Creatives Grab Coffee - Personal Branding (ft. Corbin Visual) | Creatives Grab Coffee 23

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, a podcast on the business of video production, hosted by Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov.Our goal is to make the video production industry smaller by creating a sense of community. Whether you are a creative, an entrepreneur, or a professional there is knowledge for you to learn. Join us as we have industry professionals from around the world come on the show and share their insights on the industry and business. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Welcome to Video Production.This weeks guest is Jon Corbin from Corbin Visual. Corbin Visual is a full-service video production company and content lab that helps brands figure out what they need while providing creative tools to help them speak "social" and convey cultural relevance.To view the post for this episode, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/personal-branding-creatives-grab-coffee-23/Timestamps:00:00-11:33 - Intro (catch up / followup since 2020 / pandemic stuff)11:34-15:35 - being wary of hiring more staff because of covid, team structure for production companies15:36-29:21 - Personal Branding29:22-48:23 - The Influencer Project, making time for personal branding48:24 - OutroTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.lapseproductions.com/creatives-grab-coffee/Subscribe and follow for future episodes!Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 Instagram: @CreativesGrabCoffee https://www.instagram.com/creativesgrabcoffee/Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comInstagram: @lapseproductions https://www.instagram.com/lapseproductions/

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Today, we have an old friend of the show, John Corbin from Corbin Visual. OK, so, John, for the people that haven't watched the previous episode that you were on, why don't you just give us a little... What are you? What's wrong with you? You haven't watched the previous episode? What's wrong? Who else are you watching? There's nobody else. Yeah, he's the first guest of Creatives Grab Coffee.

Like, come on, you got to start with that. Yeah, you got to start with that. No, yeah, John was actually our first guest i don't know if uh people know that so it was really good to have you on that time remember just asking you i was like oh man we need people i don't know who to ask but i was like okay john for sure would be down for this why not it's all fine it's all it's, you know, we, we, we don't often get to interact outside of doing shoots and together and stuff like that. And like to carve out an hour to just kick it and talk shop. I mean, it's all good. Like it's, it's fun for me, at least.

I love hearing myself talk. Well, you know what, if you love hearing yourself talk, then why don't you just give us like an intro on who you are? Sure. My name is John Corbin. I run a video agency called Corbin Visual. I've been in business, I don't know, 10, 15 years at this point. And we're in the, I'd say, kind of commercial, social and corporate space. in a commercial, social, and corporate space. We do a really wide variety of clients and project types and all sorts of different formats, animation, scripted, unscripted, VR, AR. I mean, we really do a lot and really challenge ourselves to make sure that we're being on trend and innovative and ultimately to the benefit of our clients.

So when we first last spoke, it was somewhere like towards like the somewhat the start of the pandemic. And we were all trying to kind of figure out and navigate how things have been, right. And now it's been pretty much we're winding down kind of like towards the end of the pandemic it's like where it's almost like a check-in of like how everyone was doing during all of it so how was uh how did you find navigating throughout it did you find that there was like a huge influx of work coming in were there any particular challenges that you noticed or anything like that? I think a lot changed once there was government and industry guidance. You know, the film, TV production industry was one of the first to get back to work. I think because they just wanted slash needed the tax dollars, right? But

we had regulations in place really quickly. I mean, I'd say within six months. It doesn't mean that the floodgates open back up that quickly, but we could say with confidence to clients that, hey, not only do we have permission to work, but here are the government's and industry's rules in terms of how we're going to operate safely. So I really have to commend definitely the folks, whoever's on the board, CPAT board, I'm sure lots of film boards, they worked really hard to put together a comprehensive, like fricking, I don't know, 100 page Bible about how to do this safely.

And with their support, yeah, we were able to get back to work a lot faster than other people. You know, I still think it's still only picking up momentum. I certainly wouldn't say we're back to pre-pandemic activity and energy, but I think you would agree that video and content is, it's in a really good place. We've picked a good industry um to be in and it will certainly survive i mean it's going to survive if it can survive a global pandemic um

it could probably survive a lot of less less kind of impactful um events so yeah we're definitely this year feeling a lot more energy a lot more momentum a lot more business um but i wouldn't say it's i wouldn't say the tidal wave of of biz just yet but it's it's getting there yeah i think if anything, the pandemic's kind of improved the importance of video. Because before then, it was kind of like, okay, people need video. But it wasn't until the pandemic hit that I think companies realized how important it is to have video content out there, to be able to communicate messages to not only their clients, but audiences as well. I think the pandemic really solidified that. Yeah.

I mean, it was, I think it was always like one of the mediums that converted with the most success. Like I think it was, it was not, not sexy and appealing before the pandemic, but certainly now it's, I mean, it's not, do you have a video strategy? It's what's your video strategy. So, um, definitely, yeah, more important than ever, for sure. It's like the new website. It's like, it's like the new, uh, like, so what's your website, you know, like everyone has a website at this point and almost this point it's almost expected. It's like, what is your video strategy? What are you planning to do? It's almost to that

level of importance almost now. Um, and during, uh, during the course of the pandemic, what was like probably one of the most challenging undertakings that you, that you took that might've been unique to you or, or potentially that you noticed within the industry? Keeping the people around me, like motivated and close to me was difficult. It was much easier to do that with like crews and freelancers who would check in, but I, I certainly didn't have like, don't have like a fiduciary duty to them or any type of contractual responsibilities to fulfill. But I mean, I did feel for them because they're my people, you know they helped me get my

work done. And even though I wasn't busy, I, you know, when they're my people you know um they helped me get my work done and even though i wasn't busy i you know when they're checking in hey you got anything i felt that too because i i i want these people to feel safe and secure and i want them to feel like i have worked for them um and and to not be able to keep um their schedule full is a challenge for me because I need to keep my relationships strong on my cruise. And, but more importantly, certainly like my staff, it's like, all right, like we're all on board to work on ourselves and our sales material and our website and brand. And we did that, like we worked so hard on it, but it's, you know, inside in my head as a business owner, it's like,

like I know I'm excited and motivated to kind of come out of this stronger than we went in. But are my staff, are my colleagues feeling that same energy or are their eyes starting to wander and wonder, hey, maybe this company won't survive. I don't know, but, you know, listen to their credit, man.

Like you see people always posting on LinkedIn, more specifically LinkedIn, you know, just about how important people are and what it feels like to feel supported. And I don't know, I'll just have that kind of like warm and fuzzy corporate speak. I felt that like, I love the people who I work with and there was no shortage of laughs, no shortage of ideas to share. And even when it wasn't client work and the path forward wasn't entirely clear, they were just as like motivated and, you know, just gung-ho. Like I felt I could feel their passion for the business.

And that really inspired confidence in me as a business owner, who's like, certainly every business owner felt a little bit insecure across the pandemic about their people and their resources. And, and I really, I really can't say enough about, you know, my staff, that they were just like, they made me feel good about what we were doing together as well. They weren't a burden. They were in fact like my, my salvation,

you know, cause I'm sure a lot of business owners just didn't it wasn't a good feeling um so that was hard that was the hardest part is dealing with the people and being able to have an eye on the future together as as a team and we're all still here and and um you, a big part thanks to their contributions and their will, you know. you're not sure about the future. You still got to put up a front and like, just pretend that like, you know what, it is going to be all fine. And it's, it must've been tough, you know? I mean, like with us, it's just Kierla and myself, like we have freelancers, but it's like,

it was just us. We had to keep each other motivated. That's why we kind of started with like this podcast back then that kept us like creating content. And then slowly everything kind of just, yeah, everything kind of just came yeah, everything kind of just came at us at once. Luckily, as soon as it's funny, as soon as we launched the podcast is when like all the work came back full flux. And then 2021, we were doing, we did pretty well as well. But I can only imagine if we had other people that were dependent on us, like those first couple of months where we had like no work rolling in, that would have been a tough struggle. I can only imagine. Or if you had it booked, because like, like, for example, we had a no work rolling in, that would have been a tough struggle. I can only imagine.

Or if you had it booked, cause like, like for example, we had a few projects booked in as well. And then having that conversation, like luckily the ones that we had booked was mostly just relying on Dario and myself. So, you know, we were the only ones crying at that moment. But like, whereas in your case, you probably might've had like a few projects lined up where like some crews were already set up, studios are rented out. Things are probably prepped to go. And then all of a sudden, just like a hard curtain on everything, you know, like no pun intended on that. But yeah, I think like I believe this like universally true, like people's true colors shine when there's conflict. When everything's peachy keen and the biz is rolling in there's money to

go around everyone's you know everyone it's all good everyone's happy you know um and i think that you know when things really started to go sideways and everyone got the sense that well this is not like the last time there was some type of industry disruption, like a shortage on ND filters or something, something like that. Like this is different. I think those are the moments where the opportunities and your relationships are either emboldened or lost, you know, because if you tried to be the guy who was like,

I got this contract and you're going to pay me come hell or high water, they may have paid, but they probably wouldn't be there. So obviously you had kind of like a difficult moment, uh, with, you know, lack of work coming in and having to keep your employees motivated and optimistic for the future. I'm just wondering if that's maybe like, um, uh, like let's say in the future, you wanted to increase the size of your team. Has that given you any hesitancy towards that? I mean, it's a valid question, but I think hiring is a strategic decision. And I don't think that I would hire anyone if I didn't have, if I couldn't make a business case for them I mean obviously

people could be let go too all right if if times are tough um and I wouldn't hesitate to hire again if I could justify their role I mean if it wasn, keep in mind, like we are in a very like full-time freelance industry, right? So I think it's more common for the size of the company to expand and shrink based on the project than on your suite of services that you offer clients. So it's a little indirectly, but if what you're saying is, are you scared it would, you'd have to fire someone if something like this happened again, or it would cost you too much money or something like that. Like, no, man, like that's, that's entrepreneur, that's right. You know, you, that's what entrepreneurship is about. You know, you make big bets and you live with them and react to changing circumstances.

Just for context for our listeners, like how big is your team at this stage? Like in terms of like full-time staff. And I'd say two full-time freelancers that is say, these are the people who do all our work and like shooting and, and like production support. And then the production team, you know, it is, you, you grew up based on whatever the job needs but there are certainly regulars that that we work with but that are not on payroll um if that's the question yeah yeah because it's uh it's it's interesting just hearing like how like with all the different companies that we've talked to like how like there's the common thread is that a lot of people have like a small core team of like maybe three to five people at max that are full time. And then, like you said, depending on the scales of projects, you know, I can go up to like 10, 20, 30 people of crew, depending on what's needed, or it could be just as little as two or three people as well.

two or three people as well. And that seems to be kind of like where the industry has kind of started to shift towards because of, especially when it comes to all this uncertainty, right? Not everyone can run a full-fledged agency on John Street downtown, you know, with two floors filled with like 300 staff. This is not as common anymore. Yeah. but i think you also see a lot of agencies being kind of sharp with their hiring and the way they hire a three-month contract but we knew the contract you know it is an employee's market so i think agencies can get away with a bit less than they used to in terms of how they structure employment employment arrangements but um yeah like i'd say in the business of production, like production services and production management, unless you're in like TV or film

that has its own requisite like structure versus corporate commercial video production, in that lane, in the lane that we are in, I would say that, yeah, the makeups of companies are probably quite similar in terms of how they staff and crew. John, during the time that we've, well, in the time since we've done the first episode with you, I've been seeing on LinkedIn and Instagram that you've been doing a lot of branding for your company. And I personally like what you've been doing. Can you tell us a bit more

about that? Because it seems like you've been shifting more from like, like, actually, can you explain it a bit? Because it's actually a little tricky for me to explain. Sure, if I know what the heck I'm doing. Yeah. So I think what you're referring to is that we refreshed our website, we refreshed our brand ID, our colors, our fonts, the way in which we publish content, and even the voice through which we public content. So yeah, since I'd say the start of 2021 or mid first few months of Q1, maybe 2021, there's just been a more cohesive approach to the way that we communicate with the world. And I guess one would call that your brand. Although, you know, I think clients, clients perception of all those things is probably brand too um but that was something that

the opportunity that i found during the pandemic um which was to kind of come out of this and say okay like if shit can go sideways at any moment right like might as well do things that make you happy today there's like a really good jim carrey quote from a convocation speech he gave at one point which is like sits in my head it's kind of like you know my father anyways look it up jim carrey convocation speech it's a great speech and as a creative guy but here's me getting all distracted. I decided that, or the insight that I had that moment, my aha moment was like, everyone's got a video girl or a video guy. Video services are more or less commoditized.

Cameras, editing, sound, whatever, animation, like those are things that are more similar than dissimilar across companies. It's more so a reflection of the talent or skill of the individual who's doing the work, but the core of it is the same. Head and shoulders interviews, okay, everyone does it more it is the same head and shoulders interviews. Okay. Everyone does it more or less, more or less the same. And I decided that it was more important to lead with my values, lead with my vision, lead with the things that really get me up in the morning and have that be the manner and the lens through which and microphone through which I represent myself online I think for too many years every video production company and their mother

represents themselves through their work and their their demo reel you know it's usually edited to an Imagine Dragons song and to me and that's all well and good because some people just want quality but if i wanted to level up and attract and engage more sophisticated clients i needed to be able to more succinctly communicate what i stood for why i'm different and what gets me excited. Cause I think from a creative services partner, they love clients, love that, you know, when you're excited about their work and you love what you do. And I, I bet on the fact that the more authentically I present to my,

myself to the world, the more likely I am to attract people who want to do business for the guy like me. There's plenty of video, talented video people out there, you know, but I think the success of relationships and long-term relationships is all about the human connection. And so it became much more important to me to lead with that human side of our business than it was to look how shiny my videos are. Because that makes for a much stronger foundation for long-term success than simply saying,

look at how high quality my B-roll is, for instance. And I think clients are becoming wiser too. Whatever got you to where you are today isn't going to get you to where you want to go tomorrow. And you constantly need to be re-evaluating and reassessing who you are and what value you provide to both your clients and like the world at large. I think we've all become a little bit more self-aware in the past couple of years. And I certainly leaned into that in terms of how I reinvented myself or whatever, the company, and certainly not by myself, like with the folks I work with and then how we came back to market.

And I feel really good about it now. I feel really confident about it now because like what you see is what you get i i don't i'm not like listing my whatever i won't i won't i won't call any anyone else's practices out because it's not about that it's about being true to yourself and i'm i'm just more comfortable and confident than ever with myself it's it's hard to kind of like engage sometimes with the like with those types of like companies that just like showcase their work which is is good. It's good to let your work speak for itself as an element. But one thing nowadays is that you have to kind of also sell yourself, sell, sell your personality, you know, like, a lot of the time, if you think about like, when you're looking to work with people, what are you looking for? You're looking for people that you want to work with, you're looking

for people who you can connect with, and click click with the work can kind of evolve over time. You know, I'd rather work with like, say for example, an editor who's like fresh out of school, but like has an eagerness to learn, wants to do the work, and has the passion for it and the energy rather than an expert who is very like rigid and like doesn't want to like deviate from like certain things or like pitch ideas or, you know, like get excited about anything like that. You know, it's, it's all about the energies that we're trying to kind of feed off. Like you, like you mentioned. And one of the best ways to do that is to showcase it like through your branding.

You know, that's why branding is so important. It's like, what is your brand identity? Why, like how can people connect with you? How can they understand who you are? And, uh, it's, that is very key. And that is definitely like one thing that we noticed early on in the pandemic that we needed to start focusing on as well. And a little bit of this show is kind of why we're trying, uh, what we're trying to kind of do, you know, like let people see who is behind laps productions as well. You know, like we, we love, uh, like just talking to other creatives in productions as well you know like we we love uh like just talking to other creatives in the industry you know getting to know them for them to get to know us you know

for us to network you know like i mean there's not that many places online where you can see people just like openly networking like this in a way right yeah yeah i think if i'm to add some flavor to that, I would say, you know, if you think about, if you think about, like, in terms of like the sales conversation about why someone might want to work with you, you know, the first thing that an agency or a client is going to do is they're going to say, okay, what do we need to solve on? How are we going to solve it? And, and video is how, right. And then, and then I just take the same approach. What's like, I don't, what I'm going to do is provide you a structured, um, video service or creative, you know, creative set of creative creative services and then how I'm going to do it is the idea or is the creative execution and I've stopped having I used to get excited about

like throwing lots of ideas in the first phone call just because I'm just an excitable creative guy like that but I I now now first I want to talk about like what do I do you know what is it like to work? What are you going to get from working for me? Creative notwithstanding. And then if there's a fit, if we date, okay, then we can marry. But I want to be able to make the connection that's not exclusively rooted in the quality of our camera work. So, so yeah, like just people first.

And there's so much fun and people are awesome. You know, like we get to work with so many different types of people and personalities and that's, that's kind of become one of the things that makes me most happy is just coming through for people. Um, because you know, to make them happy and make them smile or emote, um, based on your kind of whatever experience together is, I mean, that's rewarding for me. Yeah. And honestly, like one of the best ways to also do that is by exploring your own content as well, because that is what, like, it's hard to

kind of show your personality also in your work. Sometimes when you're working with clients who have very specific marketing guidelines, right? You know, like they had, there's a certain type of video they need to make sometimes. Yes, you could do it to your, to your style or your abilities, but it's a little bit harder to convey to people who is, who are the people creating it. And that, and one good way to do it is creating your own content. And one thing we noticed over the pandemic is you, especially out of everyone we know has created a whole heck of a lot of content. I just earlier today, I was just browsing through your site. I'm like, Oh my God, this guy has really made quite a bit. You

have like five or 10 different series of videos that you've created this way. Like, tell us a little bit about that. Like what was the motivation between behind 10 different series of videos that you've created this way. Tell us a little bit about that. What was the motivation behind all those types of videos? Yeah, we've done a lot. I appreciate you noticing that. There are different reasons for doing it. Beyond wanting to find our voice visually and creatively, that's a big part of it, right? What is the one thing you come to Corbin Visual for that you will get better than anyone a big part of it, right? Like what is the one thing you come

to Corbin Visual for that you will get better than anyone else, anywhere else, right? Like what does your, what does your, what does your content look like? And so, you know, I asked my question, okay, well, if I was going to create content for my company, what would it look like? So that's what we did. We create a company that we created, the team created content for Corbin Visual that represented our brand and our voice. So that was very much a brand exercise at its core. for the content was wanting to get away from search engine business and get more into word of mouth business. Because as we all know, the word of mouth business is better.

It closes faster and is usually of a higher caliber. And so as opposed to buying Google ads, and I apologize in advance, because I know you guys do a lot of SEO work. So there's a lot of, everyone's got their own bojos. I don't want to come across the wrong way. I just want to speak my truth, Which is like, I would rather make a free video or collaborate on a project for somebody and then become a trusted creative services provider for them. I would rather work on that relationship than go spend X amount of dollars on Google to try to convince people who have never met me before that I'm a trustworthy guy. Right. If you can. Strengthen and grow your circle of trust.

Word of mouth. Marketing and referral will follow, and I've already experienced that where people reach out to me and they're like, you know, everybody asks, how'd you, how'd you hear about, about us or whatever. And it's always like, you know what? I don't, I don't really know, but I think a friend, I think you worked on a project with a friend of mine and that might've been a collab, like a professional collab or it might've been a collab, like a professional collab, or it might've been a proper project, but that reaction or that answer tells me that whatever I'm doing is having the desired

outcome, which is to just create more buzz and more awareness by doing, by practicing what I preach. There's so many amazing marketing opportunities and techniques out there, but I felt that my brand was unique enough that it would attract clients. And so I was not going to be able to do that with a Google ad. I could only do that visually. visually um and so between my professional network and the influencer network that we're working with i just said hey i i'd rather walk the walk than talk the talk um and that continues to be kind of one of my core values as well so shoot i don't know if that answered your question um but at its core it was a brand exercise and a word of mouth marketing exercise and continues to be. And frankly, I enjoy it. So it's not like, it's not a burden at all. Like it's just, it's a good time.

Why don't you tell us a bit more about the influencer project that you had going on? Yeah. So it, it was and continues to go on. And our goal was to just kind of network and collaborate with the biggest influencers in the city. And some of them are national, but they're more Toronto. And I mean, the idea was very simple, you know, like we bring them onto a set, you know, give them the professional treatment that, you know, we do. Like what we do in our industry is lights, camera, action, makeup,

wardrobe, all that jazz. And in return, if I do a good enough job making them look good, then they'll share my content with their audience and hundreds of thousands and millions of people in some cases. And so that's really, you know, what we strive for as creatives. I want people to see my work. That's what we want. We want an audience. All creatives want an audience. So who's got bigger audiences than the influencers? And I'm like, all right, well, how can I provide value to people that already have the reach? And to me, I was with production value and just giving them a film experience that they probably don't usually get in their own bedroom filming on an iPhone.

They probably get the serotonin, you know, serotonin. What's that? What's that? Serotonin, whatever. They love the likes. But I tried to give them something they don't always get and out of it we made great content a lot of reach impressions still get just random likes and comments from content that's months old at this point um but ultimately like these are good people and I'm glad to have made a you know a few fast friends and many who I just stay in touch with because they offer me a perspective on content that I I don't quite have myself um and so I just I think there's a there's a lot of mutual benefit there

um and having them on shorthand if I need them on a project is pretty decent second place or third place or whatever. I remember when you first started posting about that, I was like, oh, okay, I guess he's starting a new service where maybe he'll utilize these influencers and then maybe pitch them to businesses, right? It's like, okay, I can create video content for you and I can create it with these influencers. And then maybe I'll partner with a marketing agency and I'll pump it out for you. That's what I thought you had going on at the beginning. Is that something kind of like what you had in mind or was there like, cause you just basically started creating content. Was there like an overarching kind of goal at the beginning or was the first goal just to start creating content first and foremost? First of all, quick plug for was the first goal just to start creating content first and foremost first of all quick plug for the arcade.ca home to canada's most beloved creators

if you want to see some of this content go check it out at the arcade.ca yeah go check it out yes at first it was we felt that the quality of our work was good enough, right? And one of the more limiting factors was its reach. If more people just saw our content in the way that we produce, it would have a positive effect on our business reputation, et cetera. So in order to find an audience, you can do that two ways. It can be organic or it can be paid. And we went the organic route because we know, as I said, a word of mouth marketing. If this person with a million followers says these people are cool, well, they're probably

cool or they're at least cool to their particular audience. So at first it was just an exercise of coming up with a video formats and ideas that would celebrate these creators that would showcase their unique skills. Truly like I have to be valued first working with them because I need to make them look good. I don't win unless they win. So I had to find ideas and create video formats that would celebrate their accomplishments. So that insight plus their reach, provided I did a good job, was the formula. Corbin Visual's creativity plus influencer's reach will equal virality,

brand recognition, success, whatever, whatever. So that is what, that was the core thesis. And then once we started filming everything, we're like, geez, like there's hours. Like, you know, once you get these people, once you get an actor on site, you're like, you know what? Give me a few more lines and give me a few takes and give me a few options. And so we just started to build this database with them. That was truly a collaboration.

You know, when you get a good actor on set and you're like, everything you're giving me is gold. Like, this is great. That's how I felt with these people. They were just so used to the camera. And it was such a delight to have performances that honored my creative ideas. And so once I saw how much volume there was, I was like, geez, this is more than a few Instagram posts. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to turn this into a home for collaboration for other influencers to collab together because across the pandemic, they were not seeing one another.

influencers to collab together because across the pandemic, they were not seeing one another. And also for companies like ours to just collab with them and just do cool stuff together. And then it just, one thing led to another and it turned into a website. It turned into a bit of a brand. And to your point earlier, Dario has now translated into opportunities to leverage those networks to provide, to add like a distribution element to our content. Right. And so it's really, I'm not, I'm not trying to be an influencer. It's like, these people don't need me for business, right? We're talking about millions of like, these are notable people. I'm in the influencer community and circles, but do I have a, hopefully have I built a relationship of trust

with them whereby they're going to answer my phone call you know and participate on a project i mean to date the answer has been yes um um but but but again it's like just to be able to connect more dots for my client my clients um add on that organic distribution reach to projects. It's just, um, it's proven to be a, like a really viable asset. Um, but I'm not, again, I'm not trying to be wrecking influence. Like that's, I'm, I'm, I'm a content, I'm a producer, but that's a wonderful talent and distribution element that is really second to none. That's a wonderful talent and distribution element that is really second to none. That's awesome, man.

Getting involved with all these different kinds of influencers is definitely a good way to get yourself propped initially to get a bigger outreach, like you mentioned. But with so many different ideas that you've already explored with your content, how did you them? Because they, uh, you have various different kinds of topics that you cover. Uh, what was it like, uh, like the, like a boss, uh, series you had or where you're yeah. Yeah. Who's the boss. That's the one, like you have those ones. Like, how do you come up with like, all right, this is the next series that I want to do, or how many videos do you envision per series kind of thing is a YouTube channel on the way or something like that? Is CorbinVision going to become a YouTuber? What's coming?

Well, there's a few questions in there, but the first being how do I come up with the ideas? I think there are themes that I like to explore. I believe that LinkedIn is a huge and wonderfully blank canvas to be creative on. LinkedIn, I'm talking about the professional content, the who's the boss style content. find a way to celebrate corporate culture in a manner that was not stuffy, that felt modern and cool and creative, as opposed to traditionally, a lot of stuff you see on LinkedIn is like, I don't know, it's fine. It's not my cup of tea.

So I just saw an opportunity there to bring my brand of content to LinkedIn. So it started out at least to see the originals projects which are you know for lack of a better uh description like buzzfeed for business you know just like fun snackable conversational content for the workplace like where is that why doesn't that exist it's wild to me so that's where I saw the opportunity. And that was through, it was through that lens that I ideated with the team. You know, we'd have our, our brainstorming sessions and just kind of land on something that, that works. So conversational stackable content for business, that was the first insight that drove me and then secondly was like repeatable processes

if i want to produce content at scale i need to have repeatable processes and so every time we would explore a format or an idea we would talk about okay what can be made efficient and what will take a lot of time right and so we had to operate in formats and ways that allowed us to create predictable workflows to our collaborators because it needs to be easy for them and and both efficient workflows for us that wouldn't take a lot of time um to to produce. And, and, and then the final thing, who's the boss specifically, which is kind of like a, like a workplace for those listening. You can see them on, on CorbinVisual.com forward slash,

like see the originals is the tab, but also on CorbinVisual's LinkedIn page, which is like coming out of the pandemic or throughout the pandemic i think we all developed a sense of humility right which like hey everyone from your housekeeper to your server to your boss everyone's a person you know and i don't think that we ascribed a lot of human characteristics to the people in our life that we didn't interact with on a day-to-day basis. And the boss was one of them. You saw all these bosses just being humbled. And to me, that was like, man, these bosses are real people too.

Why are they all so stuffy online? Where are the opportunities and ideas that just celebrate their humility and the fact that they lose their phone chargers and they show up late to meetings? Like that's normal. But I think in the traditional corporate sense, you just imagine them in suits, you know, speaking in full sentences. So that was the insight that drove the Who's the Boss series, which is like, can we come up with a way to just humanize the boss they're not the scary corner office people anymore especially in tech you know these are just fine silly colleagues um and i wanted to do something that celebrated that and so through workshops and feedback sessions and team brainstorms. We came up with the format and it's the most,

it's proving to be the most successfully, successful format that we publish. Sorry if that was like a mouthful, but I don't often get to talk about all the fun thinking behind why we do things. I usually just publish the final thing and say, do you guys like it? World, Internet? Do you like it? Please? I'm just wondering, how do you, like, I know you mentioned you had to figure out a way to find the time to fit this stuff into your

schedule, but how did you, how do you do it? Because like, I mean, right now we have this show going on. We have some blog video content that we're working on, uh, for, for SEO, also the blog posts and everything. Like it's hard to like find the time to do this stuff, right. Especially when it's, it's usually an extra thing that it's not really, I mean, it is needed, but it is always an extra thing. So I'm just wondering how you find the time to, I mean, So I'm just wondering how you find the time to, I mean, create all this content. Well, you make the time. I mean, it's marketing, right?

You can call it content if you want, but it's marketing. You're not doing this. Yeah, you're doing this for fun because this is fun, but you're hoping that somebody sees it and says, Dario and Carol, like, yeah, I'll get a video. So I mean, whether that's your primary or secondary motivation, I mean, that's why we're doing this, right? Like to inspire someone else or to create new leads. Like that's why we create content. I think what Dario means though, is more so how it kind of might eat into the time, especially when you're working with client projects. Cause the biggest challenge sometimes we find is that we're working on this content as well, but then also we're juggling a few client projects

at the same time. So you want to like obviously balance the time or sometimes obviously there's a fire that needs to be put out. You know, there's always a fire that needs to be put out kind of thing, right? But how bad do you want it? How bad do you want whatever you're chasing because whatever I can guarantee you there's hours in

the day if you want to spend that I'm not like Gary Vee in this right now no no sleep who needs sleep you know gratitude you know that's my that's my terrible sleep no sleep that's not um what I'm trying to say but it it's like, if this is important, make the time. And part of like, I just, but if my editor can't do it, my associate producer can't do it, then I'll do it. Or at least I will line up my portion of the project. So it's so ready to execute, so ready for the next person to execute. And if these content marketing exercises are important to you, then pay nothing more important than building your brand.

And that would come before client work, to be honest, sometimes. As long as I'm delivering on the schedule that we're agreed to. But you just do it, man. Because if you don't do it, there's somebody over your shoulder, your competitors over your shoulder, who's going to do it before you know, before you can. So you just, just make the time. And as long as you're, whatever you're doing excites you and makes you happy, who needs sleep? You know, you just get it done. It's fun. Got to hustle. Yeah, man. Always, always be hustling. You'll make, you'll make the time.

And trust me, you, if you want to find an excuse you'll find an excuse you will everyone can find an excuse but those who like power through and just fucking you know get it done yeah that's a good feeling and as a testament to that how roughly how many of these personal content projects did you do over the last say year and a half or at least throughout the pandemic because it looked like there were too many to count like roughly ballpark how many did you do over the last, say, year and a half, or at least throughout the pandemic? Because it looked like there were too many to count, like roughly ballpark. How many did you create? Like how many individual videos? Yeah. Let's say for example. 50 to a hundred maybe. Well, look at that. That's more than like one or two a week on average. So this guy is the definition of consistency. He practices what he preaches.

Well, but it's consistency and efficiency, right? It's like, I'm not going to create one asset that takes me three months. I'm going to spend one month on content that can last me three months or one week on content, right? So it's about picking your projects in a way that will provide value, right? And I appreciate you saying what you just said, which is like, yeah, I practice what I preach. I'm not going to try to sell something to someone if I don't do it myself. I'd like that. It's just people can see through that. Essentially, like just the gist of that was a matter of, you know, like whatever, whatever you're trying to kind of like push on to people, you know, you got to practice what you preach, you know, and that's kind of also why we decided to start

doing our own content. Uh, that was our motivation. It's like, if we're trying to sell our clients on our content, why aren't we using our own content for ourselves? You know, like we might as well do it as well, just to kind of, as, as we mentioned, practice, uh, what you preach. So yeah, like if we're selling like promotional videos explainer videos that's kind of what we're trying to do for laps right that's we're treating our our brand as like a client and i think one thing we're also trying to figure out this year is more of our brand identity which john you've already figured out what yourself is just a matter of cementing it but for us we're still kind of like testing things out and seeing what sticks and what doesn't so you guys must be having

fun doing that like because it's it's your baby right like you get to you're just you're watering it you know and it's and it's growing and it's good to see the progress like because slowly but surely things are once you set something in motion you start to see the momentum that it builds up and then after a little bit you're like whoa okay whoa, okay, that's, that's pretty great. You know, like it's, let's keep this going. Let's see how far we can take it. Yeah. Ops is like a third grader right now.

Corbett visual is more like a teenager. So, you know, you got to treat it like that. No, I don't think it's about, it's about how far along are you on your own path to whatever you want to do. I think it's too easy to compare because I might be farther away from my goal than you are from your goal, even though perhaps from a content marketing standpoint, Corbin Visual might seem more mature in that sense, but you know, I, you know, every, every day we're, we're, we're all striving towards whatever's important to us. And I would not just never lose sight of that. You know, um, I, I, we're just on different paths, but like that, that do this every, every once in a while you know like we cross yeah paths cross like constantly we all have different goals we all have different end goals

that we're trying to kind of strive for um no two production companies are the same that's the biggest thing that we've learned over the last year especially doing this podcast you know some might seem similar but everybody is different and you know that is one thing we like to kind of keep uh like a message that we like to kind of keep stressing is you know like we're all a community of people you know like all working together you know and like coexisting uh really well our paths cross consistently so why not you know meet up share a cup of coffee you know share some ideas and uh you know keep hustling right so there's no plan b for me um at least i haven't had one to date so i'm just like yeah man just always just want to be

creating like making stuff i'm i'm happiest when i'm keeping my feet moving, I guess. A creator, a creative person always needs to create. You got to keep moving. Otherwise you're going against your own nature. Totally. Totally. Exactly. Well, you know, we don't want to take too much more of your time. We've already hit that, that one hour mark and John, honestly, we really appreciate you joining us on the show again. It's nice to kind of check in after a year and a half, you know, see kind of where everybody's where everybody's at and, you know,

probably do it again in another year and a half as well. Yeah, man, this is all good. I think what you guys are doing is great. And if anything, like I just, for you guys, it must be therapeutic in a way to just be able to speak to other people who have similar challenges and and problems as you do because i think as business owners like it's very easy to get into your own kind of like vortex or whatever and feel like your problems are unique and only your own but but, but, you know, it must be rewarding and also, and also fun to just get to connect with so many like-minded individuals that are on a similar, like on

a different path, but that also, that also crossover, you know. It's so interesting because, you know, you hear other people's stories and the challenges they face and how they overcome those challenges. And it just really gets you to think about how you should run your business. There's always like new topics that come up that make us go like, oh, wow, like we would have never like thought about that unless we were in that exact same situation. Right. And even that maybe wouldn't have thought about it. Right. So it's just cool to see like, OK, these are this is what other businesses are doing. And maybe it's something that we should think about for our business. I'm not saying in terms of like, oh, yeah, we're going to copy that exact same thing.

But it's like, OK, like if if another business had to pivot their services to another type of services to be able to, you know, get through a pandemic and then it worked out really well for them. services to be able to, you know, get through a pandemic and then it worked out really well for them. That's always something that can be in the back of our mind. It's like, oh yeah, if we ever are in a situation like that, we can think about, oh, you know, maybe pivoting because it worked out for that business or, you know, there's so many things. Like I think people, as they watch the show, they'll pick out on different things that they can think about for their own businesses. It's the unique decision-making that I find really interesting. I think that's kind of like what you were talking about, Dario, where even though they've made certain decisions for their business, you know, what were the, what were their circumstances and what caused them to make those specific decisions?

Because even if we run into similar challenges, maybe that doesn't mean that we're going to have the same decision-making in terms of like, what is right for us, it's going to be everyone has their own way of like, deciding things that are key for their business, you know, and it's going to vary, there's never a one size fits all solution, you know, I mean, obviously, there's 4k video, like 1080p video, the standards, the basics, the 24 frames per second, but the business decisions, those vary drastically. Yeah. And the conversations we have are so real that I feel like it's way better than listening to a Gary Vee video. Yeah, man.

Well, growth is hard and growth. Growth is intentional and it looks different for everybody. And everyone's got a different risk tolerance and different critical thinking skills, different goals. And so, you know, I think you only lose if you stop trying, if you stop moving your feet and what you guys are doing which is taking everything you like from everything you learned putting some in your pocket some throwing away some putting on the table i mean you guys are really you know collecting collecting all the pokemon you know, and, and I got to catch them all. Yeah. And listen, it's good. It's good. It'll serve you well, right. Because it's just more

information and more options, but you guys are both incredibly driven, passionate entrepreneurs and things work out for guys like you, you know? And so you just shouldn't, don't just don't, I don't know, don't keep on going. Like don't, don't give up. I mean, this is all you guys are Daria. For the time I've known you, you know, you guys have experienced a tremendous amount of growth and just professionalism and just general approach. Like you probably don't see it because you're just living it every day. But you know,

you sometimes you got to take stock of your own progress and it requires somebody on the outside to say, well, you've come a long way, you know, and, and hopefully you guys can be that for one another. Maybe that's one of the benefits of having someone to, someone to work with. I mean, I wish I had that, but, but, you know, I think you guys are doing a lot of, a lot really good things and um you never know where opportunity comes from this is where the motivational part of being a leader uh comes from hey because like you just boosted us up right now i feel all right now man i want to go work right after this yeah get to work

yeah the other good thing the other thing we also want with this series is not it's not just for us that we're doing it you know it's we're kind of like also trying to show that as as we mentioned before that it's also a community you know like maybe there's something that we aren't learning uh like from a particular conversation or topic or idea but someone else who's watching might have never thought of it it might completely shift shift their thinking. And we've, we've noticed like, even like they're like, it's starting to have a little bit of an outreach from people outside of our networks, which is like, Oh, you know, like, that's good to know, you know, hopefully this is content that people can learn from, you know, like from a business standpoint and also from a creative

standpoint, you just never know what topic might come up that helps someone. So it's like, even though we're hearing a lot, like, like if we ever hear the same stuff, you know, oh, like when you're, when you're organizing a shoot, you got to make sure you do this, this, and this. But if we take someone else's perspective of how they did it, that might change someone else's thinking completely. And it's, it's just really interesting to be able to share that with so many people. We want to share the knowledge like 100%. Like we don't believe in just guarding everything.

Like we could have easily just done these like one hour Zoom networking sessions and just kind of left it at that, never published them. But it would just seem so weird. It's like, this series will probably help some future filmmaker grow his business, right? So, and then who knows, maybe they might come on the show later on and then, you know, uh, talk about stuff that they did

differently than no one else spoke about. And maybe that'll help someone else. Right. We're just trying to pass the information around and hopefully help someone, you know, cause again, like, like Carol said, we are just one big community and we figured why not like help that community grow, open some doors for everyone, you know, and just open, peel back the curtain from everybody. You know, we're all behind our own curtains, right. And Darren are just knocking on the doors. Yeah. And I found even listening to some folks who you've had on the podcast,

who's perhaps have been in business, let's say for shorter than I, which is just one metric. There's so much experience people can learn from less experienced people. What you guys are doing and the information that you're publishing is not, it's not like, Hey, learn from someone who's farther along than you because in the creative community with the amount of possibilities it's about showcasing to your point area different perspectives and there's plenty that i've listened and learned where it's like yeah you know what john you're overthinking it just you know and perhaps somebody has what i might have perceived

as a more naive view of things but no no they no, they're just not overcomplicating it. And it doesn't need to be one way. And I think that's the beauty of all this information you're collecting is it provides everybody perspective. It's not always about giving someone a North Star to work towards. It's like, well, here's another way to address this challenge. Or here's a challenge that you may not have encountered yet and one way that someone dealt with it and so i think that's what's that's what's exciting about working in the creative space is there's no shortage of fires to

put out and no shortage of sizes of buckets with tap water fuji water nestle water and um cannon water whatever sony water you know what I'm saying? So, you know, I think that's, what's also really, um, wonderful about this exercise that you guys are going through is that it's, there's, there's at least one thing in every episode for someone, every episode. We're like that. That's a quote right there for the show. episode we're like that that's a quote right there for the show and there is if you're if you're if you say there's not then you're lying it's just or you're you're too stuck up you know it's just it's all good stuff man there's so few people making original content for the video production industry for producers dps like come on it doesn't exist

that really doesn't exist funny story related to that so for the first season that we did of this show we had the toughest time trying to come up with like a description for the show because we wanted to keep it kind of more general towards like the marketing industry but even then we're kind of unsure about what it was really the direction that we wanted to go. And so, uh, actually John, you helped us come up with the perfect direction for this show, because I was helping you out. I was, yeah, I was helping you out on a, on a shoot and, uh, uh, the podcast came up and you were describing it to Ken, your DP and uh when ken was like what's it about you said oh it's a it's a podcast on the business of video production and as soon as you said that like

things just clicked in my head and i was like of course that's what it's about okay dario told me and i'm like how do we not think about how do we not put words to it? Because you probably, yeah, you were in it, you know, and you were way too in it to be able to recognize how simple it is. And that's marketing, right? It's like, how can you simplify your message in a way that's going to connect with your target audience? And now you know who you're speaking to and as a result, what to focus your topics on, right?

Now you know who you're speaking to and as a result, what to focus your topics on, right? Like I think probably as business owners, we all complicate things far more than they need to be. And we find success by simplifying, you know, or telling stories. Kiss, keep it simple, stupid, right? On that note, John, we've already gone over by quite a bit. So we just wanted to say thanks again. And hopefully, you know, a year and a half will go by sooner than we realize. And we'll check in once more. Okay.