers experts on their own and, and fit who we're, I almost like see it as I'm a big NFL fan is every project I will draft or through free agency acquire the exact.

Kyrill45:30okay.

Guy Bauer45:52skilled players. Yeah, you have to draft the team. And the other thing is what I used to do was always default to the same things. I treated every job as the same. So like every job needs, you know, a gaffer, DP, this, that, all like, it would just be like a template. And now the way I see it is you have to use your creativity.

Dario45:55That's a cool way of saying it. I'm stealing that one.

Kyrill45:56I like that, I like that approach.

Guy Bauer46:21in how you actually crew out and how you execute as well. Like creativity should be used in the budgeting and for like just the day planning and all that stuff, because you can unlock a ton of value and actually like increase your production value by, you know, like changing up your mixture, your recipe for that, you know, unique job.

Kyrill46:49Yeah.

Dario47:18Or even a stronger editor maybe.

Kyrill47:21or a stronger editor or editing team, then you're basically reallocating resources based on that budget. I mean, but then there's sometimes the aspect though where like a client's budget is only a certain amount. So you have to kind of make cuts where you need. So that budget doesn't really get allocated in other places, but I know it, I understand what you mean. Essentially, it's like getting creative with the budgets where it's like, you might take out a little bit from production, add it to post or take out a little bit from.

Guy Bauer47:21Yeah.

Kyrill47:50post to add to production to make it a lot easier for posts, you know, yeah, there's

Dario47:54Even in pre, you can add like a stronger copywriter or something. There's ways to, yeah.

Guy Bauer47:59Exactly. And to me, it's all about like they say Warren Buffett. Well, they don't say he says Warren Buffett says his greatest skill, the gift that he was blessed with at birth is capital allocation. So he just knows if you give him 100 bucks, how to exactly split up that 100 bucks into different investments to yield the most value. And I think that's what we all have to do is you have to look at this budget as your Warren Buffett.

Kyrill48:00Yeah.

Guy Bauer48:28kind of investment sheet, like exactly how much are we going to allocate and where to maximize the production value on the screen. A lot of times people see our work and they're like, man, what did that cost? Like 200 grand? I'm like, no, it's like 28 ,000. And like, and I think that's through the, just thinking differently. A lot of times I would say nine out of 10 projects that you see on our site, I'm booming.

Kyrill49:17Ha ha ha.

Dario49:20You

Guy Bauer49:26Like I know it's inconvenient. It hurts my back, but we'll put the money somewhere else.

Dario49:30shoulders. But luckily now you're also at a I think you're at a more in a more flexible position because your overhead cause I'm sure have decreased by decreased tremendously where you can also just you know be like the the audio offer your shooter went out versus versus in the past I'm sure you wouldn't have been able to do that because if you had to keep feeding the beast you have to stay in the office.

Guy Bauer49:58Hmm.

Guy Bauer50:03Yeah, and that's a huge lesson I learned is, you know, I'm a video maker. I will say, I don't think it sounds bragging, but I think I'm a darn good video maker. I've been making them for 30 years. I'm pretty good at it. And when you build a business, and especially the second you hire someone, you are now moving from video maker to business operator.

Kyrill52:23it you really nailed it on the head there honestly like it so many examples started to come to my mind and I and Dario smiling because I already know probably one or two that have already the evil one. Yeah, because I remember last year there was a there was one client project where it was like one where we we didn't even make that much money on it in total the profit margin was super low but then

Dario52:32I just like how he called them the evil one. It made me laugh.

Kyrill52:50Dario would keep getting emails and calls from the client at the most random times to get certain things done. They weren't, they were trying to get like, they were trying to get us to start doing animation work before a script was even ready for a voiceover artist and things like that. And it really just goes to show like the amount of energy and time and effort gets wasted on that one bad client. And then when you have your good client calling, yeah, you're still gonna like.

Guy Bauer53:05Hmm?

Kyrill53:18do good work for them, but it's like you're already in a bad kind of mindset when you're talking to them and then.

Dario53:23They weren't bad people, they were just getting annoying. But then I did my classic thing of like, you set boundaries where it's like, you have to be inconsistently consistent. So like, I wouldn't be available right away. Sometimes I'd be available right away for emails and whatever. And then sometimes I'd wait a day or two. You never know my schedule. I'll get back to you, you just don't know when. As soon as I established that, they kind of like understood. So.

Kyrill53:26That's that's what I mean. Yeah, like it's.

Dario53:52And the other thing is never give out your personal number. Never give out your… Or never answer anything from your personal number. That's the trick too.

Guy Bauer53:53I love that.

Kyrill53:58Yeah, keep everything on, especially with those types of clients, you have to keep everything on an email trail because whatever gets set on a phone call is not necessarily recorded all the time, right? So.

Guy Bauer54:05Mmmmm

Dario54:08It's not even that, like you don't want to like constantly be called or whatever, right? Like, or the text messages, that's like a bad trap I noticed. It's like sometimes you start like a text combo with a client and then like, it's like text messages. Like you just get text messages all the time. Cause it's a lot easier to send a text than to send an email, right? You got to try to keep that strictly email or like, you know, look at my Calendly and book something there type of situation.

Kyrill54:11Yeah.

Guy Bauer54:24Mm -hmm.

Guy Bauer54:33I, you know how many years that took me to learn what you have done? Yeah, that's exactly right. I learned back in the day, I read a book and they said, yeah, email is not a priority. You need to subconsciously teach them that if you email, it could take 48 hours that if something's truly an emergency, you know, call the business line or do whatever, but like you don't use email as a channel for urgent.

Kyrill55:09Well, also, how do you constitute what is an emergency? For one client, they will think everything is an emergency, because everything needs to be done at some point. So that's why you have to keep it in an email format, because then that also forces them to manage things on their end. Because sometimes what happens with some clients is that they leave things to the last second, and then they try to get you to compensate for that, where it's like, they had a week to prep.

Guy Bauer55:17Yeah, that's true.

Dario55:18Yeah.

Guy Bauer55:30Mm -hmm.

Kyrill55:36something where they needed to get a video done by the Monday, right? And then they, instead of telling you on the Monday, they tell you on the Friday, try to call you frantic and say, we need a video done by Friday or we need to make these changes done by Friday. Can you get it done right now? It's like, why didn't you tell us on Monday so we can plan it out and then coordinate, right? So you have to kind of, you're kind of like teaching them in a way, right? It's like, you know, there's, you have to do some work on your end so that we can help you get your work done in a timely fashion, right? Like obviously you always try to help them as much as you can.

Guy Bauer55:51You

Kyrill56:06Right? But also if you start to enable that by constantly doing that for them, then they're gonna think that is a norm. They could always leave things to the last second, you're always gonna do it. And I see this happen with a lot of freelancers that we've worked with in the past who work with certain agencies and they became great problem solvers for those agencies and clients, but doing it very quickly and very much at the last second at his expense and he suffered as a result in the future. And you know, like,

Dario56:28Yeah.

Guy Bauer56:29Hmm.

Kyrill56:35you have to slowly, you have to basically teach clients, it's like, look, I'm not your errand boy that's going to be at the phone waiting every five seconds to do your bidding. If I'm doing that for you, how am I gonna do that for my other clients, right? It's also teaching them, it's like, I'm treating you with good respect as I treat all my other clients, we wanna make sure we take care of everybody, right? Because if I'm doing that for you,

Dario56:43Yeah.

Kyrill57:01what's to tell you it's like if I don't answer your call next time I'm doing that for someone else and then I can't give you the necessary attention. So it's really a balancing act when it comes to that.

Guy Bauer57:06Yeah.

Guy Bauer57:11I love that. Love it.

Kyrill57:15One thing I was gonna also, just before we finish, because you mentioned it's just you and your wife now as like the core team. Were you guys, yeah, were you doing that before with Guy Bauer Productions or was this something you decided with the new venture, like to go into business with your wife?

Dario57:15Okay.

Dario57:23What's that like?

Guy Bauer57:34She she's been working with me since like 2015. Yeah, 2015. So she worked in. Yeah, she worked in the old company and then and essentially it's it's there's two branches of our company. There's operations and then there's creative and she does operations. I do creative. There's a very say a very solid firewall there where because I'm

Kyrill57:40okay, so it's been a while.

Guy Bauer58:03I would say I'm like awful to work with actually. So I'm terrible.

Kyrill58:07Don't be so hard on yourself like that. Come on.

Guy Bauer58:11I don't know. I'm for as many like cool. No, I don't know. I like anyway, so I think it's the other thing that she because she's my wife, like if I start acting crazy, she's like, dude, be quiet. Like she can tell me to like shut up and kind of go to your room. And so she has the ability to tune me out, you know.

Dario58:14People that say that are always great to work with, so…

Kyrill58:16They're the greatest people to work with.

Kyrill58:31Hahaha

Guy Bauer58:41And that's I think that's critical because I'm a very I'm from New Jersey. I I think out loud a lot of times and sometimes and that's what you know, we would also freak out employees like if a client wasn't happy or we got yelled at or something, I'd go, well, I could always drive an Uber and as a leader.

Dario59:05You can't say that. Yeah. Yeah.

Guy Bauer59:06Like, that's the worst thing to say. What are you doing? You idiot. Like, but that was my internal thought is like, well, you know, I could drive an Uber like and that is still my backup plan. Or I think my backup plan actually is changing to I want to like open a pie shop. But anyway, I always have a backup plan in case all this in case in case people realize I stink or something. But yeah, and she she knows like when I start

Dario59:22Really?

Guy Bauer59:35talking like that, just like, shut up. Like, dude, like, you know.

Dario59:38She's like your Consolieri. Yeah.

Guy Bauer59:41Consolieri. Yeah, exactly. I love it, actually. And she's actually a really great. She used to be a paralegal. So she's like very detail oriented. She used to redact like thousand pages of documents. So. Yeah, she finds everything. We just did a carna for a job we have in a couple of weeks and she found like one line. I would just go, sure, approved. You know, she found like one thing they didn't include.

Kyrill59:43Ha ha!

Dario59:55That's probably the best person to have running operations.

Kyrill59:57Yeah. Yep.

Guy Bauer01:00:11And so, yeah, that's and that's not my type of thinking. So we don't really step on each other's toes, which is also good.

Kyrill01:00:21that's great. I mean, and yeah, and you've

Guy Bauer01:00:22How do you guys separate it?

Dario01:00:26Ha. Carol, go ahead.

Kyrill01:00:27It's very, it's very straight. It's, it's, it's pretty straightforward. Dario, Dario handles more of like the sales and outreach and yeah, a little kind of like the operation side of it. And I handle more the creative aspect and the actual head of production. And that's kind of how we've, we split it. Obviously there's always a little bit of overlap where we're helping each other out on certain aspects, but in terms of responsibilities, that is, that is how it is. I mean like

Dario01:00:48I basically handle up until like the production is done. Then like Kierl obviously does most of the creative on that front. So basically how it works is I'll do sales, client communications, some managerial stuff as well. And then once it gets into creative, like pre that's a lot of Kierl. I'm basically like the client's eyes during that whole process. Like what would they approve? What would they not like? All that stuff. And then during production, I'll take on producing.

Guy Bauer01:01:34Mmm.

Kyrill01:01:37Yeah, it's the one funny thing about that. It's a good system that we have in work and it's helped us out in many instances where like when you're basically working on one thing, you get really kind of focused on the creative and you get attached to kind of like how the deliverables are going to be because it flows in a certain way. And then Dario will come in and be like, here's like a shot that might've been missing or here or like, you need to adjust this thing.

Guy Bauer01:02:10Yes.

Dario01:02:12I really like my skill I noticed is that I can I know what the client is thinking. So like when I see one of our videos like in the rough cut, I'm like, they're not going to like this. They're not going to like that. We got to change this. And then every time we don't listen to me, like they come back with those changes. After a while, we're like, listen, let's let's do it the way I think they'll like it, because then they'll like it. But Curel is also good in the proposals, because when I draft those up,

Kyrill01:03:02That's the thing that's always like, it's like a, like we're having battles with each other, but it's like, it's really us trying to battle with the client, right? And then it's one of those aspects where they're saying, no, they're gonna close at this price. I'm like, all right, but we can't be pitching $500 for reproduction for this project. You know, like that's, that's just like an example, right? But it's, it's just one of those things where you're always trying to kind of like figure out a good balance, but that's like how it is with any.

Guy Bauer01:03:22Yeah.

Kyrill01:03:30business when you're working with client projects, you're trying to figure out what is the best approach that is doable for that client. You know, it's not like you can just take a hundred thousand and call it a day, right? I had to throw one in there just for the fun of it.

Dario01:03:40That's a low blow, Kirill. That's a low blow.

Guy Bauer01:03:43Yeah.

Kyrill01:03:52But anyways, you know, sorry, what were you gonna say?

Guy Bauer01:03:52go ahead.

Dario01:04:08I think like the way we do it is very basic. I think we're doing it the right way, but like we've we already established like what our costs are. So we have like different packages essentially, and we just modify those. So like, yeah, like

Kyrill01:04:15changing.

Kyrill01:04:24It's like a baseline. It's a baseline based on what a client's budget is. When they present what they're looking for and what their budget is, we have certain, because a lot of the time we're getting clients that don't do video too often, so we're trying to kind of get them an understanding of what the whole process is, how much each part of that process.

Dario01:04:27Yeah.

Dario01:04:44Nobody's saying on our end, on our end, do we have like a way to do it? And it's just like, we have, we have like determined, prices set already and like, there's some variants in there. So. Like for example, with pre -production, we have some flexibility and lowering it. If, you know, there's not going to be too much pre -involved and then that can kind of help us close the project or increasing it. If we know we need to do more pre, but it's usually, usually around that range. Right? So we have about.

Kyrill01:05:30That's the easiest part.

Dario01:05:45Yeah, but our margins are pretty high. Like we have every project we do, I think our margins are like 30, 40 percent goes to the business. Like the rest is just like hard costs.

Kyrill01:05:56Keeping the only thing to stipulate though is that these margins are also based on us doing that work and those other aspect, right? So like one thing that I think a lot of people that might make a mistake sometimes, especially when they're pitching for post is that what an editor charges for a project, they'll charge that and maybe just a little bit, like just a small amount on top. But what people don't take into account is a lot of the time what you're also doing on the backend.

Dario01:06:03Doing the shoots, yeah, yeah.

Guy Bauer01:06:20Mm -hmm.

Kyrill01:06:25with the editor, working with the editor, your time that's involved, that's a big aspect of it, right? So it's like, okay, if we're just gonna charge what the editor's gonna charge, so basically I'm just gonna give it to them, he's gonna figure it out, and then I just deliberate. That's what that makes sense. But then what happens in this situation is when you're working on a very creative project that you developed in pre -production, you have to work with the editor to get it exactly right, exact timing sometimes even, and…

Guy Bauer01:06:27Bingo.

Dario01:06:30Yeah.

Kyrill01:06:53And then you have to also communicate that with the client, go over those notes and then work out kind of like, all right, you don't wanna do it like this. Maybe we can kind of do it like that. There's just so much more time that goes into each stage of the process. And then the more projects you do, the more you will learn how much time is generally set. So that's why Dario was saying there's a rough range that we might get an idea of, but it's always good to confirm with your freelance editors.

Dario01:07:26Does that answer your question or I don't know if we answered it properly or not.

Kyrill01:07:27But is that kind of like, and how do you go about it? Like with your projects?

Guy Bauer01:07:29No, no, that's exactly right. Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:07:35So I just copied, I don't know if you ever heard of this podcast called RevThink. They have a thing called the split. Essentially you take the big budget and you divide it in half and that's how much you can spend on freelancers. So if you sell a $20 ,000 project, you can spend $10 ,000 on freelancers. The other 10 has to go to all your, like to maintain the agency and that's for all of your hours.

Dario01:08:14I think we've been basically doing that without knowing, because I think, like I said, 30, 40, but I think it was actually a little bit higher. So we've been unconsciously, like it just naturally became like that. So half of our costs would be the freelancers and then the other half would just go to the business. Right. And we tend to do, yeah. And we, it's, yeah. Yeah. So we're doing something right, Gail.

Kyrill01:08:17Something like that.

Guy Bauer01:08:33Mm -hmm.

Kyrill01:08:33Yeah, or paying us technically, paying us as an expense, paying the business and that's, that's yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a natural progression because it's like, if you basically pitch a project based on just what the freelancers are going to charge, which a lot of production companies do, but that's like, at that point, like you're basically managing without being paid for it as well. Right. Like you're doing the work for the client without.

Guy Bauer01:08:35Yeah. Yes. You need to be paid.

Dario01:08:57Yeah.

Kyrill01:09:01getting paid for it at the same time. But again, you have to start somewhere. It always depends on your situation, but I like how you put it. It's a good rule. It's like, if the budget's 20, half of it goes to freelancers because then you also have a system that you know in terms of like when you make that sale, you'll know what your potential margins are as a business, right?

Dario01:09:27What was that podcast called? RevThink? Okay, I'm gonna check it out after this.

Kyrill01:09:28RevThink.

Guy Bauer01:09:29RevThink. Yeah. Yeah, I.

Kyrill01:09:31have it safe i have it open here

Guy Bauer01:09:34Yeah, I think it's called the split. if you just search their podcast archive, but it was a, yeah, it was just that, that one episode I listened to, I was like, man, that's actually brilliant and very easy. And the way we do it is we always write to our production budget. So if we, you know, for example, if we have a $30 ,000 job, when I'm writing the script, I'm writing this to be made for $15 ,000 hard costs in freelancers and everything.

Dario01:09:45Yeah.

Dario01:10:01yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guy Bauer01:10:04So it's like you, I kind of like, ever since we did that, it's been just a lot easier because we're not stretching ourselves. The worst is when, you know, you've pitched this job, pitch this idea where you're like, we're just going to lose money on this or break even. And that's. Yep.

Dario01:10:21We've done that in the past that that client, Carol, was talking about that. Like, I think we broke even on that project.

Kyrill01:10:23Everyone's done that.

Guy Bauer01:10:28Yeah.

Kyrill01:10:28No, the amount of time we spent on that we technically lost just in time alone, right?

Guy Bauer01:10:31It's a loss.

Dario01:10:32They got in touch with me recently, I've been like slow to answer till they want to do another video, I'm like, I don't know.

Kyrill01:10:39I just double the quote and then see what they say. But I like that kind of rule mindset because even though Dario was saying we've unconsciously had that kind of approach for us, thinking like that, especially in the creative, is a good way to kind of keep things within a certain budget, especially. And I like that approach. It's something I'm gonna start kind of.

Dario01:10:42Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:10:59Mm -hmm.

Kyrill01:11:03keeping in the back of my mind as we're getting through that. But the problem is like sometimes when you're pitching with leads, you're trying to close. So you're trying to also kind of figure out what might work, right? But then when you get to the actual.

Dario01:11:14That's why you do the starting, you do the start, you do starting at and you put it really small font, just so if they ever say anything, it's like, it was there. But yeah, it's always like a jumping off point, right? Like that's what I let my leads know as well. It's like, this is what it starts at. But again, like if we get like, it might go up, depends on what you guys want to do, right?

Kyrill01:11:18Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:11:20There you go.

Kyrill01:11:23Hahaha

Guy Bauer01:11:38Mm -hmm.

Dario01:11:41So many good tips this episode. I feel like we gotta do like a top 10 with you, like just create a list and we'll just go through each one.

Kyrill01:11:41But yeah, this.

Guy Bauer01:11:41Yeah.

Kyrill01:11:48Yeah, no, like this, this we touched on a lot of a lot of things that we haven't touched upon before in the podcast. So it's always nice.

Dario01:11:53I don't even know how to title this episode, like there's the what do you call those, the T -bill? Freebilling?

Guy Bauer01:11:56It's just…

Kyrill01:11:57Don't accept pre -billing. That's the title. Don't accept pre -billing. That's the title.

Guy Bauer01:11:59Just don't.

Guy Bauer01:12:04one thing I forgot. We were talking about bad clients. There was a story. I'll never forget this moment. Just how bad a bad client is. I did this project with a bad client and we wrapped walking to my car. I was like, I'm not cut out for this. I'm not cut out for video. Meaning it's not like I'm not cut out as like I stink at video. The client had me convinced that I was terrible.

Dario01:12:34Wow.

Dario01:12:58Jesus.

Guy Bauer01:13:03In that first call, there's so many times where I have these gut instincts. I once had a call with a client who was like eating while they were talking to me on the on the first call. And I just like that's kind of a sign of like, well, you're the help. Like you're you're, you know, like you're not, you know, I'm going to eat my lunch while I talk to you. And I was like, hmm. And I didn't listen to my gut. And it turned out, yeah, to not be good. And so like

Kyrill01:13:21Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:13:32that first call, you have to like listen to your gut. because it, I'm telling you, it always comes true. Like exactly what I think is going to happen on that first call usually ends up happening. And it's so weird because you're in a business and they're going to give you money and that's cool. And like your spreadsheet doesn't show any emotion. So your spreadsheet doesn't know like, you know,

Kyrill01:14:07Yeah.

Dario01:14:17It's like a virus. But we're not ending off, we're not ending on a negative note, so you gotta tell me something positive before.

Kyrill01:14:22I was, well, here's, before we get to that, as you were mentioning that, I was looking around my desk to see if I had a granola bar somewhere that I could just slowly open right now. I'm like, damn it, I'm like feeling in this backpack here. I'm like, do I have one? Can I pull off this timing perfectly? I'm like, damn it, it's in the kitchen. I can't get the granola bar.

Guy Bauer01:14:23Sorry, sorry.

Guy Bauer01:14:32Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:14:42Sorry.

Dario01:14:43You should have done it as he was talking just like, hum, hum.

Kyrill01:14:47That's what I mean. I was trying to do that. Hold on. Hold on. Let me see if I had the chest because I was looking and I'm like, no, no, there's nothing handy.

Guy Bauer01:14:47Yeah, like, what's up?

Dario01:14:54We gotta film this after Karel and then we'll cut it into the episode and it will make your audio even louder than it is. my god. Alright, say something positive though, because I wanna end on a high note. Tell me about your most positive, fun, memorable experience.

Kyrill01:15:02This is like…

Guy Bauer01:15:02Hahaha!

Kyrill01:15:07Yeah, man that would have been so you're gonna cut let me go there now

Guy Bauer01:15:07We could do a pickup, yeah.

Kyrill01:15:16something positive.

Guy Bauer01:15:24I think…

Kyrill01:15:31We put him on the spot, that's why, you know?

Dario01:15:35Well, one time this client didn't eat a granola bar while we had our sales call, so that was a really good time.

Kyrill01:15:41Heheheheh

Guy Bauer01:15:41No, actually, like I would say this is that if you look at Oumalt's clients, there are great clients out there. There are very many great clients. And it's like, do you ever see Fantasia?

Dario01:15:55Like the Disney one? Yeah.

Guy Bauer01:15:56Yeah, there's this anime, the old one, I think it's all these centaurs. Yeah, all these centaurs are like meeting their mates. And there's this one center I forget. I don't know, maybe they were weird looking. I forget what their whole thing was, but they were sad because there was no mate for them. But then eventually they found their mate and they were like mirror images of each other. And this took me a long time to learn is that

Dario01:16:00The OG.

Guy Bauer01:16:25I am good enough. Like what I can do in the very limited capacity I have, I can't do everything well. I can do like this little sliver really well. Like, and sometimes I think world -class, like this little sliver is my lane. And guess what? There are clients out there that want that little sliver of what you can do best and have confidence in yourself that you can do this.

Dario01:17:34Yeah

Dario01:17:40Really?

Kyrill01:17:47Wow.

Dario01:17:48Jesus.

Guy Bauer01:17:54The good ones will find you. And I have a client right now that like, I just can't believe I have because they are amazing. And we see eye to eye and we have creative discussions and it never turns into like per my last email. It's just very respectful all around.

Kyrill01:18:09Poo my last email. I love how you added that voice

Dario01:18:10for my last email.

Guy Bauer01:18:16There are Centaurs out there for you and you will meet your match and there's a client out there that wants you for you.

Dario01:18:25Nice. Yeah, I like that. Turn into Tony Robbins there. Don't take pre -bills. OK, so guys, if you want to find Guy Bauer, you can go to you. OK, now I'm screwing up the. OK, it's almost but it's spelled you mall. So you and a ULT dot com. I actually found your site.

Kyrill01:18:26Super inspirational. Let's end it right there.

Guy Bauer01:18:31And don't take pre -built

Kyrill01:18:32Love it.

Kyrill01:18:36Yeah.

Kyrill01:18:42Umald

Guy Bauer01:18:45That's okay. Umalt.

Dario01:18:55back in 2021 when we were redoing our website, I was trying to get inspiration and like you were ranking like crazy high. And I remember checking out your site going like, shit, this is really good. And I sent the video you had in the about section of Carol way back then. I don't know if you remember Carol. I was like, yeah, check out the video that these guys did. It's the same one. Yeah, cause I went to the about site. It's the lady, the lady in the meeting. I remember sending it to Carol. I'm like, yeah, check out what this guy's doing. So.

Kyrill01:19:11Was it the same one? Was it the same one?

Guy Bauer01:19:17Mm -hmm. Marina.

Kyrill01:19:19Vaguely remember it now. Yeah, super good.

Dario01:19:22I'm glad to finally be able to chat with you all these years later. But okay, umault .com and then your social is what?

Guy Bauer01:19:33just UMAULT, just all over, Umult. we're primarily, on LinkedIn, is like our major channel that we spend the most time on.

Kyrill01:19:38at Umult.

Dario01:19:45Nice. And you guys are based in Chicago, correct?

Guy Bauer01:19:49We are, we're actually in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, a suburb. But Chicago, yeah. It's Chicago.

Dario01:19:54Is that close to Chicago or?

Kyrill01:19:56That's like, that's like the berry of Toronto. Okay. Yeah, probably.

Dario01:19:59Is it? Okay.

Guy Bauer01:20:00It's just a bunch of business parks and stuff. Yeah, it's like the boring part.

Dario01:20:04Okay, that's fine. I live in the boring part of Toronto now, so I understand. Okay.

Kyrill01:20:08Yeah. But guy, thank you. Thank you so much, man. Like, honestly, this was such a great conversation and super chill. I feel like we could chat for hours on this stuff. I feel like there were more topics to be.

Dario01:20:19I still think we should do like a top 10 like tips video. Like I think he's got enough. Like I could see it in his face. I'm like, this guy's got a lot more to say.

Kyrill01:20:22Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bauer01:20:27boy.

Kyrill01:20:27It's like, I got some stories for you guys.

Guy Bauer01:20:31Now, honestly, this has been one of the best conversations I've ever been a part of because it was a conversation, you know, and I appreciate it. And you guys are doing it all right. I mean, I think, you know, you you've learned so many lessons that took me way longer to learn. So I appreciate it.