Creatives Grab Coffee - Mastering Video Production and Marketing (ft. INDIRAP) | Creatives Grab Coffee 70

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

In episode 70 of Creatives Grab Coffee, we chat with Julian Tillotson, founder and CEO of INDIRAP, a Chicago-based video production company. Julian shares his journey from freelancing to building a company that has delivered over 11,000 videos across 40 industries. We dive into how Indirap has mastered not only the art of video production but also the science of video marketing, offering practical advice on scaling a business, leveraging content, and thriving in today’s competitive digital landscape.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Background 04:25 The Challenges of Content Creation and Distribution 09:26 The Importance of a Distribution Strategy 14:03 The Value of Video Marketing 27:03 Dealing with Subcontractor Failures 28:58 Transparency and Problem Solving 33:06 Generating Positive Google Reviews 44:06 Balancing Video Production and Marketing Services 46:17 Collaboration Over Competition 51:19 Mastering Cold Emails 53:15 The Importance of Email Sequences and Response Rates 55:42 Educating Potential Customers through Video Content 57:24 LinkedIn as a Platform for Sharing Successes 01:00:19 The Value of Face-to-Face Interactions 01:05:44 Exploring the Chicago Market 01:08:06 Connect with INDIRAP on Social MediaSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140🎞️ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

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

Do you need crew or a strong production partner to help you with your project? Laps Productions is one of the top production companies in Toronto and your go-to video partner. With our strong creative skills and extensive network, we can help you achieve your goal. Laps Productions is able to offer you production services, white label services, or finder

fees for project handoffs. Reach out to us on our website at LAPSProductions.com to learn more. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you're a production house and you're looking for lighting, camera packages or lighting and group plan packages. You can see our contact information in the link below.

We are more than happy to help you guys out. Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativescrapcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Matt. Welcome to Audio Process. We are a boutique audio company doing location sound, sound design, post sound, ADR, Foley. We service equipment. We do all your audio needs here in Toronto.

We got you covered. Come on down. AudioProcess.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you, I'll be waiting for you, and we're all gonna have a real good time.

And now, let's begin the show. All right guys, welcome to another episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. And today we got Julian from indierap.com. Julian, welcome to the show. Before we kind of get started as usual, we'll just get a little bit of a background about who you are and who IndiRap is.

Yeah, so I'm Julian Tillotson, founder and CEO here at IndiRap. I started IndiRap in 2013, producing corporate and real estate content for brands from startup and small business all the way up to large enterprise and Fortune 500. To date we've done, we've delivered over 11,000 videos to 500 plus brands in 40 different industries.

And I'm still having a lot of fun doing it. So I'm sitting here today in our offices in the West Loop in Chicago, ready to answer all of the above questions that you guys might have. So, Kero, what are these questions you got prepped? The all of the above. Oh, okay.

Let's get started. Well, I guess firstly, you're based in Chicago and you've built your company now for how long has it been now? Like around 10, 15 years? 10 years. Yeah. So, I started in 2013. I was freelancing Around 2010 and started in 2013. So yeah, and how big is started in 2014 or

You guys did nice. Yeah, 2014. So you saw the whole thing you watched the whole content wave come in. Yeah Yeah, pretty much. I actually bought my first camera in 2011. So I was just dabbling in it for like about two years before deciding to fully jump into it. And I, and during that time, like while I was in school, I was really seeing how the tech was changing. Cause the very first camera I got was a Canon T2i and that thing at the time was okay. But you could tell once you started shooting more and more, it's like, oh, there are some limitations here. So, yes, I felt like as each year kind of went on, like tech just kind of kept jumping, like so much like crazy.

But like now it's like the tech jumping is like, okay, camera shoots 4K. The next one shoots 4.5K. Now it's five, then 5K. We definitely didn't notice the, we definitely didn't notice like the trend that was happening with video content though. Like I noticed some of the guests that started in the early 2000s, they saw kind of where video was going

with the opening of barriers and more businesses jumping on board. But I don't think we predicted like the social media wave of video content that we're in right now. It's insane It's I mean, there's no ceiling everybody and their mother needs this stuff. It's which is great for us. So, you know Congrats to us for getting in early Yeah, I mean it's still like whether you got in early or anything like that with the amount of competition That's coming in now. anything like that with the amount of competition that's coming in now,

it's not so much competition of other creators, but the competition of content. And that is like the biggest challenge that a lot of companies and people are facing these days is that there's so much content being put out there and you have to keep changing or adapting based on what you're doing. It obviously depends on the industry that you're in.

If you're doing a lot of like corporate content that is very B2B, then you're not so much in the social media game. But the second you go more into the consumer realm and maybe like the selling of products specifically, like I feel like that's an entirely different ball game. And I've seen some videos, video briefs where they're saying like, yeah, for this product, we need to have like 20 social clips.

We need 30 social clips. And it's like, why? It's like a farm. It's a farm of it, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's just, it doesn't matter if you're B2B, B2C, B2G, what industry you're in,

it's a competition for attention. And you could have the greatest product in the world, best product or service, but if nobody sees your stuff, if nobody sees your brand, you're irrelevant. And your competition who has a subpar product or service is going to beat you because they're in front of your audience, they're in front of the customers, winning where they want them. That's the name of the game right now. So the old rules of I'm the biggest and I'm the best and I don't need video.

You can keep playing that game, but you're just losing out on millennial, Gen Z and future audiences playing that game. It's a bad idea. Yeah. It's basically instead of the biggest and baddest, it's now who's the quickest and fastest or quickest and loudest, you know? Quickest and loudest and who's got the most engaging, entertaining content where I am,

which is for most folks on their phone. So. Yeah. Do you find that a lot of the work that you do, like what are like a lot of the types of projects that you guys do in IndieWrap? Is it more in like that kind of realm or various? Yeah, I mean, it's all kinds. Like I just had, I had a call yesterday with the number two hospitality

brand in the world. We do a lot of when they open new properties around the country, we are the first team that goes in and creates that initial batch of content, that library of content. So with something like that, you're talking about, OK, we need brand content. I always break things into three categories. You got foundational content

Which is like your brand videos case studies client testimonials product and service videos Then you got your social content Which feeds the beast and then you got your paid ad content which drives cold traffic to the to a brand So we go in and create You know a hundred or there might be 150 in videos in this package for one property launch for their For other brands where it's like, you know, we work with some tech brands Where they're just trying to infiltrate markets, so that'll be more like, you know case study content, you know software demos and things like that

really just content that sales and marketing teams can use to get in front of their audience. You know, on the real estate side it's all about, you know, luxury and sexy properties and growing your brand as a national property manager or a broker or a luxury developer. So it's all across the board with us. The thing I'll say is that I don't really believe in the niche thing. We've produced content in almost every industry there is because all brands at the end of the day, businesses, they have pretty much the same problems and content, if you use it the right way, the way that we do, it solves those problems for them. It's like if you're a salesperson, how many times a day can you pitch yourself

to three or four or five, six clients at the most? Like, why don't you just create the perfect pitch in a 60 second, two minute video and email it out or blast it out or use it at a trade show or use it on a stage presentation or whatever. It's all about multiplying yourself as a business, as a marketer, as a salesperson. If you're trying to recruit people,

how do you recruit people faster and better? We just did a campaign where we were working with a 911 call center downstate and they were having issues hiring people for the past five years. They could not find new people to work in a 911 call center. We went in there, we created video content, we ran the campaign and in the first two months

we got 275 applicants. They lost their minds and it was because they weren't showing what really happens at their call center. You think a call center, you think boring, you think older folks, all that good stuff. We go in there, we shoot shoot it First it's people with blue hair and like if you show that to an audience that are Gen Z and they're like, oh shit They kind of look like me. I want to do this You know what I mean? That's really about it's all about getting in front of your audience No matter if it's for sales if it's for marketing if you're trying to hire people if you're trying to train people And that's how we look at content here at IndieWrap. We're not looking at it as like, okay, let's shoot a bunch of cool videos or cool, we do that stuff

in our sleep. It's really about how can we plug that into distribution and monetization methods to put this content to work for the brands and the businesses that we work with. So you also do the marketing side of things as well, huh? Yeah, that's super important because I'd say for the first like six or seven years You know someone some brand will come to us. They'll spend ten twenty five fifty thousand or more on video content And you know, and I always do a follow-up call thirty sixty days out It's like hey, how's the content going and And a lot of the times, they're like, oh, we posted to our website and to our YouTube, which has two followers, or it's still sitting in Dropbox.

Everybody knows they need video content. Everybody knows that. But ask them what's their distribution strategy, how are they getting this in front of their audience, and the majority of people will freeze up because they haven't thought that far. So as opposed to, and then what happens is they create the video content,

they don't have a distribution monetization strategy, and then they're like, video doesn't work, right? No, it's not the video. You just don't have a distribution strategy. It's like having a Ferrari in your garage with no wheels on it. It's like you got this great content, you got all the leadership together,

you did hair and makeup this day, you got headshots done, all this stuff, and nobody sees it, so what's the point? So I think it's super important for production houses as agencies, if you don't have a distribution paid ad partner to bring that in house, it's just another way to add value to your clients, and they're gonna love you at the end of the day for it even more.

And I'll keep coming back because you're showing them that the video works. That there's results. Yeah. Yeah, the results are what it's all about. Yeah, because once you show them how they're like, say, five thousand dollar investment will yield and potentially 50,000 in revenue. And presenting that as a tangible thing, it's almost like a no-brainer for them. It's like why wouldn't they wanna sell it at that point?

Whereas what most production companies do is just focus on the production aspect, which honestly, it makes sense because that's what a lot of people, that's what their skill sets are. But then it's very difficult to get to a stage kind of like where you're at, where you're able to kind of do a lot of people, that's what their skill sets are. But then it's very difficult to get to a stage kind of like where you're at, where you're able to kind of do a bit of both, right?

Depending on who you surround yourself with as well, right? Yeah, it also as a creator, as a video, I've done everything, creative director and video editor, I do all that stuff. So the more skills I learn, the better it makes me at everything else. So if you're a content creator, if you're a videographer, and you understand how to shoot with the end audience

in mind, that you're shooting for a paid ad, or you're shooting for a target demographic of 25 to 45, it's gonna make you a better shooter. It's gonna help you shoot things in the right light that's going to attract the specific customer that they're looking for. So it's just, it's like, what's the word? I don't know, it's extended education for a videographer

to understand paid and advertising and marketing. Just shooting pretty pictures, that's like, that's the first step, you know what I mean? Understand how to use a camera, that's the first step. If you really wanna grow beyond that and become an asset to the brands and the businesses that you work with, you need to understand business as a whole how it works what their customers want what their audience is attracted to and then

put yourself into their business to make those things happen for them on the sales marketing training and recruitment side then they'll you'll they'll always be a client they'll love you for. There's several people that have come on the show that are trying to implement more video marketing services. But speaking to them privately, they said they've been having a lot of trouble getting it off the ground. So what kind of recommendations or pieces of advice

would you have for them? In terms of paid paid or I mean video marketing it's I guess in terms of like being able to pitch it to like their clients that's what they're having trouble with okay um I mean it really marketing as a whole really for me it's like I'm the king of asking questions when I do discovery calls I just probe and probe and probe and ask questions. My background before this was sales and finance and real estate.

So I understand how important that discovery process is. If I'm on a discovery call with someone, I'm not really talking about cameras and things like that. I'm really asking them, you know, what's the purpose of this video? Why are you, why did you call me today? What are your goals and initiatives for a Q2 or 2025? Where are you guys trying to get to?

And then once I ask those questions, I think about the types of content that I can create for them that they can use as a vehicle to achieve those goals. The videos are a vehicle. Those vehicles need a road. So how do you plug that vehicle in to get them from point A

to Z? Paid ads, social media campaigns, email campaigns, plugging that video into their CRM as automated email drips and things like that. So you really have to first do the knowledge in terms of understanding marketing and how it works within a business around the entire brand ecosystem that they have, right? Are they using HubSpot, are they using Salesforce? Are they having a lot of success with Email Blast? Are they using SMS? Are they using direct mail and QR codes?

What are they using and how do you plug that video in? How do you create the right video and put it in the right place so that it works within their market? That's what video marketing is, right? It's the production as well as the distribution and monetization of this content to achieve X in result. And unless you really understand that you are going to struggle, um, because

it's a different, again, it's a different skillset. It's a different, uh, type of understanding and knowledge that you, you have. But that understanding and knowledge is so valuable and so beneficial to not only you, but that client, that if you're doing one brand video for someone, that one brand video can turn into 30 pieces of content quick, which ups your, it's upsell city. There's just a lot more.

It's upsell city. You could do 20, you know, there's just a lot more you can, it's upsell city, you could do 20, you know, you do a brand video, do two, three client bills, you know, two paid ad videos, plug that in, and now you're running a paid ad campaign, versus like, oh, I'm just gonna do a brand video and you make, you know, whatever, three, four, five, 10,000. Why don't you multiply that?

And again, you make money when you provide value to a business and Shooting pretty pictures and give them someone a video isn't necessarily providing value. You're giving them something that looks cool They're gonna get a little bit of likes and attention and somebody might tell me they have a cool video But the real value comes in the video marketing side of things to plug in it in and getting results for the client because that's what they want. If you can get a business owner leads and sales and things like that, they'll love you forever.

Do you find that the, oh sorry, Kirill. I was just going to ask like how did you basically go from just doing the video production and then implementing the marketing aspect because that's usually what a lot of people are trying to figure out is how to make that jump. Exactly. Was it like a big one or did you test out a few things with certain clients or how did you kind of even develop that? I'll be honest.

I have always been a marketer myself. My entire career I was in front of the camera as well as behind the camera. I've been spending money on paid ads since 2015 for my own company. I believe in the whole, you know, I eat what I cook psychology, whereas I test out everything before I sell it to a client. So for the past decade, I've been running paid ads,

I've been putting out YouTube content, I have been putting out social content and seeing that it works or it doesn't work. I think a lot of marketing companies, they don't market themselves, so they don't necessarily understand the ins and outs of it, unless you have a lot of clients already and you're just doing it. But for me, I always like to touch the sole and see how hot it is. So if I'm a new, if I'm a video production company that's specialized in production, creative,

on-site and editing and delivery, start doing it on your own. Start promoting yourself. Put some goals in front of you. I wanna get my follower count to here. I wanna run some paid ads, create landing pages. Like me, I can create landing pages myself. I can put together paid ad campaigns myself.

I can put HubSpot tracking codes on the page. I'm really a student of the game as a marketer. I've really been doing this for a long time. And because of that, the knowledge that I have of doing it for myself, I'm able to easily translate that to a client when I'm speaking with them and be knowledgeable about it. So I would say that's the realest way to do it as far as I'm concerned because you saying that you're gonna do it for somebody

else you haven't even done it for yourself it's kind of critical and like I don't do business like that it's like if I'm gonna sell you something it's because I've tried it I've perfected it and I like it and I'm and I'll sell it to you because I think you'll like it the same. You basically created a case study on yourself. So that's very easy to think. What I did. Yeah, it's very easy to pitch because you're like, I did it for myself. That's how much I believe in it.

And it works. I can show you the results. That's why you're here. Exactly. Yeah, it works. And I've made all the mistakes. I've failed and I'm still experimenting. You know what I mean made all the mistakes, I've failed. And I'm still experimenting. You know what I mean?

I'm always experimenting, trying stuff. I spent two hours on a call with my HubSpot rep yesterday just like thinking of new ways to integrate video into our outbound and CRM and client follow-ups and things like that. I'm always trying to figure out a way to put content to work, to use marketing to grow my own business. And then when I get those results, it's like,

hey, I just figured out this new thing. Yo, I think we could do this for you. You know, and they can hear the excitement in my voice. They can hear the confidence. And it makes it a lot easier to sell those services to clients. Yeah, especially with if it's like a new a new tactic that you found that can really help elevate things, especially with their, if it's like a new, a new tactic that you found that can really help elevate things, especially, especially when a client might need it.

Sometimes it's also a timing thing, you know, when you come to them with a solution that they didn't know that they might need, it's like, Oh, this is exactly what's going to solve X, Y, and Z for us. So yeah. And once you do it on yourself and you get a couple more clients to do it, then you have several case studies you can start showcasing. It's like a snowball effect at that point, right? Yeah, it's and we really we really start scaling it during COVID when everything went super, super digital with that. It was kind of like we didn't have a choice.

So we start rolling out the social media content You know running paid ads for people building out you offer different Sorry, do you offer like more than just video marketing? Do you offer also like because I mean when you get into Marketing content there's photos. There's videos like do you get into the other stuff as well? Yeah, so we're All things content so photo, everything across the board. With photo, if you're talking lifestyle content, property photos, headshots, event, we do all that good stuff. Because again, the photo side has always been

an easy add-on for video. If we're going to shoot up 800 unit luxury residential property development, it's like, okay, why don't we do the video, let's do the Matterport and do the photos. That makes sense, yeah. Like, let's just do it all. So that's on the content side.

And then the strategy, if you're talking about video marketing, you gotta understand strategy. So the growth strategy we sell, websites and landing pages, because if you're building out a paid ad campaign, you need to build out the entire funnel. You gotta have a landing page of some sort,

somewhere to send prospects. So, websites and landing pages, growth strategy, social media content creation's huge. So social media content creation and management. We work with a partner to do management. I don't do management in the house, because it's a nightmare, but I have a client or a partner that loves it and she's amazing with it. So we do that. And then you know

email marketing and some stuff with CRMs in terms like integrating content into people CRMs. We do that as well. And you know paid ad campaigns. You know running campaigns is super clutch. Deepu from our team runs all of our paid ad campaigns. Anything around a brand ecosystem, we really do. And if we don't do it, I have partners that do it. I don't do SEO and all that stuff in-house, but the guy that does my own SEO,

I can refer clients to, kind of thing. You have a partner network that you can, because you're the expert on video, and if you're not the expert in SEO, at least you do have someone that is, right, that you can refer to.'re the expert on video and if you're not the expert in like SEO, at least you do have someone that is right that you can refer to. Yeah, yeah for sure. I definitely have my group of subs that I work with because some stuff you just don't need in-house, you know, as a company you want to try to keep your overhead as low as possible and a lot of times you don't need things full-time, you know,

we're not doing a million websites a month so I don't need a full-time web dev here But I got my team of people depending upon what the client needs that can knock stuff out for me You know, so you just got to look at What do you need someone in-house for? What do you really want to focus on? And I don't think everybody needs to do all of the things that I just mentioned But that's what works for us and our clients the best I think that's the best approach because the people I've been talking to it seems like

you just want to focus on video marketing but I think once you go down that path you got to look at the whole gamut right you can't just focus on that because the client is not just creating video content they create they need a bunch of different pieces of content not not just video, photo, all that stuff. So they're gonna go to someone that can cover the whole 360 at that point. It's gonna be hard to pitch just video marketing because that's the challenge.

Like how do you just pitch video marketing when the client is also gonna need, as you guys mentioned, like all the other aspects of it and then they're gonna kind of be stuck. It's like, okay, so you're handling marketing, but just for the video, what do I do about photo? Do I have to go somewhere else? Do I have to go here?

And then it can get a little complicated from a strategy perspective at that point when it comes to marketing, because if they go to another vendor for that aspect, then they have to kind of like tie that in with what you're doing with your marketing, and then it's like a lot of communication. There can be so many challenges that come from that.

So the second you go into marketing, you have to look at the whole picture as you guys are doing. You just got to understand it because there's a million marketing companies out here. The majority of marketing companies don't know what they're doing. The barrier to entry to be a marketing company is a cell phone or a laptop. Like, anybody can have a marketing company. And unfortunately, I've worked with a lot of brands where it's like, oh yeah, we wanna bring users

as a video partner and we're gonna bring in our marketing company to help with the project. And we get into creative and realize that these people don't know what the hell they're doing, but we have to go along with it anyways and then we finished the project give them great content. Six months later client calls them up and says they fired this agency because they screwed everything up. So that's why you really have to be knowledgeable. If you want to sell video marketing, if you want to be

one of the best at it, you really have to understand what this stuff is not from just what you're doing but what other other, if you're going to be working with partner agencies or with clients, if they have an internal team or if they have worked with a, you know, external agency, you need to understand at some level, you need to be able to speak the language at some level, regardless. If you want to be a true professional if you really want to add value Because You again like I just said you could a lot of a lot of businesses think they know what they're doing They're doing but you know, I've been on a lot of calls where I stopped whoever I'm speaking with them Like you know what? That's not really how this works

You know and it's because I have the confidence in understanding the science behind video marketing I say that and they respect it and they're able to take a different route because of it. So it's yeah, I mean there's a lot of moving factors, but I Think it all comes down comes back to your knowledge base Your professionalism and how much value you can actually bring to your clients. You mentioned your partners, right? Like your partner network. I'm just wondering, like what that consists of.

Like you mentioned SEO, social media management. What else do you have? Yeah. Man. So my personal again, I eat what I cook. Right. So my team, right. Like I got my marketing team, but then I got SEO, blog, website, keyword optimization. What's the other guy? Do I forget?

I got about five or six around SEO search engine optimization. And I can't think of the other one, but it's, and there's multiple people for each one of those. Like if I'm building an e-comm site versus a service site versus something else, I have three different guys that I can go to.

Some of these people I met I know in person and just from traveling around the country. Other ones, I have a very large network on Upwork that I work with, of subs that I work with. Some in Europe, some in Europe, some in India, just really, and that's more on the digital and the marketing side, right? My subs around the country, like,

that's primarily for video content and things like that. If I gotta shoot, I actually gotta hit you guys up because I gotta shoot come up at Vancouver, I need a guy. So, I have a lot. I'll add you to the guest networking sheet. We know I just had a call before I had this I just had a call to Canadian client So before I got on with y'all, but yeah, I have and again, I've been doing this for you know, ten years So I have some pretty deep relationships across the country

And in building that network, I've been burned I think Daria when I first talked to you I've been burned I think Dario when I first talked to you I had somebody and I don't know if it's Toronto or Winnipeg if we had a shoot and got burned guy didn't show up shit like that so yeah mentioning it it was the morning show up just didn't show up and that's never really happened to me where I mean this is a pretty big shoot we had it was for the same client, right? So obviously I, crisis management, I did it well.

They're still a client, but yeah, we had a shoot up there and it was just like show up, you know, shoot two interviews, get some B-roll around this place and you're out. Simple, simple. Talk to the guy, simple. Stuff we all do in our sleep probably, but you know, morning of client calls me,

he's like, hey, where you guys at? I'm like, all right, give me one second. stuff we all do in our sleep rally but you know morning of client calls me like hey where you guys at I'm like all right give me one second call this guy and he's like oh well you never confirmed I'm like bro we had three pre-production calls we had I had my creative director on a call with you I sent over a pre-production document like you're an idiot so you know that's an excuse that yeah that's an excuse yeah bro don't think that's an excuse bro just like ghosted me and then I then I and then I tried calling them back you know I was even there I was you know my hands were tied I was like yo I'll give

you an extra thousand dollar whatever it is he just didn't want to work he wants to lay in bed be a jerk and you know not make any money so we ended up rescheduling shoot getting it done but yeah be careful with your subs man I've seen I've seen it all nightmare-wise that was probably one of the worst but I can knock on wood that never happens to us yeah but it's like it's weird cuz it's like you like you said you had three product like pre-production calls with them one over the details like but did you guys have a contract and everything in place? Or we, yes, we use our process is so rock solid. We've been using the same process for 10 years.

Like it's like normal business. Like, okay, we have a contract, we have pre-production. This is the date I sent you the invite on Google calendar. You're just a bomb. So we do too. Yeah, that's what we do too. Yeah, like simple and stupid process. Like nothing complex. It's just that I want to stupid process. It's crazy.

It's just I like it. How did you how did you deal to talk a little bit about the crisis management part with that? Like what do you even tell the client at that point? Because I would have made an excuse like he got into a car accident or something. He died. The guy's dead. The thing about me, man, like I always tell people like I don't know how to tell lies I am just I'm extremely transparent and You know, even if I got to throw myself under the bus, I don't mind being the bad guy

Um, I know when I screw up so when something like this that happens I just tell the clan like look this is what happened this guy didn't show unfortunately. I can't get something out there today You know, I can give you a credit towards something else, but most importantly, when can we get this back on the calendar? Just like that, just straightforward, just letting them know that we dropped the ball. If it's a first time client, it's a lot harder to sell.

But because I have such deep relationships with my clients, which I've done work for these people for years it was it was understanding they just they know that's not how I move they know that's not how my company moves because you know we have hundreds of five-star reviews on Google we have hundreds of client video testimonials on our website on our YouTube so for an outlier to happen where something goes left it's like like, oh, okay, yeah, we know that's not really, you know, all of our stuff's out there. You know, there's reviews, there's content of us talking,

content of me, you know, showing that I'm an authority in this space kind of thing. They know we're not fly by night and they know that we wanna take care of them and whatever the crisis, that's the thing. As a business owner, like half of your day is dealing with problems. Like you have to be an extremely good problem solver to run a business and to be in business for so long

and that's something that nobody talks about. Like, yeah, you can be extremely profitable and make money and have great cameras and great office and live a pretty great damn life, but that comes with a lot of sacrifice and dealing with nightmares and I'm a professional nightmare dealer with her like throw me any problem throw me a nightmare and I'll deal with it like it's fun for me it's not fun but it's fun you know like I like I like puzzles and there's not really a problem that

I've had that I haven't had to deal with and navigate So, you know for little stuff to happen at a shoot. That's nothing. Oh, you're like that. You're like that meme I don't want peace. I want problems I mean, that's really what I mean I'm sure any business owner or entrepreneur will tell you like the problems are what keep you in business If you can't handle problems, you're going to fail as a business. If you don't, if you think everything is going to be great and culture all the time and happy, you're nuts.

And I know that's what they try to sell people these days on social. But if you get in the game and you get down here on the field with real business owners, especially if you're in the service business and you're dealing with human beings, no two human beings are the same. Somebody might wake up with a crappy attitude. Somebody might wake up just not liking the way you look and wanna take it out on you. And you have to figure out like,

okay, how do we figure this out, client? Or like, what outcome do you want out of this? You know, you can't just, you can't fly off the handle. You know, when I was, you know, when I first got into the game, you know, I find myself in temperamental situations with clients and like now I'm the most calm, like, Zen person there is. Like you can't, I don't raise my voice,

I don't get out of character, I just deal with it because I've been through glass and nails and fire so many times in so many different situations that I just deal with it and in dealing with it the the path to least resistance is to just always tell the truth don't make up anything even if it's your fault take the take the L and keep moving and most of the times clients rock with you and they'll keep going other times you might lose a client or two and that's just the

way that that's just the way it goes. I noticed anytime I anytime I get like like not angry but just frustrated with like a client especially if it's via emails and everything I always just go like okay let me answer it tomorrow because that's it like I'm I'm it's not going to be a nice reply or it's going to just be rocky. So let me just cool down and then get back to. We all know what we really want to say, but we want to stay in business and not get like one star reviews for the rest of our life. We can't do that.

So how did you get to 200 reviews? I want to ask you about your Google reviews stuff. Like, how do you get those reviews out of the clients? Because that's what I have the most trouble with like me and my team we pride ourselves on really having the best process in the game and it is a simple and stupid process I believe in simple and stupid um I don't believe in complex no no one ever bought complex and because yeah exactly kiss keep it simple stupid and because we keep it that way, the start to finish process for our clients is so fun

and it's so easy and they're ready to do more content after that asking for a review is just easy. When and how I do it, it's usually after something is complete, you know, sent the final deliverables maybe after I sent the final invoice or maybe before, but I'm like, you know, hey Dario, we really had a lot of fun working with you and we appreciate bringing this project to life for you guys. As you know, Google reviews are a way of life now. It sounds like my email. I feel like you're reading my email right now. Your experience could really help a future client find us and do business with us.

If you don't mind, leave us a five star review. Here's the link. PS, and then I'll give them like, PS, I've attached our video marketing for your business lead magnet to this. So I got this one, and then I have our video distribution and monetization list lead magnet. So it's another show of value. This is also a way to up-

What's a lead magnet? So a lead magnet is, these are two of mine. Lead magnets are what I do, what I use to get clients in the top of funnel. So right now I'm running a paid ad campaign for this one. And in the past week, I've got 97 leads on Facebook Most of all we'll probably do business with 5% of those people if any but it's just something to capture emails And then put them into my hub spot and then drip campaign market to them over time over over months

So that's what we do. we use it in that way, but we also use it as free giveaways to, you know, clients that we've done business with. And it's just another show of value, it's just another way to show clients that you care about them, and you care what happens to their content. And it's also, like I said, a way to upsell them

into paid ads and distribution and monetization because this is a very thorough guide on that. And it's one of those things where it's like once you read this, you realize you're not going to do this shit yourself. So you might as well hire us to do it. Ha ha. Clever. Yeah, so it's like multifaceted.

So that's how I do it. I just tell them, I'm very, a lot of gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I tell them how important their review would mean to us and the team that worked on your project. Here's the link, click it, leave us five stars, we'll be indebted to you forever. Oh, and by the way, here's a free da-da-da-da-da.

You know, that's it. And we send it out, most of the time we we get it I don't hound people for reviews if you know if I send you a request for one and you don't respond I'm probably not gonna keep going after you like do you do just like one follow-up? Maybe a couple months later No, I probably should I probably should do better follow-up with some of those people. Um but I don't. I just, and then the ones that I really get like we just work with a huge one of the biggest candy, I don't know if you guys have had like lemon head candy before? No.

You've had lemon heads or Laffy Taffy's or now and later. Laffy Taffy I've heard of. Okay, well this company- I don't think it's common here in Canada. This company makes all of that stuff. They've been around for 115 years. We just did a project for them. And we work with a large number of people on their team

and with that we were able to get multiple five stars because they all had great experiences. So sometimes you're able to get the multiplication effect. The whole team. Yeah, don't reach out to one person or sometimes you'll reach out to one person and he or she'll forward the email and you'll start getting reviews like, The whole team. And when that hits them right here, they're appreciative and most of the time they give us a review no problem and in depth That's the thing our reviews are all real. It's all real. You can read them all go to indie rep read our reviews They're legit. These are clients that we have blown away with our process

Our service delivery so yeah, that's the thing with our clients Like I noticed it was so hard to get reviews from them. So I like the the the current email I send out now is similar to yours. Like actually, when you were saying your email, I'm like, it feels like you're reading my but I feel like sometimes it still takes a while to get it from them. And I think they just add it to their to do list and then just forget about it. I think they realize how important it is for like a small business to get that review. You know what? Here's another secret. If you think that that if you're if it's a client

that you think that might happen, what I always do as opposed to sending a one off separate email, if we're already in an email chain and we're emailing right back and forth that day, I might just throw it in there. So that's like they know we're out. We're talking. Don't act like you didn't see the email. We're here. If Chris from my team delivers a final video and they're like, oh, thank you so much, we love the video, dah, dah, dah. I might just jump in there. Hey, Sarah, we really love working with you.

If you wouldn't mind, our team, would you click a review? Oh, absolutely, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, that's clever. Just hit them like that. So just jumping the chain. Yeah, versus waiting two, three days. So that's another way to do it. That's like just jumping the chain. Yeah versus like waiting two three days and then so that's another way to do it That's good. I think being more prompt is the right way to do it I think yeah the second the second you've given them the video and they've gone off with it to start work, right?

And they're like, oh by the way, and it's like, oh wait, hold on what? Yeah I think it's a timing thing. I think it's a time thing to really get the reviews and think if you get it right with the Timing thing. I think it's a timing thing to really get the reviews. And if you get it right with the final deliverable and even like even there, it's like, oh, and here's also like a link to the review or whatever is a good way to do it. I think it's like get them on the high, right? Get them on the high. That's what it is. Yeah. Because once they get the video,

you know, they might pad to somebody like, I'm done with these guys. I'm tired of it. Not to do the bad job, but they're like, I'm tired of emailing about next next so You're one you're one item on their to-do list at that point, right? Yeah, right and then you're asking to do more work, you know the next day is like I'm not screwed these guys I love them, but I'm done. So Thank you, hello, goodbye and that's all there is to it. It is what it is. So yeah,

you win some, you lose some. But just, I mean, every client I send out that out to, send that, ask for a review for every client and ask, tell them to give you five stars. I don't just say, Hey, can you give me a, I'm like, give me five stars. I'd give you five stars. Yeah, that's good. I'm, I'm stealing that one. Like, you know what, if I did a three, we don't do three star work here. So it's like, I'm stealing that one We don't do three-star work here So it's like I'm confident that me telling you to give me five stars now like I'm asked for something I don't deserve if I if I if something happened there was a hiccup in a project and there was like a Slight problem. I'm probably not gonna ask for a review. You know what I'm saying? Like for what you know, I want the Yeah, why risk it like you it, you can't win them all.

I don't hit 100%. You know, we screw up too. And for those, I'm not gonna ask for a review. You know, it's kind of like the... You know, like, in a way Google should be almost like how YouTube changed the liking and disliking system because back in the old day, YouTube also had the five star review system for videos. And the reason they got rid of it. Wait, what?

Yeah. Really? YouTube, I don't remember this. From like 2006 to like 2010, maybe 11 or 12. I don't remember that. You're probably right, but I don't remember that one. It used to be a five star review system.

And I remember seeing this. And it was always confusing because you'd see a video and then some would have like three stars some would have four stars some with two. What is the currency? It was so arbitrary to decide what's a five star a four star or a three star for a video that YouTube abolished that entirely and just went with either like it or don't like it right? Yeah. And that's technically what it is like if you look at people's reviews most of the time, you're either getting a five star or a one star.

You don't, how does someone determine three stars? It's like, they did a great job, but maybe this, maybe that. But it's too subjective. It's too subjective. You know, like on Amazon, you read some of those reviews and it's like, the box cut my hand when I was opening the box.

It's like, dude, I'm gonna give you four. You know what I'm saying? Like stuff the box. It's like, you know, I'm saying like stuff like that. It's like, dude, come on, man. But it's not even my fault. Again, when you're doing business with human beings and you're delivering a service, that's what you can expect, just like people having a bad day and they want to let the world know about it and I'm going to give you three stars instead of five. So whatever for it's like why four? It's like, come on, you're almost there.

I don't know. But yeah, they exist. So what in terms of your business, what portion would you say how much of a percent would you say you do marketing services versus video? Like is it mostly video content you do and then for sure. Yeah, I would say like 70 30 70 30. Okay, that's a good 70 30. Yeah, I mean people primarily know us for delivering amazing content. Um, you know, and that's again, that's foundational content. That's your, you know, big videos, your brand videos, case studies, product videos, process videos, event videos,

animation videos, things like that. But then now we're starting to get a wave of, we also do a lot of social content for people because you just gotta have that. You gotta be out there. So the foundational stuff, the social content, there's a lot of that. And obviously pay creative for running paid ad campaigns, you know, commercials and things like that. But

yeah, those are the three primary blocks that we play in. That's what we've were known for. That's what our SEO caters to is video production. So and going forward into the future, like, do you see yourself just staying in that in that ratio or do you see yourself getting more into the marketing side? Yeah, I mean, definitely more into. I don't think it will ever be 50 50. You know what I mean? I think video is always going to be our strength. Like, that's what we do content. I don't want to be a jack of all trades and be well, I don't want to water down the fact that we're,

you know, one of the best video production video marketing agencies out there you know we because you got to think about it like you know you've built this massive portfolio you have all this gear you have an amazing team you have all these great testimonials and a lot of that is rooted in video I don't want to water that down or take it away you know if I do say in the future say did I decide to partner with somebody that really understands the marketing side you know I don't want to water it down or take it away. If I do say in the future, say that I decide to partner with somebody that really understands the marketing side, we team up and there's some kind of like synergy there,

then maybe so, then it's like 50-50 or something like that. But it all has to come back to content marketing. It also has to come back to video content. No marketing plan or no marketing strategy is complete without video content these days. You know what I'm saying? You gotta have the content. You know, no marketing plan or no marketing strategy is complete without video content these days. You know what I'm saying? Like, you gotta have the content. If you're doing B2C, you definitely gotta have content. You know, like, you're B2B, you definitely gotta have content. You know what I'm saying? Even government, we do some work in the government

space. You see a lot of RFPs coming out. They need content more and more. Even the government's understanding this. So, it's never going away. I think it's always going to be the front runner for us because that's where we started and that's what we love to do. Yeah. Lean into your strengths essentially. There's no point in like you said, watering it down, make that as like a core value offering for your clients. And then all those other services are additionals. That's kind of a little bit of what Dario and I have been kind of growing a little bit more, because we're really well-rooted in video content,

but obviously some of our clients, they need help with photo, right? So what we have done is built a partnership with a photography company here in Toronto, so anytime they need photographers, we bring those in, we bring them in to help execute for the client based on that. And that's kind of what you want to do.

You want to provide other value offerings in certain other realms that you're not exactly an expert in, but still be that expert in what you're known for, what they're coming to you originally for. Yeah, and I think what you guys are, what you just said, like, this is another jewel, I guess, is like when it comes to competition, right,

with other, you know, I see a lot of unhealthy competition. You know, me personally, I collaborate with a lot of content creators, videographers, photographers, web, I know a lot of people everywhere. I know a lot of people in my city. Um, and It's one of those things where if they need something I take care of them and vice versa, you know what I mean? I mentor a lot of guys

New guys coming up and all that kind of stuff. I'm never like, oh, this is my information Like you guys like first thing I saw in this car is like you asked me any question. I'll give you an answer Um, I think that that is very important in terms of growing your reputation, not just amongst clients, but just like in terms of being good people up there in you all's market. Like if you all can,

the fact that you all are doing these podcasts, you guys are great for doing this because you're educating everybody in the process. So I think collaboration, I'm always collaboration over competition. I think competition, at the end of the day, if you're really doing this and you're really good at what you do,

you're only competitions yourself, you know, at the end of the day. Like it doesn't matter what Joe Blow down the street's doing, Joe Blow's got his own problems. You know, what are we gonna do today to be better at what we wanna do and what our goals are? So, yeah, having those partners like the photographers or web people or a paid agency or something.

It's all you got, I say high tide raises all ships. That's what I say, you know, and if you're a good person, you know, I work with, there's other video companies here that I talk to them. This is like, it's enough for everybody to eat. Every client ain't for you. You're not going to get 100% of all businesses and clients.

There's too many. It's too many. Everybody can eat. It's okay to be nice and talk to other people in your industry without having this competitive toxic mindset. And I think there needs to be a lot more of that collaboration everywhere. I talk to a lot of people and they're just, oh, I don't talk to him because I'm like, you're crazy.

Talk to everybody. If they present themselves to be less than a good person, then that's fine. But at least try to collaborate. Yeah, like you're describing a situation where it's like, like obviously you're not gonna get along with everybody and that's not what you're saying is like, that you have to get along with everybody, but it's like be open to getting along

with more and more people in the industry. And if there really was gonna be a monopoly of all clients going to one person to one person or one company. Just look at the example of all the big ad agencies that are out there, right? There's so many of them, which goes to show, even in the big, in the big leagues, right? Where with the million dollar commercials,

there's still a need for a variety. There's still need for choice for clients, because if there was just the one, then there would be no more choice at that point. Right. I don't think people understand. You said this earlier. It's like, people, especially people that are just getting into the game, people don't understand the amount of content that is needed, like and how many businesses and how many, because back in the day it was like,

again, those agencies had the market corner. They had the McDonald's's and the Target or whatever those big campaign, because small businesses and things that didn't necessarily need video as much. They didn't need all this social. People need to realize how much opportunity there is out here for content.

You could throw a rock and that person eats content. It's crazy right now. Like you can eat off content very, very well if you go out there and apply yourself and meet people and talk to people and market yourself well. There's no need to try to like, oh, this is my local market. Like get out of here, dude.

Like you're crazy. Like even if you are in one local market, okay, in your local market, how many industries are you? You got realtors, you out of here, dude. Like, you're crazy. Like, even if you are in one local market, okay, in your local market, how many industries are you? You got realtors, you got spas, you got supply chain manufacturers, you got the government and the city that needs stuff, you got small businesses that need stuff, you got the car — there are so many things you can go after, you can't have it all, you know? And then, yeah, it's just like

It's toxic and I think it's limiting. Um to the man in the mirror I just think you need to open your eyes to the opportunity that's out there Do you do any? I want to take it back to sales a little bit So you mentioned you were running paint you're running paint campaigns and everything. Do you do any like cold outreach? Oh Yeah, so I I send send, today I'll probably send 3,500 cold emails per day. Whoa, okay. What?

So how does that work? Yeah, so I use a, so warmup inbox, this thing. So you've heard of cold emails, right? You can't send a billion, trillion emails from your own inbox because after a while you get marked to spam, you'll burn up your inbox, your demark reputation, and you'll screw it up.

There's a service called Apollo.io, right? This is what I use to send cold emails. So I'm a pretty damn good copywriter. All the copy on my website, all the copies in my emails, I write all the sales copy myself. So I write email cadences and sequences. I have one for, it's labeled as generic, but it's for just general businesses.

It's a seven step sequence and that'll go out. I have another one for real estate related companies. So when I go to Apollo, I can pull leads. If I wanna go for, let's just say, businesses in Vancouver that are in supply chain manufacturing that make above $10 million. And those titles, people that are directors of marketing

or CEOs pull that list, throw them into my sequence, and that stuff will go out every day. I have multiple email domains, multiple email addresses that send out for me. So between those six, seven, eight emails, they'll send out about 3,500, 4,000 emails a day and most of those are value add emails whether I'm giving away some for free or sending them a link to a YouTube video for free but at the end of the day I'm pushing them to a book of discovery call with us and you know with cold email you know if you get 1% you're doing well you know what I mean. Yeah on 3,500 yeah that's 1% pretty good. Yeah or less than 1% or whatever it is if you get you know

If you're sitting around you book, you know five meetings 10 meetings a week you you're pretty good. So that that's one way is the email Lead magnets too, you know, I like the people that I send this stuff to they go into a different sequence And hubspot that drips them over You know two months or whatnot. I send out email blasts once a week to our audience for around, you know, reposting our blogs or new service offerings or new products that we offer, new YouTube videos that I might shoot. I send that out once a week. I do a lot of follow-up with clients, you clients, whether it's cold calling or just emailing

them or just staying in front of them. We're fairly active on social media. So we're active on Google Pay Per Click. There was a point where I was spending $10,000 a month on Google Pay Per Click, spending more on Facebook and Instagram right now in terms of just driving leads. I do like- You don't like Google AdWords anymore? It's not that I don't like it. The thing about Google Pay Per Click is

you're only getting a small segment of the market that could be potentially your customer. You're looking for people that are ready to buy right now, right now, right now, right now. And that's great, but that's a small, so that's three to 5% of the total addressable market. What about the other people that either don't know they have a problem,

or don't understand your product, or don't understand how to use video marketing for your business? So what this is, is I'm educating them to understand they have a problem, and then educating them more on how to use video to grow your business. They're like, ah, I would've never thought,

so they would've never Google paper clicked the shit in the first place. They would have never searched it because they didn't know they had the problem. So I'm letting them have a problem with this. This is how to use video to grow your business. This is if you have video but then it crashed and burned, it didn't go anywhere.

This is how you use video, this is how you use distribution monetization to put your videos on steroids or whatever. So I have the mindset of, distribution monetization to put your videos on steroids or whatever. So I have the mindset of, yeah, I use a little percentage of Google Pay Per Click, but I'm more interested in the 90 to 95% of the market that don't even, they don't know how to use video content, they don't have a strategy, they think it's too expensive, or they have video and it's not going anywhere.

And then I present IndieWrap as a solution to solve all those problems The drip campaigns and value ad campaigns and lead magnets. God, man, you know, I feel like a child listening I'm like, I don't know anything. I've just been doing it for so long. Um, I guess I can just I just say this over my eyes because again Look, I've ramped paid ad campaign where I've wasted thousands of dollars. I've put in, most of the time with Google Paperclip we're hitting 5X, so I think the biggest one was like a 9X where we spent 10K and got a 90K client or something one time.

Google Paperclip is also the most expensive machine to put your money in because that's where everybody goes first, right? Everybody goes to Google Pay Per Click and put money in there. It takes a lot more to create a lead magnet or to shoot a paid ad video and do all that. You have less competition because most video production companies or most marketing agencies aren't doing that. So for me to go and do that and show my face and show that this is who I am, I'm building brand. And I'm building trust and authority with an audience on those platforms, whether it be YouTube, pre-roll, Facebook, or Instagram,

versus most marketing agencies that, they might be posting graphic posts or some shit, or like like whatever. I just, I'm like the mascot here at IndieWrap. I always try to get out there, get on camera, do my thing and you know, that's helped me build trust with clients and I just have deep relationships with clients because I am out there.

You know, I'm marketing, I'm telling them when I succeed, I tell them when I fail, and I'm just super transparent. What do you think about marketing on LinkedIn? I mean, you're talking about like paid stuff? Yeah. Paid or not paid? Yeah, I mean, I, on the paid side,

I've tried LinkedIn before, their cost per click's just too high in my opinion. It's very expensive. it's crazy dude like yeah like Mike my cost per lead on this thing is like $4.63 cents whereas on Google or on LinkedIn you know cost per click might be $12 15 bucks yeah so for me it just they don't have the back end something I don't know what's wrong with their algorithm and and LinkedIn's a client of mine, I work with LinkedIn, and I've told them this,

I'm like, I don't know, that's why you don't see a ton of ads on LinkedIn, because it just doesn't work. Unless you're a big ass software company that has a huge budget and you're running, like I think, who was that? I think Design Pickle was one of those companies that was running ads. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because they had VC capital, and if you got a ton of money good for you, I don't have VC money You know what? I'm a private-owned Entrepreneur so it just doesn't make sense for me I can get a lot more running ads on Facebook and Instagram or even Google pay-per-click I I do post my successes and things like that on LinkedIn just to like stay in front of my network. And I do get, you know, referrals and stuff a lot. We get a lot of referrals, a lot of word of mouth.

So I use it that way, but like the paid, I don't like, I have zero budget at LinkedIn for paid now and anytime in the future. I just, I've tried like four times and like failed miserably because I didn't get anything out of it. So I just don't, it's not for me. Yeah, it's more so like you just said, LinkedIn is more so the place where you post your successes,

you share what you're doing with your network because that's where you connect more socially a little bit with your clients. LinkedIn is basically the place that everyone went to after Facebook. Facebook was where we were for the social interaction and then LinkedIn is the professional social interaction. Right? So that's essentially how people treat it at this point. It's like, this is what I'm up to.

This is how the business is doing. Yada, yada, yada. But yeah, it's cool. But I also find it like people put on a face on LinkedIn. You know what I'm saying? It's like like we all know We've seen the reals making fun of it and everything. Yeah So, you know, I I see that and I know people on the face

But then if I see something I'll always like grab them out text them and they'll be like, oh cool Yeah, you know, it's like the real person versus like on LinkedIn where I'll respond and they'll say the corporate thing on I'm like dude stop like stop you know what I mean so yeah I'm an offline guy too I do a lot of I'll meet people for lunch or coffee or just go over to somebody's studio and chop it up with them for a little bit I do a lot of face-to-face because that's the way I learned sales so face-to-face is missing I feel these days everyone is keeping it more social, more, not social, more virtual because yeah, it's, it is the time efficient thing and it's understandable why people opt for that. Cause there's so much stuff you have to do, but I do think that to make it a point to

try to meet with clients or people you've worked with just to have lunch. Like Dario and I try to do that every now and then, especially with our partners, just grab lunch, shoot the shit, chat a little bit. It's important because they're also looking for excuses for a break. And sometimes just being invited to something is a nice thing to kind of be like, oh yeah, perfect. let's get out of the house, right? Let's get out of the house. It's a deeper level of connection when you like go after work or meet somebody or go grab tacos or it's a deeper level of connection and you're more likely to reach out

to that person quicker because you have connected versus like doing 10 Zooms a day. It's like you get burnt out doing that. And again, this stuff's cool. Hangout, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, which I can't stand. But the in person always wins if you ask me in the long run. Like some of my longest client were like, I got clients I've been working with for 10, 11, 12 years. I built that stuff face to face running around around, driving from location to location,

running, double parking my car, getting tickets to go meet, have coffee with this person, just to like build rapport. And I still have relationships with those people. I still got relationships from people from 15 years ago, when I was doing sales and finance and stuff, because we built such deep relationships in person. It's definitely missing now.

I think people sleep on face to face. And a lot of people, especially the younger generation, they might not know the difference because it is so easy to just hop on a Zoom call, hop on Hangouts versus like get your ass up and go meet somebody for coffee at whatever. You know, and then just thinking about like, you know, getting up and going coffee

or taking a train or all the things that are people you can meet along the way to go do that one thing. Yes, it takes more time to do that, but the levels of interaction and like human connection, the opportunities for that are a lot more abundant in those situations. So yes, you're right. Face to face is missing.

It's super important and I'll always do it. It's fun. It's boring. Talk to a computer all day, man. No, I like talking to a computer screen. Yeah, it's like face to face. I like hand to hand combat. Like, let's go. That's me. Let's go do this. Let's grab some food Yeah, I like that

Nice We're getting near the end So I was just curious about like your team and and maybe we can talk a little bit about the Chicago market So you see what it's like over there? So I guess let's start with your team. Like how big how big is your team? There's five full three part and about 30 40 subs well 30 40 that's a lot never quantified our subs yeah I don't think it's 30 or 40 yeah 34 like I have a shoe I have a shoe going on right now this second since 7 a.m. in San Jose California with two of my guys out there so yeah it's it's bad again I've been doing this for a long time.

You know, and we've worked in 46 states. You know, I've been working 46 states. So I know people all over the place. You couldn't get to 50? Yeah, couldn't get to 50? We'll see, man. That Alaska thing, I don't know about that. We had some opportunities, but I don't know about that Alaska, bro. We'll see., that Alaska thing, I don't know about that. We had some opportunities, but I don't know about that Alaska bro.

We'll see. What about Hawaii? Have you done Hawaii? We haven't done Hawaii. So we haven't done Hawaii. No Hawaii, no Washington, no North or South Dakota. No Washington? That's like one of the big ones.

Oh no, I'm sorry. We have done Hawaii. We've done Seattle. Oregon. Oregon. Oregon, yeah. There's some people from Oregon coming on, so if you need people there, you'll be able to find us. I actually have a shoot, the client I talked to before, the Vancouver, and there's one in Oregon.

So I'm gonna hit you up for the network. Check. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're getting there, we're getting there. But yeah, we've been all over the place, yeah. So we're getting there. We're getting there. But yeah, we've been all over the place, man. That's awesome. And then I guess in terms of like the Chicago market, like for video, like what are some of the stronger industries there? Or is it just a bit of everything? I mean, the beautiful thing about Chicago

is that it's a hard working city. Everything's here. You know, you have immediate downtown area that people know about. And there's a little, there's everything, you know, the real estate market is, is amazing here. Um, there's a lot of tech. There's a lot, there's a huge hospitality. You know, Hyatt is located here. Hyatt's a client of mine. It's their global, one of their global headquarters.

Um, restaurants, senior hospitality. There's everything. I mean, it's a world-class city. It's the third largest city in the country, so you have a lot here and on the outskirts you have a huge manufacturing supply chain, data IT, cybersecurity community, so you can really, even if you didn't leave Chicago, you could do huge numbers here and pick an industry, pick a niche if you're into that and really kill it. You know, it's a great city for content great city

Wow nice. Yeah, we'll make our way down there at some point, but now we want through we'll do it Yeah, come down here come by office. I got you guys on lunch nice If you ever in Toronto have you been to Toronto or no? Yes, yes, I'm gonna come up. Look, I'm gonna tell you the truth, man. So the past three or four times we had issues getting into Canada. It wasn't Toronto. I had, me and Paul from my team, we had issues in Montreal.

They kept us in customs till like 1am. What? Dude, they were like joking and like, you know, we don't speak French. So they were, you know, which is fine. We were just sitting there. But we knew they were talking crazy, dude. They probably were. They definitely were. They were. And then they like they like had my ideas like you're doing it. And they put they had like Google does like, oh, India.

So they were like looking at videos. I was like, whatever, dude. So they were wasting your time. Yeah, they must have been so bored and they wanted Bored. So yeah that happened and then one time my guys we went we we had to fly I think it might have been at toronto So we went to fly out of oh here, which is the main airport here They could this was during covid they said some kind of crazy covid rules. So it's like whatever. My guys decided to drive eight hours up to Toronto through Buffalo.

And they got to the border and they said, nope, you're not getting in. So why had some problems? It was called in. That's why I don't know. They weren't letting people in. We had it was covid times. I don't know. We didn't have any issues in Calgary. We love Calgary. I love it up there

But yeah, I've had some some bumps and bruises the guy that ghosted me Over there Winnipeg. So like I'm a little scarred We'll make it right now, you know us and we know We know everyone. Yeah, exactly. I'm glad I met y'all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, for sure. That's crazy.

Okay, I think now is a good time to end it. So let me just pull up your site here. So guys, if you wanna check them out, it's indirap.com. So I-N-D-I-R-A-P.com. And then your social media handles are? At Indirap? Yeah. At Indirap. Everything At IndieWrap? Yeah.

At IndieWrap. Everything's at IndieWrap. Yeah. So at IndieWrap. I'm definitely gonna do a little bit more research on the content you published because I feel like you have it nailed down, man. Yeah.

Just listening to you talk, I'm like, wow, I got a lot of work to do after this. Yeah. You know what, man? That's the thing, like when you... Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Scrap Coffee. You know what man, that's the thing like when you... Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app.

Creatives Grab Coffee is created by Laps Productions, a video production company based in Toronto, Canada. Creatives Grab Coffee is also sponsored by. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you are a production house

and you're looking for lighting, camera packages, or lighting and group plan packages. You can see our contact information in the link below. We are more than happy to help you guys out. Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativesgrapcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Matt. welcome to Audio Process. We are a boutique audio company doing location sound, sound design, post sound, ADR, Foley. We service equipment. We do all your audio needs here in Toronto. We got you covered.

Come on down, audioprocess.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you. I'll be waiting for you. I'll be waiting for you, and we're all gonna have a real good time. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next one.