Creatives Grab Coffee - Content Evolution (ft. Q Media Solutions) | Creatives Grab Coffee 9

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Kyrill Lazarov & Dario Nouri. CGC is a platform where creatives and business professionals discuss industry topics, ideas and experiences. Today we welcome our guest Dorothy Engelman. Dorothy is the co-founder of Q Media Solutions, a content agency that starts with strategy, pushes creative, and engages with social. Subscribe and follow for future episodes!Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS - www.lapseproductions.com

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Dario Nuri and Kirill Lazarev. CGC is a show where we invite business professionals to discuss industry topics. Today we welcome our guest, Dorothy Engelman. Dorothy is the co-founder of Q Media Solutions, a content agency that starts with strategy, pushes creative, and engages with social. We hope you enjoy our discussion, so let us start. How's your week been going? It's been a really crazy week. I mean, exciting, good. You know, I had two scouts on the same day, which, you know, I haven't been on a scout in, well,

I think I've been on one scout in the last four months, so, you know, it was kind of fun just to be on location. Yeah. I just, you know, it's kind of fun just to be on location. Yeah. I just, you know, it's a weird thing with the whole, I mean, don't even want to get into the COVID thing. It's just so bizarre. You know, I was at BMO, which is, you know, a huge bank with hundreds of thousands of people normally walking through. And it was just like hardly anyone there. I was on floors. We were the only people there.

We were in the main branch, which is open right at the corner of King and Bay. But again, it was just like, you know, you could fire a cannon through the place and not hit anyone. It was pretty crazy. And then I got to go to UHN to, so I do a lot of work in healthcare and I got a two hour tour of a part of the hospital that i think people never get to see which is you know you go in you have a surgery you go out but there's like 15 people that spend 10 hours cleaning every instrument disinfecting every instrument packaging every instrument and like, and like putting in this special box that then goes to your operating room. And it's a huge amount of work. And you just never,

it's the invisible part, right? Like you just assume, oh, you know, there's a bunch of surgical instruments there and they're all clean and they're disinfected, but they have a process that's like insane to make sure that it's all absolutely bacteria free, you know, clean, untouched by human hands. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. And I guess the silver lining is that a lot of regular businesses now are also being a lot more cleaner than before. Well, yeah.

I mean, I think what we realize is the invisible is becoming visible with COVID, right? Like, you know, the, I find the whole thing a little, anyway, disconcerting, I guess, because I think we've always just assumed that we're going to go into places and get germs. We're going to, you know, go to the office, we're going to catch the cold from somebody else. And, you know, our kid's going to come home from daycare, we're going to catch that, you know, cold or whatever. We've all sort of just, we've lived with that idea and this virus has really kind of made it extremely anxiety provoking I think for everyone around this idea of transmission so I wonder I mean I'm sure and I hope because I think young people will be more

risky in their behavior but I wonder if we'll ever be standing on a streetcar you know like packed like sardines without having masks on. Like, I just don't know if people have all of a sudden become extremely aware of the transmission of, you know, all the stuff that we're sharing all the time with each other. I mean, the rates are going up. So, I mean, people, as soon as things get well, people are just going to forget right away based on what we're seeing right now. I hope so. I think it depends on I think it depends on how old people are just going to forget right away based on what we're seeing right now? I mean, I hope so. I think it depends on, I think it depends on how old people are, right? Like, you know, young people are now making up the majority of the transmission because, you know, like this idea of fatality or death, you know, it changes as you get older, you know, and for people, I think over 50, they're just extremely cautious compared to

younger people. And thankfully, so right, like, we don't want to have everyone walking around paranoid, but it's like, my daughter's 23. And she's extremely anxious about this virus. And, you know, it's, it's because she's worried about passing it on to her grandparents, or, you know, and it's that fear that if you get it it's not about whether you're going to survive because i mean you guys are healthy and i think most people are going to survive it's the idea that maybe you communicate it to somebody who won't survive and i think it just depends on your level of um compassion and empathy perhaps you'd be surprised though i shot a wedding like two weeks ago and come reception time no one wore the mask oh yeah they

like on paper they would tell you that it's like yeah it's going to be less than 50 people like it's probably roughly 30 and then it was 100 people for mine that's what i'm saying on paper they're saying that it's less and then later on more people show up and it becomes like one big bash and it's like okay i'm staying back and i'm leaving like Like, this is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I think that what's interesting is the whole idea of shutting down was very easy, right? Like everyone went, okay, we're going to stay home. We're going to go to the grocery store if we absolutely have to, or we're going to order

in, you know, like our groceries, we're going to just try to have the least amount of contact possible. But when you talk about opening up, opening up is extremely complicated because I don't know about for you, but every single situation I go into, I have to check what the comfort level is of everybody in the room. And then in my opinion, you have to go and behave the way that the most risk averse person wants to behave. In other words, if somebody is extremely anxious about this then everyone has to respect that you know i don't know and it's hard because

in a society you can't walk around with little signs and say i'm freaking out you know and like watch out for people but when you're in that wedding it's like what do you do you know if people forget that's crazy that's what i noticed people simply forget. I don't know if they forget. I think they just don't care at that point. Because where I was at, like, I think it's because they all thought they were family and stuff. They just decided not to wear it. But you know what? This actually brings up something interesting because we're recording this episode on September 23rd.

And we're seeing there's been a big spike in cases over the past couple of days. And there's talks of a second shutdown right so how do you think this second shutdown is going to affect the video production industry you know what i i don't think there will be a second shutdown i think that what they've done is they went totally closed then they opened the doors and i think all we're going to do is we're going to keep doing this because a lot of the regulations that are, you know, on bigger sets, everyone's being tested once a week, everyone. So they have private nurses on set. People are being tested all the time. There's a lot of confidence for the people that are not only on set, but all the families, the people that are on set, because if you can imagine your partner or someone in your

family is being tested a week that's a pretty comforting thought for you because you know that it's going to get caught it's going to get caught early and you're going to be able to take some sort of you know take a response that that is responsible um i think in terms of uh production in general what we've seen is a move towards, you know, animation and a move towards doing stock footage kind of work. So in other words, everything that can be done in post. So if you can contain it in a post-production environment or a virtual environment using, you know, technologies like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, then you can mitigate the risk. And so we've already

started seeing huge movement towards those types of technologies. So for example, on Friday, I'm shooting with an executive in a huge branch, you know, where there's lots of air movement and lots of space. Supposedly, he's not all that anxious about COVID. In fact, his colleagues are more anxious than he is. And he's okay about, we're all going to be masked he's not going to be masked we have protocols but then after that we're shooting four people on zoom like you know well microsoft teams whatever but but a virtual uh technology and so what that does for at least for me is and i think we've all kind of gotten used to this is it changes our perception of quality. It changes our perception of how we're going to interact with video. It changes our perception about the length of video. We've all of a sudden become way more forgiving seeing Trevor Noah and all the

late night hosts in their houses, you know, you know, talking to people at remotely from a million different platforms we have like in some ways the artifice of technology has made content just ubiquitous right so it's like this experience that we're having right now is the same experience as someone's having watching us whereas we used to intermediate you know like this is the disintermediation of technology because we used to edit carefully light carefully sculpt the sound we did all of this work in post-production and now there's sort of like an assumption that well we just need to get a shitload of content out there how can we do it we can't film people we we have all kinds of restrictions so people are just kind of like innovating around it um i think unfortunately i mean fortunately unfortunately i think it means that um there's not quite the craft that we once saw in filmmaking there's kind of like a like a

lowering of the bar uh around what we think of as quality which has its its positive and negative effects, right? I think the positive part is that we are innovating and we're trying new things. And we're thinking about, for example, I'm doing this whole series of videos for Plan International. It's all going to be done on Zoom. And I said, this is going to be a very difficult thing to make engaging, you know, to make it emotional because it used to be that young women would go into large corporations and they would become the CEO for the day. So they would go to all these meetings, they would go to events, they'd be involved in all kinds of activities. Now they're going to be in their bedroom being the CEO for the day via Zoom.

And how do we communicate the emotional reaction of this young woman who's getting this opportunity? So I'm thinking about, you know, how we can package it, you know, how we can create, use text on screen to create some emotional connection, getting them to do some filming of their own. I mean, having to navigate this space is, I think, like anything, when there's a hurdle in front of us, we try to get over it. And I think we're in the middle of like, you know, we're sort of halfway over the hurdle. We're trying to figure out how to negotiate and navigate this new normal. How do you think that's affecting companies like yours and ours, the fact that the quality of the content has taken a drastic step back since a lot of people are doing content creation through Zoom now. Whereas before

you would set up like production days and you would have either small to medium to large sets and a good chunk of your profits would come from those production days. But now that it's all being done by the client themselves, how's that affecting like your business? You know what, I think in some ways, this is just a further extension of what's been going on for the last four to five years. You know, when I first started working in broadcasting and we made the move from film to TV to video, I used to sit in an edit suite that would cost $2 million, right? It would cost $2 million. You'd have one-inch machines.

You'd have three-quarter-inch machines. You'd have beta cam machines. You'd be trying to take all of this technology to make something. thing. And now, you know, it's you and your laptop and you and your iPhone, you and a very inexpensive prosumer camera. Like we use a lot of Canon cameras that, you know, even 15 years ago, the camera costs $150,000 to get the kind of quality that you can get today with your iPhone. I mean, it's, it's incredible. So as technology's advanced, it's put the, it's put, you know, tools in the hands of more, more people, which is fantastic because that's about the democratization of, you know, content and, and, and ability.

So I think, and one of the things I'd say is the middle is gone, right? So either it's super cheap, super hands-on crafty kind of filmmaking, or it's the kind of stuff where the only way that you can do the project is to do, to spend a lot of money, to have like a big set, to have big budgets. And it used to be that there was like a middle ground, you know, where you would do maybe a hundred thousand dollar commercial instead of a $300,000 or $400,000 commercial where you might do a $60,000 piece instead of a $5,000 piece. So it's, you know, much like what's happened in the economy, this polarization of the economic world that we live in, that's happened in production. So it's

like $400. I've got $400 to make a video. You're like, what? Well, I've got this influencer that's willing to do some content for me for $400. And then you have big agencies. So I think what's happened is the, the, sort of the smaller companies, the more nimble companies, um, are kind of being squeezed financially by this, right? You can't charge enough to really do a good job and they don't have enough budget for you to, to be able to make any money. So it's, it's a very difficult time, I think for a lot of small, medium sized companies. Well, every few years, there's always like a shift in, uh, like the quality standards and like the shit and even a focus in certain mediums. Like every few years, there's almost

like as if there's a trend, you know, I remember four years ago, 360 video was the thing. Everyone was talking about how that was going to completely revolutionize content. But obviously that kind of faded off because it was very difficult to use. And, you know, this is just now another, in a way, trend or medium that's kind of happened where, you know, because things are so limiting now, you know, you have to make do with what you can. Like a lot of the projects that we're doing, we have to pitch a lot of Zoom type content such as yourselves, right? Because that's really all that's possible, especially with people who are across country or in other countries that they want to involve in the project. You know, there's like there's a lot of like flexibility now. lot of like flexibility now like do you think this uh do you think this this um sorry do you think this particular medium is going to become a little bit more standardized and have a longer

longevity in terms of its life or do you feel like once things kind of fed type of thing that's what i mean like do you think it's just or is it going to be like a passing fad over time once things kind of open up again? Well, I don't think I'd really equate it with 360 video or, you know, even 3D, you know, like all of these technologies that have come since the 1950s that were sort of embraced like widescreen and cinema scope, like all of these things have happened throughout our industry, like little moments where we thought after Avatar that everything would be in 3D. And of course that didn't happen. And, you know, for sure it's happened in animation and there's been some application of it,

but I wouldn't say that people are saying, I'm not going to go to a film unless it's 3D. I don't think that's ever happened. In some ways, this idea of remote, you know, capture, whether it's someone on the other side of the world, has been done for a very long time. Since the 1980s, we've used satellite technology to bring people from a great distance into a newsroom.

Like, for example, news and current affairs is where we sort of, we pioneered that technology, where we would say we had somebody in London or Beirut, and they would come to us via satellite. So now this is fiber optic. It's not really anything new. It's just that the tool, the satellite, that technology was only capable of using that technology if you were a huge broadcaster, right? It cost a fortune to buy satellite time. Now, 20 bucks a month, I can buy the technology. So again, it's about, it's about ubiquity. I think it's about how much

this technology gives us access to the world. And so then the question is, is it about quality or is it about content? And I think we live in this, I don't even know how to describe it anymore. Do you not feel overwhelmed by the amount of content that comes at you every single day? Yeah, there's so much like a lot of times, like, I mean, this is why a lot of times you just stop using social media for the whole day. Like, let's say you're on Instagram a lot after a while, you're like, I think I've had enough. So you start pumping way too many ads in there. Like, okay, that's it. Yeah, they're really pushing it, especially nowadays. And, you're like, I think I've had enough. So you just start pumping way too many ads in there. You're like, okay, that's it. Yeah, they're really pushing it, especially nowadays.

And, you know, the one interesting thing you mentioned was how a lot of, for example, talk show hosts have like switched formats and are now doing things from home. One thing I noticed was that a lot of their quality was so low from switching, you know, on their big broadcast sets to, you know, in their homes, they really have something very basic. you know on their big broadcast sets to you know in their in their homes they really have something very basic do you think these uh types of uh uh influential people will have to compete with like the more established kind of youtube content creators because those are people that have established established themselves on the platform for many years now and they're different though

they're they're different but it's uh it's those guys come and go. Like, I don't know, actually, because there's like new influencers every day, right? And somehow these people have like millions of views. Like, have you ever gone on the YouTube trends section? You're like, who are these people? It's like some of them have like 40 million subscribers. That's what I'm saying. I think what we have is like a whole bunch of different things working here.

So there is an idea, at least from my perspective that yes, anyone can make content great. You know, and there was a very famous social media guy that wrote social media is bullshit. And he wrote this in response to the idea that corporations thought, and this is like really only 15 years ago and not for profits thought, Oh, this is all free, therefore we can produce content for nothing, right? Now, yes, you can, the price of production has gone way down, but what is still an extremely expensive thing is to push out and distribute and get your content in front of eyeballs. So that's digital marketing, that's digital buys, that's all those kinds of things that more traditional broadcasters have the bandwidth, and they also have the distribution

channels to be able to push content out. But if you're sitting in here, like you guys, you don't necessarily have that platform. So if, for example, your piece was all of a sudden picked up by Vice, you've got an audience, all of of a sudden you're going to be in front of all those eyeballs on youtube i think that's become kind of its own ecosystem over the years where there's people who just sit and watch youtube these youtubers and i mean one of the things i think we all would have said 10 years ago about youtubers was oh such bad quality it's horrible but you know what? The people that are watching that, they're not watching it for quality. They're watching it for, I don't know,

like the engagement with the personality, right? It's something about that person or the content that person's talking about that they find engaging. And I mean, I've grown up in a different environment. In terms of the the shooting quality though it's it's actually not bad even the way they edit it it's done in such a way I watched a couple of the videos on the trend section and it's done in such a way where you there's no long take long shots like it's cut so that you you barely lose attention it's really interesting the very fast

very fast paced you know like you know like you like we take so much time making sure that when we do interviews you know we try to let people kind of have a conversation we try not to chop it up too much whereas you look at some of the youtube content they straight up one camera setup they just chop chop chop chop chop and it's not a second it's not a short video there'll be like 20 minute videos at a time yeah and and so it's like you know that they've done multiple takes but they don't care about doing the whole thing over and over you know but it works it works you watch and you're like it works like i'm still watching it five minutes later i know it's garbage it's like you know what it is it's it's uh it's like a new form of reality TV in a way, which is, yeah, that's what it is. No, exactly.

That's exactly what it is. I think it's kind of this idea of dropping in on someone's life. It's very voyeuristic, right? It's very voyeuristic. And part of the reason I think there's an appeal there is because if you think about it, TV traditionally and and and all the streaming channels traditionally show kind of these perfect perfect people perfect worlds right and the thing about a youtuber is they could be someone from

a small town with a very particular education a particular experience of the world that's not generally reflected in mainstream media. And so because of algorithms, people who are like-minded are finding that content and feeling less alone, feeling less sort of disconnected from the content that's pushed out in traditional media. Because if you think about about it traditional media reflects a white privileged educated class pretty much and there's a lot of people and we see this in the United States specifically with how disenfranchised people are politically they just don't feel like their stories are being told and so if you're a British BIPOC trans person and you have literally been tormented most of your life

and felt really like an outsider all of a sudden if you have an expression that's you know artistic in some way people who are like-minded people who've gone through the same thing that you've gone through are going to find you and then you find community and so a lot of these things are in some ways uh good forms of social cohesion but on the other hand what we've done is created all these tribes right people we don't have a we don't have like a common it doesn't feel like we have common community or values anymore because the traditional media when it's three channels like back when I was growing up that was it those were your only choices there was no other choice now there's so much choice and I think that that also leads to a lot of the confusion that young people have which is why they turn to these youtubers because they they're they're looking for a reflection of themselves

they're looking for an answer to what should I do next? How can I live my life? They're looking for role models. They're looking for people that are sharing their values or their experience. And that's not really the way mainstream media works. The crazy thing is that, you know, because we all have like these certain personalities and the certain kind of content that we all watch, in a way, we're all kind of creating our own view of the world that we think is almost the standard, right? As you mentioned before, everyone was watching the same stuff. So people were talking about the same type of content. But Dario watches different type of content on YouTube. I watch different type of content. You do as well. We have three very different perspectives on the world just based on

the content that we consume. And the more we consume it, the more that same content is pushed to us through all the algorithms. It's, it's like, we all have our own tailored perspective of the world. Do you think marketers though, can take advantage of that? Cause I mean, sure. You have all these influencers. They're the ones that have created it. Right. But you have, you have all these influencers and sure they'll push like whatever product they're being paid to post to promote right but at the same time like we're not stupid like as soon as a youtuber starts promoting something i mean we all skip ahead right oh especially if you've seen like two or three videos of the same guy you're like i know what he's promoting i've either gotten it if i wanted to or i just skip

ahead like it's really easy you just move the cursor over and you just move forward right and you know that ad is going to be like three minutes and you know he does it because he needs to get money for the channel otherwise you don't get a lot of content weekly so do you think a lot of young people as a whole just are are they've smartened up to how marketers uh try to them, right? It's almost like, you know, how like people don't really pay attention to billboards anymore, right? It's like your brain just automatically like blurs it out, like in Black Mirror, when you can just blur out certain things. It's like our brains just naturally do that now, no? No, I mean, I think these are really interesting, complicated questions. I think that the the the concern that

I have is that when algorithms drive decision making is that first of all they're biased and we see that with fake news and then secondly I think they shut down diversity so you know they a conversation a real conversation happens between people that have different opinions. Right. And like if you think about a debate, you know, it's something that we would do in school. You take this position. I'll take that position. And learning that even if that's not your belief system, having to argue a point of view that is not your own. In doing that, you discover something about the subject. And I think what's worrisome is that discovery and curiosity in some ways are being shut down and in other ways they're being you

know they're being included by having this kind of very precise drive data-based information being pushed to you and in fact you know we work for a couple of fintechs and that's all they do. They take your data, they sell all of your activities to major financial institutions and major corporations in order to create a very customized experience for you that that's going on in the background. And you don't sometimes some people are very aware of it. Other people are not. people are not. And yeah. And so if you think about us as content producers, I think the, the, the thing that we need to all learn is unfortunately, because this is the way the world has gone is we, we need to be better digital marketers. We have to understand the, the way that platforms work, the way people engage with platforms. And as you guys just, you know, sort of illuminated around the youtube thing it's the content's not shot by professionals it's not polished but it works it works for that

audience so then the question i think the next question is do you want to do that kind of content right and and finding your niche where you can be creatively engaged, where you feel like you're using your mind and you're using your skills and you're working with a partner, your client in collaboration to meet a goal, you know, then, then it feels like a, then it's a powerful experience for you as creators. I just, I think that increasingly, not just as, you know, absorbers of content and, you know, users of content, creators of content are going to have to make very similar decisions, I think,

or they're going to have to reflect on those decisions, right? I think it's, you know, all of this stuff is like super important for all of us to think about as citizens and as creators of content, you know, the ethics part that you pointed out, you know, it becomes, I think, a daily question that you have to ask yourself about, you know, how and what do you want to do with the work that you've done? So for example, for me right now, I'm very interested, and I have been for a long time, in how a film can create an emotional response in people then leads to action. So a lot of filmmakers will talk about, you know, like, oh, I've done this documentary on incarceration of young people in the United States. Okay. You go to a film festival, you watch

the filmmaker make to go into their next film but now what's starting to happen is there are some social movements and some really interesting examples in the U.S. where people are saying if you're going to make a film about incarceration of young people why are you making that film you're making that film because you want to see that part of our judicial system be transformed so that young people are not put in prison for their entire life which was happening in the United States 14 year olds getting life sentences and and previously actually uh being on death row and so um what you do is you decide as a filmmaker that you you you have a passion for social change or for an issue, whether it's the environment or whatever.

And then you look at partners that you can work with and distribution models and screening models and social change models to engage, to really to make change, you know, not just to talk about an issue or to reveal a story, but to move the agenda forward. And I think that's the power of filmmaking is that it's not the thing that's going to change anything but it's the thing that can change people's hearts

you know and a little bit their minds and so when you create an emotional powerful piece of filmmaking and I'm not talking about YouTube cuts I'm talking about real craft filmmaking you create emotional response in someone and in that moment that you're creating that emotional response, we have to make sure that we have things there for people to do, for them to things and all the environment that we're talking about to actually move the agenda forward? You know, whether it's if you care about inclusivity, if you care about social issues, if you care about, you know, voting, if you care about a particular political thing, or if you just want to have, you know, better community services in your neighborhood, whatever, from big to small I think filmmaking and and storytelling in in partnership with other engagement tools can actually make social change and that's and that's sort of the thing that I I think more creators need to be talking about instead of it just being about oh I made this beautiful film won a few

awards and on I go to my next film and aren't i so important because i did this really you know great documentary about something that's important i think it's like well if it's important let's move let's move the needle let's let's make real change so i think that's how i see like all this bad stuff that's going on which i think is has got some really negative things happening to turn that into something positive, like use that, use these changes in technology to help move the agenda forward. People are starting to look for the why, you know, like before it used to be, you know, like we create, as you mentioned, we created this great film, you know, it took us X amount of time, you know, like we were really happy with the work here it is. We won X amount of awards, you know, people have now like,

like you see a lot of like companies and, and, uh, like directors all saying we're award winning people who've, you know, won numerous awards for all the ads and projects we've done. But a lot of people have now started to kind of filter out, uh, you know, like what the awards are and versus the why, you know, and as you mentioned, like if you want to promote a very impactful type film or project, you need to have a very strong message behind it. And I think that's how people even consume all types of content nowadays. People are always looking for the why, why are you making this, right? You know, if you can't figure out the why, then why would they listen to you, right? If you don't know the why, then how would they know the why? I think one of the examples I would give you is that I talk to a lot of my clients about why are you making a video? Like maybe video is not the right engagement tool here. And if you

are going to make a video and we're going to spend 25, 40, $60,000 on it, I want to make sure that 20% of our budget is on engagement. In other words, let's make sure people see it. Let's make sure that people have a way to engage with it. And let's make sure that that then helps to move the needle forward. So for example, we were doing a campaign on esophageal cancer with UHN. And for sure, there's an awareness that has to be raised that this is a cancer that's killing more than other people, more than prostate cancer in men, for example. But what we really need is people to go get a checkup. We need people to go get a checkup. So how do we make that happen? So, you know, build a tool like in your online platform that has some sort of like connection to an institution

that, you know, you can track and check so that you can actually get people to like fill out a little questionnaire or something that then says, hey, you're kind of at high risk or maybe it's a loved one. They're at high risk. This whole idea of awareness building or if you think about it, if it's retail, you want people to sell, like you want people to buy the product. That's pretty straightforward. If you're selling beer, you're selling beer, you want more beer to be sold.

But when you're selling ideas, when you're selling awareness, it's a different animal, you know? You know, again, I think this goes back to what you were saying before about how the middle, well, not middle class, but middle level production companies are starting to disappear because you're either doing big budget work or you're doing very small budget work, right? So like, again, how can you be that consultant for the client where at the same time they're coming to you with smaller and smaller budgets? Well, I think one of the things you have to do is sometimes say no to the smaller budget because it takes up your time and not making any money on it. So, I mean, you know, this comes down to kind of a business planning exercise to really figure out what the value of your time is and the value of your time

when you're out trying to pitch an idea and get something that's relevant kind of into the marketplace versus being responsive to a request. So if you're being responsive to a request, the great part of that is they know they need the video. They probably have a shoot day already organized. They're like, oh, we want to film this at this time and we need it for this date. So that's a very finite project. And you can think of that as like, I don't know, you're meat and potatoes, right? Like that stuff is like, okay, we don't have to think about that. But strategically as a small to medium-sized business, I think what you want to look at is the idea of co-creation and collaboration. And I don't

mean that that's like working for an agency. I mean, think of your client as a partner. Help them understand their goals and why communication and content is important for them. Get them to need you and to rely on your advice and convince them, and this is the harder part, that you need a bigger plan, that the video is a tactical, tactical piece. It's not strategy. And this is where the agencies end up making all their money, right? Is most of it is they do focus group work, they do research, they do all of this work providing strategy. So I think for medium-sized companies in order to survive is that you have to have value added beyond production. Now, otherwise you're just that your, your, your profit margins are just going to keep getting snapped away. So you have to figure out what is your, you know,

secret sauce. What's the thing that you do beyond the, the creation of the content. It's the thing that you do beyond the creation of the content? It's how it can move the needle, how it can help sell more products, how it can help an organization grow, if it's internal communication, whatever. But try to get your client thinking more broadly about how that piece fits into the strategy of what they're doing. And when that happens, that's when you can suggest, well, you know, it would be great if we did a series, if we put it on a platform, if we thought of a campaign. So it's kind of moving from that idea of a video to a campaign. And that campaign has strategic kind of value. So in the old fashioned world, you call it upselling. I'm not, I don't, that's not the way

I perceive it. I think it's that you have skills and you have expertise. And what you want to do is you want to try to have your client pay for that. Not just for the fact that you can point a camera, cut something and put it together, but that you bring like something beyond that, just straight creation. And it's, you know, it's thoughtfulness that just straight creation and it's you know it's thoughtfulness it's research its background its strategy it's understanding the marketplace and I don't know that I guess that's why that's my that's my suggestion yeah it seems like there's been a natural evolution of video production companies in the last maybe 10 10 to 15 years where I mean you probably know this a lot better since

you've been in it for longer but it seems that in the past as a video production company you would just be hired out to do the production right so your pre-production would essentially just be planning out the production aspect right and like so you'd be working with direct clients or most likely ad agencies and you just go on go in shoot but nowadays it seems that we're doing a lot more we're almost thinking like like a marketing or ad agency right so we're becoming video consultants in a way right so we're talking to a client and saying what are your long-term plans with this why you why do you even

want to do video in the first place right um it's just interesting to see so do you even want to do video in the first place, right? It's just interesting to see. So do you think that going forward, video production companies are going to end up becoming this hybrid of both a marketing slash ad agency and video production company? I don't know. I think the challenge on the video side is that as you get older and as you get more experienced, you really need to charge more money. The problem is the budgets are small. So you're going to keep losing ground against, you know, people that are willing to do it more cheaply.

On the consulting side, we started putting some numbers against that, you know, and it's challenging, obviously, because it has a lot to do with the perception that your client has of you. And I think you just say, it could be that you could talk about, say, scope and strategy as your first phase, and that you charge, say, $3,000 or $5,000 for that, regardless of what the cost is. Or maybe you suggest going on a retainer with your client and these are with clients that you have good relationships with them just saying you

know what we're gonna be there for you to do the production but since we have a really good sense of your surround of like what you're doing what we would like to do is to be able to be there for you always at the other end of the phone to talk about things and to do that we would want to get you to pay us X amount of dollars per month and have a conversation about whether that makes sense. Because that means that whenever they have a challenge, they can pick up the phone and call you, which also means they're going to pick up the phone and call you because

they're paying you. So, I mean, that might, that might be a strategy. I also think that video production companies are going to die unless they become digital marketing companies. That's kind of my, I just, you know what, like, I was in the beginning of the digital kind of revolution in 94. And I've over the time I've been engaged in digital activities, but I never really took my company and turned it into a digital marketing company or, or built a division of my, my agency that did that. And I tried in 2014 and for some, like a bunch of reasons it didn't quite work out. Wasn't a good fit with the person that we got to that we hired. She was amazing, but she just wasn't like in alignment with the way that we work. So it kind of, it, it, it, we, we, it was

an experiment we tried for two years, but what I'd say is the digital agencies are growing huge. Like they're, they're, they're becoming enormous. And what's happening is because they're doing content, digital content, they become production companies. They become agencies, they become creators, even though that's not their core competency. It's becoming their core competency because when you're sitting down and you're building a website and you're doing a Facebook campaign or you're doing some sort of digital campaign, content has to be created. And they, you know, the clients like, oh, if you can do that too, great. So what they're going to ask you to do as video companies is, well, can you also do the digital strategy? Can you do the digital marketing for me? Can you make sure this gets in front of the right people? Can you put together a proposal for that? So again, if you want to think about how to do it

in a efficient way, it would be to find a small digital marketing agency, maybe to have a relationship with or a digital marketing freelancer so that you can, you know, just sort of put that line into your budget or, or make your client understand that you have that expertise, you know, as a partner. I think that will help you capture more, more, more market share than you might currently have. I just think that being a production company, you're dead in the water almost, right? I was just going to ask, because you said it'd be good to partner up with someone that is like a digital marketer. Do you think it might be better to have like a roster of agencies that you could just collaborate with? Like, I'm just wondering what would be the best way to go about it, whether you have like a roster, or you just have one person, right?

I've tried, I've tried both. I've, I've tried young freelancers, I've tried bigger agencies that I have really good relationships with. And it's difficult, because really, everybody wants to own the project, that that's what kind of happens. And if you can be the person that is controlling the purse strings, and what I mean by that is, you know, that you're getting a good amount of money where you can hire a digital marketing agency, then you just, you RFP it out, like you can say, RFQ it out and say, I'm doing this project. I need this to be done on the digital side. Give me a price, send it out to three people, just like people are asking you for quotes, ask them for quotes and you're holding the purse strings.

And I think you have to hold the purse strings in this case. Because I think it gets really complicated. Otherwise, the other thing is you can kind of get eaten by the, the agencies, right? Cause they're the good ones are big now. Right. And, and the people that are freelancing I I think it's just about finding that right person you know it's about looking for someone who maybe on their own and it has kind of an entrepreneurial sort of mindset I think that would be good but how do you even figure that out because like how do you like again we're video production people

right we don't really know the digital marketing side of things so how would we even go about like maybe choosing a freelancer of that sort right like what knows that side of the business yeah and knows how to kind of help quote and Were there some things you were looking for in particular? You're like, okay, I need to see if these numbers, like how do you even like, how are you able to tell like the numbers they're giving you are good? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's sort of like when you, you present sort of what you're doing on video and say that you want to turn

it into a campaign and you say to the digital marketer, like I'll give you a day pay like a day's pay for you to write me a proposal for what like a pitch basically that you can then pitch to your clients so you're gonna make a small investment maybe with a freelancer just say hey listen if we get this job I'm gonna hire you but I'm gonna respect the fact that you have expertise and your expertise will help me win business and I've done that before and that has been somewhat successful. I don't think there's any rules about any of these things, but,

and forgive me if I'm being, you know, direct, but I think you guys have to educate yourselves on digital. Like you really need to, or you're going to, you're going to end up behind the eight ball. Because whether that's talking to a digital agency or talking to a freelancer, being able to discern the bullshit factor, which believe me, there's a lot of that. And there's great courses on digital marketing that are available online.

Things like getting your Google ad certification is like an online process. There's all these basic things and it's challenging because at least for me, you, you want to be really good at what you, you do. And I'm sure you guys are, you're thinking, this is what we do. I don't want to all of a sudden become bad at something else and, you know, reach out. So I think it's kind of a, an in-between educate yourself, maybe take some I'll do some online stuff and also just start looking around for young digital marketers I think through LinkedIn you can find some stuff through that Facebook video production page that

I sometimes I use I think there's there's a lot of young people that are out there that have got some like DMZ experience, like from Ryerson, people that have worked in startups. DMZ is one of our clients, actually. Yeah. Well, there you go. You should talk to them. You should talk to them about some of their students. And in fact, I'm going to send you guys a link. I got a request.

They're looking for companies. link, I got a request. They're looking for companies, there's a new program that's kind of like a business creative services degree out of Ryerson. I don't know, I'll find the woman's name. But there are interns that are looking to work for companies. So if you could take on an intern who, you know, has some savvy digital marketing background from, like, and there are master's programs, you know, that people are, that are doing, like, find a super bright digital marketer, a young digital marketer, and, you know, one that wants to maybe start their own business, and that, you know, you can have a, you can date, you don't have to marry, and I guess I shouldn't even say date because your generation that dating

is even a serious thing. But yeah, I think that that's, I think that it's a really, it's interesting. And then, and then on the converse side, and this might be this is maybe even kind of a little outside the box. But there are also some older people that have a lot of experience that have lost their jobs during COVID and who are looking around for opportunities. And generally, you know, people with a lot of experience, even if they're a bit older, if they're really in the digital space, they're going to find work just because it's such a hot area for recruitment. But maybe it's finding someone who's a little bit older who has just left an agency or has got a lot of experience, but they've decided to make a transition in their career and maybe they'd like to help you guys build out something.

I mean, a lot of this has to be driven by you guys knowing what you want and i'm just um i'm just giving you some suggestions no no they're good and this is something we've been trying to figure out this these past two months is what's the the future direction of our of our of our company right and i know that we do need to start incorporating like a marketing arm and which in this case will be digital marketing. So yeah, like we're definitely going to take these suggestions to heart. So. Yeah. I mean,

I think a lot of it's just sort of about knowing yourself sort of what you're, what you're really good at, you know, and, and making sure you play to your strengths and that you find people to fill in the gaps on the areas that maybe you're not so strong on. My problem in life has always been that I'm, I have a strength and I see all these weaknesses and I'm like trying to fill in the weaknesses. And then a very bright person said to me, stop trying to fill in your weaknesses,

stick with what you're good at and find people to help you with the things where you, where you know, you know, at the same time, I think part of it's because we're craft people. Like, you know, I used to edit, I used to shoot. I think we have this idea that we need to learn everything, or at least I do. Right. I want to know how things work. I, and I don't think you should shut that down either. Like be curious about, you know, this stuff. I don't know that it's,

I don't know that it's, I don't know that it's rocket science, but I, but I do think there's a lot of, you know, you need to spend some money on this stuff. I mean, you need to convince your clients that making an investment in video is not going to pay off unless people see it, you know, unless it gets eyeballs. And the way it gets eyeballs is through, you know, creating a surround, creating some sort of environment or something that leads people to the content. Yeah, like, we all started pretty much the same way. Like, you know, when you start in any of these industries, you have to wear many different hats. And not necessarily you have to be

the best at every single situation, at least as you're growing. Be very good at a few certain skills. Be knowledgeable about the other ones, as you mentioned, right? Like for example, Dario and I, one of our, as you pointed out, is that we're not as experienced in the digital side and the marketing side of things for content. But if we at least get to the point where we're knowledgeable, so we know how things work a little bit, not necessarily to do it, but to know about it, it allows us to kind of make the right judgment calls in terms of who we bring on. Because nowadays it's so hard to find the right type of people to work with. Like we've all gone through so many different like people that we've collaborated with over the years, you know, and you know, like once you start to find

people that are very knowledgeable and they, and they're great to work with you want to hang on to them because they fill in those gaps that you know are missing from your organization yeah i think i think john john corbin from corbin visual actually went over this about how when he would try to pitch something new to his clients he would first become somewhat knowledgeable on the the area right so whether it be something like as an example like 360 video he would learn the basics of it yeah and then he would find the right people for it and then he would go pitch it so it's the same thing here and other people we've spoken to um they've said they've said the same thing like once they've grown to the point where they could bring on other people they would bring on people that were good where they could bring on other people, they would bring on people that were good

where they were weak on, right? Which I'm guessing you figured out as well. You're like, okay, I mean, I'll get it to a certain point, but then after that, I'll bring someone else that's really good at that thing, right? I think the other thing is, and I'm not sure where you guys are at in your trajectory yet, but you're also founders, right?

Like you're not just filmmakers, you're entrepreneurs, right? And I think that's a bit different. Like not every tech person, not every camera guy, not every sound operator, not every editor is an entrepreneur. Like that's what kind of sets you aside. I think if you think of yourselves, like get that mindset, you're entrepreneurial, which means that you pivot, you constantly are looking out there, moving, analyzing what's happening, make quick decisions, be a bit risky, take chances, believe in people. Like if you believe in people and you collaborate with them in an open, authentic way, a lot of people want to follow the Pied Piper. You know, like a lot of people don't want to be founders. They want to attach themselves to founders. They want to attach

them to people that had the guts to start a business, start a podcast, whatever. You know, it's like that's part of your allure and use it. You know, think of yourselves like whatever you know it's like um that's part of your allure um and use it you know think of yourselves like you know sit up a little straighter you're entrepreneurs and uh that's not just being a that's and that's being a business person and so you're you're working with clients for business people and so your entrepreneurial experience of building your business gives you insight into other people building their businesses. Yeah. And that's something that for the first five years, we never like looking back at it now, we never really saw the business as a business. We kind of and it's because, again, we were just getting into the field.

So learning as much as we can. Yeah. Like, you know, like when you go to a shoot, like you still don't know you're lighting that well like you don't know you're framing that well so it's something we were constantly trying to learn uh and i think because of the pandemic when we were in quarantine we finally sat down and just looked over everything and started restructuring our business from the ground up right because now we're looking at it as if it's a business right we're not looking at ourselves as you know two independent shooters collaborating on projects and that's really changed our whole mind first mindset and and perception of what we're doing right so even like one of the latest things we've

implemented is that we're now pitching ourselves more as video consultants and creators whereas in the past we were just like ourselves more as video consultants and creators. Whereas in the past, we were just like, you need a video? We got your back, you know? I mean, that also just goes to show it's a challenge that a lot of people face early on, especially when they're getting into this industry. Like a lot of times people would ask you, we need to make a video. How much is it going to cost? You tell them, they say, great, you do it.

But again, there was no strategy behind it. And that's where this whole need for digital marketing and evolution, you know, for all of us as businesses need came from, you know, it all came from that act because like early on we noticed great, like we did a video, you know, it was great. The client loved it and it was beautiful, but didn't get all that much traction, you know, and that's, that's also how you potentially even lose clients in the long run because they see the content is not performing as well but they don't realize or know that you really got to put perform if you don't market it or exactly position it because i you know i it's no one's going to find it in the world anymore right like it's

practically impossible the amount of content that's being created every day and and so instead of thinking of yourselves i just i would reframe it a little bit instead of video consultants i would say you know it's communication strategy or marketing strategy and and and video is a tool it's an implementation of the strategy um and, and you market that video digitally, but you still have a campaign or you have, you have, and this is the whole thing that's challenging about clients is to really get the answer on what is their goal? Like, why are they doing this? And, and really say, for example, one of the biggest challenges I think a lot of clients have is they don't have a call to action. It's like, if you don't know what your call to action is, then why are you making a video? Because you know, you, here's, here's what I always say. What do you want people to think?

What do you want people to feel? And what do you want people to do? I'm giving you my genius on this. You take that, you ask those three questions of every client and all of a sudden the conversation changes very much around, you know, we want people to feel that if they don't take action, the world will fall apart. Maybe that's the answer. at this rate and that we must reduce our carbon emissions and that what you want people to do is to download this list of things they can do to reduce their carbon footprint i don't know like i'm just but the point is is that that is that is why we make films because we want people to feel something to think something and to do something and i think we i think a lot of once you ask those questions sometimes the clients are like i don't't know, you know, that then becomes your opportunity to start pulling out information and then coming up with ideas and saying, well, what if we did this? And

instead of just a video, how about if we do a series or we do a commercial and we do this and whatever. It's just about opening up the conversation. Yeah. The other thing we're also prepping for is also scalability. We're trying to kind of lay the foundational ground for how we're going to scale our business going forward. And I know that obviously the main thing is sales, right? And again, like adding digital marketing would fall into that as well. But I'm just wondering how you went about scaling your business, like growing the team and like bringing in all these like resources to help establish yourselves for the future.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think there's any secret sauce there. I mean, I would say I didn't understand this and maybe until 10 years into running our company, which was everything we got was through referral, everything. And we never had a salesperson and we never did sales. Now we did respond to RFPs or RFQs, which were a sales type process, but I'd worked in broadcasting. So I had all these broadcast connections and we got series. We got a couple of series to start off our company. And I knew lots of people that worked in different media and journalism.

And then my husband worked in advertising. So he had a bunch of corporate connections. And all we did was we just organically grew through referrals. And the reason why that's a powerful way to do things, and it may not be the way that you can do things, is that there's no sales cycle. It's like someone calls you like, hey, I heard you guys are things, is that there's no sales cycle. It's like someone calls you like, hey, I heard you guys are great. Can you work for us? Yes. There's no like sales

process where you have to go in and pitch and tell people what you're doing. And even in that case, they might be impressed, but they don't have any work at that particular moment. I mean, cold calling and visiting people is a brutal, long process. Doesn't mean you shouldn't start it, but just know that it could take up to 18 months for those things to start, to see results. Yeah, to see results. I think it can take that long. And then in terms of referrals,

not that I've ever done this, but it's reaching out to everybody in your network and letting them know, hey, we're trying to scale our business. Is there anybody that you know that maybe like works in comms at company, like, you know, look, look for, look for personal connections and ask for referrals from friends. I've never been good at that. I'm just going to tell you,

it's a hard thing to do. I'm, I'm, I'm never good at asking for help from people, especially when it feels kind of like, I don't know, for me, it always feels kind of slimy, you know, salesy, but, but authentically, you know, I'd also say that giving free advice and listening to people, whoever you're talking to and connecting them with good things will always come back to be good for you in the long run. You know, I think there's that thing in sales about, it's not what you can do for them. I mean, it's not about what you can do for them, but it's about what you can do for them. So it's like,

they say, oh, you don't go, I make videos. I can, I can do this. I can do that for you. Just say, you listen to them and they say, oh, they're having this challenge, this problem, this thing is going on. And you say, Oh, have you read this article? Have you seen this podcast? Have you thought about this? Did you know about this campaign? I'll send you a link. Just be engaged with people when you meet them and be a person that connects them to cool stuff. And then you'll get, you know, you'll build a reputation as being somebody that's knowledgeable and helpful. And, and ultimately, I mean, that that's what worked for me. And that's mine. That doesn't necessarily mean this is your, your method and your secret sauce. You have to kind of figure that out. But scaling is, I think there has to be organic scaling, like in the

beginning. And then when you get to the point where you've too much work and you can't handle it that's when you start to bring in more resources but I think part of being founders is getting yourself to the 99 percentile right where you're so overworked you just have to keep pushing through and then when you just can't when it breaks that's when you start hiring and that's when you just say listen we need a pm a production manager might be your first hire who's kind of like a hybrid you know somebody who can be a pa be an assistant be like watch look at you look at your books do budgets proposals you know all of that kind of stuff to take a lot of the administrative responsibility off you so that you guys can work on creation. You work

on creation, you're going to build reputation, you build reputation, then you hire your second person. Like it's just, I think in the first few years of a business, because you weren't set on scaling before, that's when you kind of stay small and you really stay tight. You make sure you've got a good business model going forward. And then when you just can't like literally sleep, you're not sleeping. You just bring in somebody because you're confident that you have enough momentum to have that person on say, you know, you could, I would do just for your own comfort level,

do a three month contract or a six month contract for that first person. Our first hire, we told him that he would have three days work for two weeks he ended up being with us for ten years it's like you think like for me I was always cautious like I never wanted to over promise right and say like I don't know that I can hire you for very long but I know I've got three days this week and three days next week. And then because we had that extra set of hands, all of a sudden we had more capacity to do things and more things came

our way and we could say yes to more things. And then he was still there 10 years later, you know, with us. And, and there's several people in our, in our company that happened with it. So I'm always afraid to say, I gonna hire you full-time but you know it always ended up that's kind of what happened so as you said it it happened organically you can never really force it you know like you shouldn't be taking on full-time uh people and be responsible for them when there isn't that need you know if there is no no need for it don't force yourself into it because then you're gonna back yourself in a corner and you're gonna back them in a corner you can just free you can use freelancers nowadays right yeah but like but i think that i think that the thing is it's about risk right so anytime my company grew

it's because i took a bit of a risk you know i kind of like jumped into the abyss and went we had a thousand dollars space that we used to rent on queen street East in the front of an old building where it was like $1,500. And we got a series for TVO and we all of a sudden had like six or seven people working. And it was just kind of like insane, but we didn't have a lot of money. And I went to this beautiful building on Berkeley and I saw this 2,500 square foot space, which is three times the amount of space we had before. And my business partner looks at it and he's like, it's $7,000 a month. We can't like, how can we do that? And I'm like, we have to do that. Like we just have to, like we're,

our reputation was growing. We had to have people in, we had to have clients in, we had to have more desks for freelancers to come and go. We just needed the space. And we ended up there for, you know, 10 years. And it was like overwhelming to do it in the beginning, but there are moments in your, in your journey as, as, as kind of building a company where you kind of have to just take the leap, right? Whether it's hiring somebody, whether it's getting an office, whether it's buying a camera, like all of these decisions, you know, part of it's intuition. Part of it's just gutsiness. Part of it's that, you know, you, you look ahead,

you've got 30 shooting days. I realize that's not necessarily true right now, but you look ahead, you've got 30 shooting days. You're like, well, rentals are going to cost me $30,000. The camera's going to cost me 25. I'm buying the camera, you know, after the next 30 days, I get all the money from the camera rentals, right? Like you, you just have to kind of do the math and be confident that you're going to continue to do good work and grow. So at the same time, you are kind of being very calculated with those decisions. No, I think you have to ask yourself if you feel like you're intuitively decisions that you've made from a business perspective have been like, if you trust your

instincts, right? I, I trust my instincts. And, you know, I know that I've failed and I've made some bad choices, but if I think about it on the, like in the grand scheme of things, I don't think I've made bad choices more than maybe 5% of the time, right? Like when I say bad choices, I'm talking about really bad choices here. Of course I make bad choices every day, but I'm talking about things that are, you know, significant. You know, like a wrong hire can be one of those, a mishandling of a client. Like I only think that I've really in my whole career had two or three moments where I think I just didn't manage a particular job the right way. But, you know, I've done thousands of projects, so I don't,

you know, I don't want, yeah, it's a small percentage. Yeah. I think the human part is where you can have a lot more challenges, you know, recruiting, retention, development of talent, transitioning people, making sure you're giving people opportunities, but also not putting them outside, too far outside their comfort zone that they fail. Like all of those things are things that you have to work on as you grow and you start developing a staff or a group of freelancers. What would you say is probably one of the biggest risks that you took that like really scared you, but in the end it paid off. And how long did it take for you to kind of notice the payoff? So we had decided to move our small business from our basement into this office on Queen Street. And that was a big deal. And I know it sounds kind of crazy, but like a thousand dollars a month extra in, you know, 1999 was a lot of money for us because we owned a house and we had a young

child. And a friend of mine called me up and said, would you do this 26 part series? And it's in South America. You got to do six countries, 26 episodes, and it has to be done in six months. And here's the host. The host had already been chosen. And here's $1.1 million to do the series. And we were like, oh, wow, this is great. La la la, we started running all the numbers did like a whole bunch of crunching of the numbers. And we figured, yeah, this was doable for that price. But they wanted it to be a co production. And I started getting really scared that if we were on the hook for hundreds of 1000s of dollars, if something went wrong, if there was

like, you know, they were in Brazil, and there was like you know we were in Brazil and there was all of a sudden like some military coup and you know like we've got crew there like so many bad things could have gone wrong that I decided not to do the series and then I uh I sort of recalibrated myself and said no this, this will help us grow. This puts so much money in our pockets. We'll be able to buy an Avid if we do this. And so what I did was went back and I said, I do want to do the series, but I just want a different financial agreement. And so I lost my points and my share in the series. But in giving that up, I, I, it was, it was the amount of risk I could tolerate.

So instead, I got a bonus. If I came under budget, I would get a bonus of a certain percentage for every dollar that I came under. And if it wasn't for that series, we wouldn't have like three or two or three of our full-time staff that we ended up with. We bought an Avid, drives drives like all of these things were part of the sunk costs that were part of the production and in fact i had to get an extra office to run the project and we found an extra office next door so that was kind of that was kind of good and and it was scary because the idea of being on the hook for 1.1 million dollars when i'm worried about a thousand dollar rent i know right like but but my god said this, don't do this. But I did a gut check and said,

you're afraid of this because you're afraid you're going to fail. And you got to do it. I mean, how many times now, the idea that anyone would give you money for a series, a complete budget doesn't happen. As an independent producer, you've got to find most of the financing. You've got to do use tax credits. There's all these things. So it was like an amazing, and we ended up doing a second series in South America, sorry, in Asia. And then we ended up doing a 52 part series in the U S. So like all of those projects kind of gave us enough, you know,

financial stability to be able to do all of these other projects. That actually reminds me, like one thing that we've noticed with a lot of people, with a lot of like business owners that we've talked to, they've said that what pushed them and allowed them to grow and scale is that exactly what you said, is that they got this big contract that kept them busy. And because of that, they were able to kind of scale and like the one thing that we've done and I've been trying to kind of figure out is like is that the really only way to kind of get yourself to the next level does

it take that one massive project that helps you that allows you to pull in resources and people together to create and then that is basically the foundation set up for the business or is it possible to kind of organically kind of grow it you know with like multiple kind of smaller projects but again it's probably both though no you can either do a slow burn or you just get that little boost that'll like let you get your goal that much faster no yeah i mean you know these things are not like i said it's alchemy there's no perfect formula for any of them in terms of how it happens. But I would say that a large contract is an extremely helpful way to grow.

But that also probably puts, I don't know, four out of 10 businesses out of business, right? It's a risky, because they can't handle a big project. They, you know, they've been small, they got this big project, and then they fail. Like they lose money, they, it doesn't help them scale. In fact, like maybe the partnership breaks up over it because there's so much stress. I'm telling you, it doesn't always work out big projects, right? Like big projects are risky, and they're risky because the reward is high, but there's also a downside, right? Like big projects are risky and they're risky because the reward is high,

but there's also a downside, right? Like there is like, for example, you know, we had to go and get a line of credit for $200,000 in order to keep our cashflow going. Cause when you have cashflow, you start to have like huge problems. Like people take 60, 90, 120 days to pay you. And you've got a payroll and you've got all these expenses. And so we put our house up against this line of credit. But I'll tell you, I could never have run my business without a line of credit. Now, other people get investors, they'll get private financing, like people do all kinds of different things to build a business. But, you know, you do need capital to scale. You need capital to scale.

I mean, we used our four credit cards. We had four credit cards. We bought our first edit suite with a credit card because the bank wouldn't loan us money. And then, you know, we got enough work that we paid off that loan. And then we luckily had a house that we were able to leverage to get our line of credit. But you have to have some working capital. You have to be able to carry money. You know, like my cash flow, like everybody's cash flow, if you just think about it, it's

like if you owe $10, right, you probably need to have $14 in your bank account to pay for your expenses and to keep everything going. And for us also, it was really important to pay all of our freelancers, if not immediately within 30 days, because we had been so messed over by so many people in our career before that, that that was just part of a value for us. And that, you know, and it wasn't intentional to, to create loyalty, but it does create loyalty. People know that you're reliable and that you're going to pay them, you know, and we have lots of clients that would say, oh, well, we haven't been paid yet. So we can't pay you. And I'm like, fuck you. Huge fucking company. No, I'm paying all my

people. You have to pay me. But, you know, they don't. And so knowing that they don't, you have to just like know that they're not going to. You have to be ready to have some capital to be able to float your cash flow. Have you ever had issues where the clients just took really, really long to pay you or maybe just even forgot about it? Oh, God. Don't even like it's, how do you handle that? Oh, it's hard. It's super hard. Like, you know, we started billing 50% of all of our jobs,

the kind of when we started it, but you know, the time horizon for a lot of projects are, you haven't even been paid for the first half by the time you finish it. And you know, it's not like I'm going to leverage my holding back a project on my client you just have to kind of go this is part of doing business is you have to be able to cash flow your company yeah there's some companies that do 50 before 50 50 before the shooting day but i don't get how that works because every corporation we've worked with, they have like a three month. But the point is, is that if you start on January 1st,

you're gonna get the check by March 30th at the very latest, even if you finish the project on February 30th. But if you don't bill until February 30th, you're not gonna get your money until April, right? It helps keep the cash flow kind of going. And that's why it's not just to, it's usually just to be able to kind of get the initial investment in so that you can pay all the people that worked for you.

Right. Like it's, it's, I remember the first time that we had a really major delay in a, in a payment from a client was, was about four years ago. Do you remember this? It was,

it was this company that dealt with investments and it was this company, um, that dealt with investments and it was a very simple project from what I remembered. It was like, you know, it was like a panel discussion between five people. They called two days beforehand saying they needed to have everything done by Thursday, you know, and it was, it was a decent size contract and we're like, okay, let's do this. And we did it it we did it right away they needed the a quick turnaround and we handled it but the contact that we had for it was very he kept pushing it and pushing it like we kept following up and kept following up it finally took i think 10 months before we actually finally got our payment and that was only because you know like so what happened was the the contact was working for this company and then what ended up happening was because so much

time had lapsed they didn't want to pay us so we had that issue so yeah i just got straight in touch with the client and said i mean i don't want to say i turned into the nero with uh the nero and goodfellas. Yeah, yeah. Pay me, you know, like we did the project. I need it. And it's up on your YouTube channel. So that's my video at this point because you haven't paid me for it.

We told them like that's our intellectual property. You haven't paid for it. So if you still want it up, we're going to have to, if you don't pay us for it. We'll put a strike on it. Like, I mean, at this point, it's almost been a year. Like at this point, you're blacklisted in my book anyway so if this doesn't go forward anymore i don't care like i don't want to work with you you don't pay me for the first project like imagine you're never going to pay me like for any other project right but we've only had that one time like that was like

yeah that was the only time we've had an issue yeah well i mean i think you know the more projects you do the more it's going to happen. But, you know, you have to know there's some people that are going to pay you. Like I had a client that I never worked with and they were from Vancouver and it was a big project. It was a commercial project. And I just, and we had to rent a house that was like $5,000 house. And, and he was like, well, I'll pay the, I'll pay the location fee with a check. And I'm like, great. You want to pay for that? Perfect. And then I said, well, listen, you know, we've never worked together. And just because it was a lot of, there was a lot of costs. I said, if you could bring a check for the first 50%,

I'd really appreciate it. And I have never, ever in my career asked for someone to bring a check to set. But guess what? He up with a check you know your pressure point is on the front end you there's you have nothing to negotiate on the back end you can't do anything right but if you just say you know because of the short turnaround will require a check you know on the shoot day and you can try that if you if concerned. But generally, I think just like you, I have not had that many problems. It's just like, it's time. It's like when you have over six months, $600,000 of work that you've built and $600,000 hasn't come in and your expenses are $400,000. You sweat a little bit.

You need that cash flow in one way, shape or form, whether it's having the 50% up front or having that line of credit that helps you. I think you actually need both if you're going to scale. So, I mean, that's kind of more of a planning business planning thing for you guys. But just, it's something to think about because even if you go to bankers now you'll get a sense of what kind of numbers and what kind of things they want to see for you in order to get that line of credit. And yeah, I would, I would definitely exploring it, you know, having a good relationship with your banker is one of the most important things

in running a business. Like it really is. Like I have a great guy and I used to be terrified of bankers, terrified oh yeah you know after after 20 years now of running a company you know i have enough like track record for them to be nice to me and um and it's a lovely feeling to not feel like please please please you know like 20 years ago they wouldn't give me a five dollar phone right man we uh we went to go get our credit card i remember when we went to go get our credit cards they gave us such a hassle over it they're like yeah your limit is going to be a thousand total between the two of us i'm like a thousand i have like 32 000 on my personal visa like not to mention the amount of money that is in

the bank account right now yeah yeah i don't know why they were giving us such a big hassle over that like it wasn't up until recently my little this is like really too tactical here but that's why we started with an american express card because there's no limit right you have you have to pay your bill every month like you have to pay your bill so i mean it's based on like um track record of paying your bill like they might flag you in the beginning, but we're spending like 30, $40,000 a month on our Amex for the company, like almost every month. And, you know, without our Amex, like, even though we had to pay it, you know, we paid it with our line of credit. I mean, it all becomes like a big credit mess, but you need to have tools. You need to have some

financial tools to help you, you know, do it. And for, for us, the American Express was important because A, it gave us flexibility, but B, it had to be paid. It meant we weren't going to go into debt, right? Do you think there's enough government support for young entrepreneurs to kind of grow their business? Because again, like even us, like we're small timers and we had, we had issues trying to, you know, trying to get a decent credit limit on our credit cards, right? Like, yeah. I think that there are small business people at all the banks. They say that they're really receptive to small businesses. And at this point right now with COVID, there might be a bit more receptiveness to it.

But, you know, I know this sounds crazy, but it's like everything else, shop around. Like, go see the four major banks, tell them where you're at. You have to probably bring your financials and just say, listen, we want to scale our business. And I would ask for like a line of credit of $50,000 to start just because that might be a good way to, you know, like, I think you'd probably be able to get that. They're going to want some sort of guarantee. There's going to be like, but once you get started, it's just like your credit card. Oh, would you like to have it bumped up? Like as soon as they see that you're paying the interest on the loan on the line of credit and that you're, that there's money, you know, going through the business, um, that'll help.

So I think it's about finding someone who's friendly to small business. Like I personally have a great relationship with TV, but I know other people that have great relationships with Scotia or with, you know, BMO or with RBC. A lot of it just depends on who you're, who you go talk to. And, um, sometimes, uh, like a branch in your neighborhood can be a great way. But there are, I just, I don't think it's a bad thing for you to take a little bit of time right now, while you might have some to start greasing the wheels on the financial side with just so that

you have options when you're ready to take them, you know. And it may be, for example, that you can say to somebody, listen, I'd like to put in motion, like to get a line of credit of $50,000 and say, I'm not necessarily ready for it right now, but we think we're going to be ready in the next six months. So I'd like to kind of start the process with you. And yeah, that's good. I do want to touch back on scalability though. Before the pandemic is obviously this has put a kink in everyone's plans. Were you just about to grow even further or was there something holding you back from that? No, I mean, I feel like a banker right now saying this to you. But, you know, I've been in television and filmmaking and whatever the heck it is that I do for over 40

years. So I'm ready for a change. I'm pivoting my business entirely. Like we basically went from having full-time staff of anywhere from 10 to 15 people over the last 10 years. And we decided to kind of shut it down, like go to a virtual model. And we decided to go to a virtual model and use freelancers on January the 6th. And we gave everybody notice on March. Everybody was basically, we shut down the physical part of our business. And I talked to all my staff about, know helping them find work freelancing for us you know kind of finding a a way that they could work with us moving forward gave some of them clients uh you know help them try to help them build their freelance careers and and it was just because

we're just ready for something else like we've been doing this for 20 years and and really we got squeezed. Like over the last two years, we just saw that, you know, like the middle was gone and we didn't successfully move to a digital agency. I mean, we did a lot of digital campaigns and stuff, but people still thought of us as a production company or, you know, an agency, but depended on the client and every, like we're just getting squeezed for money and, you know, things agency, but depended on the client and, uh, every, like we're just getting squeezed

for money and, you know, things were growing up. So we just made a decision to, uh, to kind of completely change our business model. And, uh, and we're still in the process because of COVID, right. Which is kind of ironic. Everyone thinks, Oh my God, you guys were so genius. You decided to go to a virtual model March 6th yeah well it you know I saw it coming like two years ago that the whole idea of having a lot of overhead wasn't really great for our industry and again I don't want to tell you how to build your business but I but I do think you know keeping your your team small and using freelancers is probably, especially for the next 10 years, five to 10 years are really smart thing to do.

And less all of a sudden, you know, you guys find a project or a group of projects that give you the ability to scale. It's funny. Cause in production, in, in, in TV production, nobody hires anybody. They're just like partners, two partners usually and they hire everybody on a contract and when the project is over everybody leaves and that's the way television has been produced for a long time and there are some bigger production companies that have scale where they have like 100 projects you know that they're doing over three or four years they've got

lawyers and accountants and you know tax credit people doing over three or four years they've got lawyers and accountants and you know tax credit people and business affairs people there they created a big infrastructure but for uh so many independents they take on no overhead you know none and so they can be profitable you know it's a different it's a different business model i just don't know that for us you know if we had maybe if we have stayed, if we could have transitioned to maybe six or seven people two years ago, I think we would have been fine and then use freelancers. But it was hard because our whole staff had been with us for a super long time. And, you know, we just had to find a way to, because it's really hard to say, oh,

we're just going to work with you six, bye bye to the rest. It was a lot easier just to actually kind of do, like to treat everyone the same way and just say, we're here to help you. We're giving you advance notice. This is where we're going. This is the direction we're taking. I mean, as you mentioned, like this whole industry is so nimble and you can never really plan for, you know, the type of work that you will get. Cause every, almost every project is different. Right. Um, we completely agree that you, uh, there needs to be potentially like a core team, like maybe like a solid, for example, yeah, a skeletal team of like maybe five core people to at least get, you know, the day-to-day going, you know, to have like the, the bulk of projects kind of managed and planned and then

bring in freelancers based on the needs of the project. You don't need to have the bulk of projects kind of managed and planned and then bring in freelancers based on the needs of the project. You don't need to have maybe three to five videographers on staff, for example, maybe just one person, just to handle some of the projects that come in. But then if there's more and more work coming and then you hire out the freelancers. There's benefits and negatives to both.

For everything, yeah. Like having employees has its own benefits, but also its own downsides. And again, using freelancers has its benefits, but also its downsides as well, right? So I guess it's just find a balance. Using your gut to figure out which one to go with at the end of the day. You know what I would say is that the person that would probably be, I would never, I had a full-time VP, fantastic guy. And he grew so much. And he did like, he went from like shooting nothing

to doing huge commercials. We actually ended up in a deal with him where we sold him all of our equipment. And we were basically, he's just going to pay back the loan over the next five years or however long it takes him to pay it off. And cause he should be a freelance cameraman. I mean, for him as a camera operator, like at the level he's at, he should be

a freelancer. He will make more money. He will be more successful. Um, and I could never pay him enough for what he's worth. But what I would say is that, you know, you want those and this is not like genius, but you do want, if you're going to hire anybody full time, you've got to be a Swiss army knife. You know, you want somebody who can, can do a lot of different things. But in order for you, I believe to really free yourselves up to build your business, I think you need an administrative person first. And actually that's the person that, you know, if I was to hire a full-time person, if I was you guys, it would be a kind of PM slash, you know, PA slash accountant, bookkeeper, like somebody who maybe wants to be a producer one day. And who really has that goal to be a producer who you

can allow to do some small producing jobs, depending on, you know, the scale of how much work you have, but get someone just to run your day-to-day business, right? And take care of all that stuff so that it frees you guys up to ideate, meet clients, go to conferences, learn some digital marketing stuff. And I would say that for me, when we hired that person, like it gave me so much more ability to, you know, dream up series, talk to clients, come up with campaign ideas, just because, you know, it's like that left brain, right brain thing, you know, if I have to do numbers and accounting, basically, I could eat my child for breakfast, you know, like I hate I hate doing tax accounting, I hate it. And when do I feel my best? I'm sure it's the same for you.

It's like when I'm engaged with scripting or thinking or shooting or editing, that's when I feel like I could work 100 hours a day. You know, I'm happy. But give me numbers and I'm just like, I'm a horrible person, you know? I can do it. And you have to learn to do it for sure.

As a business person, you need to understand it. But man, you don't need the grind of it when it gets busy. Dorothy, thank you so much for coming on the show. Honestly, everything you've said, it's really made us think about the- Think things differently a little bit and adjusted our perspectives and our expectations and even shifted some of the focus that we're going to have a lot to talk about. That's for sure. I really want to listen to this right after we're done this because there were like some very key things I need to rehear. Yeah, best of luck. Thanks again for joining us. We'll take care. Bye.

Thank you for tuning into the Creatives Grab Coffee podcast. You can find us on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Let us know if there are any topics you would like for us to cover in future episodes. You can reach out to us at creativesgrabcoffee at gmail.com.