Creatives Grab Coffee - Running A Video Production Company (ft. Corbin Visual) | Creatives Grab Coffee 4

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

Its finally here!!! Our very FIRST GUEST on @creativesgrabcoffee. We welcome Jon Corbin. An integrated producer and video production guru with over 13 years of industry savvy and business development experience. His innovative use of technology in visual storytelling has been featured in The New York Times, Mashable, Techcrunch and he has produced content for some of the biggest players in the Canadian media landscape.

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Kirill Lazarov and Dario Nuri, a platform where creatives and business professionals discuss industry topics and share experiences. Today we welcome our very first guest, John Corbin, an integrated producer and video production guru with over 13 years of industry savvy and business development experience. His innovative use of technology and visual storytelling has been featured in the New York Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, and he's produced content for some of the biggest players in the Canadian media landscape. So let us start. Well, John, honestly, it's a pleasure to meet you finally as well. Dario's mentioned a lot

of things about you as well, and it's good that we can finally get this set up. Yeah, it's my pleasure. I think it's kind of funny to see Dario because I'm just used to him there being a camera in his hand and on a set somewhere. So it's great to see that he's got an endorsement from you as like you know he's a legit human being like he's not a serial killer or something like that he hangs out with other people you know yeah somebody else trusts him as well so i think that's a good that's a good sign you know we have that marriage uh license already written out you know with the partnership agreement yeah cool cool go yeah so it's my pleasure my pleasure to to join in here it's funny uh like the premise of the show is to be drinking coffee but it's funny that we're doing this show at 9 p.m so we all got like decaf teas and we're

all with the yeah we're all with tea if we were to have coffee at this point who knows how wired we'd get by now no one would get any sleep yeah totally well I'm yeah I got something light here too so yeah I'm not looking to stay up until until midnight these days okay so I guess we'll just start off pretty simple we'll just start off with how you got into the industry like your background yeah I started out in events so I actually started out as a DJ at events at weddings and bar mitzvahs a lot like literally 10 years on like the Jewish circuit not that I didn't do lots of different types of events but that's just you know I grew up in the bar mitzvah world and then as I got a little bit more older and mature I kind of went to the wedding world and then I went from a DJ to shooting the events, like shooting the bar mitzvahs and the weddings as well.

Sometimes I was doing the DJing and the videotaping because I just had access to the client. Right. So because I had the trust, I was just able to sell more things. I didn't run my own DJ company. I worked for other DJ companies. But, you know, I was just I could meet the clients that way, too. I didn't have to find them completely on my own. So it was a nice opportunity to just kind of build out that side of my interests because I was always interested in video. But I didn't actually take it seriously until I'd been in the events industry for like 10 years. And then, yeah, like just a lot of freaking videos, a lot of event videos, a lot of summer camp videos.

And after doing it for several years, I, I still enjoyed it, you know? And so, you know, one thing kind of led to another and, and I just, I kind of wanted to move on from the events, got into the corporate stuff, kind of wanted to move on from the smaller corporate stuff into different or like bigger corporate stuff, whatever that actually means. But you know, you just, you always want to be growing and challenging yourself with new projects. And so I kind of just slowly leapfrogged year to year with the types of projects I was doing. And, you know, it's really hard to like draw a clear path to where I am today, But from a, from an

entry point, it was events and it was bar mitzvahs and it was, and it was weddings and then kind of just grew from there. How long ago, uh, like how long have you been in it? Like, when did you start? So I don't really know, but my LinkedIn profile says that I started Corbin Visual in 2007. But I think that the first few years I was still DJing full time and I would have like a gig or two now and again. So I would say like, I've been doing it for 10 years, like actively, you know, in the video business and the first few years is kind of just like when I had a website but not a lot of business but you know still picking up gigs here and there yeah it's roughly like around the same time we got into it maybe just we got in a year or two before that

maybe a little bit earlier but it's interesting that you mentioned you know like you technically started the business earlier but the first few, are you just kind of growing and learning a little bit more as you're trying to build up that business? The same thing happened with us. Like we started it in 2014, but it wasn't until mid 2015 until we started to actually push forward with the business fully. I think early days, too, you don't really know what you're doing, you know, so it's not like it's not like you can actively do anything to grow the business early days if you start when you're in like early to mid-20s you're just kind of keeping your ears peeled for like who needs a video you know and you just try to be there when you hear that somebody needs it that's that's really that's really cool you know it's it's interesting know, like with all that growth now since the pandemic

hit, it's almost as if everyone has just kind of stopped in the industry. Like how has it hit you and your business specifically? It sucks. It sucks. I don't know anybody who could say any different. You know, I think timing for me was like decent in that we actually had about like two months of post work to get done so we could maintain a sense of normalcy while like the phone was simply not ringing and the first part was kind of like okay well we can still keep busy and pretend like it's

normal um and not have all sorts of expenses and and all. And then when the work ran out, we had to find other things to do because I didn't want to lay anyone off because hiring is like impossible. Like finding people who you enjoy working with, whose quality of work is good, who you just like as people. We worked on all of our internal processes. And i mean worked on it like we rolled our sleeves up and did the shit that we literally don't have time to do from you know creating sales decks and kind of formulas and templates just all the stuff that you want to do to bring structure to your business that you kind of do half-ass because you're always just so busy but we're like no no we're gonna we're gonna do this stuff now and we did it and i'm i'm super proud of us so i'm actually coming out of the back side of this pandemic

feeling like we're stronger than we were before just i still feel really good about um how you know how we're going to be able to approach new projects and opportunities when they come in. It was pretty much the same thing on our end. But now that we're kind of in stage three, have things gone better for you? Are you getting more work? I do. There's like a sense of energy, right? Like I do feel like people are wanting to produce work again. But I think the challenge is like a lot of even the clients, the clients are coming out of this with different budgets and different priorities and different kind of different strategies. Right. And so, yeah, I'm starting to get some knocks at the door and some sniffing and some scratching. I've booked a couple a couple smaller gigs that are just kind of like,

scratching and have booked a couple smaller gigs that are just kind of like, you know, easy peasy from a strategy, creative standpoint and from a safety standpoint, stuff that we could manage. But even the medium scale stuff, the large scale stuff, people are still kind of like, well, what would it look like if we wanted to do this? They're not like, here's a brief brief can't wait to get back to work so i i think people are still just getting comfortable with the idea of larger video shoots but they're also waiting for guidance from their superiors to say what kind of money do we have to spend you know because the dust really hasn't settled and the recession is really only

starting now you know like the recession wasn't the pandemic the recession is really only starting now. The recession wasn't the pandemic. The recession is now. How do we claw out of it? So I just don't think there's enough clarity around money and business for people to be investing a lot of money in video. So I don't have an answer to that. How's it going?

Well, I feel better than I did a couple of months ago. And the energy from clients is better, but the phone is not ringing off the hook by any stretch. Like my clients are still trying to sell through these ideas, which in turn might leverage me as a, as a partner to, to execute, you know, and create solutions for them. So it's interesting that you mentioned how once the work kind of went, you know, and create solutions for them. So it's interesting that you mentioned how once the work kind of went, you started reflecting a little bit more on your business, because I feel like aside from us, we've noticed that a lot of people have been doing that, you know, not just

their own business and what their goals and ambitions are, but also like, what else they want to kind of maybe pursue project wise. And I feel like everyone is kind of dipping their toes into different areas and just seeing what they can do to update themselves, you know, what new skills they can learn. You know, for us, one of the things that we started was this podcast, you know, to just kind of see where we can kind of get a little bit more of a consistency and keep producing stuff. So it's interesting to hear how other people are going through that same phase. You have to keep your feet moving. Trust me,

we all were in like a slump. We couldn't get a goddamn thing done. Every idea we came up with, we would then second guess ourselves and then third guess ourselves and a week passes. We haven't done anything. Everyone felt that same slog. But what I'll say is like, that same slog. But what I'll say is like, when you move your feet, you're visible. And when you're visible, that's where opportunity presents itself. And I think when I reflect upon, you know, the past, however long I've been in business, I'll say some of the biggest opportunities that have been created were born, like I can trace them back to something I did for myself or something I did for free. And you just never know where an opportunity is going to come from. And the worst thing you can do is wait for your perfect idea. The best thing you could do

is just press record and start creating something so that a you're getting your own energy up but b you're now visible to people you're in many feeds you look like you're doing stuff you know people think you know what you're doing um and i say that like tongue in cheek but but but not you know just being active is being active is inspiring to people who are lazy and a lot of people are lazy. Yeah. And especially with things like this, how when there's no work happening, you kind of get into like a little bit of a slump. We found that in the first month of the of the whole lockdown, that was probably some of our most unproductive weeks that we've ever had. And then that's when it kind of hit us. All right. We need to start start doing things again and then slowly we were starting to kind of get back into it and it's interesting that for you it was almost as if you had a bit of normal

normalcy yeah because you still had the posts yeah all the post work for two months do you feel like as soon as the post work ended was it was that the moment that the the pandemic kind of just hit you the pandemic probably hit me a bit different because i have a two-year-old and and so my wife and i had to work from home so the pandemic effect hit right away right because it's impossible you know like you see all these videos of these kids running in on zoom calls or whatever it's like that's like that's every day right um so the idea of trying to be productive, meanwhile having conversations about like, okay, you're going to like put on the B suit

and go to the grocery store, you know, like the stresses of dealing with living in a pandemic hit right away. I, like from a normalcy standpoint, I don't think it, I don't, sorry, from, from a, from a pandemic hitting standpoint. I just, yeah, it was from day one, figuring out how to remain productive with a busy household. Yeah. It just got crazy right away. But I'm like, I'm forever an optimist, you know? So like no matter how crappy situations are, I'm like, okay, well, what does a solution look like? You know, there's no obstacle you could put in my way where I would feel defeated, right? It's

kind of like, okay, well, this is a pretty fricking big obstacle, but what does a solution look like and how can I focus on what's positive or what a solution looks like? And that kind of entrepreneurial drive never really let me sink, you know, into depression or whatever. Cause on top of my approach to life, I also know everyone else is going through it. And whenever I was getting down on myself, I would just remind myself like, bro, like chill, like everyone, everyone is going through this. And so you don't need to be so hard on yourself. Like you can cut yourself a break. Um, and, and just take a minute to, to kind of breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth and just take a time

out and then just kind of get back to life so what do you think of other video production companies you think they're all in the same spot that we're in or do you think some of them maybe they're doing they're doing well they haven't noticed any changes no everyone everyone got hit um but you couldn't you couldn't work right you couldn't even even post houses couldn't work, right? You couldn't even, even post houses couldn't be open, right? There was like two, three months where you were literally not allowed to work. And even like the bigger ones got hit even harder because they have payroll, you know, and they have overhead, you know, big overhead at, you know, in downtown Toronto.

So in addition to not having work, these companies have to figure out how to pay $10,000 a month in rent, you know? So, um, no, I think everyone is going through it the exact same way. Um, and it's all kind of proportionate to how big your business is and how much kind of what your hard costs and overhead look like because those are the things that you need to carry when there's no money coming in so i think it's all relative in that sense yeah i it's it's interesting that you mentioned about you know how you need to keep a positive attitude especially in times like this because like this is something that i was discussing with dario a lot is like we got to keep positive. We got to be optimistic because if we're not, we're not going to be able to put in the effort and energy to do more projects and, you know, personal personal work, you know, to get the next the next few gigs.

Just to kind of like segue now a little bit into into your business, like how has the industry kind of changed since you started? into your business like how has the industry kind of changed since you started i mean with 10 years uh 10 solid years running a corbin visual you probably have seen it all from like the beginning of the dslr revolution as well right what i've seen is relative to somebody who's been in the business for 20 years and 30 years there are those guys too but yeah i i started shooting on mini dv I started shooting on mini DV. So I think like the way, the way media is captured and the speed at which it can be produced and turned around has certainly changed. I think that the, the low hanging fruit has changed as well. You know, like kids coming out of film school now, you know, the ones that you bid against in your early days, like they can actually do the job, you know, like kids coming out of film school now, you know, the ones that you bid against in your early days, like they can actually do the job, you know, because the equipment is cheap. And if you think they can't, you're fooling yourself, you know, anyone, not anyone,

a lot of people can shoot head and shoulders and like B-roll, right? So I think a lot of that low hanging fruit stuff is becoming more competitive. But at the same time, like I'm cool with that because I, you know, if-year-old can do it, then I don't want it, in a manner of speaking. So I think it's become more accessible to get really good stuff done cheaper. Obviously, the internet and streaming media has just completely changed the manner in which content is consumed and in turn, the amount of volume which needs to be produced for all of the new platforms.

So it's just the industry has exploded and far beyond going from tape to digital. You know, even the software is crazier now, too. You know, you can just do so much so quickly so i just think it's you know you've really had to keep up with the top technology you kind of have to be a bit of a tech nerd um to to hang with the players you know in the industry so it's so hard to say what's changed because everything has changed, but storytelling hasn't. And that's kind of cool. And knowing how to tell a good story and craft a good narrative all the different tools that are out there to, to get you a better angle or to, you know, get a cool shot. I don't know. I mean,

there's just so many new ways to tell stories. You mentioned that, well, now the barriers to entry are a lot lower and there's a lot more people in our industry. So how do you stand apart? I mean, I know how I did it before. How I did it was just, I was always the guy who was like, I was always the tech. I was always on the cutting edge. I was the first to use drones. I was the first to use VR. I was the first to, you know, invest in search engine marketing. All of the, like the latest technologies I would leverage to either get discovered, get noticed. You ask anybody who knows me and they were kind of like, yeah, he's the drone guy or he's the VR guy.

I always made a point of offering the service or positioning myself as someone who you can't get what I have anywhere else or in very fewer places. Everyone's got a video guy or video gal, but nobody had a VR guy. Nobody had a drone guy. And so I made sure to leap onto those technologies, try to create some content to, to, uh, um, build trust, you know, and my ability to do that stuff. And then just kind of would double down on that particular technology for a year until something new came along. So that's kind of how I did it in the earlier days. And these days I just find like growth comes through like authenticity and creating meaningful connections and meaningful relationships. Like using technology is, it's a bit of a gimmick, right? You know, at the end of the day, you need to make sure that the people like people like you, um, and people trust you. And so I, the past

couple of years have really been dedicated to building like meaningful relationships and discovering who I am. Cause nobody else can sell that. Nobody else has that. Nobody else has me the same way that nobody else has you. You know, it's, it's, if you can figure out what you're like uniquely good at, that is your unique advantage over your competitors. And it's taken me easily 10 years and I'm still discovering it every day. But, you know, the better I get to know myself and the things that interest me and the things I'm like uniquely better at than most people, the easier it is to sell. And the easier it is to sell myself and get noticed and, you know, win work, I guess. It's funny you mentioned the VR, so I'm guessing 360 video, because we tried to get in on that. We were, I guess, early adopters on that tech when they still had the... 2016. Yeah, when they still had the cube with six GoPros so it was

like a GoPro on each face on each face and oh my god we could never get that the software just would not work with us for some weird reason early software that was that was released to kind of get the brutal to get the the synchronizing and the stitching it was not as easy to use so it was it's interesting that you mentioned how like going with the new mediums of technology is how you were able to kind of stand out because obviously not everyone could just invest in new gear or new technology to to help tell better stories and and now that obviously storytelling has become a lot easier and cheaper to kind of get into. You really have to focus more on the storytelling aspects.

And as you mentioned, making those meaningful connections, I feel like people are starting now to really realize that and you start to see it more in the content. Yeah, because even with the cameras now, like they they're so good just right off the bat. They like even the the modern mirrorless cameras compete with the cameras compete with the mid-level cinema cameras at this point. And anyone can buy those, right? Yeah. And it's funny. You guys immediately both started talking about the hardware and how to execute. I never shot one VR thing. All I needed to do was understand how the technology worked so I

could understand what's possible. Then I would sell what's possible to a client and then find guys who could figure out the hardware to execute it for me. So I actually, drones I did get into heavily, but VR I didn't. I didn't want to be banging my head against the wall for hours trying to figure out how to get the darn thing working. I just wanted to speak to somebody who could explain to me how the technology worked so that I could put that through my brain, figure out, okay, because A, then B, C, and D, I would sell B, C, and D to the client and then go back and create a plan of action with the technician or the DP to then bring the vision to life. So funnily enough, like where you guys tried to figure the darn thing out, I was like, no, no, I want no part of that. I'll just be the salesman, you know, and let someone else figure that back end out. So that was interestingly enough, something I stayed away from.

See, that's a good comparison of how experience also plays a big role in your business. Because for us, we were just about technically a year with our business, like a year and a half really kind of getting through it. And at that point, we were doing everything ourselves. So when we thought we would want to go into VR, we thought with the same mentality as we had back then, you know, like we got to figure everything out ourselves. We know what we can do. Whereas you did the smart thing. You found the experts right off the bat to help you execute the visions that were possible for your clients.

And you probably saved hours. $15,000 and a lot of hours. A lot of hours. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny when I, when when you hear experts talk if you go to conferences um or big speaker events or whatever and like sometimes people get up there and they're just like they're spouting like 101 shit and you're like how was this guy an expert you know and and it was at that time i you know, there wasn't no light bulb moment,

but generally speaking, nobody knows what they're doing. Everyone's making it up as they go along. And once you kind of like get over that, like imposter syndrome that we all have, especially as creatives, then you can realize like, okay, well I'm the expert and whatever I say goes, and I'm just going to say, I'm an expert. And when you say you're realize like, okay, well, I'm the expert and whatever I say goes. And I'm just going to say I'm an expert. And when you say you're an expert, you are an expert. Nobody can tell you differently. And so, you know, I just, I started to get really comfortable with what I knew so that I could present with absolute confidence and try to push out what I didn't know.

Because anything I didn't know, I could get somebody to fill in my blind spots but I just I really ran with what I understood and I stopped trying to be a perfectionist because being trying to be a perfectionist will lead to you doing nothing because you're trying to make it perfect every time so I think I think you know you, at some point you got to say, okay, enough with the learning enough with the, the, the, the gear buying and all that kind of stuff. I'm just going to, I'm going to start doing and get stuff done. And that's how you grow. You know, that's how you progress. Yeah.

Yeah. That's an easy thing to fall into as well, especially with, with buying gear. I get to the point where you're just like, oh, I need, I need to to get that that lens because then my work will look a lot better and then you're like okay wait let me hold off until i get that and you just go down this rabbit hole i'm never getting nothing never getting anything done especially with gear gear never ends every year they have new stuff coming out yeah so it's kind of segue into the next one like what are some of the big challenges that you faced uh in the early days versus kind of the challenges that you're facing now? I can actually pinpoint these for you really well because I remember them and they still kind of haunt and frustrate me.

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I was younger was trying to be too creative. Like trying to sell outside of the box ideas when all the fricking client wants is a hamburger, you know, and I'm trying to sell them like a big Mac and a milkshake and all this kind of stuff. And I would lose clients because I would just overwhelm them with this, like creative vision when all they need is me to put a damn camera down and press record. And so I found myself like, even though I was a likable guy and I was passionate and all that kind of stuff, I just wasn't listening to the client. I just thought I knew better and I wanted to sell them more than they needed. And that led to me not getting jobs.

You know, I consider myself a fairly, you know, creative and visionary person when it comes to ideas, but sometimes you really need to like pare those down so that a client, you just get a client nodding because you're just giving them what they're asking for. And I did that for literally years. And I've just learned to be a much better listener and to like, just not oversell, you know, sell a really good idea or product, but don't oversell. Another thing, hiring is fricking impossible. Like I hired so many people. I've had a salesperson, I've had a, you know, production manager. I've had like an agency level, like project manager. I just, I just didn't know who to hire and when. And I don't think there's like a formula for that, that puzzle, but I hired a lot of people who weren't good for me and paid them way too much money and probably

let other people who would have been really good for me to grow with walk because I didn't want to pay them more because I just didn't think I could afford it. So who to hire and how much to pay them was a really big challenge for me. Not having a proper bookkeeper cost me a lot of money. One year I got a call from the CRA. They told me I owed them like $80,000. I was like 26, 25 and I just owed them a lot of money and I was like, what? I just didn't get it so anyways I'm sure everyone's got a horror story from their bookkeeping or accounting days we almost got close to that but I think we lucked out we found like a really good accountant and he saved us yeah well like we had

we had this one other accountant that we were that we reached out to when we realized we needed someone and he was just he didn't make it a good enough job and like he didn't go through everything with us he's like okay this is good sent it off and we were out within like 10 15 minutes yeah something's not right yeah he just told us like yeah just what are the numbers and we're like these and he's like okay cool it's done we're like wait but make sure you double check it and then our main guy now he like spent a long time with us two years to to get our books the way that they should be done. So it was finally now it's just an easy process. So we feel that exact same pain that you must have gone through. You mentioned that you hired a sales guy early on and it didn't work out.

Did you end up finding out that the only person that could really sell you is you? only person that could really sell you is you? There was a period of time where I did believe that. And there are certain scenarios in which I do believe that, but I don't believe that's true. Of course, the owner of the business is the best person to sell it. But if someone else can't sell your product, then that means you don't even know what your product is. Cause if you know what your product is, you can put it down on paper. Um, and it is hard, especially as a creative person to like say, Hey, you know, what I do is not a feeling or an idea or an emotion. It's a service that has labor and equipment and outputs. And you have to put that information down on paper so that you can package it up and hand that off to a salesperson sure of

course there will always be a benefit to bringing you who knows the business better than anybody into the sales process at a certain point if need be but you should always be able to hand off something like the sales process to a qualified salesperson. Now, I'm not saying that a salesperson is the right person to hire. I'm just saying, I don't think that you're the best person to sell the business because you're just far too close to the product and the execution probably. That's a very interesting point that you bring up because we feel like we've been trying to go through, like I feel like a lot of people in our industry

go through this where they think, okay, we need sales guys. Like, oh, this didn't work out with the sales guy. Maybe it's just us that we can sell. But it's interesting that you mentioned how like you really need to look at the business, reflect on it and simplify it to the point where if you hand it off to anyone

that's obviously like a qualified salesperson that they can actually sell it based on that so it's that's a very interesting uh point that you bring up that's great did you uh um do you have a salesperson now or no so i don't have a salesperson now but i have a sales process so you know what used to be me talking on the phone with a client for an hour about what's possible in their vision and whatever, I cut down that time so that I actually can give myself to people. And I think people like talking to the owner of the business. They feel they're getting straight goods. So there's a lot of value in that. But it doesn't mean you need to be the person who takes the call who makes the quote who you know

puts together the proposal like there's there's a lot of things that you probably type out over and over and over again and you should be templating as much of the sales language as possible and then customizing, you know, 10 or 20% of it based on what the unique requirements of the job are. But a majority of your sales process, you should be able to structure. How much of your business would you say is direct to clients versus working with agencies? So every year without fail, the biggest weighting is B2B, is direct to businesses. work ranges between like 10 to 30 percent whereas like other work is kind of like non-profit stuff or somebody just needs like a videographer or a crew i don't put that under b2b i just you know because that's just kind of like a i need a shooter you know and i never hear from them again

um um so i i'd yeah, there's just some like random business, which I guess you might be able to call B2B, but I just, I try to separate that from, Hey, here's a company who needs a video from soup to nuts. I don't consider that to be the same thing as, Hey, I need to, I need to shoot and give this guy the raw footage. I just, that's kind of something different for me, I guess. At that point, you're just basically, in that scenario, you're more of a tool at that point because they already know what they need. They know what they want.

They just need you to come in. And in that situation, press the record button. But do you find that you have challenges when working with B2B at times? Because like a lot of ad agencies, they take care of all the marketing process, all the advertising dollars and revenue and strategy. Do you think that, do you find yourself running into those challenges with them? Or do you feel like you're working with marketing teams within those organizations that know what they, what they want to do? Agencies are just a lot sharper, you know, like ad agents working with ad agencies they're just they make my work look way better than working with like just someone in the marketing department

at a particular company like because agencies just they have the infrastructure and and there's certain agencies that i just love working with because everything i do with them is a showcase piece and um i mean i usually get paid well to do it but it working with agencies is often more rewarding because the finished work is something i'm incredibly proud of you know and because like sometimes the b2b stuff it's like a training video or something a little less exciting stuff i'm trying to do less and less of. But what I don't like about agencies is the bigger ones are always just so political. And my client doesn't really always care about the project as much as I do. So I find when you work directly with businesses, there's a lot more passion

and give a fuckness for the project to be outstanding and excellent. Where agencies, it's just kind of like hit and miss, depending on who the agency is and who the account exec is. Sometimes they're just literally like forwarding emails back and forth. Other times they're active participants of the project. And I like working with them because they get me excited to get out of bed, you know? So like with the agencies, you feel like your work gets seen by more people versus where if you're working with b2b uh because there's not as much of an infrastructure

um not as many people will see your work necessarily is that is that true i think he was saying because it depends on the account executive yeah i'm just confirming i guess yeah i i actually feel i measure it a little bit differently. A lot of agencies want to make production companies invisible. Now, I'm not talking about like commercial production houses at rep directors where the idea of credit is baked into the work. Ad agencies don't want their client to know you exist. And so as a result, they keep you at an arm's length. And oftentimes they don't even want you to represent the work in your portfolio because technically to know you exist. And so as a result, they keep you at an arm's length. And oftentimes, they don't even want you to represent the work in your portfolio because technically it's their work.

Whereas when you're working B2B, it's your work, it's your project entirely. And it is something that you can represent as something that you've completed. And I'm very particular about working with agencies that don't let you take credit for the work because you better be getting paid enough. Because if you're not getting paid enough and you're not getting credit for the work, you can find yourself in a really shitty situation really quickly where agencies are just trying to take advantage of you. situation really quickly where agencies are just trying to take advantage of you.

And so I believe really strongly about building your portfolio, like your visible portfolio of work, because anyone, whether it be B2B or agency, they want to see the video that they're creating in your portfolio. And if you can't represent something you've done, that's a perfect fit for a client, you're going to get passed over for that job. So I care more. I mean, I care about the money. Don't get me wrong because everyone's got a price. I'm happy to be like white label guy for X amount of dollars. I need to have those conversations upfront to understand where I sit in this process. And I think I'm more comfortable having those conversations now because when I'm a 23 or 24, I don't have the balls to say that. I think they're going to fire me right then and there. But now I'm more comfortable having conversations about money upfront, about credit upfront, about payment terms upfront. I mean, these are things that I need to have so that I can qualify the client. And funnily enough, when you push back on an opportunity, when you tell someone that you don't know if it's right for you, actually, they want you more, you know? And so it's not a game. It's not a game. It's just that that's real

life, you know, it's leverage. So I'm a little more particular about how quickly I am to embrace an opportunity. How would you say, I guess, your clients and agencies have evolved since you started? Or how they've changed? Again, I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit, and they usually have an editor in house. So I think agencies are doing a lot of stock video and graphics and animation, you know, anytime they get a job for like 10 grand which might be a lot of money to another production company to them it's like there's no margin in there because we hire a production company they're going to charge us five to seven so we're not going to work for a freaking month for a few thousand dollars so what they do is they sell the client just like a motion graphics and stock video

edit so that they can keep a majority of the profits, all the profits. So I think that for the lower hanging fruit, they're trying to go out of house as infrequently as possible now that the equipment and everything is so accessible and cheap. So I think agencies are trying to be a little bit more full service than they've been traditionally and try to cut guys like us out. I would say video is also like only one piece of the puzzle. So even like when we get called for a job, we think it's like we're the center of the universe and this project is so important to the agency, but we're like 10% of the execution. Like not literally, but we might be that insignificant. And so, you know, you might not get a hundred percent of the energy from your account exec because she's also managing a microsite and a PPC campaign and an out of home campaign. And so

I just think campaigns are a lot more diverse now and spending is more heavily scrutinized. So video is not always at the top of the totem pole. Sometimes I just want a quick and dirty montage to say, hey, here's something that we did. And also because of how much agencies like now bite off, they're really trying to commoditize us. Like the storytelling, what we provide is like, we're more of a commodity than we ever were. Now,

I'm not talking about director rosters. I'm just talking about video guys. They don't see a lot of unique value in us. We're a dime a dozen to them. And so you really need to figure out where you fit from a value standpoint so that you price yourself appropriately because there's no loyalty in the agency game. And you better be the cheapest or you better add more value. And if you don't do one of those two things, you're not getting the job. We experienced something very similar with one of the agencies that we worked with back in 2015. That's kind of when we were really starting to get into the agency world. And one of the

agencies that we worked with they needed a few people to come in to shoot some video so daria and i came in for several projects and at one point we started realizing that they that they weren't calling anymore and we were wondering why and i remember i connected with someone on linkedin and i met with them for coffee and i was telling them about the work that i did that we did with that agency and they said oh yeah i i know one of the people that worked there they just got an entire in-house video team and editing team so now they're doing all those projects in-house and they're no longer reaching out to other people so we were like oh so we just got phased out yeah like that it. But they weren't even like returning our emails or anything like that. Just like, that's it.

It's like you mentioned, no loyalty. Absolutely no loyalty at that point. But it does, yeah. And I see that more often than not. You know, people have done like so much work for, and they're not even like, they don't even want to send me like the pleasantry email. You know, like even if I send them like the,

you know, the ham looking for work email, which sounds like I was just thinking about you and hope that all is well, blah, blah, blah. They're not even doing me pleasantry stuff in return. And I just, you realize very quickly when you look at your landscape of clients, not all clients are like that. And not, agencies and non-agencies are like that. But you quickly realize that some of your clients are purely transactional. They need something, you give it to them, they pay you, move on. They call again, they don't call again, so be it. Other people, you find yourself talking to them for like 30 minutes because you've developed a little bit of a thing, you know, a little bit of a relationship. And so I think I start to see that more and more as I, as I'm more keenly aware of, you know, my business development tactics. I know who I don't need to

waste any time on because they don't give a shit about me. As long as I make great videos for them and as long as the price is lower than can get somewhere else they'll keep on calling and and that's okay like it's it's i'm not offended by it anymore i used to be offended but i'm not that's just how it is and other people you realize like hey you have the same interests and they actually acknowledge you when you go the extra mile and and, what is that? My heart, I feel valued. Oh, my goodness. And you start to admire those people and they probably admire you as well. And when you do that kind of like business audit for yourselves, you can also do that for your clients. Because if you could develop a strategy where it's like, hey, if you realize you have

these transactional clients and they only respond to your prices, well, then send them an email to say, hey, $4.99 special, you know, corporate video. They're the people who respond to that stuff. And so you don't need to be offended by the way that people treat you. Use all of that information that you get from them to create a strategy to go after them in a way that will connect. And it's not always relationship building. Sometimes it's just straight up bargain basement hunting.

That's a good way to put it. That's the most realistic way to put those types of situations. What would you say is the future of the video production industry, at least in Toronto? Having a built-in audience is the most important thing in the world to have as a video company or any company. You know, an expression I use all the time is like, you know, people would much rather pay Kim Kardashian a million dollars for a shaky iPhone camera than they would lapse productions

10 grand for a beautiful cinematic promotional video. Why? Because people are going to see it and she's got influence. So to me, and it's something that I haven't actively been doing enough of, I want to build my own audience. Because when you build your own audience, you are the gatekeeper, you know, and people can't get what you have anywhere else. People can get other directors, videographers, producers, we're a commodity, you know, but when you've got a built-in audience, is incredibly valuable and i'm i just i wish i started doing it when i was 18 um i wish i had that foresight to build up my own audience when i was 18 i could probably start today but i i don't know if that's how i want to spend my time

anymore but but i do believe that that's super super valuable um i. I think everything in the future, everything will be video, but not everything will be video production. Be it animations or avatars that you can role play in freaking Fortnite. Everything will be moving pictures. Everything will be motion content driven, but it's not always going to be dude with a camera going out to tell a story. So I think it's really important for video production companies to identify where the attention is and then figure out how they can be part of that conversation, how they can be part of that process. Like content like this, Zoom calls, who would have thought that low budge, low production value content would be the most popular format on the internet? It almost offends people like you and I,

right? But hey, you're seeing a trend and you're leaning into it. And I think it's really important to just keep your ears and eyes open because as Dio said like you know it's going to change every year and you just you don't want to get left behind because you're still the cbc cameraman with a shoulder cam that's like why can't i get hired anymore these young kids you know like you don't want that to be you and and to avoid that you just you got to keep on evolving and and you you got to keep on keep on keep on changing just be madonna you know be lady gaga you know like reinvent yourself you know um and i think this is incredibly important so what would you say are kind of like the next steps for for you for corbin visual like over the next we don't want to say like where do you see yourself in five years but like what are probably

the next steps that you envision part of me wants to build a media company like part of me wants to build out intellectual property so like unique digital properties to own like to build an audience to create a weekly series on youtube but not just one like i want 10 series you know that each episode upload an episode a week like Like I want to have like a video factory. Um, the reason it's different is because I don't necessarily want to be the influencer myself, but I want to be pumping out like a volume of content that channels original ideas and the way in which I see the world to the masses. I think that would be really cool to me. I'm a little chicken shit to do it, to be honest,

because I have a good thing going with clients who pay me to do what I do well. So I don't want to handicap myself, but I'd like to see myself doing that. I also want to be doing more of the work that I want to be doing. Um, you know, I, I'm not, I'm not too, I'm not too good to like turn down good opportunities, but I also just want to be a little more conscious about how I'm spending my time. And if what I'm doing today is helping me achieve my goals. And I haven't really set those goals out yet. So it's hard to know if I've gotten where I want to go if I don't know where I'm going.

But I am a lot more self-aware about who I'm giving my energy to and how I'm spending my time because I'd rather say no to a project that's going to eat up my soul for a month when I could be focusing on even like going to the freaking gym you know I'm I'm seeing value in things other than just the money and I want to continue to be mindful about that stuff because you know I have goals that extend far beyond just making cool videos.

You know, I want to be healthy, you know, and I want to beat my friends at basketball, you know. So these things require more than being able to sell and produce good videos. Well, I think we've pretty much reached the end. Is there anything you want to plug before we... I'm working on a podcast called Recipes life shit um with uh with an old friend of mine and it's basically two guys and usually an expert creating like recipes for real life problems and situations you find yourself in so it's like um you know how to tolerate kids how not to be racist, how to like get along with your coworker, how to break up with a friend. And then we do like, you know, like four parts, be honest with them, you know, three parts, crack a joke, you know, and we create recipes with different proportional ingredients to like solve real world problems so we call

ourselves like life chefs um and we create recipes for you know real life problems real life shit the shit we deal with every day so um we've just got a beta episode recorded and we're kind of going into the booth to record a bunch more in the coming couple weeks so you know i i wish we would have been live by the time that um this goes live it won't be the case but i'm excited about the project and it's another another um another way that i'm i'm staying creative and like a project i'm super excited for um i i want to ask you guys one thing before uh before we wrap up though too which is um um and and it's an actual question it's not rhetorical it's not open-ended is i want to hear about what you asked me this question and i want to hear it from you which is

what is the biggest challenge that you guys are facing in your business right now that you are, you're trying to work on, you're trying to actively solve? Like, have you identified the kind of like, okay, here's the first order of business. And this is the thing that we want to work on. The one thing that this whole pandemic has kind of forced us to do is, is just to stop and reflect on what we're doing and why we're doing it. Because I feel like I feel like with any business, when you start it, you have an idea of what you want to do. You don't know what you want to do at the same time, because you're just trying to get things started, right. And the pandemic forced us to stop and look at everything.

And we're like, Oh, we have to really we might have to basically treat this as if we're starting the business from scratch. And that's what we've been doing. So now it's almost as if we're like oh we have to really we might have to basically treat this as if we're starting the business from scratch and that's what we've been doing so now it's almost as if we're having the same challenges that we had starting out starting out the business um like we've gone back to trying to figure out our mission and vision statement that's how far back we've gone because i don't think we ever figured that out in the first place to begin with we had something that we thought was that but then when we sat and started researching looking at other businesses uh talking to a lot of different people they gave us perspectives and uh suggestions on where we are and where we should maybe be going and we realized oh we have to we have to basically tear down the foundation and start all over again

because up until now we've just been kind of you know like not chugging along we've had steady growth over the years we plateaued i think yeah we kind of got to a plateau and then the pandemic just kind of forced uh just kind of forced everything to to change and shift now so that's that's kind of where we're at with uh with the business right now yeah and another challenge I would say is well sales obviously right so we're trying to get out there and pitch the clients and we're also trying to partner up with a marketing agency to be able to do that because it's always hard to go up to a client and try to pitch video if they don't even have the the marketing resources to promote it right so it's almost like you're giving them a product

and they're never gonna realize the value of that product so we're trying to approach them with look we'll create your content and we'll help you market that content that's good that's pretty much our new approach to things these these strategies and approaches you know like should be constantly evolving. And I think, you know, I think what you're doing to your sales pitch is you're adding value to it, you know? So I guess the next step must be to identify,

okay, well, who is the type of client that needs the type of value package that you're offering? And I guess, you know, to create that ideal like customer profile so that you can offering and I guess you know to create that ideal like customer profile so that you can be spending your time like prospecting the right clients is probably like the first next step because everyone like needs video but you know but who but who like who's right for us that's who's right for you you pretty much nailed it like that's exactly where we're at right now.

And like that's pretty much in terms of the business, the main focus. And then now with this show that we're producing is like the other arm of the business. The creative arm in a way. It's almost so we can network with other people in our industry. And also just get our faces out there more, you know. It's like you said about how you wanted to um uh what was that thing you said earlier on about um like making putting yourself in front of other people you know like like that's one of the reasons we're doing this but we also feel

that there is a lot of value in people sharing their stories and their experiences because conversations like this don't really happen i like we find that we have them like behind closed doors a lot of the time uh versus what you see on people's portfolios at times as well you know like we're always trying to put our best selves forward on the internet you know with our with our portfolios and our websites things always look sleek but it's these conversations that you have with the people behind that that kind of humanizes all of us. Honestly, thanks, John, for jumping on board and sharing all your insights and experiences. You've given a lot of value to people who right now, maybe the two or three people that will be listening, but hopefully more in the future. Yeah, it's all good.

I know. I appreciate it. I think it's great what you guys are doing for lots of reasons. You know, it's just this is, I think, why we got into the business, just like create things, have conversations with interesting people. And, you know, the next one you do will be even better. So, you know, it's really good to just see that you're you're you're creating something out of nothing, you know, and certainly, I mean, I hope that someone can watch this and say, hey, I'm glad I did watch it. You know, I hope we can together add value to someone else's life. And I think that's the name of the game. Onwards, onwards

and upwards. Absolutely. Well, cool. I think we don't have a sign off yet but i guess we'll call it at that no problem well i got i got one sip left i got one we got a we got a couple yes cheers john cheers cheers thanks guys thank you for joining us on the show good luck uh good luck with episode next next there we go all we go. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into the Creatives Grab Coffee podcast.

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