Creatives Grab Coffee - Adaptability, Sales & SEO: Growing a Video Business (ft. Pickle Pictures) #88

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee (#88), we sit down with Mike De Robbio from Pickle Pictures (South Melbourne, Australia) to dive into the realities of growing a video production business. Mike shares how adaptability played a key role in scaling his company, the importance of genuine sales outreach, and why SEO is both a powerful tool and a long-term investment. We also discuss managing cash flow, building strong client relationships through clear communication, and the challenges of running a lean, scalable operation. If you’re looking for practical insights on navigating the business side of video production, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways!TIMESTAMPS00:00 - Introduction and episode welcome02:19 - Meet Mike De Robbio from Pickle Pictures02:35 - How Mike got into video production03:50 - The unexpected start of Pickle Pictures05:20 - Transitioning from producer to business owner07:55 - Learning every role in video production09:10 - Why having a well-rounded skill set matters11:27 - The importance of communication in video production14:10 - Handling last-minute changes and tight deadlines15:48 - How Mike’s background in hospitality shaped his work ethic17:16 - Problem-solving on set: Staying calm under pressure19:55 - Avoiding production disasters and staying prepared23:01 - The solo operator model: Running a lean production business26:17 - Balancing efficiency with quality in small crews28:22 - Working with marketing agencies as video partners31:08 - Sales as a creative: Learning how to sell video services32:16 - The reality of client retention and business cycles35:37 - Effective outreach strategies: Cold emails vs. networking39:11 - Being conversational, not salesy, in outreach44:14 - SEO vs. direct sales: What’s changed over the years46:10 - The risks of relying too much on SEO48:55 - Diversifying lead generation: SEO, ads, social, and outreach53:40 - Why you should never rely on one big client55:33 - Learning from early business mistakes57:07 - Running a lean, scalable video business59:58 - The challenge of balancing editing and business growth1:04:22 - Managing cash flow: Why upfront payments matter1:06:33 - The emotional rollercoaster of running a business1:10:05 - Setting clear expectations with clients1:13:07 - The importance of intro calls and filtering leads1:17:46 - Adapting to different client personalities and work styles1:26:28 - The origin of the Pickle Pictures name1:30:35 - Final thoughts and where to find Pickle PicturesSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 🎞️Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

Welcome to Creative Scrap Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creative Scrap Coffee is hosted by Dario Nuri and Kirill Lazerov from Labs Productions. Our goal is to share knowledge and experiences from video production professionals around the world. Whether you're a freelancer looking to start your own business or a seasoned business owner aiming to scale your company, this is the show for you. Join us as we develop a community of like-minded creatives looking to learn and help each other grow. Welcome to the business of video production. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Before we get started with the show, let's go over today's sponsors. Do you have a shoot in Toronto?

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Hi everyone, today we're gonna be chatting with Michael D'Arabio from Pickle Pictures, which is based in South Melbourne, Australia. Welcome to our show, Michael. How are you doing guys? Thanks for having me. So let's begin with a little bit of a background on how you got into video production. Yeah, so look, I've, I guess I've always kind of been in video in a sense.

I studied at university in Edinburgh in Scotland and kind of focused on doing video there, got really excited about it. It was a general degree that I was studying which was kind of all media and comms and journalism and stuff but I just really honed in on video and did my dissertation in video as well so that's kind of where I really thought this is kind of where I'm going to aim my career. I met an Australian girl at university and we ended up moving to Melbourne. So as soon as I came over here and started looking for kind of proper work it was in the video space. So the kind of work I first got, you know, and again I was just sending the CV out, contacting everyone I could. And eventually there was a

educational video company based in Melbourne, who needed a bit of help just doing something really simple, kind of, kind of putting menus on DVDs for the kind of videos they were making and stuff. So I got to go in there and, and start with those guys. And that's where it all began really. Yeah. go in there and start with those guys. And that's where it all began really, yeah. Nice, so you started your company around what year? So the company itself,

so I was with this educational video company as a producer for many years. And then like a lot of these businesses start, Pickle Pictures started not kind of intentionally to start with, you know. I had a couple of opportunities come my way. I had a friend who was in the marketing industry, he had his own agency and he had a couple of clients

who needed a bit of help with some video work and said, are you available to do some work with these guys? I'm like, yeah, I'll give it a shot, sure. Did a couple of jobs for them and they came back and they said, can you help again and there's someone else we know who wants some help and it kind of just started to happen without me really planning for it and then we got a really big opportunity through doing that through one of those clients who had a huge project needed done we're talking like 10 videos, traveling all over Australia. They were a really big household name,

organization company in Australia. So I put in my proposal for those guys and we got the job, which was huge and awesome. And it was from there I thought, this is, I can go for this now, I'm gonna try and do this full time. And that would have been, so I was side hustling, I guess, doing these little projects, but that would have been probably 2014, where I kind of went proper,

proper full time off the back of that huge project and just went for it and I haven't looked back, I suppose, you know? Yeah. So how has it been like kind of, oh, sorry. Sorry, Kieran. I was going to say, say like so you went from being a producer at this company to then being your own Like to being a business owner. I'm just wondering what was that? Pro what was that transition like for you? What did you experience? going through that Yeah, so it was look a lot of the things I think working as a producer

we're kind of the same, you know really in terms of working for my own business because, you know, I was still producing, I was getting a team together and that's what that role, so to give you a bit of backdrop from the this work that I was doing for this educational video company, we kind of did everything, you know, so I started off doing these DVD menus and then I got to doing a bit of video editing, and then I got to do some freelance directing for them. I learned everything very hands-on, because the university degree was really,

it was all practical, it was all theory, the theory of media. It was not useful at all in the real video escape world. So I kind of learned every little role, and I did everything at that video company. I did sound, I was a boom, you know, kind of holding boom mics, I was, I did some acting which hopefully is gone and lost and no one will ever see. I did camera stuff, so I literally did everything there, you know, but ended up becoming a full-time producer and that role of

course is bringing teams together, being given the pressure of, hey, we need five videos to be done by this date, and this is the budget, figure it out. So that's what running Pickled Pictures is really. It's when I kind of started doing stuff for myself, I used some of the people I'd worked with, freelancers I'd worked with, kind of with the educational video company,

camera guys that I trusted, I did the editing myself. So again, I think it was easier for me because I didn't intentionally go out initially and going, I'm going to start a video company and have all that stress. It came to me. And one thing I keep thinking back on is I could have said no, you know, it should have been so easy in so many points in my career with Pickle Pictures to say, you know what, no, I don't need to do that. But I've just always said yes. The opportunities came along and said, yeah, I'll do it. And then I've just always said yes and kept doing it.

And it's ended up, I'm now kind of Pickle Pictures is national, we make videos all over the country and beyond. So it's just, I think there's something to be said there is that when these things come your way, you've got that choice, I guess, to go with it and give it a shot and try stuff out or not. And I've always just gone for it, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't seem like when you're,

when you start a production company, it's not always like the thing you think that you're gonna do when you wanna get into video. It's like, I'm gonna start my own production company. You just wanna create content. You wanna create, you maybe wanna make movies, documentaries, or whatever the content might be. You never think to yourself,

I wanna be a production company owner, like a business owner. And what's funny is that, like with this other company that you were working for, you basically learned every single part of the job in that one business that wasn't your own. So you got like a unique kind of experience in doing it so that it almost seemed like a no brainer when you did start Pickle Pictures, right?

Whereas like a lot of the time when you're getting into the industry you're learning little things about different roles with every project you do. And a lot of the time it is, and a lot of the time it is just like a small, like a small part of it, right? Like you might learn a little bit of camera work in one role,

but a lot of editing in this one, because that's what that particular small project demanded. Or maybe there was another one where you were just a one man band. You couldn't hire other people. So you had to do it all yourself right there. But then there's other ones where you have to learn how to manage whole crews. But it seems like you kind of got a good sense of

everything with just that one business right? Look yeah I agree and I think it's really really useful and important to be able to have done a bit of everything you know because now when I'm sort of I can talk to the camera guys and I know what they're talking about. And I know as an editor, what kind of footage we should be shooting. You know, you're thinking about that end stage of the video right from the beginning. So you're producing thinking, which is so important when you're doing, you know,

the 90% of the work we get at Pickle Pictures is we need this done with this budget and we need it done by Wednesday, right? So you've got those restrictions you've got to deal with. So you've got to think, well how do we do that with one or two people? We don't have a huge budget to have ten people turn up and help. So you start to plan that stuff out and I think having been there and done it all and been on sets and sort of you know know what a full eight

ten hour day shooting feels like, I think that's super important. So I'm very grateful for that for sure. And I think, look, to be honest as well, I've been doing this all this time and I'm still learning stuff. I don't think it ever stops at all. This week, I was like, okay, this is new. The one thing that I've learned most now, I really think is something that's really, I think about a lot. In terms of video stuff, I know how to do video stuff, inside and out.

We've done every type of video. I know how to edit. That's, you know, I know how to do it. I'm comfortable in that space. I don't feel, I feel like I know where I'm at with actually production. But I would say the big part of what this business is, and this is the part I'm always having to learn about and adapt to, is how to work with different people and

how they work. All my clients come to me with different needs. Some people want to have complete control over things and that's how they do things and I've got to fit in with that and make sure that we deliver what they need. Some people come and they need a lot more support from us. So I think the learning thing for me is, all right, how do I work with this person? How do I make sure that we deliver what they're looking for? How do I make sure that this process feels fun for them

and feels genuine and they're enjoying it and it's making sense to them, you know? So that's where a lot of the learning comes from now, for sure. What do you suggest in terms of like improving communication? I guess not just with your crew or with your clients, since that seems to be like an integral part of like how you advanced as a company. Communication is super important.

Um, we've always tried to be very flexible and that's one of sure that we are able to chat and I think my best clients that I get on really well with and can come back a lot, they know me like a friend you know and I like that kind of relationship. I wanted to feel like that. So I want to be there to sort of offer that help and guidance where it's needed and I will say hey listen this will work better I think this way but you really have to, the customer or the client, it's their job, it's their baby, they're putting a lot of effort and importance into it. So you need to be able to fit in with them. We would never sort

of demand certain things or this is how it's going to be done. We have to sort of make sure that they feel comfortable. And that makes it fun for us as well. If my clients comfortably know me and they know my camera guys by name, everything comes out a lot better. And it's a much better production, I think. Yeah, you need to always figure out how you can adapt to the different kinds of people you're working with,

whether it's clients or crew. Obviously keep a court set of rules and principles that you need to abide by. That way you're consistent with every project you do, you know, because there's a certain process to the whole thing. And you wanna make sure that you're always on, you're always able to deliver high quality stuff.

And the only way to do that is to go by your set of rules in terms of like how you go about projects and things like that. But you also have to be able to be flexible in certain areas, you know, especially with clients because things happen, deadlines change, you know, like just today, for example, we just found out that we had to make a huge shift to like a script

for a certain client project that's happening in the next few days. And you know, a lot of companies can just simply throw their hands up in the air and say, oh, well, it looks like we can't do the shoot, yada, yada, yada. But instead, what I said was like, okay, script has changed, what can we do to adapt to it?

Can we still make it work with the shoot tomorrow? Yes, great, perfect. Because things happen, things happen on client sides as well that you never realize. And you have to be able to adapt in those situations and they'll, they'll, they'll be grateful for that as well. I would say for sure that's one of the biggest challenges I suppose about doing this business and doing it, you know, in a small scale. I don't have a team of 15 people all sitting

around and stuff. It's that responsiveness because things, as you say, will just change It's that responsiveness because things, as you say, will just change constantly throughout the day and you just got to be ready to jump and get on with it. You can't sort of go, right, great, I've got these videos and they'll be done by Tuesday and I don't have to think about anything else because you're right. Nearly every day I've got these things popping up where things change last minute or there's been something that's popped up out of the blue. Do you have a camera guy in Perth for tomorrow because our CEO is available and we want to shoot.

There's stuff like that that you've got to be ready to go for at all times. And that can be, you know, there's the stress levels, I guess, with that, you know? And again, being someone like me who doesn't say no, I've just got to make it happen, you know what I mean? So, but that can be exciting too. I quite like the rush

of that kind of thing as well. I think I thrive when I'm in panic mode. That seems to be my sort of when things get done, I need to be slightly panicking and stressed, I think, for the magic to happen. You need that adrenaline rush. I think so. But you know, previous to that, my dad was involved in catering and sort of we had a fish and chip shop. So I've got Italian background as well.

So if you have an Italian background, by law you have to have a fish and chip shop in Scotland. That's just, that's what you have to do. So he had that, you know, that's the rule. So that was my sort of first exposure to work from the age of 10 when all my friends were off playing on their bikes, he'd be like, come down the shop and he'd make me go in there and help him out and stuff. But that sort of environment, which is very fast and intense and you get the dinner rushes coming

in and you know, people screaming and shouting and chaos and you had to move. I grew up, that was work to me. That environment is what work was. And I kind of went off as a sort of teenager. My first jobs were always in these really intense kitchen environments and with screaming and shouting and flames and all the rest of it. So that kind of rush, I suppose, and getting stuff done and keeping the customer happy,

that stuck with me for sure. And I think that's really been good for me, for my business, to sort of take that with me. Because again, the same when you're in the food industry, the customer's got to be always right. You've got to make sure that they're happy and the things are top notch and you can't screw it up.

I think that's been a really useful thing for me to sort of take with me into a completely different industry, being the creative video stuff But it's still it still all means, you know, you still all the same thing. You gotta make sure you do those things there's a lot a lot of parallels in the video space with regards to that as well because every time we're in a different environment and Nothing ever goes to plan Usually and you got to adapt quickly make sure everyone's happy and keep the energy up. So there's this similar level of chaos in video

that there is in the restaurants. Not to say that it never goes to plan because that's not exactly the case. There's always something that goes off. There's something that pops up, like situations pop up, you know, like it's always good to expect that and be always prepared for it.

And I think a lot of the time clients are thankful for being able to be problem solvers on set, especially because sometimes things happen on their end that we can't anticipate. Actually, a lot of the time that's kind of what it is because there's only so much planning we can do on our end. If something pops up on the client's end that we didn't expect or they didn't let us know,

we have to be able to figure out how to solve the problem. And the most important thing is be calm. Cause if you're calm, your clients will be calm as well. Well, yeah, that's true for sure. It's true. It happens all the time, especially, you know, as soon as you're recording sound, right? You're recording sound, which is most shoots

if you're doing interviews, that's a big part of it. We're always saying we've got to find a quiet space because we've done shoots where there's been crazy noises in the background or there's been right next to a lift in the building and it's making noises the whole time or things like that. So that can slow the day down. Anything that's involving equipment as well, I'm sure you guys have done shoots where there's been issues with the equipment or batteries or whatever right, that stuff can always have a bit of stress. You've

got to be as prepared as you can. The worst horror story that luckily didn't happen to me was a friend of mine and who is no longer doing video interestingly. He was hired to go and shoot in a helicopter. This is pre drone days and really expensive, massive, you know, ordeal to go and do this, a lot of cost. And he went up and they're all up in the sky. He's got his camera ready to go with thousands of dollars and realizes he didn't have any batteries with him. So that was-

Oh my God. Oh no. So they just had to land the thing and he was sacked really. So that was, you know, so I think, I've got that in the corner my mind is as long as I don't do the helicopter day thing You know, we're okay. But yeah, you do have to You do we've never I don't think in pickle pictures. We've had any really really awful crazy hiccups or problems

But for sure there could be things that delay stuff and you've got to be as prepared as you can be and be able to think on your feet and everything else. But look at the end of the day you can only do what you can do as well and there's got to be that, again there's where that communication comes in you know. If it comes to it and someone's you know the the person you're interviewing has forgot to turn up at a four hours light then you know there has to be conversation about that and what we can do with the time that we have and maybe we do another day, something like that. But yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's kind of a constant, constant thing, I guess, to

be on top of those things in our business. I always make sure my bag is done the night before and I put it by the door. That's like my ritual to know that everything is in that bag because it's everyone's worst nightmare to forget memory cards or batteries. It was like the worst. I'm getting shivers down my spine now thinking about that stuff. But yeah, it's right. And you get your little routines going down that you kind of, those processes you do to make sure that you're covered to get yourself prepared. But look, I don't go out and shoot to Toner,

which is kind of, I do miss it. I like directing. I really enjoyed that. But look, I don't go out and shoot at all now, which is kind of, you know, I do miss it. I like directing. I really enjoyed that. But because where the business is at now, I just don't have the time to disappear for a day to be a director. So I'm kind of, you know, dealing with clients and I do a lot of hands-on editing and stuff now.

So that sort of onset panic is no longer sort of something I deal with really, but you know, I do miss it in a way So do you have a lot of do you have producers that work for you now that just go out to the shoots like? Yeah, so most of our shoots are very much solo operator really for what we do, you know So yeah, so the way it works for us I I've got a really good tight network of regular contractor operators that I work with all over the country. So we do most of our work on the kind of east coast of Australia, so Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, but we also do Adelaide, Parth, Canberra. We've even done

New Zealand, Tasmania and into sort of Asia a little bit as well. I've got in each of those kind of major cities, I've got a bunch of operators who I trust and I go back to every time I know them really well. They know me, my clients know them and ask for them by name which I love and there's that familiarity there. So the majority of our shoots tends to be for us, it might be different for you guys, but when we go out if we're doing a kind of standard corporate video which is you know talking heads, interviews and a bit of b-roll around the workplace, we'll just send a single operator along, camera guy who will turn up with the lights and their sound and more often than not someone from the client's end will be there to actually just do the interviews. So we work with part of a lot of kind of mid-sized marketing agencies and they'll

have someone from their end who's kind of doing the creative who will do the questions or someone from in the company if we're doing it directly with a company. What our camera guys are all really good at doing though is being able to be there and guide that and they will step in and say can we do that again and make sure that you incorporate the question into the answer and the sound wasn't good there was a noise they're kind of on top of it they're not just sort of you know ignoring the whole thing but just having someone there to just sit down in that chair and read the questions to the interviewer usually, someone from that wants to do it. We don't insist on that.

We'll kind of say we do have directors. But our directors, we do have directors as well who are contractors, but they tend to be more going out if there's multiple people to wrangle, if there's talent or a presenter, something like that that needs that kind of extra involvement there is when we go out with directors. But most of it, yeah, talking heads, single operator,

very simple set up. And we know what we're doing now, we do a lot of those shoots and everyone kind of knows how it works. Yeah, it works really well for us. What about you guys? I mean, is that how it works in your side of things too? I mean, it's a little different for us

because a lot of the time the way we go about it is one either Dario or myself are gonna be on set as producer and director, and then we hire a crew based on what we need. But typically most of our shoots are like two to five people depending on what's needed. But there's always at least one of us there to keep some certain kind of consistency going

because all of our projects are slightly different. But it's interesting to kind of hear how you've kind of like modeled your entire business around the one, the solo operator kind of approach, right? Like, would you say that's like 80%, 90% of your work or is it like just a big portion? Yeah, I would say it's vast majority. And again, I wouldn't say I'd even modeled it that way.

I'd found again, and this is perhaps to do with how we work that I've found. And I'm very open with the clients and talk about the process and how we can do things and how we have done things. I find the majority of clients want that. If it's a really simple shoot and it's literally we want this person to be interviewed, then they can quite easily. You'll find that especially if you're working alongside

marketing agencies, they've come up with those questions. They've talked to the client. They know that client well. They feel that they're quite rightly so, that they want to be the ones sitting there talking to them and asking those questions. We're happy to do that. In those relationships, we slot in as their kind of... It's like we're happy to do that. So we look in those relationships we slot in as they're kind of it's like we're kind of almost there in-house production team you know which I love and again I'm there to sort of be that I talk a lot with them in the pre-production stuff and we map out how the job's going to work and this is how it's going to work and I sort of make sure it's not that I just hand it over them and they figure it out we kind

of go this is how it's going to shoot and this operator knows how to, you know, my operators are really, really good at what they do. They're very experienced. So they're going out there with that expertise to help and guide and stuff as well. And I'm always there to sort of have that conversation before a job goes. But again, it's about sort of fitting in with how the client does their work. I think, you know, we, as I say, if we do have a bigger one, that's more involved in sure we'll have more hands on deck, but for you kind of average talk and

head corporate video interview laid, it works really well for us. Really does. Yeah. Yeah. It, it always varies, obviously depending on the size of the project and the big factor is also what budgets the clients have to work with, you know, so you want to also give them the best value for their money. But we also find that one challenge sometimes with just having one person doing everything, right, is that the shoots can be a bit slower

as a result, because if one person is doing everything, things take longer to set up. They have to think of more things to kind of bring to the shoot, right? So we find that like there, there is that limiting factor when we're just bringing in one person, whereas like say if we brought a crew or we had a producer director there to kind of help like maintain like the vision of everything, go through things with the client, then we have the shooter,

then like an assistant to kind of help with the setup. And then depending if also it's needed, you know, like a sound operator, things can run a lot more smoother and more content can be filmed in that day we found. So that's kind of why we're trying to find like a good happy medium. But do you find like for most of your shoots,

like, I mean, it must work for just one person for most of the time then, right? For you. Yeah, look, I would say that, yeah, again, if you, if we're talking, if it's a bigger setup and we need to have multiple lighting sort of setups and you know dollies and all sorts of things like that then for sure we've you know we tend to those larger kind of more commercial shoots where there's a lot more involvement then we'll

send along like a camera assistant someone to help with that. Sound we don't tend to feel that we need to send a sound recordist unless there's a lot of movement so live events if there's multiple people talking. But if it's one person talking and they're seated in an interview we either can clip on a radio mic or put a you know a microphone on a boom stand above their head and that does really well. Keeping in mind I guess as well that most of our shoots are very very quick you know they're very much you much budget reliant as well. Clients want to get stuff done,

they want to get a lot of turnover, we've got to move quickly. So we'll find that those kind of setups work really well. The B-roll is, our shoots, what they look like basically is we'll go out, we'll shoot the interviews at the start of the day, set up, the camera guy will take about 40 minutes to set up with a simple sort of lighting set up in the sound for the interviews and then it's all kind of handheld b-roll

Usually we'll shoot that kind of nice slow-mo feel 50 frames with that kind of feel and You know, we'll get that footage and piece it together for them. So It works fine for those jobs For those kind of simple jobs works really well And again, I think it works so well because I know my team and I know the guys going out there are really good. Are they really good at doing things really efficiently and really, we're talking people are super experienced and working for years and years.

And they know how to work in those kind of situations where things pop up and do and sort of wrangle it. So again, they are quite involved. So yeah, you judge it based on the project that comes in, but for those kinds of simple jobs, yeah, it works great for us. It has done for years and our clients tend to want to work that way too. So we just sort of figuring our way out is to the best way that's going to get those jobs done. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense if you got, again, if you got a simple project,

and especially if it's with like a marketing agency, because those marketers can basically be the makeshift producer in a way. So they kind of are the producer on site. And as long as your videographer is experienced, then you can really get away with just having one guy out there. Even with us sometimes when we have like a really simple shoe, like we might just send like one of us will just go.

And if we know it's just a quick interview, it doesn't make sense to charge the client like 900 bucks to bring out like an audio op for like a quick interview. Right. So we'll just do it ourselves just to make it easier for them. It is it is about being competitive and not overcharging sometimes. Yeah, I suppose it's, and again, there's that clarity that we always have when talking to the clients

and sort of talking about the project. Look, I'm able to tell when someone comes to me for the type of video they want and get a general idea of what it's looking like in terms of turnaround and costs and whatnot. I can sort of see what those projects look like. And again, we find if there's, you know, the kind of jobs are all good, we're going to need a director and other people.

If there's like tons of people, if it's, you know, a panel of people all talking, if there's lots of people to wrangle, if there's these kind of set pieces that need to be done, like we did sort of a kind of couple of music videos and for corporate clients that needed a lot of wrangling and involvement, you need to pull performances out of people then 100% there's get a director out there to do that. You get a couple of clients who do want to direct, they don't want to have to deal with any kind of

involvement themselves. But look, I guess a lot of our clients are, we do partner with a lot of marketing agencies which we really enjoy and that's very much how they want to work. We love those clients because they are creative people as well. They are people who understand that process and get excited about fonts and colours and they have that sort of mapped out brief that comes to you which is really cool.

So we really enjoy working with those peoples and with those individuals. And again, being able to be that kind of supplier to them where they, you know, I think our best relationships with those clients and the way I can pitch ourselves when I talk to them is you can say yes to your clients about anything to do with video and animation and we can make it happen for you. So we can film all over the place, we can do 3D animation,

we can do complex stuff, simple stuff, they can then go on and have the confidence to sell that on to their clients and we just make all that stuff happen for them. We do all the difficult things and we bring the team along and everything else. So I think that's pretty appealing. I want to go back a little bit to when you first started your company. I'm just wondering, how did you adapt to being a salesperson? Because that's really what you have to do if you're starting your own company? Yeah, you're right. I think because as you guys were saying, you start off in the video because you want to make movies and you want to be shooting these kind of creative cinematic things. So you don't start off,

I wouldn't say that initially being a creative person that I was naturally a salesperson to start with. And for sure I think I did every mistake available to me when I first started the business. I was so naive. So I got that big job that really kicked things off and they were a great client for a long time that we did a lot of work for those guys. But I got my, I was so naive it's embarrassing to say now, but I got my website started up and thought, hey, the website's up. That's it.

People will find it and we're going to be, I'll just wait for the phone to go. It's like the Ghostbusters, you know that scene where they're just waiting for the phone to ring, sort of thing. I've done the website, the number's on there, here we go. Just watching my phone. So there was definitely a sense of ignorance about the whole thing. And I would say the worst and best thing that happened to my business at the time, and I think any bad thing that happens in your business really can turn into a real positive because

it's a learning thing. This big client who kind of started me going full time, we were full time with them, we were doing great, we were doing all our kind of started me going full time. We were there for the, we were full time with them. We were doing great. We were doing all our kind of internal video projects. Our main contact there left and went off and just, you know, got a new job somewhere else. And the next person that came into that company had another video supplier that they knew.

And that was it. And it was such a, you know, I was like, well, what's going on here? It was such a shock to me that that would be the case. I thought I'm in, right? You guys know me. I know the names of your kids. what's going on here? It was such a shock to me that that would be the case. I thought, I'm in, right? You guys know me, I know the names of your kids, what's going on? So that was the best thing that happened to me

because it really kicked me into gear to go, I've got to make this happen. I've got to really be hands-on here. And then I kind of kicked into hardcore sales mode. And I did a few things that didn't work for me, which was going to these networking events. And I just never enjoyed them. Those kind of small, where you're kind of standing

in groups and you've got to kind of step up and hey guys. That was not really my comfort zone. What worked for me, again, was just sort of being very genuine about how I communicate to people. Because I don't, I'm not, you know, what I feel like I'm selling is not dodgy or fake, it's genuine. I feel like what we're doing is a good thing and we can work well for people. I just started to contact people I thought would be cool for us to work with. And I did a lot of that, you know, on those kind of early days, turning the business around.

And it worked. And yeah, I guess you learn as you go along, right the business around. And it worked. And yeah, I guess you learn as you go along, right? When you're a small business, you do a few jobs that don't quite work out. I learned pretty quickly on that I needed to put in quotes, two rounds of changes as per the quote, because one of our big clients was, this is round 15, I've been working on these re-edits for months.

You go along and as I said before, I think the power of our success has been saying yes. Clients come up and say, can you film in Sydney? And I'll go, yeah. And figure out, yeah, now we can work in Sydney. So you get stuff chucked at you. You figure things out and then it becomes part of the thing that you can talk to going forward. I think it's really, really important just to go out there, stick yourself out there, say yes, figure it out, and then you can talk about it in a genuine way. And I think if you believe in what you're doing and you're genuine about it, then it's

easy to sell. Yeah, that's one of the biggest challenges for people in our industry is having the confidence and the capability to put yourself out there. And a lot of the time, especially for us creatives, it's difficult to do the cold outreach because it can be very, what's the right word for kind of demoralizing, you know, for like getting all the no's

that might come through with that. Like, what was your approach for kind of like reaching out to these different businesses and people that you wanted to work with? Did you email? Did you like call? Like how did, how did it, what was your process like? It was definitely emailing. I've never done cold calling.

Um, I've always thought that cold calling and I don't, I might be wrong. I don't know, but cold calling calling I thought wasn't the right approach. It may well be nowadays. I know that this is another thing as well, I'm sure you guys are aware of, how you contact people changes all the time. So I would say back when I was really kicking things off, things like LinkedIn worked pretty well, right?

You could sort of contact people on LinkedIn and people would respond. I feel it's really cluttered in there now and it's harder to get that response. I emailed. I literally, and it was literally hands on me with Google Maps typing in, you know, and at the time it was very much localized to where I was. So I was South Melbourne, I had an office there. So my approach was, hey, I'm a South Melbourne video production company, and I think I could help you guys out.

But it was literally me just going through a list of companies that were kind of nearby me, who I thought could contact them, and just sending an email off. And hey, I'd love to see if we could have a chat. Very casual, very genuine, very friendly, again, not pushy or anything like that at all. Here's some examples of our work and just doing that. And some people would get no responses. No one was ever rude. I never had anyone abuse me. I guess if people

weren't interested, they just wouldn't respond, you know, which is fine. So, yeah, I would just keep doing that and you get a couple of people who invariably, which is what I've always found doing this, you will get responses, you will, right? You might have to send a few emails out there. But I literally built my company up at that stage for nothing, because that big client went, and a couple of our clients as well. It was literally ground zero, where I was like,

what do I do now? And from there, doing that one simple thing, really, built it up, and I do it to this day I still reach out to people. I think being really, I think you've got to always do that. I don't think you can ever be complacent and go hey I've got such and such amount of clients now I'm done. Doesn't work like that you know people change their suppliers all the time you've got to be on that front foot and I've always done that. So it worked really well for me and then when you've got those meetings you go out and you track to them, you show them your

work. I would take a little laptop with me with some examples of our work. Going, before we get to the sales stuff though, I think it's really important, this is the number one thing that I think is super important in our business is to be good first, right? You need to be good. You can't be turning up and doing all this hustling and then your videos suck. It's that, you know, I think you can't go out there and go, hey, we're going to want to be a video company and the camera guy turns up two hours late and his footage sucks. And it's, you know, being good, as simple as it sounds, it's got to be the number one thing first, right?

So in terms of, you know, I felt we had that. We'd done a couple of little spec videos. Luckily for us, again, I'd had a couple of those opportunities come up with this company that kicked it all off for us. So I had examples. I could show stuff that looked good. People knew that company's name, which was really helpful. I think that does help.

If you can kind of get some known names, some of those, it doesn't sound, it's not easy to say that, but having examples of good looking work is really useful. And that will get you in through the door straight away. If you can say, hey, check it out, it's a lovely looking video, we worked for these guys, then that's half the battle.

People check it out and wanna talk to you. If you've got nothing and it looks rubbish, then you gotta fix that stuff first. Yeah, it's always assumed that the videos should be of good quality, so that's the baseline. But I think one thing that you pointed out that a lot of people need to remember, it's like if we wanna reach out or email anyone

to try to work with them, you gotta be conversational and not too salesy. I think that's the key trick from what you're explaining that worked out really well for you is that you're just kind of inviting them for a conversation more so than like trying to be like, like, I will create this many videos for you for this, just get in touch with me.

Do you feel like that's what was like the main thing that was successful for you? I mean, it obviously was since you're still doing that to this day. It was 100% genuine. There was no part of me that wanted to be salesy and pushy because that's not what I wanted to be. So it was, it was very hate, it was very non-preciate.

And again, it was using that localized thing, which was great, I think was a great opener. We're around the corner from you guys. We are local, we are South Melbourne based, and of course, we're nowhere everywhere, but. We're local, we love the work that you guys do. And I did contact largely, I would say, probably marketing agencies back then,

those kind of small to mid-sized ones who were doing stuff maybe had a bit of video on the website that they'd done and it was like hey look we can help out we can help do this stuff we can do animation and we'd love to see if we can have a chat talk a bit more about our businesses together something like that that was the kind of that was the tone of it and I think yeah that I think that really was what's good you know I think people sort of going yeah you know it's not it's not hard to have a coffee with someone I think that really was good. I think people sort of going, yeah, it's not hard to have a coffee with someone.

I think most people were open to wanting to chat about someone who could help do something they were already offering their clients. So that worked. And again, all it really takes is a couple of those opportunities to come along. And then you're starting to make money and you're starting to get things going. and that was literally how it worked for us.

We did that and it was a lot. I mean literally I would spend all day just sending those emails. It took a bit of time. It was literally writing them, you know. Then I got a couple of opportunities coming, I got a couple of jobs and then it continued growing and then from there I was able to sort of, you know, do that to a larger scale and automate it. I did automate it, not in a kind of spammy way. It was still my messaging, but I was able to send 100 emails rather than five or whatever it was.

So it was able to sort of scale up that way. And then you're in. When you're talking to people and they're responding and they know someone and that's how it works, it starts to spread out. But yeah, it was amazing. The difference it made to just do that simple thing. So you mentioned being conversational and non-salesy, but if you were to give someone tips on how to do that,

because again, it sounds a little general, right? And it's something a lot of us struggle with. So what would you suggest in terms of how to, again, just be genuine to potential leads? I think it's important to know who you're talking to, right? So you have to understand, obviously, straight away the people that you're contacting, right? And what their pain points are. Super important. I think if you just go in there and talk about yourself, that's the wrong approach. We've been around 10 years and this is me and I do this and

these are all these videos we've made. No one cares. They don't really, right? They are interested in their pain points and I knew the people that we were contacting, so again those kind of small to mid-size marketing agencies. We found the large ad agencies they all had in-house video teams and if they were doing, if they needed external it was because they were shooting a massive ad and they needed those people that do that stuff which is not really our world. So I knew the pain points of our types of clients. I knew that quite often they needed to get stuff done quickly.

They needed to have all sorts of crazy things, whether it be filming in different locations or animation or budget problems. So I was able to say, talk about those things and hone in on them. And again, I think that localized thing for us initially was quite powerful too. These are all things that were appealing to them. We're around the corner. We can fill in those gaps that you don't already have. We can do it quickly. We can do it within the way that you want to work. We're around the corner. We can fill in those gaps that you don't already have. We can do it quickly.

We can do it within the way that you want to work. We're cost effective. We're, you know, all these things. That's talking about them. It's not talking about how great I am, you know? And also, you know, send an example of our work. They look nice. All they had to do is meet me in a cafe

and I would buy them a coffee. They didn't have to spend money. You know what I mean? I'll buy you a coffee. You know, it to spend money, you know what I mean? I'll buy you a coffee. You know, it was all very much that way of talking, I think. So definitely find out about the kind of client you want to approach. Find out why they would want a video company,

what it is that they would want from a video company and talk about how you can help with those things. You mentioned earlier that you've had to adapt your sales process. So what's changed since you first started? So I guess everything that we do is about reaching out and being found. So the things that I do know over the years, we've done a bit of social media stuff, of course. I mean, that's the world we live in, right? We're making content for social media and marketing.

We had done a few posts. The main things that I've really honed in on are direct email, direct contacting. That's my big one. And being found, I've always invested in SEO. And we've had a couple of hiccups that we had our website we'd done a few years ago and everything that we'd built up for gone, which is crazy. It's crazy. We were page one for a bunch of stuff.

So we're getting calls every week. And then the website got redesigned and we lost it all. So I literally, to this day, I'm still crawling back from that because in our game, if you're not on page one of Google, you are invisible. So you gotta be doing the, you know, reach out kind of thing all the time. However, I'm crawling back and I've continued to do SEO and invest in that.

You know, I think being found organically, when it works is amazing because those clients that find you have a job in mind and they're ready to go and if they like you you're you're off and running so if you are to be found on Google that's you that's gold. So I'm investing in SEO I'm also paying for some Google Ads which I've not had a lot of great experience with in the past you've got to spend a lot of money on Google Ads I find that's something to invest in when you've got good money coming in. We've been doing that and doing pretty well.

I've got someone helping me with that who's a bit more switched on and can make that all work a bit better for me behind the scenes. I've had a few really good leads and a few opportunities come in this year from Google Ads, so that's pretty cool. Google Ads, SEO, and then direct. That's the three things that I'm currently doing at the moment to bring business in. Yeah. With SEO, do you think it's bad to rely on it a little too much?

Because again, with Google's algorithm, all it takes is just a change and you might drop from page one to page four, which is something that actually happened to us. I'm still trying to investigate and see why that happened. We're at the top of page two, and I think right now we're like at the bottom of page three, and I'm really not sure why. SEO is crazy to me because it's like smoke and mirrors, right? And it's really difficult to find the right company to work

with because everyone promises the same thing, and it's like, yeah, you can do this. And it's really hard because the other thing with SEO, it doesn't happen straight away, right? It's not like, hey, you're going to spend, it could be quite a lot of money that you spend in a month to month. And it's not like you do that and you immediately go, hey, on page one, great, it worked. It's a challenging thing and unfortunately, I think the reality is for our work, people Google to find what we do. So you have to be competitive in that space. To be on page one of Google or up the top is going to be the difference between I think

really having a really successful video production company or always chasing chasing your tail a little bit and it can work a little bit on the other side but that's literally you know it's like again I think back to my dad's chip shop right and he he had a great location for his chip shop in town it was next to the train station it was in this great part of town so everyone that got off the train was right there it was near all the pubs, so people, you know, Scottish, have a couple of cheeky beers, would come out, they'd want some chips. It was in a great location.

There was not a chip shop up the street that didn't have as much traffic and was much quieter. So it's like, that's like, you know, page one of Google, whatever it is. People can find me, people can see me, people will call. But look, I haven't got the right answer, I have to say, regarding SEO. I've always sort of invested in it, I've changed companies multiple times, tried to shake it up a little bit. I've never felt entirely comfortable with it

but you know I get those reports coming in monthly and I can see we're crawling up a bit. It's a slog but'm going to keep doing it for now and hopefully sort of see the difference it makes. Yeah. I feel like you've got to really spread your eggs in different baskets. So focusing on SEO, Google AdWords, I guess beefing up your social media channels,

maybe doing some marketing there. Yeah. Direct email marketing is also another good one because you just don't know. Like one of them might work. We're going to work out for a bit and then it changes. And I know what do you do, right? So that's something we're trying to focus on this year is like really spreading ourselves out into multiple different categories and not being

proactive. Being more proactive. Yeah that's the one thing that that you need to like that everyone who's a business owner needs to practice doing because it's like we were we were focusing on a lot of SEO over the last over the course of the pandemic and that was great because then a lot of work started to come in and it worked. Yeah and it was fantastic we got to work then a lot of people started to come in and it worked. And it actually worked. Yeah, and it was fantastic. We got to work with a lot of great people. A lot of our great clients today are people

who have found us through Google, which is great, but we're always thinking to ourselves, like who else that is great that is out there that may not necessarily be able to find us the way they would otherwise, right? Because not everyone is also looking for video in the way they would otherwise, right? Cause not everyone is also looking for video in the same way as others, right? So if you're only focusing on SEO,

you're only focusing on that particular group of clientele that search for video in that way. Sometimes other people look for video through Instagram. Sometimes people look for video through very reliable people that know people, right? Like it's, you have to try to, as Dario mentioned, you have to try to put yourself in different areas. And the problem with hiring companies to help you with SEO too, like you said, is hard to measure. Like SEO is one of those things that's very tricky to measure because of how long it takes

for it to be effective. Like yeah, you have certain practices that can help you, but like especially if you're paying people, you want to be able to measure because of how long it takes for it to be effective. Like, yeah, you have certain practices that can help you, but like, especially if you're paying people, you want to be able to measure it more precisely, but it's a tough thing to measure. I think you just got to keep your eyes on it. And, you know, I've changed my SEO companies and things when I just felt like I wasn't able to get anything more out of them, you know, when I just felt like... And this is interesting as well, you'll find this that if you kind of work alongside

some of these companies sometimes, you'll see the point where they just stop caring. You know? Oh really? You could have, you could have, you could have, you could have, Wow. It's this guy again, you know what I mean?

So you've got to, you've got to change things up, you know, and I have done that a few times when I felt, you know, you need to, again, it's about, as you said, it's about being proactive. You have to be proactive all the time when it comes to what we do. And again, I get that brilliant experience I had where I lost my best big client at the time was fantastic for me because that taught me that that's what happens in our, in our game, right? You'll have the best client ever. They love you and they're coming to you every month with 10 videos and it's great and you know them and they know you all it takes is someone changes a role or they

want to try someone and you're gone it doesn't matter it's that happens and does happen and will happen all the time with your clients every three years they talk about being a cycle of a new change right so? So I've always, and I think I said this when we first chatted in emails and things, Dario, about I've always been terrified. And I think having that constant fear that it all will collapse tomorrow, again, you've got to be riding on that stress wave, right?

You have to be proactive all the time. You've always got to be ready for and presume that your best client might leave tomorrow. And if they do, what are you going to do? You're going to always be trying to bring in that next good client. So I've always done that. I've always been really proactive in that space and I've always tried to keep things going in that way. And it's been crucial because there have been over the years clients who have been fantastic. And I mean, we've all gone through COVID and stuff recently as well, right? That was crazy in terms of things that pop out.

Just before COVID, we were really growing really rapidly. It was great. All these things were happening. I'm going to have this massive office. It's going to be fantastic. And that came along and changed everything. And then after COVID, there was the kind of quiet a couple of years with people sort of getting back into the groove again.

I would say even now, there's not been a normal rhythm of what is business this year gonna look like, you know? So you've got, that's been an interesting challenge as a business owner, just sort of each year, you can kind of look at those normal reports of this is what February looks like, this is April. It's like, okay, you know, things are kind of quiet, there's been all these financial challenges that people have had and people aren't spending money at the moment and you've got to kind of

just adapt to that and be, as you say, proactive and just keep reaching out. It's terrifying and that's the hard thing about running your own business, I think, is you never can relax. You never sort of sitting there going, oh, great, I've got 50 clients. I'm not anyway. You've always got to be, you're either really stressed out because you're super busy or you're stressed out because you're not. So that's the life we live. I like that. Yeah, that's something that we deal with a lot too. Like I've I've adapted that mentality a while ago to like I always tell Carol every year like, oh, I don't think that client's going to stay because you don't know.

Right. I just assume they're going to leave. I just assume that it's just a one off and then someone else will come along. And surprisingly, a good chunk of our clients, especially in the last couple of years, have stayed with us, which is great. Um, but yeah, it is always in the back of like our minds that you don't know what, what's going to happen next month or what's going to come in, but somehow something always does come in and that that's good, you know? Well, this is also, yeah, sorry, Carol.

Yeah, I was just saying like, and it's also like, you know? Well, this is also, yeah, sorry, Karel, yeah. I was just saying, and it's also like you hear about it, what happens with other people who are too reliant on single clients or businesses that make up a huge chunk of their business. I've known marketing companies and video production companies where 60, 70% of their business is one client, and to then scale and grow your business

based on that one client, it's crazy to think, because like, yeah, maybe for them, they were able to do it for several years and it worked out great, but then I'm just thinking to myself, but what if that goes, then your whole infrastructure is just gone at that point, right? And you don't know how to self sustain your business as a result, because it's basically like a whole portion of it

is being just ripped away like that. Well, yeah, that's exactly what happened to me back in those days. It was the best, at the time it happened, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Completely changed everything. Had it not happened and I continued floating along in this kind of sea of ignorance,

I wasn't learning anything back then. I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs Just presuming people would perform me which is you know again knowing what I know now is so idiotic but him Yeah, it's good. It's good. It happened to you early on though Yes, if you were like a more established business and like if you had a lot of employees and you had that one whale client And they left you might have had to close up shop because a lot of the times when you get to that point you probably have loans and stuff you've taken out and You might get to the point where you can't yeah

Yeah overhead might get to the point where you can't you know You could learn from it, but you definitely won't be able to come back from it unless you start something new I'm sure there's a lot of businesses out there that are in those situations This is it I reckon that it's not I'm sure I'm not the only person who was doing that in the early days. I think, I mean, if that's one thing I could do, tell myself when I was first starting, I would be to do what I'm doing now. It's like reach out, reach out. And it's funny because we get caught up in all these other different ideas of what business is. There's all these podcasts and you know, there's sort of books and documents and things

that you can read up on and it's got to be, and and things that you can read up on. You can get caught up in all of the kind of theory, right, of it, but it really is just very simple and straight up. Reach out, contact, put yourself out there. And that works. And being good, again, if you're losing these clients because the work you're doing is bad and you're not responding to phone calls and you're not, you know, then that's on you and that needs to be changed.

Make sure you're brilliant first and then reach out, reach out, reach out all the time. And then, you know, it will work. It's that simple. It really is that simple. Those things all work. They just take time and eventually they take a bit of investment too.

But you always need to be investing every month in growing your business, you know, I think so. Yeah, it's about making sure you don't really have weaknesses as a company. Yeah, that's something we're focusing a lot on this year. Like this year we focused a lot on cost cutting. We were wasting money on some things that just weren't necessary and we just like really hunkered down and made

sure we didn't have any leaks on that end. We're focusing again on the sales, networking, SEO, we're revamping our entire processes, making sure everything's good. And even with the quality of the work, sometimes you have to look at your portfolio and say, okay, this is good, what we've done, but how can we make it better? Yeah, it can be hard. This is one of the other challenges I find as well, is when you just get so busy with things and you get caught up. Because I'm very hands-on with Pickle Pictures.

I do a lot of editing. I like editing, and I wanna be kind of involved and in control of that, I guess. But that takes a lot of time, right? So I'm doing a lot of that and sometimes, you know, you can feel like your business is doing great and you're really busy and wow, but it's actually just you're editing five videos that week

from one client. That's, you know, you could have kind of have that time to step away and do the other business stuff. And that can be a challenge sometimes. Yeah, it's, look, I'm always trying to look at my processes and things as well. Look, I keep, what I've ended up doing now after all these years as well is I'm keeping it pretty lean

and flexible from how I do stuff. So, you know, in the past I've kind of had employees and editors and things, but that was, you know, there was challenges there too, because, you know because if you do have a quieter stage, then you've got that cost that you've got to keep spending to pay for someone's wage, which can be stressful. And then you've got a person who you've got to keep them happy and make sure that they've got work going and are they enjoying the work and are they not? There's all those kind of challenges too. So I'm at a stage now

where I'm keeping it really lean and fluid so I can do what I feel is kind of the best work for me and for my clients where I can kind of, you know, I know that I've got enough people around me where we can take on massive

amounts of projects all at once and scale up and do all these great things without anyone missing deadlines and whatnot. Look it's working for me at the moment it's you know kind of ummed and add and you know changed in my mind what I thought this business should be or could be over the years and that look I'm at a stage where I'm like pretty happy with how it's working for now but it I'm always, Pickle Pitches is always just adapted. Again, being that yes person, I just keep going and whatever comes along, I change it to sort of adapt.

Yeah, I don't know if that's great business advice, but it's worked for me. I mean, you have to be able to know when to fluctuate in certain aspects of your business, depending on how busy you are, how not busy you are as well. Like Dario mentioned, during down times, you're figuring out ways to kind of improve the business

a little bit more, cost cut where you need to, or add other services or explore ways to improve your portfolio. There is sometimes, like you mentioned, Michael, the challenge of, you know, you might feel like you're really busy, but then, you know, to kind of save some money, you decided to do a lot of the editing at that time,

you know, to keep things a little bit more nimble. But because you're spending all that time editing, you might be busy, but you're not really doing a lot of that important outreach that you should be doing to help gain more business too, right? Yeah, and yeah, there's gonna be times where you have to do that because, you know, that's the nature of the game, right?

Like in slow months, you're gonna be a little bit more inclined to kind of get your hands dirty a little bit more just so that, you know, you make sure you're fine. But then when it gets busy in other parts of the season you know you want to you want to keep the habit of working on your business also going that's like one thing I think we all forget to do sometimes. Yeah it's important and you know as you say as you see getting those processes down especially for for people like us who are creative which is perhaps less natural to us with the way our creative

minds work. I thrive in chaos and mess as you could probably figure it out by now. And that's, you know, I like colourful, loud things, you know, this is what, you know, getting into the arts, I like music and books and films and all those kind of chaotic, colourful things. So that kind of brain, mine anyway, doesn't perhaps lend itself naturally to the business world. So yeah, the process is trying to get them down. I mean, I have a certain way of doing things, I guess now and ways of communicating and contacting people and platforms that I upload my videos to. And I think it's important to have a really good accountant. That's super important. If you're not, you know, a numbers person especially,

I really stand by that. That's, I'm onto my third accountant I've had him for years. If you're gonna be doing this and doing it well, long-term, get an amazing accountant. Otherwise, you're in trouble. But another thing that I think is important just in that kind of process is,

which even to today, I'm still struggling with in some ways, is that kind of processes, which even to today I'm still struggling with in some ways is that kind of cash flow, right? It's amazing how long it can take certain projects from the quote being accepted to being finalized. We're talking months sometimes and we've just come off the back of doing a ton of these big animated projects that were really expensive and big projects for us. And you see that kind of quote and great that money's coming in fantastic but then it just gets dragged out and out. So by the time you finish it, it's months later. And you know, so one thing that I want to be able to finesse a bit more these days is making sure that that kind of cash flow is a bit better

and you're perhaps invoicing in smaller segments and whatnot. Because yeah, I'm feeling at the moment that these big jobs are the ones that are initially very exciting, that take a long time to do and a long time to get paid for and can actually be, by the time that kind of lands in the business bank account, you're like, God, it feels like it's all gone already. So that's one thing that is important to be on top of. And the other thing that I've really, really tried hard to stand by after years of suffering is don't ever count your chickens before they hatch, right?

Because you guys have been there too, right? You get this amazing quote that gets, yeah, it looks great. We're happy at work with you. This looks amazing. In your head, you think you're going to have this amazing project come through and, and it goes and it can be crushing, you know, when you kind of think that it's happened to me yesterday, right? I had this, very, you know, this big project that was coming in and it was going to be great.

It looked fantastic. Wow. It's going to be great. It's going to be all this work. And then that was the first thing Monday here. First thing that was waiting for me when I opened my email was actually we've decided not to go ahead with it. And it's that, you know, having that sort of happen, you're thinking, wow. So the danger is to not, you know, to not expect these things are going to happen until they really are. You are working on them, which can be hard to.

Yeah. You know, you need to be an op, you need to be an optimist and the pessimist at the same time. Yes. Is the worst to be a business owner because again, you gotta go like, okay, I know I'm going to wish it into existence that I'm going to get this project. Then at the same time, until I get the written word from this guy, it ain't happening.

That's kind of what we had to adapt to because in the past we fell into the same trap of going like, yeah, we got this project, that meeting was amazing, they're gonna sign, I even sent them the contract and everything and then we'd find out like after a week of no communications, like they've moved on. And you get to the point where you're like,

for us now, until I see the money coming into the bank account, it's up in the air. Because it really is. It's crazy. It's such an, that's an amazing, I was saying this to my wife yesterday, an amazing experience that you don't get working for someone else.

I was sitting, because I worked from home at my home office. It was like quarter past eight in the morning, and my little world got crushed. Like from that one email, I'm sitting on my own, I have staff all around me that I can sort of you know team do stuff and it's like crazy that you would say you know when you've kind of got that experience and you do that on your own. Quite a lot of people like me would probably be running a

business on their own. Having this intense, I mean that's a wild sort of emotional sort of stress thing to sort of to have happen, which happens in business. It's crazy. And then you've got to get on with the rest of your day and sort of keep pushing and stuff. So it can be a really big roller coaster. And you're doing it, you know, you've got to just, you know, it's hard sometimes to, you've got to think of things black and white business, right?

You really do. You've got to think, you know, what are the reasons that we get jobs or don't get jobs and everything else? How do we get the next client coming in? But yeah, it's crazy. It's a crazy thing to navigate. And it can be hard, I think, for us people

to just starting out to sort of, to deal with some of that stuff. But it happens all the time. It will happen every month. It'll happen every quarter. It will happen for the rest It will happen every quarter. It will happen for the rest of your entire business's history. And you've got to be prepared for it.

So you're right. I think what you said there, being a pessimistic optimist, is a- If that is even a thing. But the other thing too is that, the money itself, even when it comes in, it's still a liability until the project is done. Because you just, because again, something might happen and, you know, might be a screw up on your

end. Now your profit margin shrinks a little bit, or maybe there was some misunderstanding with the client on the scope of the work. There's so many things that can go wrong, but also go right at the same time. So until the project is done, you just kind of have to assume like, you don't have the money yet fully. This is the thing that I'm constantly always learning even after many years. And again, I go back to talking about communication, how important it is. And I always try and remind myself to be really clear, really, really clear when it comes to costing and the involvement of a job and how big a project can be.

Because we've all had situations where you'll have a client come through, especially for things like animation that can just go off in funny angles. And you'll quote based on an example video that gets sent through. We want something like this, 60 seconds long. It's going to be really simple. It needs to be done in a week, whatever. And you go, right, okay, yep, no worries. And you send some examples of videos going, this is how we've done this in the past. And you kind of quote up based on that. And then you get started on the job and it's nothing like that. And it's really challenging. You've got to be communicating all the time. The second day that comes in, hey, it's going to be four minutes long now.

And now we want all the characters talking and it's going to be super complex, it's gonna be four minutes long now, and now we want all the characters talking and it's gonna be super complex and it's gonna be in 3D, but we still want it done in a week. You've gotta be responsive to that and you gotta communicate and keep going, hey, now this is kind of what we were talking about. If you want that stuff, that's great, we're happy to do that, but it's gonna take longer, there's gonna be more cost, and this is why.

Otherwise, you could get into trouble, you can upset your clients, you don't want to be in a situation where you're three weeks in and you feel like you're working for free on the projects really stressful and it's crazy. So that's hard because quite often we're talking to clients who, rightly so, video is not their world, you know, and we understand what the process is to make a video or animation that's a certain amount of length and has a certain amount of complexities. So yeah, you've got to keep that communication going all the time. You've got to be really clear.

That's why your, you know, your quoting and everything should be really clear. Ours are very itemized. And I always kind of explain the process as best I can. I think it's really important as well that any time a client pops up in an email, I always kind of explain the process as best I can. I think it's really important as well that any time a client pops up in an email, I always ask to have a chat. Even if they say, what sounds like a very straightforward job,

I always, always say, sounds great, but let's jump on a call or a Google video chat, and let's have a chat about it. And it's amazing how different those projects are when you speak face to face with that person. We need it done then, but the person's not going to turn up till two in the afternoon and you can start to figure out how the job goes. Then you can talk to them really clearly and say, we've done a bunch of jobs like this. This is how

we would do that. Or this sounds like it's going to be quite complicated. You're driving three different locations in one day, but it's not going to be time to do that. However, you know, I think it's really, really valuable to do that. And plus it helps personalize you straight away, right? If it's a new person, you get to meet them, they get to chat to you, they get to know you a bit. I think it helps you stand out if they're contacting other production companies that day, which they will likely be doing. through contacting other production companies that I do, which they will likely be doing. Yeah, and also like at the, if you are super communicative like that in the beginning,

the good thing is that to the client's benefit is that they can even plan things on their end a lot more if you ask a lot of these important questions, you're upfront about your process, and you guys are both very clear about what is expected from each other with the deliverables, with the scope of the project. The more detailed you can be in the beginning,

the less problems you get later on. The second turns into any kind of ambiguous idea. You might have an idea, the client might have a separate idea. And especially this is most important when you're dealing with more than one stakeholder in the project. Because it's one thing when you're dealing with more than one stakeholder in the project. Because it's one thing when you're talking with one person who's taking point on it,

but if they have to get approvals from a higher ups, from other colleagues and things like that, what your client might have as an idea for the project, the other people may not necessarily have the same idea in mind. So that way when you articulate everything, you're very specific, then everyone can see and approve and sign off, then everyone's on the same page. And because of that, we rarely get any issues like that now with any of those problems.

And that's the key to make sure that everyone is happy, as you said. Yeah, I think production schedules are really important as well. You know know sort of just mapping out dates and timelines and expect to turn around times and everything because that holds everyone accountable. So you know especially when you've got these quick delivery dates that needs to be done by a certain date whatever you know those those kind of things you need to because we can work quickly and I will say that to our clients we can turn stuff around quickly we know what we're doing we're very efficient in that sense but But you're right, if there's lots of people who've got to sign off on that, and this is one of the major challenges when you do work with larger organizations,

big companies, which can be very exciting and fulfilling, but generally there'll be a lot more eyes on that project, the feedback time will be a lot longer, there'll be more of those kind of fiddly last minute changes when someone sees it who didn't see it before. As long as that's kind of mapped in and everyone knows what's going on and when to expect things, then it's sort of doable. It's important to do all that stuff. Yeah, you're right. Those are the processes that we all learn doing what we do over the years.

I find that the intro call is always the best way to get a feeler for the other person. It's a great relationship tool builder just to find out who that lead is in a way. Their company, them, and then good way for you to introduce yourself and your company and then kind of see where where the project's at like how much do they know and whatnot that's that's usually what we use that intro

call for and then after that we'll usually schedule another proposal call we'll go over it and make sure we answer any questions on that call and then again if sometimes I would love to also talk to their to the people that will be the decision makers but that's not always the case a lot of the time. So you want to at least educate the lead in a way that they can then educate their superiors on your proposal, right? It's also a good filter call, a filtering tool as well, what people might forget as

well because in those intro calls, a lot of the time you're able to figure out, and this is like one of the main things you wanna figure out in those intro calls is like, what does the client want? Or do they at least have an idea of what they want, right? Because if clients don't know at all what they're looking for, if they just say like, oh, you know, I might wanna do a video, you know, or might not be sure, then you know right away

that this isn't someone who's ready to go forward with it, or you know, it's not going to be the right fit, or sometimes, you know, sometimes things just don't mesh, you know? Yeah. And that's also what's important with that intro call. I think, again, I think from our benefit, it's Pickle Pictures, and I say this to clients as well, we've literally done every type of video imaginable, I believe now, and animation. So I can, even if they don't know much about the process or kind of even what they don't know what they want,

I'm fine with that, I don't mind that. I get that, especially if it's someone who's not done it. It's more so the undecisiveness, I meant. Maybe not necessarily what they don't want, but it's kind of like people who are not very decisive. You might show them examples, but then they just, they might want to do it, but then they just don't know if they want to actually go through with it. You know, undecisiveness is a big one.

It can be tricky. I guess what, you know, I always try and do give as many examples as I can, get a sense of what the turnaround time is, what the project is. You want to get a bit of a feel for budget if you can, but some people are sensitive to that. And again, it's not, for me, it's more that I can go great. This is what we're looking at cost-wise. Well, this is what we can do for that. This is how we can be smart. That's that producer brain coming back,

which is, this is how we can be smart with what you've got. We're never gonna do something that's rubbish, but this is how we can make that budget really do good stuff. And we've done projects in the past where clients have provided still images, and that's all we've had to work with. We've done a really cool animation with it. We've done animations where we've cut the images apart,

and they were kind of in 3D, and we've got all the animated text, and it looks great. We've done a TV ad like that. So you don't have to have 50 grand every time or anything like that. But yeah, look, to have 50 grand every time or anything like that. But yeah, look, I have those chats, I show lots of examples, I talk through different ways of doing stuff and try and figure things out as best I can. Again, I think those personalities and how you work with people is the thing that becomes crucial and learning that because

everything looks great. It can be really challenging working with certain different personalities and not seeing that people are wrong or bad. People have different ways of working. You've got people who are really, really hands on with every detail. That's great, but that stuff can really slow down a project. You know what I mean?

And that can be really challenging to keep things on deadline and time when every tiny detail gets kind of looked at and stuff, which again, I respect that that's the way my client wants to work. That's what we're there for to help that out. And it's up to me to figure out how to adapt to working with that person to get the best out of them and the best out of me, right? That's not for me to go, oh, you're annoying. That's crazy, right? I don't, again, that's really important I think is to figure out and respect how your clients want to work and fit in with that.

Again, you will always be learning on that front, I would say. For years after years and years and years, and I think I've done every type of project and worked with every type of person, and I'm dead wrong. I'll be working with someone that's completely unique challenges that I've got to figure out. There's only been twice ever where I just felt that I couldn't work with someone. And again, it's not because it was disliking that person, I just put it down to us not being able to help each other out in that sense. And I just feel like client, we couldn't get there for them. You know, there was a bit of indecisiveness. I think it was quite a bit new experience for them. But also, you know, there was a lot of kind of stuff. I just didn't feel like it was getting there. And I felt like a lot of stuff, which

can be challenging, right? I feel like, you know, a lot of stuff that wasn't working out in that process, we were kind of taking the flat for. Do you guys find that? That can be a challenge where if issues come along if there's kind of things that get not really from your own fault in your own processes but ultimately us as a supplier has to sort of carry that you know what I mean we have to figure out that even if it's not our kind of issues we've got to figure out and make it work you know it can be it can be a challenge sometimes you know in that in that sense.

I've personally never had a client kind of shift the blame on us. I don't know, Kierl, did we have a situation like that? I can't remember any. The one thing that we do that we're, as part of our process, that we're trying to be very clear with our clients is also working into the schedule when we get feedback, which is a very important part of the process is that if you guys want us to, if this is a very important deadline for you,

here is like, here's when we're gonna deliver for you a draft. We need the feedback within 24 to 48 hours or whatever it might be in order for us to make that deadline. And then if they don't do that, they will understand that they're taking longer. And a lot of the time,

if we've had projects that have been delayed past kind of what is usually expected, it's usually because of that, because sometimes clients, they take longer to get feedback. It's, you know, they have to show it to several different people, then they have to consolidate. It's a little annoying sometimes that, you know,

when you have to wait a while, but it's being very clear about that, and then they have to consolidate. It's a little annoying sometimes that you have to wait a while, but it's being very clear about that and then they understand. I think we've kind of left enough, we've kind of covered our backsides along multiple steps of the way so that if it ever does come to that, we can just, I mean, if it gets to that point

and we can always just point to, I don't know, contract, emails, whatever, like we it gets to that point and we can always just point to, I don't know, contract, emails, whatever, like we always try to get a paper trail for a lot of this stuff because we're always thinking like, okay, great client and everything, but what if it goes wrong, right? So sometimes even if we have like a, like a meeting, we'll just follow up in an email with the talking points just to make sure everyone's on the same page. It's a lot easier now too, with a lot of these, uh, AI tools for video meetings

that they record and they also do transcripts and whatnot, it kind of does create a little bit of an insurance where you can always like if it ever does go south for whatever reason, you could just point back and say, guy signed off on it. Yeah. So make sure everyone's happy at the end of the day. And that's, that's what it is. Yeah. I think this is, I think because I put so much myself out there with this stuff, it's, it's, you know, you kind of take things personally and I want to have good relationships with the clients as well. You know what I mean? I don't

want them to be sort of feeling like they're stressed in the process as well. So it's not so much sort of shifting blame, but you're right. It's about sort of, you know, those looming deadlines and if things are dragging out, perhaps I feel that it's my responsibility and stuff, but you're right, it's, because I always want to get there, you know, again, I want to, you know, I don't want to be missing deadlines. That to me is like the worst thing you can do is to be the person that's great, you know, missing the deadline for sure. But you're right, communication all way through is is so important and fundamental And it's managing expectations. Yeah, that's that's the big thing

you have to be able to manage their their expectations and As long as you're upfront about it You rarely will have that issue because then everyone will understand, you know, kind of like what their roles are What's expected from everyone and then if some people take longer, they're not gonna, if the project is due Friday and you told them you needed your feedback on Tuesday and they get back to you Thursday night, they're not going to expect you to do it all by the next morning, right? Like it's like, I mean, obviously there's some random situations.

I mean, if they do it, you could, you could always just tell them it's like, I mean, obviously there's some random situations. I mean, if they do, you could always just tell them, it's like, I need this. I mean, again, if you communicate it beforehand, you just got to do your due diligence, essentially, and just communicate. Yeah, you just communicate properly to them. You do. You do. Exactly. And it's, yeah, it can be a challenge.

And again, this is one of the things about the work we do is that it can, it's very, usually very time intensive and it's, there's, can be complicated. And then we've got to be involved with technical issues and things too. I mean, one thing that I struggle with is getting those huge files off of camera operators. If you guys are going out shooting yourself, then that's maybe not so much an issue.

But if I've got an operator shooting in Brisbane for me, or Sydney, or somewhere else, and we get all that footage uploaded, that's previous to the internet getting a bit better in Australia. I'd get hard drives posted, and sometimes we'd have these crazy shoots with crazy deadlines. We had a huge law firm client who we still work with. We were great. We loved working with them, but quite often they'll want to do videos where we're filming. They've got offices all over the country, so they want

to film in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, you know all the different offices they've got and then we get all the footage and make these awesome big videos where you know they've got lots of voices from all over the company, it's great. But the challenge can be, usually these videos are getting made for a special anniversary date, so you've got that date coming up and we're having the film all over the place and get tons of this footage sent to us. If you're relying on things like hard drives in the post and we've had this before where there's been hard drives not turn up because something's happened with the post that day or you get them uploaded

and there's corrupt files and it won't download it's incredibly stressful and now that you know the files are getting bigger there's 4k there's beyond you and it won't download, it's incredibly stressful. And now that the files are getting bigger, there's 4K, there's beyond, you know? That can be really, really hard sort of part of the process to sort of figure out. So I don't know if you guys experienced that so much with the work that you do, but that's always a headache

to sort of have to sort of figure out. Not so much, like there's, most of the time, honestly, it's it's us going out to shoot. And then if if we do send out just like a videographer, it's usually guys we know that like are able to. Honestly, we haven't had that that issue. But because a lot of our stuff is local. Yeah. If we ever had stuff outside of Toronto

uh, we usually done either a hard drive or Or like a cloud platform and luckily it went well But we haven't done that enough times if we've if we do it a lot more often like you i'm sure like statistically like a certain Percent of itch would be a headache Yeah, um, so that's that's it really I don't know what the solution to that is. I guess better internet in Australia Kind of sucked and it was a problem, you know really long time I've got the best internet I can get here and it's nice and fast and I'm using now

you know the solution is you keep looking around until you find a better solution and I've got a good Platform that I used to upload and download. Because I'm using things like Dropbox and Google Drive and the old crap. What do you use now? It's called Mega, Mega Upload. And that works really well.

Is that the kim.com one? Is that the old school? Oh my god. One of my camera guys. That's where I used to download movies from, right? Mega Upload? I don't know. My camera guys use this and I use it. I don't know the back story of it.

If it's being run by Lunatics, it's like maybe I should look into that. I don't know. I think they did. I think they did get, they got sued and they got closed down. Kim.com, right? But I, yeah, or at least the owner did, but I think the company like eventually got to like proper practices. I mean, you're using it so it must be good but. No, look, it's good because it basically just downloads the files in the background without crashing and you know, all the other ones do crazy things where like, you know, they'll try and zip the folder. It's just, it's a headache. But, um.

Yeah, Google Drive, Google Drive zips the thing. But you got to use the desktop app. If you use the desktop app, it's pretty good. Oh, look, what I've got working now seems to work well and, you know, Yeah, don't change it. If it works, don't change. Look, I'm sure there's a ton of, you know, your listeners who have the same experience. And this is one of the parts of our world, right? We deal with massive, massive files of video files. And there's got to be a way to figure out how to get that footage reliably and not have it crash and have problems with it and make sure it's being delivered.

It can be as best as you can be. Sometimes when you've got crazy deadline delivery dates and turnaround, it can be a bit of a stress. But look, again, we've always got there, we've never... It's me that panics in the background and sort of screams and shouts and makes things happen. The client doesn't suffer. As a result, it's something that I've got to figure out. I can't turn to my client and go, my internet's rubbish, sorry, you can't make your video. I've got to figure it out.

So, yeah, that's something to always keep an eye on. And I guess as the years go by, it will hopefully be easier and there'll be better solutions for it, you know? And again, things like Premiere, the editing tools, I use Premiere. There's often issues with that that you've got to figure out. You spend half of your day figuring out

how to fix some bizarre glitch that's popped up in the video. There's all these sort of things to sort of deal with as well, which is crazy. But once you figure them out, it's an extra bit of knowledge that you've added to your editing technique and whatnot. So you know, you've got to keep learning. Yeah. Let's just end off with how you came up with the name for the company.

Nothing special or exciting, I'm afraid. It was literally sitting around the pub one night, coming up with names. Eating a pickle? Yeah. Well, it's yeah. Looking back on it, a pickle is not the prettiest of things out there, you know, I was thinking, you know, it came to logo, I didn't want to have an image of a pickle because they're quite ugly things and some people hate them, right?

It's a strange choice. But we were just riffing on names. It's like how you come up with a band name if you've ever been, you know, played in a band. Someone said pickle pictures and I liked the fact that it was memorable and and we kind of use the green as our brand color and it's stuck and I've had lots of people comment on it and remember it and everything else as well. So the downside is that sometimes people find us because

they want to get a picture of a pickle which is not really you know you want to laugh. I was actually Googling you earlier today. I was Googling you earlier today and I actually, I had to type in pickle pictures Australia to get to you because otherwise it just showed me pictures of pickles. So I did do pickle pictures video production and it did pop up on that though. So at least it was there. But I mean, the one benefit is that you also have that alliteration with it. So it's very, it rolls off the tongue very easily. Like pickle pictures.

It's memorable. People remember it. It's easy to remember. Some people have said getting out of a pickle, which is kind of nice if they think of it that way. Going back, if I'm thinking purely business wise, SEO, it would probably be something like corporate video production, editing company. You know, you get these companies who they have all of the ... That would be the smartest but maybe more boring way of doing it. We are Pickle Pictures. We have been that. Our clients have found us that way. And yeah, you know, that's what we've gone with. Hey, listen, things like that, they work for Apple, you know, it sounds on the surface like a pretty crazy name for a company, it's worked for them.

So, you know, we're a good company, we're the names companies. Have you ever gifted your clients a jar of pickles? No, no, they'd hate that. Oh my God, you should. That would be like the best way to end things off. It's like, here is like, thank you for working with us. Here's a jar of pickles.

Here's a jar of pickles. That would be, I would do that if, if, if, uh, if our company was Pickle Pictures. Just put your own custom label on it, get a graphic designer to do it. And I've handmade these pickles for you, you know, I've got, um, it's another business. Yeah. I've thought about that. I've thought, you know, it could be that we could do little candies or something that, you know, we're green. A coaster in the shape of a pickle. See, there's things, yeah, that's good. So there's things like that you can do for sure, you know, it's playful and it's colorful and that's kind of, that's what, that's what we are, I think, you know, I

think the website and everything else, if you check it out, it feels quite colorful and fun and not dry and too corporate, anything like that. And that's kind of how I am, I think. And, you know, it's also very green for those listening to the podcast and not watching it. It's very green, which is on brand. It's good to have that kind of brand color that use green stuff and things like that as well. So has a vinegar smell too. It's coming through the MacBook speakers. Yeah. When you click on it. Yeah. It's funny because, you know, I've got I tend to keep working with people who have similar themed names

There's a one of the guys I work with has a company called mustard and the guy who started me out You know who one of my friends his company of liquorice. So, you know, there's all these kind of These Australian like food Right, you know, so it's it, you know, no one really loves pickles. A bunch of people like them and a bunch of people hate them. So I don't know. Look, it's what we're called now and I'm not gonna change it anytime soon.

It's too late now. It's good, it's good. Yeah, it is what we are. We're picking pictures. I'd rather it be pickle video. That's the thing, you know, we don't actually do pictures. It's stuck with us now. There you go. Blame my wife. I think it was her that came up with it

On that note Pick it's pickle pictures.com if you want to go to his website And his instagram is at pickle pictures underscore video. So you did get the video in there. You threw it in there It would help a video is it was more affiliated to you, right? You've given me a complex now. Nice. Well, anyways, Michael, thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure sharing. Thanks guys. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. ["Creative's Grab Coffee"] Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative's Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us

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