How To Get Started and Stay In The Business

Granted I haven't had this come up yet, but I am looking at the economy as a great opportunity to sell my services. Without getting into my mission statement/pitch I will basically be using the economy as proof that it is now more important than ever for companies to connect with consumers to guarantee sales. Consumers will be more cautious with their money and to get them to part with it in down swings in the economy, they need to be "sold" more effectively than ever.
 
While challenging and stressful, this low cycle in the economy will present many opportunities for those who are willing and able to work through it. Smart companies will fight harder for the smaller client base with a greater focus on advertising and hopefully higher quality production values.

This part of the cycle will also help shed some of the competitors who have been riding the high side thinking they have a solid business but will find out they were just skimming the easy jobs off the top rather than building a solid foundation.

Producers and financiers will take tough looks at the bottom line and likely continue with the same "we don't have a big budget" they used when times were good and will continue to beat us all over the head with it even more. Low-ballers may do well in the short term but few will be able to survive or grow.

Those with marginal businesses and business practices are not likely to survive and thus the herd / competition for jobs will be thinned out through natural attrition. Unfortunate for them but opportunity for you if you've been smart. Sadly, I've already seen some Steadicam ops starting to sell off their gear and go back to whatever they were doing before.

In a sense this brings us back full-circle to the very first posting on this thread; "You can always rent gear, studio and crew but you can never rent a client". Hopefully some of you have invested in marketing and sales to build your business and not just equipment.
 
I'm going to try the calling campaign soon. I've done some research and will be sending out flyers to businesses in certain blocks in surrounding cities. Mostly industrial areas, as I'll be targeting the corporate market for training videos, conferences, tradeshow demonstrations, etc.

I'm also having my website redone to appeal to more business owners and include more content, than just flash (something that will be easy to update on my own as well).

I've had my business cards redone as well and have stacks of them ready to go. I've implemented a referral program, but it might take some time to take off considering the limited clientele I've had so far.

I've realized that Robert is dead on the money - equipment might get you freelance jobs, but it sure as hell isn't going to get you consistent work as a business owner, running a video prod. company.

I will update as things go along and ask questions when I have more to ask,

Kegan
 
Hi Jason,

It's important for everyone to continue and boost their marketing efforts or to get off their butts and get started. The current global economic downturn will separate the players from the pretenders. The last five years or so we've all lived in the artificial world of over-abundance where there was money to burn (whether it was real money or not) and jobs aplenty. It was relatively easy for just about anyone to make a buck in our business; there was so much slop that even the lazy and bottom feeders could get by. Those days are over and done with. If you haven't established a habit and methodology for marketing your business and creative services by now, survey says; it's unlikely you'll have the money to compete or the time to catch up on all those calls you wish you had made last year.

In short and for the next few years, everyone, even well established businesses have to buckle down and compete for every dollar and every job. January 2 will mark the 30th anniversary of Starling Productions and while we have a great client base, I still have to make sure I keep in touch with existing clients and reach out for new clients every single day; nothing is given and everything can be lost in no time. We've all witnessed how major corporations; the literal fabric of our business culture disappear like flash paper.

When pretty much every single leader and financial expert in the free-world is on TV telling us that we're looking at the most substantial financial recession of the century, it's time to take notice. These people, politicians in particular are programmed to paint everything with a rose colored brush but the gloves are off and so is the blush off the rose. Even our new President Elect is warning that there are tough and lean times ahead and that recovery may not even BEGIN until mid-2010.

If you don't have a plan for success at this point, you automatically have a plan for failure.

When major corporations are selling off their assets bit by bit to raise capital to survive, it is a serious indicator that there will be a lot of "latest greatest, camera geek, gear-head fan-boy wanna-be's" out there that have all the cool gear but no clients to shoot for, no financiers to fund their films and no one to sell their cool gear to to raise money to pay the bills.

This may sound negative and jaded, but I'm neither (maybe a little jaded); I'm simply pointing out that now is the time to act and commit to your business and even then if you've been "meaning to get started" for the last year or so, it may be too late.
 
The depression on the horizon is going to change our industry forever.
There will always be a demand for an artist or specialist but the truth is it won't be afforded, by in large, over thext couple of years, resulting in a rush of do it yourselfers.
While this surge will be temporary in other industries, it'll flood ours with both gear and savvy.
I go back to the basics and say this... any dream you chase powered by passion will be wrestled to the ground in a matter of time. If this is a job you seek motivated by money, you simply wont be good enough at it to hang with those who are passionate about it.
Love what ya do more than anyone else and you will indeed be the best at it.

troof.
 
Rob, you bring up good points about the certain economic uncertainty, thank you for sharing your insight.

I have two questions: When negotiating fees for services, have you begun to lower your normal ball park figures (or day rates) even if there is no direct competition for your prospect to choose?

I ask because over the last few projects I have begun to wonder if I am asking too much for the market and risk loosing business either to competition or, more likely, the economic downturn. So far, I have not seen a trend of lost work, but want to prepare for the changing times.

This brings me to the other question: many of the tales of great wealth builders seem to have roots in tough economic times. Its as though these people had the vision to see opportunity that was missed by others; positioning themselves for incredible gains. Do you see any such opportunities or trends beginning to form over the next year or so?

Congratulations of the 30th anniversary. I was born in Las Vegas 30 years ago this October. Next time I visit my family, I would love to stop by and see your 'vintage' operation.


Jason
 
What a huge resource. Awesome brainstorming and made me reevaluate my techniques for future prospects. I market myself as a 1st AD/2nd AD. One of my must successful resources in the past year alone as been Craiglist. I have gotten numerous clients since I give them a 2 for 1 deal. Not only do they get a 1st AD put I state that they will get a UPM/Production Coordinator for the price of my regular rate.

Now the last few months have taken it's total on every production studio in town and work as been slower than usual. So now I have to change my strategy and adapt. For starters update my business cards and make a few thousand, go to more industry venues and travel to neighboring cities so I can network.

My ultimate goal is to be a working director for music videos and feature films. So I'm going to start off doing music videos for local artist. Next I'm going to option a screenplay and direct my first feature this year.

Thank you, Rob.
 
AwakenedFilms said:
I have two questions: When negotiating fees for services, have you begun to lower your normal ball park figures (or day rates) even if there is no direct competition for your prospect to choose?
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Very good question Jason! I don't see any reason at this time to lower my rates simply based on the fact that I'm working as much as I care to right now.

If you're missing out on jobs it could be a rate / competitive issue or it could be just a string of coincidence or bad luck. What are your competitors charging? If you've lost a few jobs simply call the client/prospect and ask them how the job went and was there anything you could have done better or did they have a vendor already but had to get bids anyway? Ask who got the job and most importantly thank them for calling you and to please call again. Some will share and some will not. I've occasionally been able to get clients to give me copies of other bids after I've gotten to know them. Never hurts to ask and knowledge is power for you.

We hired a CPA for a period who billed himself as a "business coach". One thing he stressed to us as a production company (I'm not talking about as a crew member) was that our rates should and could fluctuate somewhat based on how busy we were. During busy times we'd get full rate +, during slower times we might have to be more flexible based on cash flow. That's not the same as low-balling which is making a business practice of charging sub-par rates lower than what your competitors are typically charging.

AwakenedFilms said:
This brings me to the other question: many of the tales of great wealth builders seem to have roots in tough economic times. Its as though these people had the vision to see opportunity that was missed by others; positioning themselves for incredible gains. Do you see any such opportunities or trends beginning to form over the next year or so?
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I wish I had this kind of financial insight / knowledge but I don't. I've seen a few recessions but was never positioned well enough to benefit by investing during the low cycle or coming up with some clever idea. Maybe this time will be different; it's not like I don't think about it but you can bet there are people who will benefit.

My advice is to work hard and treat your business like a business. The most important thing you can do now for your future is to not spend a penny that doesn't grow your business. Take the rest of it and sit on it while the economy sorts itself out. Maybe when the time is right you'll be in a position to take advantage of the upturn.

One last thing for everyone who reads this is to Google "economic disaster preparedness" and look for some ideas that fit your personal philosophy and situation; there are some very smart people and groups out there who have predicted and have been prepping for this for a few years now.

Happy New Year 2009!

Robert Starling
 
I've heard that some of the clients I'll be targeting are not spending any more money on marketing, so I won't have much success. But ironically those are the LARGE companies with no money, the small operators have cash to spend. They are also in the hands of a single decision-maker, so they can act easier than a company run by a board that basically won't free up cash for more marketing, even if it is useful.

But the type of corporate production I'm offering is a no-brainer in some senses, there's just no chance at all the companies won't get their money back because of what they charge per client, and what I charge them, they need almost no success to break even, haha, and if they get 1 client for 3 months in the next three years, which would be terrible results, they'd still break even on the work I did.
 
The smaller operators just havn't realized it's a depression we are entering, not a recession.
The big companies do know, hence the massive belt-tightening.
Nobody can afford to break even with anything today.
Risk-taking will become scarce and we'll begin to see what we do is based on expendible revenues. Is it our jobs to re-educate on what our services do for lacking business?
It would be if they didn't know it. They do know it and would still be spending it if they had it.
Now is the time to shine where it is YOU shine. If you dabble with a craft, freakin master that craft. While companies have always loved to spend stupid money on specialists, brother I am here to tell you the one man bands of the world will be the ones who survive this economy.
Off flat bids per project. Offer confidence in the project. Meet a deadline and be ready for more. Deligate as needed... don't do it as much as you think it's needed.
Do a btter job than everyone in your market. Be the best, not the cheapest.
Otherwise, you'll be getting a job in the name of security then getting laid off at 5pm on a Friday when they too feel the strain.
 
Well I definitely cannot be the cheapest, not the way I do things. I come into a facility and bring real lighting packages, jib, dolly, HVX200, wide angle lens, tons of gadgets and tools to do the best job I can with the project, and I color correct everything and spend time focusing on every detail, even will re-write marketing copy if they need it, etc. Other people literally show up with a camera and a tripod, do some panning around, then go home and edit in 4 hours. Maybe they throw some stock music onto it, maybe they don't. No voiceover, no bells and whistles. Sure, they can charge $500 and be happy. I charge ten times that much, and do work that will actually impress their potential clients. So if a company wants really cheap, I'm not their guy. If they want someone who knows how to do things right and pays attention to every detail, that's me. I won't be the most expensive, either.

The average that a client spends in the business I am targeting is about $60,000. That means if my video work gets them ONE extra client from what they would have had without me, they are making a killing already. And that's pretty low standards, honestly, if the video work didn't benefit them more than that I'd be shocked. So far for the last client they've had numerous clients already off the video work, probably paid it all off and more within 6 months of paying us. That's not bad. They're beating the competition pretty badly, which will force the competition to adapt.

If a company can't find extra dollars in the marketing budget, I hope they can find extra dollars to pay a lawyer to file Chapter 11. Because if they don't upgrade their marketing in this tough time, they will not survive. Especially the big operators, they will go down the drain. One of them already is, they are about 20 times bigger than my dad's company, by number of properties, and their stock has fallen 90% because their occupancy is terrible and they are hemorrhaging money, looking to find other companies to buy individual properties to stop the bleeding.

The same is going to be true with a lot of production companies and especially advertising agencies. Why would you pay a large advertising agency $500,000 to develop some commercial ideas and then that company hires a film production company that rips them off, too, etc. when you could pay someone like me 10 times less and get something creative and professional and still quite good. These guys are rip-off artists. If you're Coca-Cola you're not going to come to a tiny production company, but if you're a small business with $15 million to $25 million in revenue per year, you're not going to have that kind of cash to go to the biggest and best agencies. The bigger the company is, the tougher they have it trying to compete with frankly much more talented smaller companies. The only advantage to being big is in industries where you have a stranglehold like a massive theater chain, or a software giant, etc. But why is a huge Web design firm great? They aren't. There are better artists for 1/4 of the price online, you just have to find them. It's only super lazy companies with too much money to spend that use the big companies.

My dad's company was paying this piece of crap Web design firm in Oregon $500 PER CHANGE to his Websites, so if they just wanted a bio changed out on a single page, like replace one paragraph of text with another, yup, minimum charge $500. They saved up like 6 weeks of changes, then sent them in at once, so they could still "only" pay $500, but that means their Websites were constantly out of date, and they thought this was just the way it goes. Now they pay me, a tiny company with a sub-contractor to handle complicated Web work and server maintenance (I can do the basic HTML changes), and I update within 24 hours for all requests. It takes literally only 3-4 minutes to make most of those changes, there's no excuse for a company saying that is a $500 job. NONE. I really gave them a piece of my mind when we were killing their contract, too. They had been taking advantage of a company that just didn't know what goes into Web work and didn't know of a better solution. But it's absurd, I mean these big companies do not have any efficiency in the way they operate, it's just totally screwed up. We even tried to get a design firm to do some work (they are based in India so the price was better) on my site, but we dropped them after two days because they started haggling over money and couldn't get on it fast. I had this experience 5 years ago too, on another site, where I had to talk to a secretary about what I wanted done, she had to relay messages to the project coordinator, and he had to assign project designers to the task as he saw fit. So that means whatever I wanted done, I had to wait for this chain of command to relay orders. How can you possibly compete if you run your business like that?! It's just a horrible model. I can find a guy on Craigslist and I tell him this is what I want done, this is how I want it, and wam, it gets done.

Big companies in a lot of these industries just have priced themselves out of the game. You pay way more, and you don't get way more. In tough economic times, they will not survive, because they are not offering competitive rates or superior enough service to justify the cost.
 
JonathanLB said:
...
Big companies in a lot of these industries just have priced themselves out of the game. You pay way more, and you don't get way more. In tough economic times, they will not survive, because they are not offering competitive rates or superior enough service to justify the cost.
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Hi Jonathan,

You make an excellent point, actually several good observations; as do you Grinner and I can tell you both get the big picture.

Sometimes it's better to be the Captain of your own row boat, than the First Mate on a Destroyer.

Small businesses can be more "maneuverable" or more responsive in the marketplace at any given time; not just now. Think of it as a small power boat that can zip around quickly. Whereas a large corporation is like a big cruise ship, very comfy, benefits, power, resources, lots of momentum and yet be very hard to stop / turn / maneuver.

By the same token, when the seas get rough as they are now the cruise ship or big corporation can withstand more of a storm and heavy seas, much better than the small power boat. Frankly, it's up to the captains / leaders to navigate their vessel in such a way to maximize it's inherent characteristics. The large business may have to jettison some cargo (staff/locations/budget) to become a little more agile, where a small business / sole proprietor may need to scramble back to safety in port and only go back out for short intervals when it's safe or advantageous.

We can all see the big companies struggling right now and most people can name a dozen or two " unsinkable Titanics" that were not so unsinkable after all.

I challenge you now to find six small companies (sole props or up to $5m or less) who are kicking butt and tell me who they are and why you think they are beating the odds and how you can relate that to you own business.

Nice work gents!
 
JonathanLB said:
If a company can't find extra dollars in the marketing budget, I hope they can find extra dollars to pay a lawyer to file Chapter 11.
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this needs to be slogan of the year or something! so many small companies are going out of business because their customers or lack thereof do not know they exist. the last small company i worked for is sinking faster than the titanic because of this very reason. their only form of marketing was waiting for people to find them on google and sending spam email newsletters.
 
let's say you're just starting out and you want to do free work for people, should you not beat around the bush so much and just be like hey I can help you for free or is that still sounding too door-to-doorman?
 
Sumfun said:
But as I'm sitting down to think of who to call, I can't think of more than 80 or 90 companies to call. At 20 calls a day, that would only last 5 days. So can you give us some examples of who to call? And how do you get through to the decision makers?
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'Same problem here. When I ran out of companies, all that was left was gas stations, a few convenience stores and farms. How DO you find the right prospects to call?
 
You simply don't give up. You make a list of who you wanna do bidness with and call em all.
You then grab your list of who you would do bidness with and call them all.
Then you grab the "oh man I hope I never have to call these tools" list and call those as well.
 
basspig said:
How DO you find the right prospects to call?
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This was covered in detail from the beginning of this thread. Go back and read it through again.

If you're in a small town or rural area make a 250 and 400 mile circle on a map out from where you are located and reach out. A large percentage of my work is someplace else.

There's no reason to "run out of companies"... I just don't buy it. If you really want to make it in this industry and build a business for yourself then you'll do whatever it takes and wherever that takes you to do it.

It's not easy and if it were everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't pay very well.

Stick with it, fight for it, struggle and get through the tough parts. It will never be easy but if you hang in there you can experience and see things the average person only dreams of.

Or, you can give up and get a real job.

Robert
 
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