The Filmmaker's Guide to Explosive Growth: How To 2.5x Your Video Business

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vipul Bindra (00:04):
Jacob, my friend, thank you for coming, taking
time off your busy schedule,like you're literally about to
do this and fly to DC, so Iappreciate you taking this time
and coming out to chat with me.

Jacob Centeno (00:15):
Thank you, thank you thank you for having me.
It's been two years or threeyears, something like that, at
least two, and a lot happens intwo years exactly.

I remember still it was again.
I felt like this guy's namecomes up a lot david's meetups,
yep and um, we were sittingthere.
That's when we met and I thinkit was instantly hit off because
I felt like we were trying todo similar things building a
team, helping uh you know,clients with better branding,
better content, right?
Do you remember anything fromthat meeting?

Like it's been a while, yeah, I mean so I watched
from afar, because you've beenreally involved with David
Moorfield, and one thing thatreally piqued my interest was
how you were taking care of thecommunity.
So you bought a box or a boothat a game I did, and you hosted

(01:09):
everybody, uh all the creators,and it was really cool because
you know, we're typically theones who are like serving other
people in their booths, rightlike we we do vip, right uh,
incentive trips, and we we filmother people getting spoiled.
But then you did that for thecreators here in Orlando and I
was like, wow, like this guy is,he's got the right outlook,

(01:30):
he's got like the right heart.
So thank you, I appreciate it.

I've told that story before, but it was such an
amazing experience.
So, funny enough, I'm about toliterally go to the third year
of that event where I got that.
So I attend, you know, a lot ofbusiness events and I try to be
very active in the businesscommunity here in orlando and,
um, it was one of those charityauctions where it's like, oh,
you know for, and then you know,uh, solar bears or a partner,

(01:55):
they're like, hey, we'll giveyou one of these exclusive kia
boxes or whatever you knowwhoever wins the charity.
And at first I'm like, okay, Idon't have 30 friends like.
And then I was like, hold on, Ido.
If I call the video people, Ido.
And then it was immediate.
And then you know, obviously Ibid.
I didn't know if I was gonnawin and you know how auctions
are, you keep bidding and itkeeps going higher and you know

(02:15):
it's a very expensive thing.
Yeah, point is I won and then Iwas like holy crap, and then, as
soon as, like David.
So this is the date because youCause you know you can't pick a
date.
And I was like David, cause I'mnot going to throw a meetup he,
he's the one does it.
So I was like let's partner, Igot the space, let's bring
people in.
And it was an incredibly funnight.
I don't think anyone caredabout the actual hockey that was
going on, but we were all justhappy to be event.

(02:46):
They said you want this and Iput some number down, and then
you know, keep kept coming backand somehow won this.
And then I was just happy, likeyou said, and I'm like if I can
bring 30 people in, it would bestupid of me to be like okay,
here's three of my family, right?
yeah and then that's it, the thewhole box.
No, I'm gonna throw a party,and I'm gonna throw the party
for my tribe, which is thefilmmaker tribe, and so that's

(03:09):
awesome.
Were you there, and I don'tknow you.
You say you watched from afar.
That's kind of sad.
I wish you were there, thatwould have been fun.
So so you watched his vlogs andthat's how you found out about
us, I guess definitely so firstone, two, three blogs his, you
popped in relatively quickly andI never forgot you.

And then when we did the Winter Garden meetup I
forget that taco place orwhatever, but I made it a point
to go and say what's up to you.

Yeah, and it was awesome.
Immediately I was like, oh,this and say what's up to you.
Yeah, and it was awesome.
Immediately I was like, oh,this guy knows what he's talking
about.
Plus, you know you, like I saidwhen, when talking to people
you could tell, uh, I felt thatenergy where it was like, oh,
you're going places andobviously you want to connect
with other people, you want togo places together, right and um
, and that was great and I'm soglad you approached me.
So tell me, I want to talk.

(04:04):
Obviously we have two hours.
We can touch everythinghopefully, but I want to talk
then.
So where were you First of all?
Hold on Before we startanything.
You have, I think, the I don'tknow most interesting company
names ever, because you knowPooh Bear.
I get it Because every time Isee your company.
I just want to say pooh becauseyou know, we all, we're in
orlando, disney, but it's notpooh bear, it's poor bear.

(04:27):
Yeah, please explain yourcompany name to me yeah.

So it's funny because I did a podcast with
somebody and he like introducedmy company as pooh bear stories
and I had this.
I have this great reel where Iwas like, yeah, I basically
risked the success of my companyon being called Pooh Bear
Stories for the rest of my life.

Basically, and it's come true.
You have to make an effort tosee that R.
Yeah, you know.
So why the name?
And then what does it mean toyou?

Yeah, so the short story is it's basically a
nickname.
I'm Mexican, raised in aMexican family, and my nickname
growing up was Pobrecito, orpoor little boy or baby boy, and
over my life to this day, mymom still calls me poor bear,

(05:15):
her poor bear.
But I adopted the name becauseI wanted to.
For me, it has an underdog ringto it and, like I think one of
the deep things about my storyis that I never really had uh
like a, a firm father, a firm itwas really hard for me in my

(05:39):
life to have like this fatherlyrole, uh, something that I just,
I just like loved, wished I had.
Home alone is like one of myfavorite movies, because it's
like this quintessentialChristmas with a family and
presence.
But, um, I, I, I grew up, uh,my birth father wasn't a part of

(06:01):
the picture, and then my uh,who I called dad, was killed
when I was 15.
And so when I started mycompany, or actually just before
there, there were a lot ofthings like legally I was never
adopted by my father and so Ididn't get benefits, I wasn't

(06:22):
recognized by the federalgovernment, by his service and
his sacrifice, so I had to kindof like claw my way to success
and I've had to learn everything.
It hasn't all been handouts.
I've certainly had help,incredible mentors in my life,
but I really loved and embracedPoor Bear because I just just I

(06:47):
felt like I'm an underdog andlike I'm just fighting for my
opportunity no, that'sincredible.

Now that you explain, it makes sense that
it's not pooh bear, it's you.
You're the pillar bear.
But but how take me back?
I mean that I can't imagine, uh, being 15, having your, your
dad, pass away and, I'm guessing, military right.
Army.
Yeah, okay, okay, he was a NavySEAL, navy SEAL, okay.
So you know, in service, right,I'm guessing?

(07:13):
That happened, okay, so thatmust be traumatic.
Yeah.
Plus, like you said, the thingabout your biological father.
So now you have a father figure, you lose it at a young age,
which to me at 15, I can'timagine, because the things we
do at 15 are crazy.
Your brain is.
I don't know about you, but Iwas thinking about everything

(07:33):
right, all the good and the bad.
So last thing you want to do is, you know, get into bad habits
or whatever is what.
I'll keep it at.
Yeah, so how did you managethat?
How do you keep yourself sane?
And, like you said, I like theattitude of you're like I'm an
underdog, uh, but how did youkeep that mindset instead of
leaning towards you know theother side of it yeah.

So in some ways I embraced kind of like the good
values that my dad taught me,right, like he raised me on
never give up, always try yourbest, um, kind of be a good, uh
brother to your teammates, helpout your, help out your family,
help out your friends.
So like I embraced a lot ofthose things.

(08:18):
But then, like this other partof me was like crushed and just
destroyed and so I actually likeput the pedal to the metal and
went 100 miles per hour into abrick wall.
Um, I, I almost I got a duiwhen I was 19 and I almost
killed my three best friends.
Oh, wow, yeah.
And uh, my mindset that thatwas four years after my dad was

(08:42):
killed in my mindset for likeliterally from 16, 17, 18, 19,
was like if God can take my dad,then I dare him to take me too.
Like my dad was only 36 yearsold and it wasn't fair.
So you know, I was like I hadlike this it's an unfair mindset

(09:04):
and so when did that changehappen?

Was it that DUI or that incident?

Yeah.
So I mean, you know, teenagerscan be pretty dumb I definitely
was, and I feel like it took awhile to really sink in.
But the incident gettingarrested and, you know, almost

(09:30):
killing my three best friends itwas just like a brick wall and
it forced me to really gainperspective.
Like I was in college, you know, I was on a scholarship.
Do I want to honor thescholarship for the opportunity
that it is, or am I going tothrow this away?
And so, for me, I was like,okay, it's time to make good

(09:54):
decisions again.
And, um, I, I still partied, youknow, I was still crazy.
I, I, I didn't do incrediblystupid stuff, or the biggest
thing is I totally didn't putothers in harm's way.
That was very selfish of me,right To put others in harm's
way.
But, um, I mean, that was thebig one, 80 there.

(10:17):
And then, uh, I would say,after graduating college was was
really my opportunity forredemption.
I started to do like a lot ofgiving back and paying forward,
fundraising for nonprofits,mentoring other kids like me who
lost their parent in the lineof duty or as a result of their

(10:37):
service, and so I, I was kind ofhungry, I was actually starving
to be a like a benefit tosociety, and so I literally
spent 10 years doing that, andthen I started video production.

That's so crazy, but at least that's a good thing
I like.
Obviously it's unfortunate thatit was that incident that you
had to get to to change thingsaround, but I do like that you
are able to find this path whereyou know all this energy, all

(11:13):
this you know passion you'reusing to bring about a better,
better change.
So I want to now go back towhere we were, which is when we
met.
Where was Purvair Stories orwhat?
What stage were you in?
I think you had some teammatesright and tell me, tell me about
where you were at that point interms of video production.

Yeah, so if this is like two years ago, two and a
half years ago, then I I'd saythe biggest thing is I had the
vision.
I've always had the vision oflike, okay, I want to build a
video production company and Iknow that I shouldn't be looking
small and I know that I shouldbe building relationships now
and I think that's like the keything.

(11:50):
So I've always had the visionand the approach of of that.

but, um, as far as like where we were and what we
were doing.
How many years were you into atthat point into the company?

so we started new yeah, we started in 2020 in
kobe okay yeah crazy, yeah.
No, I think we talked aboutthat too.

The first time, so interesting to start.
Yeah, and I was just a fewyears before that my company.
I was doing freelance for along time, but my company
company started like september2018, so I was just a couple
years into when that whole butyou were, you were prepped for
live.

thank goodness, I know, I know that saved me.

Otherwise, who knows where I would be and, like
I said, that's just a crazystory that that happened.
So you had started in pandemic,which is also a crazy decision.
What was it?
Did you lose a job or somethinglike most people, or just there
wasn't work?
What caused you to immediatelygo?
Let me start a company.

Yeah, so I was working for your brand voice
here in in orlando and drphillips it's a digital ad
agency kind of boutique and I Iwas um, I had been there two and
a half years, maybe a littlebit over.
I had edited, I had producedpre-produced, produced,

(13:06):
post-produced over like 500videos for this ad agency.
So my, I felt incrediblycompetent and confident in my
craft, like I was makingdecisions, creative decisions
for myself, like I didn't needanybody's validation.

So you got your, your skill, which is important,
down the thing yeah.

Yeah, you, you have to have confidence in
delivering something Exactly,cause you know obviously
business skills are important,which is important down the
thing.

Yeah, yeah, you, you have to have confidence in
delivering something exactly.
Yeah, because you know,obviously business skills are
important, which is what we'regoing to talk mostly about.
But if your craft isn't there,and then it doesn't matter how
good your business skills are,they're never going to call you
back and that's why I tellpeople your skills have to be
there, which helps obviously.
They don't have to be therebecause then, but then you need
to hire people whose skills arethere.
You cannot not have skills andthen be just trying to do it

(13:47):
yourself for paid clients,because you're gonna just fail
no matter what.
Yeah, so that's great.
So you have an advantagebecause you gained all these
skills.
You made over 500 videos, whichis a lot of videos, and at what
point do you go like do I?
Did you quit or did they layoff or what happened?

yeah.
So in the middle of thepandemic, um, everybody's the
uncertainty is crazy.
He comes out, my boss comes out, and he's like I don't know if
I'm gonna have to let you guysoff or or what, and I was like
hold on, pump the brakes.
I was like what if I can figureout a product?
Because I think one client waslike hey, we're gonna back up
now.

Hey we're gonna let you guys go and so I was
like let me.

I was like let me .
Client was like, hey, we'regoing to back up now, hey, we're
going to let you guys go.
And so I was like, let me.
I was like let me.
It was like immediate.
I was like let's do publicservice announcements for our
clients.
So let's literally just ifyou're a restaurant or if you're
a dentist or if you're, youknow, oh man, real estate agency
, basically once a month willcome to you and we'll do your

(14:46):
psa.
So all of our well, like 85 ofour portfolio bought the idea
and kept us on all the retainerslook at that.

So saving single-handedly, yeah in the
company yeah, so we all stayedon.

And then, funny, we were just talking about
buying our houses.
So it's like, it's like mayjune and we're thinking, me and
my wife.
My wife is like I want a house.
I'm like, oh my gosh, we're ina pandemic, what?

like are you crazy ?

which is good timing, though, if you did buy
and buy, yeah, and so my, mywife has like really strong
faith, and so I was like, okay,we'll do it, like we'll do it,
and uh, so we looked and weended up buying in october of
2020 oh my goodness luckybastard I know, yes oh, man, I
still remember because you know,I was in alabama that time and

(15:35):
I was looking to come backbecause I was an idiot left for
a few years.

And I'm telling you, I was just like oh, this
price is a great, I, I'm gonnamove, and I'm gonna move.
And literally six months later,when I did end up moving, the
market was like this and I waslike crap.

I'm screwed it happened so quick, nobody could
know.

Like you said, you had faith, though I do like
that.
You both came together.
You had faith, you made a gooddecision At that time.
You may not have known, but inhindsight, hindsight that that's
an amazing decision to buy incentral florida a property.
Then, yeah, it's crazy.

No, we're super blessed.
And so we were looking at thehousing market.
We ended up buying and I toldmy wife uh, the truth is I had
been asking for equity in mycompany, my boss's company so I
knew that I was handling theclients, the relationships.

I could execute the deliverables right, like by
myself so was it you or you hadother people with you doing
video side of it?

yeah, so I would typically convince him to have
anywhere from like two to threevideographers on staff, and then
he had an entire other likemarketing management, ad buying
and then a web design team aswell.
So, um, I was, like, you know,half or one third of the video
production side, but I, uh, Ihad been asking for equity,

(16:54):
cause I knew that I I was at thepoint where I didn't, I
couldn't just do everything, orI could do everything that we
offered, but I could also startoffering this to more people,
including my network, and Ididn't want to, you know, bring
my network to the fold withoutequity.
And so, and I think that's justlike I don't know, that's like

(17:17):
an entrepreneurial thing and sohe, he kind of pushed it off for
a year and, um, I asked againon, like, uh, I got a raise and
I asked for equity again and itjust it wasn't cement the idea.
I mean, in hindsight I couldhave probably came up with an
idea presented to him and Ididn't.
But, um, I felt like it startedto kind of get squeezed for my

(17:40):
labor rate and uh, at the timewe were about it's about a month
, two after buying the house, somy credit was good, like it's
clear, right, yeah, and uh, likeI could quit my job and not
lose the house yeah, exactlyright.

A lot of people don't know that yeah, and
generally your credittechnically shoots up to having
a real estate property show upon there.
But either way, yes, you canquit your job because now you've
had, you have the house right,yeah, right, as long as you get
paid for it, obviously yeah, yep, and so I.

I had the house and I told my wife.
I said, hey, my goal is to saveup three months of like our
expenses and mortgage, and thenI'm I'm going to like anything
after that is icing and so I hadsurpassed the three months
savings and um, and then, likeone day he just like kind of

(18:29):
said something I didn't like andI was like, hey, I'm putting in
my notice.

That was it, you know that was it, and then you
started.
Did you bring any of the staffwith them, or did you so?
Was it you?
Did you immediately then gopoor bear stories, or did you
talk to someone, or what wasthat process?

So great question because I've left a couple of
things out.
But I had already founded PoorBear Stories because I was being
paid as a contractor and Iwasn't claiming any write offs
and I knew that I could be likeI just knew filing taxes after
two years of filing my own taxes, right, like that's another

(19:08):
thing.
Like if you file your own taxes, you kind of learn things and
you see like, oh wait, likethat's a write off, oh, I could
like lower my taxable income.
So I started to learn that andI I was like, ok, well, I'm
going to start my LLC and thenI'm going to claim more, I'm

(19:29):
going to start my business bankaccount and I'm going to claim
more write-offs.
And so I had done that monthsbefore leaving.
And then after two, three monthsso after about two months of
having my own company, I wasvolunteering at a church here in

(19:49):
Orlando called LifeBridge andthis is again in the pandemic,
and so they're trying to figureout live production or meeting
safely.
And so they were like, okay,we're going to.
They were really unique in thatthey had a drive-in church, so

(20:10):
they had a big LED screen andthen they filled their grass lot
, but the first week they did it, nobody found out.
And so I was like, well, let'sdo videos to show what it looks
like and I'll make a littlehighlight video and then we can
blast it out and show peoplewhat it looks like, and they can
.
So, anyways, I did behind thescenes videos during covid for
my church and, uh, it reallyhelped them.

(20:30):
But in doing that, theirproduction team, who are like
all freelancers, had other jobsthey were doing and they
actually brought me on to, uh, agary sin, gary Sinise
Foundation project as afreelancer, and so At that time
are you just charging like a dayrate, pretty much hourly, like

(20:51):
I was, like I was like gettingpaid like 25 bucks an hour to
work for the ad agency.
And then I was like they werelike, okay, Jake, what's your
freelancer rate?
And I was like, uh, like well,I don't know, Like I get paid 25
an hour right now.
And they were like, well, whatif we do 35 an hour?

And I was like that's incredible, yeah, so, so
that's why business skills areso important, which is why we're
having this conversation, causeyou're going to learn slowly
when you, when you learn thatwas, that was not a good idea,
but that.
Like, look in the beginning.
I've done that too.
When I was freelancing I waslike, hey, whatever, I'll take
it Because you know.
You don't know what you don'tknow.
No, so at least you got aproject.

(21:29):
That's also key.
A lot of people who are, youknow, new to this don't even
know where to go find that firstproject.
Yeah, it's only 35 an hour.

So you know, I learned something.
I think another key lessonduring that time was and this is
like quintessential freelancecontractor, right.
So you have like a day rateright.
So like, let's say, your dayrate is 1500 bucks and everybody
goes, whoa, that's crazy, youmake $1,500 a day, right.

(21:59):
But what I learned on that 35an hour job right, was my
billable hours were likehorrible.
They were just horrible because, because in the freelance world
it's like OK, we only need youfor four hours today.
Ok, we only need you for sixhours, right.
Hey, we need, we have apre-production call with the

(22:19):
team, we need to talk about this.
And so I was like on the phoneand on video calls for 10, 15
hours a month during covid, notgetting paid for any of it and
then getting 350 days.

It does not add up , it's horrible and living in
central florida, that's veryhard.
Yeah, even pre-pandemic houserates, it's very hard to survive
.
Yeah, um, so when did you learnto charge the correct rates?
Did it happen?
You know, obviously justgeneral or did somebody tell you
what the rates should be?
How'd you find that out?

yeah, so there I, I've had three big level ups in
my business, pricing, um, andeach time it's like with totally
different deliverables and likedemands for a project and,
honestly, most of my productioncompany has evolved organically,
just like out of necessity.
It's like we have a projectthat comes to us and I take my

(23:17):
best guess at like a quote, andthen I learn the hard way that
we didn't bill for this or thisor this, and so next time I can
more accurately bill for that.
But in the meantime I improvedmy portfolio, right, so and I've
been it's been three or fouryears of that.
It's like, okay, we get thisunique project with unique

(23:37):
demands.
Here's our estimation.
Okay, we learn lessons.
Okay, we bill more for it nexttime around, but a lot of it has
been custom and so it's.

It's harder when you're doing these custom
projects yeah, because then youhave to figure out all your
expenses, all your rates, theyour profit, obviously, of the
company, each person's rates.
Um, so when I met you, which istwo and a half years ago, uh,
as a company, what was therevenue?
You guys were pulling roughly.
You don't have to give exactnumbers if you remember yeah, so

(24:09):
it I'd say three years ago.
Three years ago we were about125 revenue and then today or
2024, let's not talk today.
Last year, roughly what did youclose the revenue top line?

I think we finished at about 300, but
that's pretty good, that'spretty huge, the crazy part,
though.
The crazy part is we had sixmonths of no jobs, oh last year
2024?
2024.

Wow, that's crazy so what happened, I mean for six
months 300 yeah, okay, it'spretty good.
That's actually even reallygood.
Yeah, so.
Is it just because I know youand maybe and maybe this we
tackle later otherwise, becausedon't you do more military style
jobs, right?
Maybe it's because of that.
Is it the market that you'reserving?
Is it that so?

so yeah actually, but it wasn't like intentional
at all it was actually we werekind of reactive, so we niched
down this year, so, going into2025, we basically came out and
said we are exclusively likedepartment of defense and
intelligence, which is, like youknow, all the infrastructure,
cyber security.

(25:22):
Right, that's where the money'sat.
Yeah, smart niche.
We're smart.

Yeah, the government always writes their
checks, that's one thing I'velearned yes, yeah, you know, by
the way, I never do anything.
I don't care, I don't care whoyou are.
It could be Disney.
You know big Hollywood studio.
Pay me up front, except for thegovernment.
I know that check will alwayscome, so you are very smart in

(25:48):
niching down there, so go ahead.
Yes, so so is that what?
What would you attribute to nothaving six months, or roughly
six months, of no work?

so I would I mean for for me I would say it's god
, because it it gave me clarity,like the, the clients we were
losing, just kind of like inweird ways, like one of our
biggest clients for the firsttwo years of my company.
Start they let us go kind ofreally soft and slow, um, just

(26:18):
like, hey, we're not going to dothis this year.

Hey, we're not going to do video production for
this did they switch to acompany, different company, or
they just not do video?
They didn't do video.

Um billion dollar company or half.
So half a billion dollarcompany, going to a billion this
year, has all the room in theworld for video production.
But um, they had a businessdevelopment guy come in and
basically say if it's not sales,we're not paying for it and
that's a bad strategy.

But that's what a business guy would do.
Yeah, because they can showimmediate return.
Yeah, but that's not goodlong-term strategy.
We both know branding but.
But let's not go there.
So point is so you have haddecent scale.
In my opinion, in two, two anda half years to triple, almost
right, almost well, almost 2.5xyour business.
Uh, what do you attribute thatto?

(27:07):
Like just being better yourcraft or better your business
scale, a scale level or what?

well, there's one other thing too.
So like that six months Ididn't just like sit on my couch
and play games, right, like Itook all that time to go after
way bigger business and likebuild client relationships and
like go to networking events,travel around the country and
like meet people and spend timelike doing a lot of the stuff

(27:35):
that video production owners dothat you never see, right.
Yeah, so like I didn't just sitat home not working, I was like
doing a lot of businessdevelopment stuff by myself.
So I think that's key to say.
But I would say what'sattributed to the growth is

(27:57):
niching down.
So like niching down andshowing your work.
There's a little book that Ionly remember the title, but
it's show your work and it'sthat's the book, right.
And so we typically you know,we have these companies come to
us, we work with that company,we do a great video, do great

(28:18):
photos, whatever, and then weshare it, we show it, and what I
find is that our network, mynetwork, right, and the word of
mouth within my niche they seeus and follow us and look at us
from afar for sometimes a yearto two years before calling us

(28:39):
or referring us, sometimes ayear to two years before calling
us or referring us.
So a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I don't it, I'm not
seeing anything.
Why do I do social media?
Like there's people are not.
When I post this, somebodydoesn't call me and say, hey, I
want to book your services,right.
It's like you post, uh, eighttimes a month, 12, you know, 12

(29:02):
months a year, and then nextyear in February somebody will
say, hey, I've been followingyou guys for a year.
I love what you're doing, andmy company is in a spot to do
video and so we want to dosomething like attribute a lot
of our success to that Nitchingdown and finding our audience,

(29:26):
the people that we want to serve, that we know a lot about and
there's a lot of familiarity inthat community with our work.
Or it's easier to get householdright, like, oh, I don't know
you, but I know this companyyou've worked for and I know
some people on that team who Icould call them and I trust them
and I can ask them about you.

(29:46):
That's the power of the niche,and so that is very smart.

I tell people and I haven't and I'm one of the
lucky.
I don't believe in luck but tobe real, I am lucky to have a
decently successful companywithout niching down, because
everyone I know who's successfulin video has picked a niche,
because otherwise it's very hardto market.
Because if it's just likesaying so, that's smart of you

(30:11):
to do that, because otherwiseit's like I'm a video company,
it's like a billion of you.
How does people know to workwith you?
And, like you said, if you down, it becomes very easy for them
to find you.
And when they find you theystart to follow you.
And when they follow you, whenthe time is right, they know
they're going to reach outbecause you're presenting
yourself as an expert and not asa generalist, if that makes

(30:34):
sense.
So that is the right move to doand I'm so glad you know,
you're doing that and youfigured it out.
Um, what's the structure of yourcompany?
Is it just you as the owner andwith contractors, or do you
have, like business partners whohave equity or whatever?

so 2024 was definitely like a trial we had.
We had two full-time staff uh,leaving 23 and two kind of
part-time, full-time contractorson the team, and then we
contracted out another two videooperators, videographers and
video editors.

(31:12):
So the same two, Everybody onmy team.
I prefer to have their, their,a photo or a video operator, and
they can edit right, Like, um,that's for for my company and
for our client size andeverything that's just like it's
.
We can't really afford to.
Uh, oh, you're just my DOP.

Like you know, we're too small, so so,
basically, they're a shooter ora shredder, I think is the word
shooter editor, you knowwhatever.
There's another thing in there,but whatever the shooter,
photographer, editor, right,everything, which is what most
likely your deliverables looklike, right?
So an average um, what's yourproject size and what
deliverables are there?

roughly again, you have to go specific, but
yeah, again, you don't have togo specific, but yeah, so we
have typically between five toeight really big projects a year
where they're like $25,000 to$50,000 jobs, sometimes $100,000
jobs.
That's pretty good.
Yeah, um, where you know weneed a crew of like five to 10

(32:20):
people for seven, eight days andit's very bespoke, like there's
a ton of research in thecompany, ton of pre-production,
and then the post-production inthis space is typically very
bespoke, because you know mostpeople are like I want as little

(32:41):
amount of revisions as possible.
But in the defense space, inthe intelligence space, um, you
know, I've I've had videoprojects wait to go through
public affairs for two years.
We've had videos that haven'tseen the light of day for two
years because it has to getscrubbed by 12, 15 different

(33:03):
public affairs officers.
It's, it's insane, um and andit can be frustrating for people
too, and a lot of people arelike I can't run a business like
that, but um, so those are kindof some of the bigger projects
that we have.
And then we do uh, all the waydown to like I'm doing a dp job

(33:25):
next this week, this week, uh,for like 1500 bucks, like I'm
just going in and kind ofcapturing 10 hours I mean that's
pretty good dp rate.

yeah, yeah, yeah.
So so basically everything fromyou individual as a DP to very
big jobs where you bring inobviously a crew and you know,
get to whatever the deliverableis Like you said, custom,
basically video jobs and is itlike 25K on average?

(33:55):
Like how many deliverables arethere?
Is it one big deliverable or isit like multiple deliverables
that are part of a package?
Like a 25, 50 K will give youfive videos or whatever.
Is that like how?
What does an average number ofdeliverables look like in that
range?

So I would say so we have two retainers.
So we have two retainers.
We've we've kind of uhfluctuated between three to five
uh on average.
Right now we're at two, sowe're a little bit slow, but I
mean that's still pretty good.

Yeah, that was.
You know, you're not worriedabout where the bills are.

Yes, I mean because when you have a payroll,
when your money walks out thedoor really, really fast, and so
that was kind of a big lessonfor 2024 for me was I had like
four people on staff at onepoint and it was like 12 000
walking out the door everysingle month and if you don't
have six months of work, thenyeah, yeah, yeah you can, like I
said, you can go work inbusiness.

You know growth and all that, because I know
you're not the type to sit, butthe the staff usually is not the
type to you know growth and allthat?
Yeah, because I know you arenot the type to sit, but the
staff usually is not the type toyou know do that.
So you had to let people gothen, I'm guessing.
Yeah so they were justcontractors, or they were
full-time W-9 or whatever.

So fortunately, you know, thank God, w-2, sorry.
Yeah, I've been able to keep onmy W-2s, who are also gold
stars, so they also both losttheir dads in military service
and we hired, throughorganizations that we've worked
with that I've spoke, you know,for raised money for for decades
, right and so strongrelationships, even hired some

(35:34):
of their recipients, you know,and so I've been able to keep on
my W-2s.
We had a contractor for a yearwho was on a visa from Bolivia
and her visa expired but she didincredible.
And then we had anotherpart-time contractor in the
first half of the year whojoined the military, and so she

(35:58):
ended up leaving as well.

So at least you didn't have to have the hard
conversation of, like we have tolet you go.

That's a tough conversation to have, right,
yeah, and so it's and I'm morecomfortable at two, like when I
was at four.
I felt kind of out of controlBecause you can always bring in
contractors right.

Yeah, as needed.
That way, you're not committedto like payroll Because, as to
like payroll because that'ssomebody who has done that, that
can be a nightmare, becauseyou're like, oh, I need to have
this much cash flow coming in,no matter what.
Yeah, and it starts to you knowour video, our business is like
up and down.
Sometimes you're like, uh, youknow I need more, you know more
clients, or else you know andyou don't want to miss payroll.

(36:35):
Obviously that's just terrible,which is why, at least for me,
I found my stride ispost-production staff payroll
all shooters, contractors Makeslife so much easier.
I can custom it for each joband never worry about like
because you know for me, likeyou said, shooters, otherwise
they're just sitting doingnothing.
So I'd rather just bring incontractors, pay them what they

(36:56):
want to get paid.
Plus you get higher leveltalent because they're shooting
all the time.
Pay them what they want to getpaid plus you get higher level
talent because they're shootingall the time.
And then, um, post-production atleast for me, what I, the way I
try to again, I don't know ifthis will work with dod, but at
least with my clients it's likewe can go back and be like hey,
because you know we own all thefootage, they own the
deliverables.
So it's like hey, uh, we canrepurpose this to get more.

(37:18):
You know social edits, so or wecan do this to make an update
or whatever.
Right, you can repurpose thecontest.
I can always have the editorsworking, but I can't have the
shooters working.
At least that's the finalstrategy I've landed on that
seems to be working for me,which is like contracted
shooters based on the job, sothey fit the job better too.

(37:38):
And then, but post-productionstaff you know it makes it a
little easy to every month to gobecause like hey, if I don't
have work, then I don't haveshooters.
You know like extra payrollthat I'd have to worry about.
Um, at least that's where I Ifigured finally have settled so
far as of now, 2025 and it's allgoing to change, because you

(37:59):
just got a grip truck, yeah, Iknow, who knows.
And see, funny enough, the, theidea of that was same thing.
I want to be more efficient, somy costs balloon out of nothing
.
And so I was like I have allthis gear because you know I
like to do high level production, but not all out of there.
Just to be real, just like you,I'll go for 1500, be the dp and
go shoot something.
That's okay.

(38:19):
You know, it doesn't have to bealways fancy, uh, and you never
know the 1500 maybe shit fancy.
I'm just part of the cog in abig shoot, yeah, um, anyway, so,
uh, but mainly I'm trying to domy own productions and over the
years I'm trying to level themup.
So I've acquired enough gearand I was like, okay, so now I'm
not, I don't have a shoot, andmaybe I have a couple of a week

(38:40):
and a lot of them even areflying, so I don't even bring my
gear.
So I'm like all this gear issitting, not getting used.
How can I get more ROI out ofit?
And plus, for years I sold mytrailer.
We talked about that and I waslike I have to find a way, a
better, efficient use of it.

So anyway, that's coming from la or whatever van,
by the way it's gorgeous allright, let's not peddle things.
We don't do that.

I don't want people to think we're promoting
things here we're just givingfree knowledge, but yes, I mean
that was the goal right To bemore effective and hopefully
I'll get more ROI out of it andagain, we're not peddling here,
but the offering is so much morelike just the value.

It's always been obvious that you are like let me
give more value.
Like you, it's always beenobvious that you are like let me
give more value.
And I think that's a fault tous in the creator, yeah,
community, because we love whatwe do so much that we're
dropping our rates, uh, which isretiring a lot of the old
creators and producers and gripguys, because we're cutting down
our rates.
But hey, man, like it's amazingto see you really trying to

(40:03):
give so much more value withcamera, with grip, with lighting
, you know to to the creatorsout there, like you're in a.

In that way, you're very selfless with how
much value you're trying to pumpinto the community exactly no,
and I completely agree with youand this is why I'm so glad you
bring this point the.
The point is not to devalue thethe community because at the
same time, like you said, if ifI'm like a client here, you go
for 50 bucks, you know we'llbring the whole world to you
obviously the devalue is thebusiness.

(40:36):
So my goal with this wasabsolutely that, hey, for my
clients and you know, your mostclients they don't care the
equipment we bring.
We bring the equipment based onthe level of the job that it
needs, right to do the job right.
So I'm like I'm going to bringit anyway and I'm already
charging a healthy margin inthere for that.
But here's how I can help levelup the community.
Like I'm like, hey, buddy ofmine, on this group chat that I

(40:59):
think you're a member of, right,the Orlando Filmmaker group
chat, I'm like look, I have thisvan.
I'm purposefully not puttingbranding on it.
Now you, since I'm sitting here,look, it's a give and take
relationship.
It's not fully altruistic.
I don't want to be like some.
I am going to make ROI.
But I'm like look, my rate isvery low for the level of skill

(41:22):
I bring and most of them hire meanyway.
So I'm like you're hiring mealready at this rate.
Let me give you a bonus.
I'll bring this whole van.
You save thousands andthousands of dollars on rental
costs.
And now you can go to yourclient and say, look, we got
this, we can level up.
Let me charge you more, and ifmy friends can make more money
from it, then all for them.

(41:47):
And, at the same time, if I canbe on more productions, I'll be
happy because I like to be onset and they make more money
than both of us are winning.
Plus, my company now can pullin that extra revenue because
it's like, hey, these days whatVipo was doing was nothing, or
maybe like we shouldn't saynothing.
I'd be probably working on someform of the business, but those
are still days I'd rather beout shooting than doing whatever

(42:09):
else I was going to be doing.
So I win um, you know thecompany.
My company wins from revenue.
I win from being on more setsand all my friends, creator
friends in the local communitywin by being able to offer now
look, we got this package If ithelps them in any way, and plus
there's no cost to it, becauseif you're not using it the days
for them, there's no cost.
So that was my perspective onit and let's see obviously how

(42:32):
it goes this year, because I'mnot charging any extra.
I'm like, look, you know,obviously if a production comes
and they want the truck, it hasits own rate.
That's not my rate.
And then I have to pay my rateand the crew rates, or whatever.
But, this is just for ourcommunity.
I'm like, hey look, I'll justbring the truck with me or my
van with me, so you win.
You go advertise to the clientthat it's your stuff.

(42:53):
Who cares?
Because at the end, the clientgets better videos, you make
more money and I make more money.
We all win.
That's what I'm saying.
The whole point is we all wintogether, yeah, so anyway, at
least that's the business that'sin my brain.
I don't know if it's gonna work.
You know, in 12 months I'mpretty sure we'll be able to sit
for season two and kind ofremiss if the it was a good
decision or not.

(43:14):
I know for a fact that just withmy productions, I'll be able to
, you know, get enough use outof it.
It's just ideally.
I don't want that to be theonly use, because, you know, if
it sits for 80, 90 of the year,yeah it's, I don't know, it
doesn't just seem right to me,yeah so, but at least there will
be no loss for it, like I'llmake my money back because I'm

(43:35):
literally taking it out in a fewdays.
So you know what I mean.
Like that's what I'm saying.
It's already working, yeah yeah, yeah.

No, it's helping if it's helping you get more
jobs, right like the curb appealis helping you get more jobs
and it's paying you back in roiin one way or another.
That's how I've looked at a lotof my, my assets and growth.
But, um, I think just you knowit's hard as video, as company
owners, with like a ton of gripand a ton of lighting in

(44:04):
different cameras and camerapackages.
It's really hard to walk theline and I feel like this year
has humbled me to say, hey, look, you can't itemize everything.
Right, you should be sograteful that you are working in
this industry.

(44:24):
And so when your client callsyou for a job, it shouldn't be
okay, you know the FX6, lineitem 350, whatever.
It shouldn't be like.
It should be like wow, okay,what's your budget?
Okay, man, you know what we cando this.
I can bring in an operator, andyou know what we can do this.
I can bring in an operator andyou know what.
I'm just gonna bring in theselights, because I think they're

(44:46):
gonna make a big difference foryour shoe, and so like, don't
worry about the extra cost inthe budget, and then that gives
you so much more leveragebecause, they're like whoa I, I,
you know I couldn't afford that, it's my budget, but you
brought it anyways.
And then you're building arelationship and so you know,
changing your mindset to to belike more.
How can I give ultra value tomy clients?

but also gauging them.
You bring a very good point.
You want to help your clientsbut at the same time it is a
business, right, because you gotto be able to make profit.
So being able to gauge wherethe budget is and where there's
a production land Cause I havethis happen where clients go and
and you know they're like oh,we want this.
And then I'm like what's yourbudget?
And they're like we don't havea budget.
Tell us so I'm like well, I cando it for you know 200,000.

(45:33):
And then immediately, well,that's not a.
So you have a budget, let's getto the number.
Because here's the thing I canbring half my friends, we can do
an awesome job here, but that'snot what you need.
I will tell you Like I can helpyou figure out, but I know you
have a number and we can getthere.
But don't say like give me anumber, because that could mean

(45:57):
anything.
Right, like you said, you canhappily go take 1500 bucks, take
a camera, go shoot it, givethem the footage and be done
right, that's 1500.

That's what's so crazy about our industry is you
can you can pay somebody 750 togo do an incredible day of work
and then it's like, oh, but wewant this and we kind of want
like this and this is the vibewe want, and that can easily be
a $25,000 day, exactly and samejob crazy and and and it.

And then people go uh, I've had people and that's
a very good thing you bring up,because a lot of people in the
video I'm taking forget clients.
Obviously they don't get ittheir businesses.
But so many people in the videoindustry who are playing at
this level don't get it like.
I've had people go hey, I'vebeen able to charge, like my
rate is like, not my rate, buttheir rate is.
They say I have picked a dayrate, it's 1200.

(46:46):
Now clients are happily payingme.
I'm doing my camera package, Icharge 1200, I'm happy, they're
happy.
I don't understand like they're.
They're like they don'tunderstand how you could even
charge $25,000 for the same typeof shoot.
And I'm like because you haveto understand the change that's

(47:06):
happening, because it's not.
Obviously, if you brought twocamera operators and charged
them $25,000, you wouldn't stayin business for long, right, but
$25,000, you're bringing moregear, you're bringing more
lighting, more people.
Maybe they want the same day atit.
I don't know what the project is, but what I'm saying is that 25
000 number is not arbitrary,right, it's all accounted for

(47:28):
specific things, uh, and that'show you get to that number.
If you don't understand itmeaning you're not thinking from
the production company's pointof view and that brand's point
of view, because I'm not sayingthey're doing a great bad work.
Like you say, you can findincredible people for $600, $700
to make you good video, butwhen you get that high level,
everything matters.

(47:49):
And it matters with thatbrand's level.
Like, yes, disney can afford a$1,200 camera operator, but so
can they afford a $50,000 cameraoperator, and they can afford
Steven Spielberg if they want it.
Yes, and they're all going tobe different costs.
It's not like they're doingdifferent things, but they are
doing different things, you knowanyway how would you explain?

(48:11):
Yeah.

So I have a story so great example I've been
consulting a new nonprofit forthe last year and they have an
incredible mission and impact,right, so there's, there's these
old uh guys.
They're dying off now.
Um, I don't want that to soundinsensitive, but they are these

(48:33):
legendary uh sort of specialoperators who accomplished this
kind of like uh, this manual uh,that's still used in the
military today.
It's called MACV SOC, but theseguys are like some of the most
capable killers in the lasthundred years for this country
and this organization had anopportunity to invite and

(48:56):
interview, like a lot of thelast living ones and so
incredible, like, like you knowopportunity and you immediately
are like man, what do we need todo to make sure this is told?

right, yeah, right like you're not going to get
another chance yeah.

So they had a ultra limited budget, but I knew
the severity of, like thisproblem that they had that if
you're going to be invitingthese guys who are like dying
and they this is like the lastopportunity to tell these
stories.
You don't want to mess it upand this is a great point in the
whole arbitrary number of videoproduction.

(49:34):
So they could only pay for oneof my dps to go up and he's like
my most competent dp, right.
But everybody has a limit.
And so we had him drive up withbecause they wanted to run two
sets and I I like highlyencouraged him not to run two
sets.
I was like you have one guy whoknows what he's doing on set.

(49:56):
You have another guy who's ahobbyist, right, who says, who
says that he can kind of monitora set, and then you have nobody
else who has any grip, you knowexperience or anything, and yet
you want to light two sets andI was like, don't do it, they
did it anyway.
So my buddy gets up there andhe's like, oh, we're doing it

(50:19):
and I'm like, all right, do youjust give it your best shot?
But like tell them right now,you're not liable if any like
cards get corrupted if any mediais lost.
So they were using yourequipment to make two sets two
sets, yeah, so I I sent upenough equipment for for two
sets, simultaneously, with twointerviewers and um, so he drove

(50:39):
up all this stuff.
He ended up setting up bothsets and breaking down both sets
by himself like longest dayever for one guy, um two days of
recording.
But it's a miracle that it's anabsolute miracle that nothing
went wrong, because batteriescould have died, microphones
could have went out, um, youknow, you don't have like an
audio engineer listening,monitoring sound levels, um,

(51:03):
lights could have.
We could have blown a light,like just there are, there are
like a thousand things that cango wrong on a video production
set, that have gone wrong on mysets, and to have like one
person like playing all thesejobs is actually a massive
liability to losing what you,what your entire investment in

(51:26):
your reputation.

Yeah.

Right, and so it's like, yeah, that was maybe
like a $3,000 job or somethingall in, but it's like it could
cost you 20,.
You know easily doing it Right.

I do that.
That I did.
I did multiple interviews in2024, which is what I'm saying,
the contrast of it.
I had multiple days where itwas just me, fifteen hundred
dollars, that you know,multi-camera and just interview,
and obviously we still kill itat them.
But then I had like multiplefifty thousand days, same thing,
literally talking head, yeah,and, funny enough, you get paid

(52:02):
more because we have, uh, setupdays where all we do is set up.
That's the difference, right,versus on the cheaper job.
You come in, you have to set up, you have to record, you have
to film, you have to check soundand you go now on the higher
end set, we have a setup day andthen the on the actual
interview we have people, soundperson, right camera person,
camera person, the cameras arebetter.
And whoever says cameras don'tmatter, they totally matter.

(52:26):
Now, obviously they don'tmatter in that low level, but
they do matter at the high level.
The skin tone we had Alexa MiniLFs oh my goodness, with Coke
lenses.
It looked so beautiful, socreamy.
Anyway, point is.
And then you, you know thepeople look good.
And then what?
Anyway, the and I had multiplesof those, I even held a buddy,
um, do one of those anyway.

(52:47):
And then you know, you put abig source, you put like an
eight by eight.
Uh, the people look good.
People with glasses don't havereflections.
The point I'm trying to make issame thing, not the problem.
The difference is when you lookat this footage, the first
footage, incredible.
You know, $1,500, incredibletalking heads.
I can show a bunch of examplesof those and they look good.
But then you look at those andthey look like, oh, they

(53:10):
couldn't be on Netflix, theycouldn't be on you know, disney
or wherever.
Like, there's a leveldifference.
But that's why it costs and itwasn't just me.
I can't take credit for it,because it's a whole team of
people that it takes and a wholeload of equipment and time and,
like you said, liability.
You need people there because ifyou break one of those lenses,
that's 40 grand and they'realways rented nobody, most

(53:32):
people don't own them and it'ssilly to own them because you
know we're changing lenses allthe time on those type of jobs.
But can you imagine breaking a40 50 000 lens and a 50 000
camera?
And we had two of each, uh, soit's like you could easily break
, you know, a couple hundredthousand dollars if you just tip
over slightly on a dana dolly.
You know it's, it's pointless.
You bring competent operatorsbecause you don't want just

(53:55):
anyone handling that level ofequipment, because it's a
liability as a productioncompany owner, because if
anything's broken it's on me,not on you know, uh, the people
that I bring.
So I have to make sure that Ibring the right, right people,
uh, but yeah, but like, but atthe end technical interviews,
but vastly different time andsetup requirements and right.

(54:17):
That's why you build themdifferently too you don't build
them the same.
You don't bill them the samebecause you don't put in the
same.
I don't know.

Well, like, for instance, I mean for me, I've
always called it redundancy, soyou know, a DIT having a DIT on
set.
Well, what's the difference?
Who's this guy that I don'teven know what they do?
Or this guy or girl that, like,what's a DIT?
Right, it's like, it's like avery valuable position Talk

(54:47):
about.

Here's the story I want to talk about DIT, the
same shoot.
Funny enough, I'm talking aboutmy buddy, very good guy.
I would love, love to have himon a shoot.
He asked me to come help him uma shoot.
I think it was philadelphia.
I'm gonna say philly.
Sorry, it's been a six, eightmonths so I would say philly.
So, yeah, I flew there.
Very high-end interview.
Same thing cook lenses.

(55:07):
I think we had minis, notmillion lf, sorry, very nice.
So he spared no expense.
It was a very good shoot, yeah,and I was helping with lighting
and audio.
He had his own dp, so I wasn'tdeeping that, but some point
between them.
So, like I said, I take noresponsibility lighting and
sound was me db, but they didn'thave a dit.
It's so funny.
We had like all expenses paid,meaning like not like very high

(55:32):
end, I would say interview setup.
That's all we did.
Uh, because they had adifferent agency doing the
actual event.
But, funny enough, between thefirst DP and his I guess, second
cam op or whatever, some kindof disconnect happened.
I don't care whose blame it is,but at some point one interview
is lost and there's no way toever get it back Because the

(55:52):
card, you know, because thedirector was having to dump the
cards because we didn't have DITmy buddy.
So at some point, because thedirector was having to dump the
cards because we didn't have ditmy buddy, so at some point the
card was given to him.
That was like oh, it's beendumped, okay, yeah, you know,
here it goes back.
All right, clear the card.
And you know, alex says youhave to format every time, every
interview.
You can't just keep doing itlike these small mirrorless
cameras.
Point is, at some point a cardwas deleted and now it's too

(56:15):
late because we only get onechance with these people, right.
The people that wereinterviewing them telling their
emotional story.
They're crying Like you can'tjust repeat that Point is an
interview is fully lost and willnever be recovered because
somebody mistakenly thought thecard had been dumped and cleared
it and a DIT would have been alifesaver.
And I was like, oh my goodness,why is there not a DIT have

(56:36):
been a lifesaver?
And I was like, oh my goodness,why is there not a?

DIT.
Weren't they worth a $750 a day?
Then, brother, yeah, exactly.

Maybe we didn't have that budget, I don't know.
Obviously I would love to havemy buddy here and talk through
the situation, because he knowsthe budget right.
I don't, but either way, I sawfirsthand.
I was like holy crap, now theonly thing I always have a DIT.
So yeah, so very important tohave a DIT on those type of sets
.

And it's and like that's how you build trust with
your, your prospective clientsin your community.
You, you build trust by doingand delivering jobs consistently
.
And you know, sometimes yourclients see things go wrong.
But, like, if you're like, oh,I built in redundancy for that
and here's what we did andhere's how we pivoted right and
everything's good to go, they'regonna be like, oh, okay, like
glad I hired you guys.

So, yeah, redundancy is everything you
know, and that's why you cancharge more, because you can be
like look, I'm the reliable guy.

Yeah, you have to , because it costs more well,
like that's the reason in thebeginning, we went from one
camera to two cameras.
That's the reason we went fromone cf express type a to two cf
express type a's right, andthose are four hundred dollar
cards or eight hundred dollarcards, right and so.
And then you have your bodies,like five thousand to ten

(57:51):
thousand, and then you have youroperators who need a monitor.
Then you have your sound and doyou have two?
You have a lav and you have ashotgun, and who's monitoring
both of those?
And you know, because when youstart saying, hey, you can do
both those jobs, right to yourvideo operator, it's like yeah,
but then yeah, but then cut inhalf their attention span and

(58:14):
it's not the operator.

A lot of people think, oh, not a good, no
operator is good, you justdivide their attention in half
and you don't want to do that.
And anytime your budget, um,you know you can have a
dedicated sound guy and a and acamera guy.
They're going to do a betterjob than not saying I mean,
nowadays we're expected to doboth sound and camera a lot of
times, yes, can a cameraoperator do that absolutely, but

(58:36):
they have half their attentionhere.
Half their attention hereclearly doesn't mean that they
can get it perfect.
You know because reality, youknow so.
So, yeah, but no, the costs addup.
You you're saying it exactlyhow I think.
Sometimes.
I'm so glad you know we talk,because it's like you're
thinking exactly what I'mthinking because you know all
these costs add up, and that's.
You're thinking exactly whatI'm thinking Because you know

(58:58):
all these costs add up.
And that's why you're the rightchoice, because you're
accounting for all that andthat's what I want people to
know.
It's very easy to charge morebecause, as long as you take
care of the client, you figureout all the problems that could
go wrong and are ready to solvethem on set because they will go
wrong Quite literally, like twodays ago I was on set where
they will go wrong, quiteliterally, like two days ago,

(59:18):
like I was on set where, um, wedid the audio.
Day one went great.
Day two the audio doesn't work,in the morning it's crazy and
the the, the thing is happening.
There's nothing we can dobecause you know it's not like
the.

Again it's an event, it's live production yeah
, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's like oh, gotta scramble to figure it out,
which we did, thank goodnessand then guess, then guess what.
Day three happened again andI'm like, come on this AV people
that were giving us soundRemember, we're not responsible
for sound, responsible forbringing it in, but anyway, yeah
, so what I'm like?
So I'm glad I'm here because Ican solve this problem, but I'm
running like a chicken everymorning for the first 15 minutes

(59:55):
trying to figure out whathappened.
Now, it should be the samesignal.
What are they doing in theirbackend to fix it?
And then somehow, last daythree, we ended up with two XLR
cables from their team and I'mlike, which one is it?
And nobody knows.
So it's like, you know, likethis event, like I can't not
record it Anyway.
So, yeah, so that's why we werepaid.

(01:00:16):
I'm like, yes, could they haveanyone there to hit record?
Yes, but why I am there is tosolve this problem.

Jacob Centeno (01:00:22):
Cause, cause, the competent people are not really
competent, cause this is a bigAV company and that's why you
that's what freelancers orcontractors are really great for
is problem solving, because youknow is problem solving,
because you know we.
There are some bad contractorsout there who don't care about
solving problems.
But you know I I've seen a lotof those just like bigger
companies, who like pay hourly,they really don't care that you

(01:00:47):
know the signal's gone and thatit might be a bad cable and that
they have to run downstairs toget a new one, like they'll just
sit on that.
You know they'll walk slowly.
Contractors, it's like we haveequity, we have, we have
incentive to make sure that thisgoes off to the best it
possibly can it's our reputation.
Yeah, you know and that we wayover delivered and overperformed

(01:01:09):
, that we saved the day right,and so, yeah, that's definitely
just a random little thought Ihad like no, that's very smart.

Vipul Bindra (01:01:16):
Uh, like I said, I have my opinion.
I think we think very like andwhich is why the other thing I
was going to ask you.
So, so we had another highlevel conversation, so we met.
Then, uh, funny enough, wehaven't collaborated.
I would love to collaboratewith you on a project, but then
the next time we spoke I thinkit was in a coffee shop you hit
me up what was going through andthen you know because I know we

(01:01:37):
were talking about retainerclients and everything uh, do
you remember any of that?
That talk that?
we had, I remember being veryhigh level that that was one of
my these talks that led to thesewhere I was like, oh, we should
have recorded it because wewere talking about, like, um,
you know, social media contentand, uh, you know, retainer
clients it was just very justvery high level.
I was like this is so good.

Yeah, so I do remember two of the big moves
you were having, and thenactually I did try to get you to
help out on a job with ColeHauser.
Oh, yeah, I remember that thatdidn't pan out.
Just the nature of celebritiesworking with celebrities, but we
.
I remember two things we talkedabout, which was one?

(01:02:19):
Uh, we were.
We were talking about retainers, but you were talking about
like an entirely new businessmodel that you wanted to scale
for orlando and I was like dude,that's not gonna work no, it
didn't work.

It didn't work.
That's okay.
By the way, I own my successand I own my failures.
That's okay.
We tried, though yeah, that didnot work.
That was a monster of an idea.

No, it was a monster, it was a crazy idea and
you know what I found?

what killed it.
So we we gave it full shot.
We had actual, actual payingclients, right?
right right so no, me and Ithink emmanuel did it, who's
been on the podcast.
So anyway, like I said, we wentout.
Uh, we killed it.
I talked to you about it.
The idea was to make make anentire month of content, and I
mean every single day.
Most people come here and theysay you know, we make a month of
content, it's three times 12,you know, like 12 pieces of

(01:03:06):
content, whatever, three times aweek.
My idea was every single daythere will be something photo or
video to post for 30 or 31 daysin the month, whatever number
of days.
And we'll do it for like anabsolutely crazy price.
And you know, the idea was toget people long-term retainers
and the idea was to build a team.
Now, could I do it?

(01:03:26):
No, obviously, at my rate, thatwould not work financially for
my company.
But I was like, if I can builda team around it these young
creators who are really good atsocial media content they're not
good at the long-form contentthat we do.
It was like, if I build thisright team, the perfect team, at
the right rates, we can execute.

(01:03:47):
I had the whole business modelworked out.
However, here's what I did, inpicture that I built years and
years Binder Productions to bethe Ferrari, a form of video
production, right, right, and soI.
The clients they wereapproaching and I realized all
these people that I hiredweren't good at sales.
They were doing theseold-school strategies of calling

(01:04:08):
and door knock and I was likeyeah it's not how you do sales
anyway, at least to me.
And then I was like my sales are, you know, these boots on the
ground, shake hand, networking,yeah.
But so when I tried to do anysales, I remember having this
conversation.
Finally, I think what put finalnail in the coffin was, yeah, I
, I talked to one of my clientsand we're having this high level
conversation and talked aboutum, the program, and I was like

(01:04:31):
look for, you know this newprogram 1k, we can make you a
whole month of social content.
And they were like whoa, thissounds incredible.
We've been thinking aboutgetting a testimonial.
You know what are your ratesfor those?
I was like, well, I don't knowagain, you know blind kid.
I was like we could do atypical one, four to seven k
roughly.
And they were like, okay, let'sdo it.
And I was like, okay, well, letme send you a proposal, let's

(01:04:52):
make it happen.
Then I'm like I just try to tosell them 1K for 30 pieces of
content.
They completely ran past thatand here they easily were
willing to pay me 4 to 7K for atestimonial.
Same half day shoot, edit andthen done Because the shoot was
half day for the whole month ofcontent.
Point I'm trying to make is Iwas like I'm in the wrong space.

(01:05:14):
How much I want this to succeed.
For me, that wasn't the rightmarket, because people don't
want to give me 1k, they want togive me 7k.
So I finally was like, okay,well, I will take more money.
I was trying to offer you acheaper solution, uh, but I will
happily be the higher andbetter solution.
Um, and that was for me thefinal thing, like look, people

(01:05:35):
don't want to buy cheap thingsfor me, they want to buy higher
end stuff, which is fine.
I'm happy for it.
I was just trying to get offfor market a lower end product.
Uh, I think bender productionswas the wrong company to do it
from, which is my own undoing.
I think that's what killed it.
But anyway, what was youropinion?
I want to know your side of it,uh, because clearly you were
right.
Um, what made you think that?

(01:05:55):
And uh, yeah, the whole thingyeah, I mean.

So it's all about like pipeline, like you would
have had.
It's kind of like you said,like bendra is different, it
would.
It would have had to been likeyou know, monthly media
productions like 30 for 30,right, or like the company name
would have had to been like theproduct or service.
And then you would have had toyeah, right idea, get a bunch of
full cell grads who can dophoto video even today, like ai

(01:06:24):
generation, like totally easy toget 30 days of content right.
And then, if you haveprocedures, standard operating
procedure for you know five kidsthat can do five clients each
right.
Now you're looking at 25clients, okay, now we're
bringing in 25 K a month, right,and their time is managed

(01:06:44):
pretty efficiently.
So, yeah, your pipeline is good, but then you need sales.
To get 25 who are playing one K, your sales has to be almost
50% of your strength and yourcompany, so it's like building.
I mean it can be done yeah no, Icompletely agree with you.

I I obviously I worked out the business model
before and the sops before Iever, ever reached the and then
I had the numbers.
I think I sorry it's been longyou remember?
I think you said 50.
Yeah, whatever it was.
I had a number.
I was like, yeah, this is thenumber we reached and we're good
.
You know, we had a minimumnumber too, which is like if we
reach this number, it's abreak-even point, and then this

(01:07:23):
number is we're good.
And that was my goal to build.
I was trying to build passiveincome, unfortunately that
didn't work.
I have to be active in thebusiness.
I've learned my lesson.
I will still try for more otherthings.
You know, we're entrepreneurs,we can't just sit still.
But my idea was to finally usethis brain to build a video
company that worked on its own,you know, and I was just gonna

(01:07:43):
hire leaders because I even hada leader.
I had somebody who was gonnalead the team.
I wasn't, I was gonna justbuild it and then step out.
That was the goal with thatright.
But, like you said, I think thethe.
In my opinion, the bad move isjust the branding, because the
branding had to go through aseparate company yeah and going
through binder productions,which I thought would be a help

(01:08:04):
because you know we have uhexisting uh you know reputation
and you know, and clientslocally.
But I think what it did was harmit because it was like, oh, we
want higher end content, yeah,uh, which is fine.
Like I said, I'm happy to dowhat I do with bindra, but that
that whole thing didn't work,which is fine.
Like I said, I'm so glad Ididn't go into the social media

(01:08:24):
space, the cheap I should saycheap social media content space
yeah, um, uh, but no, like Isaid, you're right, that's a
great way to put it cheap.

Social media space like, like you, a lot, of,
a lot of performers likeworking alongside performers,
right, so if you hold yourselfto a certain standard, you
typically hold the people youwork with to a certain standard,
and so it's really hard tochange your like inside.
At least for me, it is to belike okay, okay, I like working

(01:08:58):
with you know midsize companies,right, like a hundred people,
50, a hundred people, 250 people, and I know that these size
companies have like a directorof comms or user experience,
like executives, c-suite orsomething Right, and then below

(01:09:18):
them they have some social orthey have some marketing or
comms, right, and they typicallycan help manage the
relationship or manage theposting of your content and
stuff like that.
But as you service smallerbusiness businesses right, like
like local, family owned, thereare more of the people who are
like posting, you know, fivetimes, seven times a week or 21

(01:09:39):
times a week, right, three timesa day, and it's it's just.
It's different when you'reworking with these midsize
companies and products andservices out there who are
incredible, that you love, thatdo incredible things, um, they
are not interested in like your21 pieces a week Like they're
more interested in bespoke,premium, beautiful, competitive

(01:10:04):
against their competitors, looksincredible, communicates their
message well that they can bragabout, that they can tell their
clients about.
And so they're not reallylooking like they have sales
operations, they have marketingoperations.
They they're out there likespending money everywhere else.
They they don't.
You know they're not interestedin like getting sales or

(01:10:26):
clients through social media.
Like they're.
They make the 20, 50, a hundredthousand dollar video and then
they prospect, you know severalmillion dollars with it, right
thousand dollar video and thenthey prospect you know several
million dollars with it, right.
Or they sell a new project formillions of dollars for the next
two years and then they doanother one exactly.

So, yeah, and then that's the space I was in
before and obviously have stayedthere since.
And, uh, did you know 2024 wasa record year for me?
It's awesome.
So but, like I said that, Ithink it was 23.
When I did that, beginning of 23or mid 23, I think it was as a
good lesson, uh, because, um,sometimes you know the business

(01:11:07):
strategy that you can fullyformulate the numbers and
everything.
And, like I said, build sopsaround it doesn't mean the
market is ready for it.
You know what I mean?
And um, and the the funny thingis, like I said, I main thing
for me was look, people arehappy to pay me.
I'm increasing my revenue.
Let me just keep doing what I'mdoing great and build upon that

(01:11:27):
and, um, instead of trying tobuild this low level product for
these low level businesses oror not low level, but you know
people, businesses with thattype of budget, because, at the
end of the day, there's alreadyevery year hundreds of graduates
coming out of full sale and ucfwilling to fulfill that market
where they'll take that bottomlevel jobs, not that I want them

(01:11:50):
to, I want them to take higher,you know, make more money.
That's the point of thispodcast.
But either way, I, like I saidit, was those new businesses.

That's what they're looking for, those small
businesses they like,oftentimes their first.
You know I get this all thetime but like, hey, we're kind
of looking for like a hobbyist,you know, a hobbyist who it's
like dude, it doesn't reallyexist, like yeah hey, do you
know somebody who, like, hastheir evenings free, that could
you know?
do this on the side for a coupleof hours?
Like yeah, that's that's thegrads, right, like that's their

(01:12:20):
market, that's what they havethe capacity to do, and the key
thing is they do not have likethe overhead, the expenses, the
risk, the liability that I haveright.
Yeah, we have a lot more yeah,so to be able to.

And then that fits because, like you said, they're
, they don't.
They don't need that fancyequipment, they don't need that
experience because they are verygreen.
But if that's what the businessdemands, then that's what it is
and, like I said, it was fun.
The good thing is there was notmoney invested into it, it was
time right and it was my timeand Emmanuel's time, and I think

(01:12:53):
we learned quite a bit from it.
What I also did love was itstrengthened my, uh, belief in
what I was doing because, um,you know, ultimately what I
wanted to offer was initially,when I started the company, was
to offer people high levelproduction at prices they could
afford.
Not that I wanted to do cheapproduction, but I wasn't here

(01:13:13):
trying to do, you know,multi-million dollar Super Bowl
commercials either.
I was like I want to bring thelike you said that mid typical
my clients.
I do have some Fortune 50companies as my clients, but
most of my clients are those midto small businesses and I want
to offer them better productionthan they had access to.
At least when I started.
That was the goal in 2018.

(01:13:35):
At least when I started, right,that was the goal in 2018.
And to 23 was, in that way, avery good year for me because I
had to.
You know, look back and be likemy mission is good.
It's still working.
It doesn't need to change Causeyou know it's been five years,
you go.
Why do I need to do different?
Do I need to change my businessmodel and stuff and and it was

(01:13:55):
good to go.
You know what?
uh, it's working yeah it'sworking better than ever.
Yeah, so we need to just doubledown on what we're good at and,
uh, and you know, like I said,that's why the revenue increase
happened in 2024 and it was, uh,totally worth it.
But you have to kind of realizethat, hey, my initial vision
worked because it was good.

(01:14:16):
That's what the market wantsand it still wants it.
And, like I said, you know me,I'm trying new things with the
van right, I'm always tryingsomething different, so we'll
see how that goes.
What about you?
What are you trying to dodifferent this year?

Yeah, so I'm building a one ton grip package
as well.
It's just something that I'vewanted to do and we haven't had
a super demand.
But we had two projects lastyear where we ended up having to
to use like everything we hadand I was like, dude, we needed
more um and and those.

That's kind of what I'm building for, so do you
think it's worth it, since it'sonly two yeah, are you, are you
going to be able to get any ROIout of it, or is it worth it
just to rent it that two timesBecause it'd be one thing, you
know.
If you're like, okay, 20 timeswe needed it.
But two times is the ROI there,Because a lot of this stuff is
hard to get rid of.
Like good luck getting rid of atriple riser rolling baby.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, getting rid of a triple riser rolling baby,
yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it'sfunny.
In central florida the marketis one of one who already has it
, so I don't know.

Yeah, no, I'm going to dc tomorrow to pick up
two triple risers.

Really see that's funny, you're going to dc to
pick it up.

That's so little little tip, um, you know,
because I'm I'm kind of donespending money for a while, but
there's an auction up in DC, anauction house.
We have them, they're allaround the country, but DC has a
lot of broadcast companies thatare going out of business and
liquidating, and so this is mysecond auction that I've gone up
and basically like pillagedyeah.

No, auctions are great, especially group gear,
because that's one thing I dotell people camera and lighting
equipment terrible investmentsthey will go outdated six months
a year, six months yeah, andthen.
But audio equipment, especiallythe microphones themselves,
because you know, recorders, Iget it, they still come out, but
like microphones, 40 yearslater, top microphones are still

(01:16:15):
the top microphones.
And then grip gear, c-stand isthe same, c-stand from 30 years
ago yeah, so you're good like ifyou buy, especially a good
brand like avenger or you know,not avenger american, american
or matthews, yeah any of thegood stuff, or modern, you know.
Uh, does modern make c-stands?
I don't even know.
But you know anyway, any ofthese top three three companies,

(01:16:36):
anything from modern, matthewsor american, you're gonna.
It's gonna last you a lifetimeyou never have to buy again.
It's never gonna get old.
They're not redesigning themevery year.
So, like you said, like option,it's probably gonna be the same
as what you buy brand new, so,uh, so that's pretty smart, but
how are you gonna?
You're gonna drive it back,because good luck flying with it
.
I'm driving it, yeah.

That makes more sense.

Is.
Was it that cheap that it'sworth to drive from DC?

Yeah.
So, like I got my, I got mycombos.
I got two triple risers, onefor 170 and one for 130.

Okay, that's pretty cheap.

And then I got like a 12 by 12 butterfly like a
Matthews, with diffusion forlike a matthews with diffusion
for like uh 250 or somethingokay, that's really good yeah
and then I got some c.

I just picked up some c stands for fun and that's
awesome some other stuff yeah,okay, so it's not just a yeah,
so you're gonna basically get aa decent amount of grip.

Then it makes sense to drive down okay for me,
I just I enjoy the drive likeit's fine, it's 12 hours, but
like and it's, it's like, likeif you, if you add my 1500 day
rate, it makes no sense at all.
But um, for me it's just like.
Like I love investing in mycapabilities, which you probably

(01:17:49):
do too it's it's like hey, wecan fly a 12 by 12 and an 8 by 8
.
We can?
You know, we can fly by coloror r like it's capabilities.
Like you love being able to sayhey, we, we could do this, we
can, we could do this incrediblevibe, like we could throw a
snood on and make a backgroundpop or whatever.
And and I think I I lovebringing that to my clients,

(01:18:12):
like saying hey, here's whatelse we can do or have you
thought of this and so, yeah, solike.
one of the weirdest, probablydumbest, investments I've made
over the last several years is Ibought two you know those Ari
Tungsten kits with the silvercases that were like $3,000 each
.
Right, yeah, not anymore, no,no Like 50 bucks now.
Yeah.

If somebody wants it, I mean I would love to have
one Dude.
I mean I would love to have oneDude, I work.

Because it's just a pretty little thing I know I
would love to just have one,maybe just to put back there.

Because I was literally talking, val.
I think I had this conversationon the podcast where I was
talking about hot lights man.
I don't remember the last timeI remember never being able to
be on set without gloves.
I don't remember the last timeI put on gloves at a set.
It's been that long.
It's crazy how our industryjust changed, and especially for

(01:19:05):
what we do.
I still think they use stillsome stuff M40s or whatever.

Yes, the M18s and all those.

But for what we do , the corporate and commercial
work there is no need for hotlights anymore at all Except on
music videos.
Music videos really like thelook Just like you want to prop
it up right here.
Yeah, but music videos don'thave a budget, no right, exactly
so free.

They want it, but we're not making any money.
Exactly.

They'll give you hey, I've got a deal of a
lifetime.
Can you shoot my music videoand and it's?
You can edit it too, and you'relucky, I'll pay you 300 bucks
oh my, yeah, that's the type ofcalls music videos people get.
I'm like I don't know how yousurvive.
I can't wait to have my buddy.
Um, I have a friend, uh, who'snot going to be on this season,
but I can't wait to have him onnext season because he does

(01:19:57):
high-end music videos.
I want to bring somebody herewho actually is from the
industry, who can come talkabout it, because I'm telling
you, even at the high level itain't good.
So I want somebody who's atthat level filming for top
artists, can still come tell.
Like music video industry isterrible, like for money-making.
You go in there because youlove the art, yeah, but most

(01:20:19):
people aren't like making a goodliving doing music videos, even
though they're very funcreatively.
Having done a few myself, I'mlike I love it but then you make
no money from it at all.

Yeah, I mean, that's why most of those guys
who are kind of still in thathollywood era or mtv music video
patronage era, they had, theyfigured out how to diversify and
so they not only buy their uhmini lf right or their red
rafter, but they they rent it.

(01:20:49):
It sits at a rental house whenit's not working.
They um own a studio space thatthey lease out to small time
creators throughout the month.
They sell stock footage right.
They have literally a libraryof like 10,000 clips on on stock
.
There's just like those guys.
They kind of they gotincredibly creative with

(01:21:11):
multiple streams of income andthat's why they still are
fighting to this day, right.

But you had to do that right because that was the
only way to make a killer living, because before what 10, 15
years ago?
Corporate video wasn't even athing.

No, right, it is only yeah five, five years yeah,
even then.

I mean 10 years ago, yeah, but maybe five years
before then, yeah, it's likeyour choices were those limited.
And then the hollywood track iseven more crazy.
Uh, because you know you haveto go through so much political
nonsense and all that.
I mean they have an advantageyou've union, you've set rates
if you join one, so you knowyou're not worried about rates
and stuff.

(01:21:51):
You know they're already kindof decided for you, at least
below the line, yeah.
But again, there's too muchpolitical nonsense in in
hollywood that you have to gothrough.
But this is new avenue andthat's why I'm like I want
listeners to know you can make akiller living.
You're a prime example of thatbuilding a company pulling in
over 300k of revenue and andwith that and that's with six

(01:22:15):
months of content, I can't waitfor your hopefully 2025 to be
fully booked and that would bedouble minimum and that's crazy
to think about that.
You can pull that type of numberjust doing video, which is a
creative endeavor, but you canmake money from it as long as
you are smart and you offer theright solutions.

Yeah, well, what I've found out is that 250 000 a
year is with inflation is thenew 40k.

yeah, that is true .
I still remember, dude oh, youdon't talk about 100.
Okay, so I came to america 2010.
I would say my first uh videoexperience at real would be 2012
, where I was trying to dofreelance video while I worked
at disney wow, so that's whatI'm saying.
So this is me, you know young,because you know when you go I'm
gonna change the world anyway Iwould love to see a picture of

(01:23:05):
oh, you don't want to see I lookso skinny anyway, but but the
point is so I'm working atdisney, you know I which I
finally, I had a good job atthat point.
When you start terrible rightbut at least I had a good job at
disney that was paying my bills.
I did video.
On the side point is I was likedreaming.
I was like one day if I couldjust make six figures, dude the

(01:23:26):
homes were so cheap 100.
I was like if I could be youknow.
But and that's why I want tobreak this barrier so many
people get so hyped up about sixfigures.
Yeah, it's nothing nowadays, nowith inflation, because I was
like, if I could only make 100k,my life would be set dude.
Right now 100k, but also like,like you said, it's like the new
10k but yeah, and revenue rightlike, revenues like different

(01:23:47):
than profit, that too yeah, likeprofit.

I I don't know what I know, but inflation's
crazy.

But tell me if that's true.
I remember going to walmartlike this it's so vivid in my
brain Going to Walmart, whichwas stupid.
I was a young, single guy.
You know, first time ever beingon my own and you know what I
bought.
I did the right thing.
You know your parents go to the.
We have to buy eggs, milk,bread.
So I'm Walmart Pop-Tarts no, no, I at pop tarts.

(01:24:19):
Then, remember, I'm new toamerica.
I am in walmart with my cartbuying milk, eggs and you know,
bread, shit that I was nevergonna eat, but I didn't know
that.
Then I'm just going with people, buy groceries.
So I'm just literally like, andthat's too.
I was just first time on my own, you know.
I'm just like, oh, this is whatpeople buy, so I gotta put some
eggs, milk.
Then I go, I don't fuckingdrink milk.
Why am I anyway?
But that realization came later.
Point is but that whole cartlike I'm talking cart full of

(01:24:39):
shit was 20 bucks or something,and this is not that long ago.
This is like 2010,.
I'm talking.
And now, good luck, I go toWalmart, I buy two things.
It's over 100 bucks.
So, anyway, inflation's crazy.
Point is six figures don't meananything.
100.

(01:25:02):
100k is nothing nowadays, atleast in central florida.
It may still matter if you'rein a smaller tier two, tier,
three town and that you can havea good life where you know your
rent isn't that high.

but out here 100k very hard to survive or or at
least have a good life.
Oh yeah, any metro area is anymetro.
You know dc new york like, oryou know los angeles like, or
anything coastal for that matterin california.
Um, anything within 40 minutesof the coastline like 100k is.
Honestly, it won't last you toolong, it's not livable and and
it's it's crazy, yeah, theinflation is crazy, so you got

(01:25:30):
to shoot higher.

But the point is you can go charge clients easily
.
Um, you know, if you, if you'retrying to be a dp which is
harder, I think, because there'sa sea of dps, but but as long
as you're good, you can gocharge 1200, 1500, 2000 day
rates.
But and then if you're aproduction company, there's
nothing stopping you from goingand trying to sell 5, 10k videos

(01:25:51):
, and there's so many companiesthat will happily pay for it.
As long as you have the rightsolution, right, the offer
matters, I think yeah, I think,something that you know.

We're in the era of communications where it's
changing from.
You know it used to only behigh level production where you
needed 10 jobs on set and nowyou have companies that are
requesting like ugc level.
You know, iphone or actioncamera, uh, like quality of

(01:26:24):
content and uh, with dji micsright and slip howls and magnets
and stuff and so but, but andso I have a lot of dps getting
discouraged, like I see a lot ofdps are that are like um, dude,
where's the work going?
Like people aren't pricing mein anymore.
Even my dp is like I hate thelandscape.

(01:26:46):
All my buddies who are in showsor tv or what broadcast or
whatever they are like it's.

It's really uh, glim, right and and I think
that's why you gotta evolve,right, yeah, because, yes, yeah,
you have to change with themarket.
You're absolutely right.
Here's what I've noticed thetrend in the industry.
In 2010, I could have stillcharged a 1500 day rate.
I could have brought a cameraand shot the video given them,

(01:27:14):
and they would have had to havea sound guide, a gaffer grip
whatever right it wasn't.
Now they'll happily give me thesame 1500, but now I have to do
sound lighting, uh, stands, gripeverything and guess what?
That 1500 doesn't mean as muchas it did back in the, so the
rates aren't really going down,but the value of that money is
barely anything.
And now you're expected to do10x the work than you were back

(01:27:38):
in the day, and which also meansit's hard to survive, and
especially if you were somebodylike in the traditional media
who was making those day rates.
Now goes what I got to learn,because you know, if you're not
flexible, you're like I don'twant to learn sound, I don't
want to learn lighting, orwhatever.

(01:28:05):
And then you go.

You know, know you don't want to be that
dinosaur either, which is hard,I get it, but it's like you have
to change with the environment.
Uh, you know, because that'sjust how it's changing.
Yeah, the realization jobs arebeing removed every year.
So don't think like, oh, youknow, um, my dp job is what is

(01:28:29):
great this year.
It won't be removed in thefuture.

Like no, like trust me, like yeah, you don't
you don't know what the futurecould bring, and that's why you
need to widen your skill set,you need to better your network
and better your reach, becausethe truth is, everyone calls
themselves a dp, at least inthis town, where we produce
hundreds of graduates every day,right, every year, sorry.

(01:28:52):
And so you have to basicallystand out and you have to be
good at your craft, because,guess what, anytime I'm trying
to hire and tell me if younotice this when you actually
start to look at these people,you go it's hollow, it's like
they don't know, they don't havethe skills or the knowledge.

It's like they're being educated in college on
the old landscape.
That doesn't work, it's in thelandscape.
Today is changing like monthly.

Funny enough in the group today is changing like
monthly.
Yeah, funny enough.
In the group.
I'll sometimes post I'm like,hey, I need somebody for this
job and I'll get 10 replies orwhatever in my dms and I'm like,
perfect, you know a lot ofoptions, issues where I'm like,
okay, um, you know, I'm lookingfor this is this?
Do you have any experience?
Relevant experience no, I'venever been on a video set before
.
Okay, so done.
Well, I mean, I don't mindteaching people, but like this

(01:29:37):
is a paid job, I can't bring youas a dp, maybe a bts guy or
whatever not dp, right anyway,or come for free.
Yeah, exactly, come for free.
Yeah, exactly as long as youknow, we can vet you, and
they're they're not gonna.
That's still us teaching you,right exactly but then you go to
the next one and then it's likeoh yeah, I've been on video guy
for years.
And then you go to the.
I was like okay, that's great,I see content on your page.

(01:29:58):
Have you lit any scene ever?
No, I don't work with lighting.
I don't do that.
I'm like you're not a DP thenYou're a camera operator.
Skip, you know what I mean.
So it becomes like a processand I'm like and you not in a
group, learning from other filmwhat they're going through,

(01:30:20):
because it's like you have toalso work on your craft.
You didn't get there becauseyou just got out of your seat
and said I'm going to be a videoguy.
You perfected your craft, youmade hundreds of videos and then
you try to build your companyand you found success.
So what I'm saying is peopleare also trying to find shortcut
to your craft.
The only shortcut there is andtell me if I'm wrong is you can

(01:30:43):
hire somebody who has good craft.
They can come to you and belike hey, I've got a good
project, jacob, will you pleaseDP for me?
I'll give you a rate and thennow you can go charge the client
10K.
You give Jacob $1,500.
You go pay I don't know aneditor 1500 bucks.
You can make 7k.
That I see is doable withouthaving a skill.

(01:31:03):
But if you don't have the skill, I don't know otherwise how
else you can go make the contentyeah, I mean it's interesting.

I don't look at video production like a lot of
these other agency owners outthere who are like you know,
there's there's social mediamanagement agencies SMMA or
there's a lead gen, right, orvideo sales letters via sales,
right, and there's people outthere who are making like
millions, tens of millions ofdollars, $25 million a year, uh,

(01:31:34):
on kind of this arbitrage oflike ads and profit sharing,
right.
But that's not like videoproduction.
And we work in video productionbecause we freaking love it.
Like we love.
We love being able to bringthings to life, to communicate
on behalf of clients, be anintegral part of their
communication, their storypivotal, feel useful, feel

(01:31:57):
appreciated and, at the day,make a livable wage.
And so that's that's why we doit.
But don't think for a secondthat, like you're going to come
in here and like make a lot ofmoney because you're in the
wrong industry, in my opinion.
And if you're like, oh, I wantto get in video production but
I'm just going to hire peoplearound me to do everything, I
think it's not built forlongevity because you, you then

(01:32:21):
can't vet right, like you vettedyour, your dps and your grips
and gaffers and stuff likeyou're.
If a guy's like, yeah, you setup, your she's staying like this
and you know, aim it this wayand like, throw a sandbag on top
like you're gonna be like, yeah, man, looks good to me right,
like if you haven't done itbefore.

I don't know.

So, like in video production, I think you have to
be dangerous, at least in likeone or two things like you have
to be incredibly dangerous, likeyou have to be that person who
has set up a thousand c standsor set up a thousand lights, or
you know, to kind of go out andthen hire and like, hey, hire
editing, hey, hire, yeah forthis, yeah I, I, uh, yeah, a

(01:33:00):
little.

I come kind of agree with most things, but
slightly different.
I do think you can learn um byhiring competitive people.
Yes, that is going to be thehardest thing is to vet um.
You know who to hire because,again, 100 people.
When you say, okay, I don'tknow how to be a dp or I'm not a
good dp, let me go hire a dp.
But then now you find 500options.
You have to be able to pick theright option.

(01:33:22):
But if you're smart enough, Ido think, and you put together a
good crew and obviously thatdoesn't displace learning you
still have to learn then you canon your set learn, because to
me, I make the most money when Itouch no equipment I make my
most money when I interact witha client and I solve their
business problem.
I have an offer.
I go to them and I say, look,let's talk.

(01:33:45):
And then you figure out theirproblem.
And then you give them an offer.
Right, whatever the package isright, hey, here's the
deliverables, whatever, whatever.
And they buy.
And then I go on set, I bringpeople with me, not because I
can't be a gaffer, I can't be aDP, I can do all of those things
, but I want to focus on makingsure that offer is met.
And then they go tell theirfriends and they hire me.

(01:34:06):
So you're absolutely right.
What makes me killer is becauseI can vet all the people that
I'm going to bring with me.
Plus, I trust them.
They're going to make me lookgood and hopefully I can.
But yeah, if I could, if youcan't vet them, as long as you,
you know, be smart and youactually bring in people who are

(01:34:28):
kind of good and then you payattention around, you obviously
solve the client's problem.
But if you look around you andsee, okay, so I know, this is a
good DP, what are they doing?
This is a good, you know goodassistant, what are they doing?
And then and then obviously itdoesn't mean do that all the
time.
You can then go to the samepeople be like.
Hey, thank you for coming out.
Here's your pay.
Next time on your set I wouldlove to come, you know, be your

(01:34:51):
pa and learn what I'm saying isyou can do it.
I think you can do it withouthaving any skills, as long as
you are smart about it.
But there's no replacement forbusiness skills.
No, if you cannot go talk to aclient and solve their problem,
I don't think they can find anysuccess.
Well, I mean, it's going to bevery hard, or otherwise?

I think I was more thinking about the
post-production side.
Right because, like, forinstance, vfx- yeah, you can't
do that.
It's like if you don't, yeah, ifyou don't know vfx, but like we
charge for vfx and motiongraphics, right, but if you're
not dangerous like your editorcould be taking 40 hours a week
to produce something that youare like you don't know, takes

(01:35:32):
two hours to do something,exactly no editors are the bane
of why our companies exist,because finding good editors is
a pain, but once you do, keepthem because, like you said,
that's why I don't like charginghourly.

So tell me so the way I okay.
This is what I figured out witheditors that I'd rather just
give them per project.
For same reason, because Idon't like, even though, yes to
my clients, we build them by thehour sometimes.
So the way I'll do it isinitial project.
I'm just giving you an exampleproject that I would sell to a
client 15K is the better option,you know, good, better, best
pricing.
They take that, they get fourdeliverables, perfect, we film

(01:36:12):
the deliverables, they get thedeliverables, edit price is
included.
But then when we go to either godo something back or whatever
they're like, oh, we want extradivisions or something, then
I'll build them by the hour.
I'll say, okay, it's gonna takeus 10 hours, so 75 or 150 times
, whatever, that's your price.
But then to my editors, I don'tdo that personally, I'd rather

(01:36:33):
go to my editors and I'd be likeokay, so what it's gonna take,
can you do it?
What's the price?
Okay, or sometimes it's theinitial one where where I would
have just given them a price.
Here's the price edit these,because then I'm like I don't
care if they edit in five hoursor they order in 50 hours
because, like you said right,you can be very easily taken
advantage of where somebody goes.

(01:36:54):
Oh yeah, I spent 40 hours onthis.
Now you have no way to know yesunless, at least for you, if you
have somebody you could put inan office, you know what they
worked on, but most of myeditors work from their home.
They're remote, so it's like Idon't know and I'm not going to
put a camera.
That's too much then at thatpoint you're not the type of
person I want to work withanyway.
So you're absolutely right, yougot to be very careful with vfx

(01:37:17):
people, with editors, and youneed to understand their work a
little bit yeah right to knowwhat, know whatever time it
should take when you'reselecting people to hire.
No, you're very smart and see, Iwasn't even thinking that side.
You're absolutely right.
So at least that's how I'vetried to do it.
I just do flat rate based onwhat needs to be done.

(01:37:38):
That was I know that I won't betaken advantage of because I
don't care if you take 50 hours.
I want it done and you agreedto it.
Like I make sure I get there byand before you know we commit to
it and I find that at least itkind of works, especially with
remote people, because you know,and if they can do it faster,
then they can do it faster.
That's on them, that's good forthem.

Yeah, so it's definitely something like you
said.
It's the bane of our existencefiguring it out.
There's software tools outthere, but they're not really
great at storytelling.
Like, you have autopod, whichwill cut a podcast really quick,
but then you still have towatch the whole thing over.
Look at all the mess ups thatit made.
Correct them, watch it overagain, revise it.

(01:38:18):
So there are things out therethat kind of speed up the
workflow of editing.
As you create SOPs for products,right, like oh, we do reels,
then you can offer a competitiveproduct on that and then you
can charge hourly for that.
And so our editors we have twofull-time editors and what works

(01:38:41):
best for them is me presentingcost-effective retainers to my
clients, and so they.
It's a value proposition.
I know how long it takes to getthrough a certain product.
But then we have bespoke rightwhen we it's a headache to get
into Like you have to manage thefootage.
Like you have to go in, youhave to organize it.

(01:39:03):
You have to create the project,you have to, you know, upload
it to the cloud for redundancy.
Then you got to get a versionon frame IO.
Then you got to, you know,render it out rough.
Then you, you know, and allclients have different like
wants and needs, and then it hasto be reviewed by their certain
executive team and stuff.

And 500 people have five different, 100
different opinions on it so.

So editing is when it's bespoke like that.
Uh it's I have.
What worked for me for twoyears was a 750 day rate.

I got uh, one of my buddies that's pretty good
rate, by the way, for an editor.

Yeah yeah, no, it's a great rate, but we
typically that was just what Ipriced at because I knew that we
were spending a lot of money inpre-production and in post
production, not editing,focusing on other things to get
ready it's the same thing withthe freelancer rate, like 1500
bucks.
But then we have, like, you know, we have to communicate, have a

(01:40:02):
meeting call sheet, you know,hour-long meeting here, and then
we have to go.
You have a meeting call sheet,you know, hour long meeting here
, and then we have to go, youknow, deliver the footage this
day.
Like it's a lot of stuff thatdoesn't go into, um, the sort of
day rate but, um, with editingthe seven, 50,.
What it allowed me to do waskind of put a little bit of
fluff in there for all of thosethings, um that would come up

(01:40:23):
and bite me in the butt and um,even with my editors, like just
giving them a little bit ofextra space for delivery, like
even if I bid it as like afive-day editing project, but
then it took us two weeks.
It's like okay, well, I as abusiness owner lost money, but
my client's still happy, so I'mreally glad that I and so and is

(01:40:47):
that what you were talkingabout earlier?

trying to figure out how to price things where
that doesn't happen?
Cause, at the end of the day,you know you're a business, you
don't want to lose money, so isthat what, what your goal is to
figure out?
Or have you already cause Iknow you kind of said that
figured out how to price itwhere?

you know that won't happen, so yeah.
So I think the big move, bigshift this year was we are doing
a lot of LinkedIn, short form,and then and then repurposing
that for YouTube uh, short formand long-term or long form and
uh, just all organic, no, nopaid media, all unpaid.
And so, based on those threeproducts right there, we have
streamlined SOPs and then we areoffering retainers that are

(01:41:39):
built around those.
So we the filming is superstraightforward.
It's like we come in once aquarter or once a month, we
generate several hours offootage uh, some of it scripted,
some of it not scripted andthen we come home and we have
our library that we canbasically deliver for the next
three months and so and what areyou pricing these uh retainers

(01:42:01):
at?
so they're totally separateproducts, right?
So youtube is not linkedin.

So, uh, youtube, you know it's like so your
client has to pick whichplatform.
Or yeah, do they okay?
Yeah, so let's do linkedin,because I think that's far more
valuable for clients.
Yeah, um, so what?
What are you roughly um aimingthe the retainer at and what's
the payment frequency?

yeah, so we just upped our prices this year.
I think we were doing 2k forfive to seven reels last year.
This year we're at like 2500for five reels, and then we have
a long form video two to threeminutes in length.

That is like 3750, and then that's on top of the
2500 yeah it's a totallyseparate product, so 3750 if
they want a long form video,three minute long and then uh,
five reels 25.

They can go to 10 reels, they can go to 50 reels.
So it's easy for them tomultiply.

Easy math, yeah and then, uh, what's the
frequency?
So do you just offer them topick the frequency, or do you
just have a standard like, oh,it's three months, six months,
12 months, whatever retainer?
Or you're letting them pick,like how we'll do, we'll try it
one time, or, oh well, let'ssign up for three months, or
whatever.
How are you?

yeah.
So, uh, I let clients buildtrust in us, in the product with
a three-month recommendation.
Uh, there's no point in in usdoing a one month or two month,
like it's just doing all a cart.
Like hire us to do yourproduction, we'll give you
deliverable and I'll charge youmore for that.
But if you want to partner withus so that we can learn your
brand, learn your your, you knowyour corporate culture, your

(01:43:37):
people, spend time with them,jump on calls with them, invest
that time getting to know youright in your language, and then
invest that time getting toknow you right in your language
and then and then acclimate ourclient or our client content for
the next three months, then wewe just we're more positioned to
bring you success and sominimum for sure is three month
engagement and then, once thatthree month is up, it should be

(01:44:00):
a six or nine month or a year.
But six or nine month is goodbecause you know they work in
quarters and you know make city.
They evaluate the budget at theend of the year and stuff.
So six to nine yeah exactly itmakes it easier for them at the
end of the year.

And how are you doing billing?
Are you doing all three months?
So let's say they started, theylove it, which I think it's
good.
Pricing 7,500 bucks Do youcharge 25 per month?
Are you going you gonna take7500 all up front?
Like, how are you doing yourpayment structure?

yeah, so we, typically we it's funny, I still
invoice via canva.
Um, I am like so frugal, oh wow, that's like I, I hold on that.

That right there nobody got is like a huge like
what?
Oh okay, please speak, tell memore.

I've done I.
I spent my first year ofbusiness messing with proposify
and proposals on there and thenI I actually pay for like
premium quickbooks and like allthe services and it's everything
is so integrated.
But, um, I I only have like twoclients that I invoice through
quickbooks because they justwant to pay with the credit card
and then everybody else.

(01:45:09):
I actually just send them mybank information with a canva
sort of invoice yeah, and thenthey just what?

wire transfer you the money.
Yeah, I mean, wire transfer isfine.
A bunch of my clients,especially when you get to that
high range, they have to wiretransfer you the money.
That's fine, yeah, but you'remaking your invoices in canva,
so it's a manual process.
Yeah, that's crazy to me.
Why aren't you using quickbookinvoices?
Because they don't have to paythrough credit card.

Yeah, yeah no, I I I think I do want to pivot
over to quickbooks.
I've been looking at it.
I think the biggest thing islike the pain points for me
weren't worth it, but, um, Ithink it's something that I want
to do more of.
Like I paid all, all myexpenses and everything was
through quickbooks this year.
So all my contractors, rightlike all my 1099s excuse me, my

(01:45:58):
w2s everything was throughquickbooks, uh, their payroll,
and so I paid a premium for thatall year long it's like why
wouldn't I just invoice throughQuickBooks as well?
Yeah it makes sense.

Yeah, but, but that's hey.
What's working is working.
So that's very interesting tome Also, just to make sure
you're, all your employees aretechnically W-9s, right?
None of them are W-2 anymore.
So you're just okay.
Yeah, okay, I get it.
So you're invoicing them toquickbooks.
It works.
But for your clients a lot ofthem you're just manually doing

(01:46:29):
it and they'll wire transfer youthe money, which is good, I
mean less cost of business.

Trust me, the bad , worst thing the biggest pain
point is is sending them aninvoice every month and then
following up.
Most of my clients are reallygreat and we haven't had any
issues like.
I've seen a lot of horrorstories online, but I have so
much trust and reputation builtup with a lot of my industry and
niche and so I've you know,knock on wood, I've never had

(01:46:51):
any issues with that's good.

So just so I get it.
So you're charging them, whichthat invoice thing was amazing,
by the way.
Are you planning to switch toall QuickBooks or other type of
invoice system, or you're justgoing to stick to Canva, just
because it works, which there'snothing wrong with that If it
works, it works yeah.

Yeah, I mean the other thing.
We had other clients likerequest bill, or was it billcom.
Yeah, I've had to do that, yeah, and then.

So the other crazy thing is like we're, we're
we've been wedding you, yourcompany, for two years, two
years wow, two years we um.

We talked about doing that's gonna be huge
business yeah I mean, so we'veliterally to go through their
onboarding process to getapproved as a vendor and then,
and then, like it's, it's insane, like they, they have like a
brand university where, like allof their assets and they're
like every font, if it's thistype of video, it has to be this

(01:47:56):
color.
If it's this type, you have touse this mascot.
Like all all kinds of likeinsane uh branding, uh rules and
um, they have, they have theirown.
They have their own invoicingpayment process that you have to
sign up for you have to yeahyou have to get vetted your bank
accounts, your uh your taxstatements for the last two

(01:48:18):
years, all kinds of stuff it'slike unique to that client.

Like I have to go through an entire system yeah,
but I mean, if there's enoughbusiness, it's worth it, right?
Yeah, I mean, that's this whatit is well, it could be like
it's.

It's one of those things where like it could be
your only client, yeah, yeahyeah, that's, that's pretty cool
, so I'm well, I'm happy for youon that.

So, coming back to so, are you going to charge
them all 7500 in one invoice, oryou you do give them the option
to pay you every month, um,even though it's a three-month
commitment.
Um, are they paying you 25, 25,25, or are they paying you 75?
How are you?

yeah, so that payment.
So we um, we typically, Itypically invoice like
production services with editingin one bill um and then on
retainer it's it'll.
If we're not shooting thatmonth, it'll just be like
editing deliverables in one.

(01:49:13):
So if it's a highlight video,it'll have it's 3750, if it's
the five reels or short formvideos it'll.
You know, for linkedin it'll bethe 2500 and then at the end of
it it'll just be that total.
Yeah.
Yeah, check out, check out.
Okay.

Awesome and then I love that.
So that's the 3750.
That's our typical long formvideo, right?
What a role like interview, brole, you know, type of stuff.
Or is there something differentin there that you would include
?
No?

I mean, we we've kind of.
If you look at our portfolio,it's just like our bread and
butter.
We typically have people cometo us or like hey, we want a
testimonial video.
We don't know what it's goingto look like, we don't, and
that's just our easy way ofbeing like okay, it's going to
be 37, 50 and we'll just comeand we'll do it this way.
We'll execute it like this.
We um, we have a couple ofclients who are like okay, we

(01:50:04):
need three of those, you know,and then they come to us that
makes it easy for you to invoicethem two times.

Three, there you go.
There's an invoice.
So simple, and I love thisconversation.
By the way.
Not only am I learning, but Ithink people need to.
The whole point of this is whatto charge what?
To offer right.

(01:50:40):
For sure people would be curiousnow.
So you charge them 3750, you'regonna get make them a video,
right, and let's say, okay,we're making a hypothetical
client here.
I signed up for your services.
I want two 3750 style videosand I want five reels.
That's the package.
So what equipment do you showup with?
What cameras lighting?
Because you know it's simplecontent.

(01:51:01):
It's not like high-end.
What are you using for thosetypical type of jobs?

Yeah, so a lot of it depends on travel, right
Unless it's local, Local right.
So if we're local, we'reshowing up with two matching
like Sony Alpha or FX camerasand, honestly, that's to protect
us, because we want redundancy,like we can deliver one video
and make it look super amazingfire.

But it's good to have A and B angles.
Yeah, Like you said, a goodoption to cut to.
So what's your FX?
What FX3?
Is that what you?

want?
Yeah, we'll perform on the 3s.
How?

many cameras do you own right now or do you rent
them?

So we have so we have five sonys.
We have five sonys and then wehave, uh, two cannons.
Um, that's crazy seven camerasyeah, so we do with a lot of the

(01:52:08):
cannons that we it's aphotography focused deliverables
like or um, we'll do a lot ofour time lapse as well, so we
love, uh, which cannons arethose?
Eos r6, uh, the eos r?
Uh, yeah, oh my gosh, I don'teven know how many cameras we
have um yeah, but yeah, somecanon, uh mirrorless.

What about sony?
Are they all mirrorless?
You got any fx69?

yeah, so we love, we love.

I, I love the fx3 um oh yeah, that's like, I think
, the favorite camera so far.
People, it's just, it's.

You look at it and you're like, yeah, this is
gonna suck.
And then you like pull theresults and you're like this is
nuts.
It's just ridiculous everysingle time.
So I love the fx3s.
We, we do.
We actually still work on thea7s3 a lot.
We work.
Uh, I brought the a7IV todayshooting a vlog on that, because
it's photo video like packs apunch and I never expected that.

(01:53:05):
I bought it because I was like,oh, you know, I just want like
a decent full frame sensor butit's like over delivered for
like the last two years, sothat's crazy.
Yeah it's ridiculous.
Sony, sony is amazing.
I'm waiting for the newwhatever Mark II they're coming
out with on the FX line.
Waiting for the new, uh,whatever mark 2 they're coming

(01:53:27):
out with on the fx line.
Uh, hopefully at nav this yearI'm gonna I'll probably pick up
two matching sensors, whateverit is okay, awesome, so that's
pretty cool.

And then any lighting preferences.
What do you use or own forstuff like that?

so lighting um.
So I have uh 12 different retungsten lights oh, you're still
on tungsten.
You have gloves and all thatcrap that people don't.
Oh wow, so you're.

You're old school still, which is I mean, hey,
there's nothing wrong, here'swhat I'll tell you.
Led lights are still justchasing the quality of the
tungstens.
So quality was never an issue,it was just the heat.

And the, the, you know, which is more than enough
to jump onto leds.

Yeah, so so you are still on re tungsten, do you
know so?

so, so I just have those because oh, you have
them I was like.
So like I love for those likemusic videos and stuff, I love
blasting like a 2k or 1k throughthe window because it's just
beautiful looking light exactlybut for this type of corporate,
no.

What are you bringing?

we're.
We're using like 600d, 600c,all you know a lot of aperture
ecosystem.
I used to plan the nan light uhsystem before that go docks and
then I was just like, yeah,aperture is where I want to be.

So we were, you know once you'll just do it like
a dome with some kind ofaperture light Pretty standard
stuff.
So any mic of choice.
What mic are you planting onpeople?

So the Rhodes, have you know, they're worth
their weight in gold.
We love the Rhodes.
The wireless stuff, yeah, ohyeah, we love that.
And then what about?

do you do a boom for those type of ones?

or no, because they're 3750.
Sennheiser 600, 416.

know, because they're 37.
Sennheiser 600 416 look at that,those you know, so people know
exactly how to replicate thepoor bear stories.
Look, yeah, I mean.
Hey, I mean, I know it's notthat easy, but you know that's
my idea.
I want people to know exactlywhat gear professionals are
using, what rates they'recharging, because I feel like a
lot of people don't know.
Like when I started believe itor not I, after being a
freelancer for years, I was likeI don't know what to charge.
You know what I mean.

(01:55:28):
And then I would talk to people.
I was like they would be likeoh, you can't charge a thousand
bucks.
And I'm like, but that doesn'tseem.
You know, because I've alwaysbeen that entrepreneurial
mindset, I'm doing calculationsand I'm like yeah that makes no
sense I will go

out of business if I do not charge this.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, I will be able to buynext year's camera if I charge
this, and I won't be able to buynext year's camera if I charge.

Yeah, exactly and then I'm like so and so.
People need to be able tounderstand also the cost that
you don't realize when you'restarting.
Like you said, quickbooks costfreaking money oh my gosh.
Uh, I have a better proposalsoftware that costs money and
hundreds of other freakingsubscription sites that cost
money.
Yeah, it's like also v transfer.

I mean the amount of websites that cost money and
once you add, start to add andyou don't think that music which
has been in the last threeyears, they love charging 500 to
a thousand dollars a year now.

So, uh, what service are you licked, or
whatever?
Is that what you're using?

so we use like a lot we use like artlist we use
you know, uh, like pond, five,like I don't know.
I think we have like sevendifferent.
Yeah, like music subscriptions.
So many.

I'm just editing a project right now.
That's just stock footage,which is great.
Yeah, you know, in a way I likethat we can make money without
having to even go shooting.
But then it's been a problembecause it's like oh, there's so
many websites to pull freakingcontent from.
So then, we give the finaldeliverable to clients like
where did all the rows?
Because you know that alsomatters knowing for licensing

(01:56:56):
where all the footage came from,right.
So it's like a hard thing tokeep track of.
Anything else I can't believeit's already been freaking.
Two hours.
It's ridiculous.
And I have so many things Ihaven't even barely touched with
you yet.
But before we go, I want toknow more no-transcript niche

(01:57:38):
down.

Figure it, figure it out Like it should be the
thing that makes you happy, thatgives you energy when you're
there.
The people that you're shootingor creating content for should
give you energy.
Right, you should go home atthe end of the day not wanting
to like, just conk out Like youshould be, like that was
incredible.
I love what I do.
So find that niche in your lifeand pursue that.

(01:58:03):
Do free content for that.
I fully support that right.
Like, once you know what makesyou happy, creating for it.
Like, do as much free stuff asthey will let you do until you
have a portfolio, until peopleare like hey, like I need to pay
for your time.
Hey, I want to block off thistime.
Right, and so that's like thenumber one thing that
transformed my business.

(01:58:23):
And I think the second thingyeah, I lost it.

Happens, you get so passionate about the first
one, which is what.
I'm like you know, if you doevery day what you love and it
no longer feels like work and Iremember you're going to do it
for X the number of hours, butit's no longer work because
you're just so happy.

I know what I was going to say Perfect, invest in
yourself, educate yourself,right.
So I didn't have six months ofof like premium businesses here,
but during those months Ifigured out how to go out and
get my SBA cert Right, like it'scertified as a small business,
which takes a lot of time and alot of paperwork and stuff Right

(01:59:09):
.
But that unlocks a new door foryou.
Um, I registered in my, youknow, for federal contracts,
right, like you have city stateum contracts available and so
you have to jump through a lotof hoops to do that.
So, like, I spent an entiremonth like registering for these
platforms, proving I'm a realperson, submitting like really

(01:59:31):
sensitive documents about mypersonal life, my taxes, my home
, my assets, all this stuff.
But like it takes so much time,and so I took that time to
invest in and so I could havebeen pursuing a master's or an
editing course.

But you know, for for this season, for me it was
like I'm going to no, and that'sso valuable because now you can
access if you can access dodcontracts, man, that's people.
You have no idea how much moneythere is.

It's a massive headache and you don't want to
be in it.
I don't recommend jumping.

Yeah, but once you do like, if you want to make
money, man, like I'm telling you, even small, like I work with
states, state-owned universityor just state in general, like
tourism departments, whateveranything you know it's, the
money is there and they'rewilling to pay for it and the
check's always clear.
But, like you said, there isalways loopholes, there's always
hurdles, and I think next timewhen I bring, I would love to

(02:00:25):
talk that whole journey Plus youwould have been through this
year of you know all this thatyou're you're going through.
I would love to know theresults.
But here's one thing I do wantto talk about before you go and
I know you have a flight tocatch, but please tell us, how
do you find your clients?

Yeah, so my clients I've.
You know I did 10, 10 years ofworking in a nonprofit right For
around military families and Ibuilt up a lot of connections
and that gave me a certainamount of reputation when I
started my business and I had aservice to offer people.
For some people you got tostart in weddings.

(02:01:04):
For some people you got tostart in weddings, um, but for
me I I find a lot of my clientsin my reputation.
People are like oh, he is, thisis his story, this is what he's
done and this is what he's nowoffering.
So it's either it's easier forthem to sell my story to other
people.
And so I get referrals like thatall the time, where people are

(02:01:25):
like hey, I saw you at thisevent, hey, I saw you at this
fundraiser, hey, I saw youworking for this nonprofit and I
shot your contact over toso-and-so and a word of mouth on
set, being on set with people,you know I get two referrals,
three referrals on some of mysets.
You know, working with theirpartners, their executive team,

(02:01:49):
I just you get exposure likethat when you're doing an
incredible job on set, uh,delivering an awesome product,
right, and then, um, yeah, Imean that's, and then giving my
time, like my time is free, likeI'm not.
I'm not one of those like-holeswho's like oh you know, I'll

(02:02:10):
charge you 500 bucks an hour,like, like a powerful product.
I make calculated risk and Isay hey, I want to come on and

(02:02:32):
consult, I don't care if it'sone year or two years, but I
believe in your product, serviceor mission.
And so I have like three orfour of those where I've been
consulting them as like a videoproduction, media content
creator, right Consultant, andthen they, in that two year span
, have hired us to do 50, ahundred, you know, thousand

(02:02:55):
dollars in business and this iswhy you don't need an MBA.

You just need a Jacob of your own.
So I would highly recommendreaching out to him or other
people in the area.
I just do want to people.
I don't know who's listening.
I'm hoping it's people like us.
But the other thing I don'twant people to go is obsessed
somewhere, like you have to talkto one of us or anyone else
who's been on this podcast.
Just find people.
Obviously, if you're local,we're happy to meet you, but

(02:03:20):
find just people around you whoare doing what you want to be
doing already.
Go ask them for coffee, go hangout on their sets, because I
think you've said this ending.
I love what everything you justsaid now about finding clients.
It's all about just meetingpeople, being more on set.
If you don't have clients, it'sbecause you're not on set.

(02:03:41):
Just go on set, be available,meet the people around you who
are already on those high levelsets.
Go there, build your skilllevel until you can have those
higher positions.
And I think, if you do justgood work, if you're a nice
person to hang out with, findingclients not that hard because,
at the end of the day, if youbelieve in something and you

(02:04:01):
genuinely try to help them.
They want you to be part of itand people and you genuinely try
to help them they want you tobe part of it and people and
organizations are happy to payyou for it.
Right, yeah, all right,absolutely.
This has been incredible talksthere.
Before we go, do you want toshare people, your I don't know
Instagram website, whatever?
Yeah.

So poor bear stories.
P P O O R B E A R S T O R I EScom.
We also have socials personallyon LinkedIn, jacob Centeno
Facebook Instagram.
You can connect with me andfollow me on YouTube.
We have the business and thepersonal.

(02:04:36):
So I'm super happy to.
If you're thinking aboutgetting in the contractor
defense space, you want to learna little bit more about that
stuff.
It's super complicated tonavigate, but if anybody's
interested, interested, I'mhappy to chat with you guys.
Dm me awesome, perfect.

Yes, please, uh, reach out to jacob if you have
any questions.
But here's what I'd like.
Like I said, I'm pretty surehopefully we find an audience
and if we do, I'd love to do aseason two where we can be more
chilled on a couch or whateveryou know like relax more, and I
would love to bring you back andI would love to uh, to hear
back your story with this wholeprocess and um, you know, so

(02:05:10):
that's so everyone can learnabout this process and, uh, you
know, find success.
So, thank you again, thank youfor taking time and I wish you a
safe flight, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you, bingera, I'll beback anytime.

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