Why Networking is the Ultimate Cheat Code for Video Business Growth

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vipul Bindra (00:04):
Tony, thank you for coming.
Sir, I really appreciate youtaking the time and coming to
talk to me, not that we haven'tdone this before.
Who are?
You?
Yeah, I was like it wasn't justrecorded, but I mean it was the
same thing.
So thank you again for takingthe time out and coming and
talking to me Like we werediscussing a few minutes ago.
For years, you know, I wantedto start this podcast because I
wanted to capture the type ofconversations that I'm having

(00:28):
with people, cause I know yearsago it would have helped me.
Plus, you know, it's justgeneral entertainment.
You know you're on a flight,you're driving, you know,
listening to people who thinklike you, who think business
video, you know, first can, andcoming back to it.
That's exactly how I want tostart.
So how we met is obviouslythrough David's networking
events, but also you hit me upbecause you wanted to.

(00:52):
You know, talk, improve yourcraft, improve your business
strategies.
So walk me through that.
I want to learn more of whatmade you reach out to me and
what did you want to ask me.
You then find that out.
You know, go in depth, becausewe have a lot of time here.
And then also, um, did thathelp you in any way?

Tony Smith (01:12):
so just so again, tony, but now a little bit the
better yeah yeah.
So tony, um, so we met a coupletimes, uh, through the
networking events, and just Iwanted, wanted to pick your
brain a little bit further thanwhat we were discussing in a
general setting.
You know, it's a lot of peoplearound, a lot of noise, a lot of
people, so it's a lot of movingpieces.

(01:34):
So I was wanting to one-on-oneto just sit down and just figure
out.
You know who you are.
You know who is this guy withyou know, with this nice shirt,
coming on looking clean with theJordans and all this, and I'm
just like who is this guy, youknow, and he's talking like he
knows what he's talking aboutand I just want to, you know,
just understand you know why,how, who, you know who you were,

(01:55):
and then just sitting down andjust picking your brain and just
hearing, like you know, likeall the knowledge that you had,
you know, and coming coming froma place that where we kind of
can, you know, relate to being,you know, brown skin.
You know there's no obvious,obvious, you know, saying thing
here, but just wanted to seesomebody else who, kind of, you

(02:16):
know, went through the samestruggles that I might go
through, you know, throughout myjourney in this Pretty new to
this, you know.
Only, you know, been shootingfor a total of six years, really
, business two and a half years,you know.
So I just wanted to get withsomebody who's been in it for
you know a long time you said 15years and you went through a

(02:37):
lot of hurdles and you knowtribulations, to figure out the
space you're in now.
I'm sure you had a lot ofsleepless nights, a lot of
headaches, a lot of you know allthat.
So I just wanted to, you know,if I can, you know, get over
that without having to gothrough it, at least, you know,
get with somebody who canunderstand, you know, who kind
of looks like them.
Be like, okay, don't do this,do this instead, so then I don't

(03:05):
have to go through that samesame journey.
I can leap over that and thenkeep moving.
Uh, those, my, that's my wholereason of sitting down.
Um, you, just one of the guysthat you know, david, looked up
to you know he, he would come toyou and ask you questions.
I'm like, okay, he must be theexpert in this field, you know,
and I appreciate david if weeven started, because without
him we probably would never evenrun, you know, run paths
exactly, yeah I love thosemeetups, man, I'm telling david
they just do, and I know he's abusy guy.

I hope to have him on the podcast, uh, podcast in
the next few weeks.
But you know he, uh, you knowhe's a busy filmmaker like all
of us.
So so for him to do that, uh,how many people I've met through
his meetups, it's beenincredible.
So I'm glad you know he didthose and we met.
And then I'm so glad youreached out and us talking and
you know, typically I mean let'sget onto it, there's no off

(03:51):
topic here I typically I'm soobsessed, you know I have that
obsessive personality, but Iknow that you can tell.
You know I love video.
And then once I finally madethis like this, is it right and
it's bigger than me, I'm gonnabuild this company.
I just went all in and so all Icould talk about is video.
So I never stopped for a minuteand think about the other
factors that affected me,because I was always just

(04:13):
blaming the video industry.
Right, oh, why can't I get thiscontract?
Or why can't whatever, whateverthe like you said, the hurdle.
Hurdle was at the time.
But the truth is there was raceto a factor.
Right, I don't typically talkabout it, or even think about it
, for that matter, in my brainlike, oh, that's holding me back
, but the truth is that issometimes can be the factor,
because we've all been throughmeetings or things where you can

(04:36):
think about like, hey, um, youknow, was race a factor in me
not getting that project, or menot getting that meeting or
whatever.
Right, initially, I Initially Ifound it was the, it was the uh
.
Another thing that you knowpeople don't think about is age
Cause I was young, you know Iwas uh, uh, you know I'm 33 now,
but I find myself I like tokeep a little, you know grayish
beard.

(05:07):
That helps, even though I madethousands and rather tens of
thousands of videos and, youknow, made companies hundreds
and hundreds of millions ofdollars.

Tony Smith (05:12):
When you show up and you're like a young guy and
you're late like 20s or early30s or whatever.

The CEOs, who are generally your marketing
managers, are in their 40s, 50s,60s.
They don't take you seriously.
And so when I walk in, I knowand I noticed that I genuinely
like people are like oh, why areyou trying to look, you know,
with a beard, you know trying tolook older.
And I was like, hey, the truthis, my market is these older
gentlemen or whatever.

(05:36):
They're going to judge meinstantly.
I walk into the room and for meto be taken seriously, I have
to look like I belong Right Now.
I know for a fact the solutionthat I'm offering is totally
worth the cost and it's going tototally give them the roi.
But if they didn't even give mea chance, it doesn't matter
what I have to sell to them,right.

(05:57):
And so as soon as I found out,when I did the the whole you
know beard thing and just tookon this persona of somebody who
looks older, rather than saythat it helped me close more
deals, and ever since I'm like,okay, well, it's my life, thank
goodness I don't have to go lookfor girls Anyway, but that

(06:18):
helped a lot.
So I completely see how age canbe a factor and how many great
video people out there aren'tgetting deals just because
they're not even beingconsidered, just because the
person on the other side doesn'tconsider them experienced
enough or whatever.
And then obviously, race isanother huge factor, right, you
see, not that many, um, blackpeople or indian people in the

(06:40):
industry, and I think that's, uh, that's most likely.
It is because not only now doyou have to be, um, a great
videographer or a filmmaker orsound guy or gaffer, whatever
you're trying to be your dp, youhave to now, you know, be extra
good, right, right, uh.
So so that was a veryinteresting topic and I'm so
glad you discussed that, becausethat kind of made me step for a

(07:03):
second.
Think about all the times I'vebeen meetings where it was race
a factor.
Or was it just my skill set,right?

Tony Smith (07:10):
Or vice versa, I mean, you could have got a job
because you were.
Oh I know for a fact Diversityhour yeah.

So I haven't worked with that many Indian
companies, to be real, but Itotally.
And here's coming.
I'm so glad you say that.
I am totally for it.
I don't want to hear be one ofthose guys uh who says, oh, you
know, you have this advantage,your privilege or whatever, so
now you should lower yourprivilege.
I'm saying no, take advantageof it.

(07:39):
You know um there's so many umlike indian businesses and and
if I'm Indian and they give mebusiness, I'm going to happily
take it because I want to makeawesome videos Absolutely, and
if that's the factor that getsme the video, I'm taking it.
Sir.
And same thing, if I remembercorrectly, I told in the meeting
.
I'm like hey look, yes, it'sprobably a factor, but then why

(08:00):
don't you find there's so manyblack Americans that are
building amazing, incrediblebusinesses and guess what?
They need Videos.
So guess what?
You have now an advantage aslong as you hyper-target
yourself to those folks and itdoesn't mean discount other
companies Obviously we'll workwith them.
But I'm saying, if you don'thave privilege somewhere else,
we have privilege somewhereother than that and we should go

(08:22):
take full advantage of that.
Do you agree with me or not?

Tony Smith (08:25):
no, absolutely.
I mean, you gotta, you know,you gotta find your lane you
know you gotta, you gotta go in.
Basically, you gotta get whereyou fit in, you know, and can't
just try to keep trying to, youknow, force your way into
certain industries that don'twant you there.
You know you gotta find yourpeople yeah you know whether
that's you know it don't have tobe your color, but just your

(08:45):
people.
Just be people who relate toyou and people who, like you,
trust you, um.
But I definitely agree withthat, um, because you don't want
to just keep trying to forceyour way into a, to a hole that
doesn't want you there, or to anindustry that don't want you
there.
Go build your own lane, gobuild your own, you know.
Find your own, find your owncircle and there's enough work
for everyone.

There's so many businesses that need video.
That I don't think enough workis an issue.
You just have to a have yourskill be there and then you have
to have your business skill bethere and I don't think anyone
will have issue getting enoughwork.
The other thing is, um, now,but I'm all for playing up the
part, like we we discussed a fewminutes ago.
But I'm all for like, hey, I goto network now until you get

(09:25):
there.
Uh, like, initially, when I'mgoing networking events, I'm
saying years ago, you gotta playyour part, put on a suit, put
on a tie, dress nice, becausethat's how they're dressed.
You know these business ownersthat are making millions of
dollars.
Um, when they go to networkingevents, they put on a suit.
So if you're trying to makemillions or even hundreds of
thousands you know of sixfigures everyone wants to make

(09:48):
then dress like that.
That's an effort on you.
I don't count that, as you know,anything extra or something
that somebody is asking of you.
You have to belong.
If you, and to be real, I am atthe stage now where I don't
give a crap.
So I have shown up with my,because to me my branding is
everything.
But I'm saying but at thispoint.
I like to pick and choose andmy clients, but the point I'm

(10:17):
trying to make is if you needclients and your clients are in
a room in a networking event,then dress like them, belong
there and make an effort,obviously to fit the part.
You know, if you were just arebel and who's like, no, I'm
just going to show up in at-shirt, then they're not going
to take you seriously and atthat point I don't think it's
them, it's you right so.
So there's both sides of thecoin.
Fine, obviously, find your laneif there's a room.

(10:38):
Even after you put all youreffort, they don't want you,
then it's okay.
Just move on to where youbelong, right, but at the same
time first make an effort to fitright yeah, like I said, I only
really you have to fit the part.

Tony Smith (10:51):
But to come in as you are, you have to.
You have to be at a level towhere they trust you so much
that they don't even care whatyou come.
As you know you, you made themso much money they're like oh,
that's just, that's just him,that's how he is right you
become friends with's how he iswhat do the people say?

I think you have to have like nine or ten touches
or whatever in person for themto like, buy from you.
People buy from people.
They know like and trust.
And uh, for me it's like you'dbe amazed.
Uh, I'm very I'd like to beactive in the chamber of
commerce's and I'd love to talkabout that, you know, some other
time or even today if youwanted to.
But uh, you know you, you haveto be active in your business
community.
You're a business owner, right,and that's if you want to be.

(11:30):
Obviously, if you're dp, Idon't know if that's relevant,
but if you're trying to build aproduction company and you're a
business owner, go, hang outwith other business owners, find
out what they want, right, andI found, um, a huge success with
that, but it doesn't comeimmediately.
I've had a lot of people againask me like what should I do?
And I tell them they're like,oh, I went to five events and
nothing happened, right, and I'mlike well, it's not going to

(11:51):
happen in five minutes.

Tony Smith (11:52):
This is a long-term play.

You're trying to build a relationship.
These people aren't just readyfor you to show up with your
card I want.
I mean you could get lucky.
But you know what I?
It's a long-term play Plus it'salso genuine relationships.
If you walk in there genuinelytrying to meet other local
businesses, build a community,help each other out, pass
referrals, because I'm suresomebody's like, hey, I need a
roof done and maybe you know nowa roofer that you didn't.

(12:16):
Or you know I don't knowanother chiropractor or whatever
business owner that you meetright at these events.
Now you're giving them leadstoo, because I'm sure somebody
in your life is askingabsolutely I don't know I found
the huge success with that.
If you're just great and youjust build these relationships,
I've had, uh, people go a yearlater like, hey, vipple, I was
thinking about making a video,let's do it.

(12:37):
And I'm like, awesome, let's doit.
And I've known this person fora year, right, and so money
comes back.
I've had enough huge amounts ofroi from from networking.

Tony Smith (12:46):
It's just don't expect it to be immediate and
that's, and that's the wholething with these.
You know, you know bm, bnis anduh chambers, and you know
people can sense that uhdesperation you know they can
sense when you you're just therejust for that.
yeah, you know you're justcoming in just pitching video,
not trying to build a genuineconnection with everybody there.

(13:10):
So they can sense when you're,you know, trying to pray, so
that's one thing.
Those are the slow burn.
Slow, you know, slowly gettingthere, maybe two, three, four
months, even a year, to even getone.
And then once you get that one,then it's kind of like a
snowball effect after that, onceyou do a good, a great job for
that one person, then he goes tosomebody else.

(13:32):
Now it's, now it's.
You got the whole chamber nowon your back now trying to get
you to do a video, exactly manfor the chamber, let people
watch it, because I don't needto, for me at least.

I'm not trying to um sell to each person.
I'm just saying, hey look, I'mgonna partner with the chamber,
I'm gonna make them an awesomeass video and then I'm gonna let
them play you that video andnow I want you to go to them
like who did that?
video that video is amazingbecause you know, and it's all
about storytelling.
Again, don't get up.
At least I don't get obsessedabout camera.
You know and like, obviouslyyour art is important, your

(14:08):
camera is important, your lensis important, but I'm not
getting too in depth.
I'm worried more about thestory.
That's my focus.
How can I tell an impactfulstory?
And I want those people towatch those impactful stories
and then automatically go.
I want that for my business andthey ask the chamber and the
chamber will obviously say thisis the chamber member that did
it and that's how I like to doit.

(14:29):
I'm like completely like.
I'm like forget the handshaking the card, saying I just
want to make what I, what I lovemaking, right.
I would be doing this anyway ifthis wasn't a job.
I'm just lucky that I can makea living off of this and I find
when you genuinely like to makeawesome videos, people want them
and they come to you.
But you do need people to seeit.
If they don't know you exist,they just don't know you exist.

(14:51):
And these type of partnerships,like you said, bni, a chamber
of commerce or any othernetworking or any other
organization, like even ourfilmmaker meetup if you're a DP
and trying to find producers orwhatever is an incredible
opportunity for you to get yourwork out there and get your

(15:11):
personality out there becausethat matters too right, so
everything clicks.
You may be talented, but youknow, if you're not jiving or
whatever, vibing with the otherperson, then it ain't gonna work
trust me, I've done throughthat a lot.

Tony Smith (15:23):
I've tried to hire, you know.
So that's my big thing is I'dlove to give new people you know
, or people with less status toyou know, be on, shoot and and
hire them, because you knoweverybody doesn't have that
talent to, you know.
Be the front runner, you know,but you know, be the producer,
to be the, be the main mantalking and all that.
People just wanted to shoot,people just want to be holding
the camera, people just want totake pictures and it's hard when

(15:44):
you don't have that personalityto be out there to do that.
Now you, now you're stuckbecause now you got to figure
out how to get more personalitybecause you don't have it and
and and just do the thing thatyou love.
So I love to be that person inbetween, you know, get the job
and hire these low, low-endpeople, but at the same time,
you know, when you don't havethat personality, that also
shows on the set and it's like I, I don't like the way you do

(16:07):
that.
I don't like the way you'removing.
You know you're doing a littletoo much.
Why are you talking to thecustomer like that?
Why you fall back some?
You know you're doing too muchon my shoot.
Now you make me look badbecause you're representing me
while you're here.
So now I can't rehire youbecause now you know I don't
know how you're going to actnext time.
Yeah, so Exactly.

No, you're saying it perfectly, man.
It's all about, you know, again, sharing opportunity.
But personality is everything.
And if you don't have it, guesswhat you don't need to See.
You need to find, like you saidbefore, we were talking about
finding your lane.
If you're like, hey, mypersonality isn't where I want
to be, interacting with a client, or whatever, right, that's

(16:44):
okay, you can find a rolethere's so many roles in what we
do where you know you can makeyour personality fit in you, you
fit in the.
You know, don't feel like youdon't.
You just have to find where youfit in.
It may not be the role thanyou're, because then you, you
know you only have two choices,right, let's say you want to be

(17:10):
client facing, you're like, Ijust want to be a production
company owner, but you're likean introvert like me.
You can find two ways, which iswhat I had to do.
It's like, no, you can dig deepand say, no, I'm gonna go talk
to this client.
Or you know you can, you canjust be a dp or whatever.
I'm saying we can't, you know,choose a different lane.
And I was like, no, I have tofight through, uh, this urge of,
uh, you know, not wanting tojust make random talk or
whatever, right, you have to dothat and then that's.
That's on the person and them.

(17:31):
I feel like just digging deepand figuring out how they, their
personalities, fit.
Either they're going to changetheir personality or they're
gonna um, you know, change thestyle of work or whatever the
role that they want to be in.

Tony Smith (17:43):
Yeah, you got to be in, yeah, you got to be
uncomfortable with thecomfortable.

You got to be comfortable with the
uncomfortable.

Tony Smith (17:47):
Exactly, you know so you got to push through it
without any, without any liketraumas or adversity in your
life.
You don't.
You know, you don't knowanything.
You know, you just think theshade through life is going to
get you there.
But you got to have some kindof drama, some kind of you know,
you got to go through somethingto get you over that hump.
You know, you don't know theother end.

Yeah, exactly Awesome.
So tell me more about why videohow did you get?

Tony Smith (18:16):
into video, yeah.
So I kind of like looked intothis or just fell into this.
It wasn't always my passion,even though I liked it.
You know, I used to havegrowing up.
We had production classes inhigh school and I took one of
them, not just because I lovedit, it was just something else
to do because I didn't, you know, have anything else for
elective.

(18:36):
So I just picked it and we hadto remake the ending of what?
What's the?
Is the base motel or what's theone with the?
Uh his cock, with the uh, withthe hotel, when it was killing
the people in the hotels?
And um, I've got the name of themovie, but yeah but basically

(18:59):
we had to remake the ending ofthat to make it something
different than what it was.
So you took that and I was justgoing through that and just
like, oh man, this is cool.
Um, and also in that class wewere able to learn emotion
through video and through sound.
Um, so we watched a lot ofmusic videos with no music.
Just watch the video, and thenteachers be like uh, what do you

(19:20):
feel?
Just, you know, with no sound,how do you feel?
Like okay, looks okay, like I'mokay, and then she'll play it
with the sound.
Oh man, I feel totallydifferent.
Like this is, this is so I'msad now.
Like this is this is sad.
Um, so going through that, notknowing that future in life,
that that would help me with mybeauty of making, because now I
understand how to provokeemotion and and how people feel

(19:42):
through video.
Uh, that was my start.
And not knowing that.
So I really got started just by.
You know, my wife had bought mea GoPro just off the whim,
because I like to make randomvideos.
I was playing softball andshe'll come and film and I'll
just chop up the videos, makelittle quick, little videos, or
I'll make little cooking videos,just to, you know, just be

(20:03):
playing around with it, notthinking that I love it, just
I'm, you know, just playingaround.
So, uh, when my friend saw it hewas a also a photographer here
in Orlando he saw that, oh man,it's dope, like that's, that's
amazing.
I'm like this is a random video, like it ain't nothing to me.
So he, he hit me up.
It's like, hey, you want toshoot a wedding?
Uh, absolutely, why, why, whynot?

(20:25):
You know?
So this is.
So again, throughout this wholeprocess I never owned a camera.
Yet I'm still like I got agopro, I got my phone.
I'm not.
I had never actually owned orheld a camera at this point.
So my first time actuallyholding a camera was at
somebody's wedding oh wow, sothat that's a risky took, sir I
would never because you know athis only happens once.

Yeah, absolutely.

Tony Smith (20:47):
I've not got amazing footage.
So so what the crazy part was?
I didn't know how to turn it on.
I didn't know what the startbutton was, I didn't know what
at the time, I didn't know whatISO was, I didn't know what
aperture was.
He was basically, it was likeit's already set.
Oh.
So you put hit start.
Yeah, it was like just hitstart, okay, cool.

(21:08):
So so again at a wedding, youknow, you understand that at a
wedding you're basically secondin line, it's the bride and
groom, then you yeah, everybodyelse doesn't matter because
they're paying you to be there.
So you need to make sure thatyou're able to capture what you
need to capture without grandmabeing in the way.
Cousin, uncle, you step out,you get in front of them,
exactly.
So when he told me that I'mlike okay, I got it because I
was with him at the time,because like, because, because
I'm gonna be that guy that tellsyou know, grandma to move.

(21:29):
But but you know, but at thesame time they're paying me and
then they'll be mad at me when Idon't get the footage.
Because you're like, why didn'tyou get it?
Because grandma's in, you know.
So, knowing that I'm like okay,now I, I have authority to move
people and they understand why.

So I expect, by the way, people who do weddings
I've never done one and I willnever do one.
I'm happy with my businessowners, but weddings is a grind.
Yeah.

Tony Smith (21:53):
You have to love weddings to do weddings.
So, so, just going through thatprocess of just you know again,
I didn't have no references.
I was just really just goingoff my own perception or or
preference of what I would thinka wedding video would look like
.
I didn't go on youtube and lookup anything prior to that.
I was just filming stuff that Ithought would look cool.
Um, so I did it, put the videotogether.

(22:14):
Everybody loved it.
Amazing.
Like, oh my god, this amazingvideo.
Two months later, he's like hey,we'll do another one.
Okay, yeah, great, yeah, yeah,why, let's go ahead and do it?
So do it.
Do it again Again.
This time, I got a little moreknowledge now from the first one
.
Now, this time, I'm doing alittle more research on YouTube
and trying to figure out what isthe actual process and how do
you do this and that Cool, so dothat one.

(22:37):
Great, they love that one.
Two months later later, hey,you want to do another one.
Why not?
Yeah.
Now at this point I'm like,okay, is this my passion?
This is my, this is my goal inlife.
To do weddings like this is my.
Because it's like it's justcoming free, because I'm not
doing a promotion.
I'm not doing nothing.
It's really just you know,connection based somebody you
know is just hitting you up,going yeah, like so you know it

(22:58):
takes people 10, 15 sometimes,you know, never do three
weddings in in their lifetime.
You know it takes two years toget through weddings and I'm
doing it within six months.

You know, I don't even know I would go to that
many weddings you know.

Tony Smith (23:08):
So it's like not even even on the camera.
I don't, I don't, I don't own acamera on a light, I don't own
anything.
I'm doing everything off ofwhat he has.
Um, so do the third wedding,and it's like I like this,
though, but again, the same timeit's the grind.
You know you're there from 10to 10 and and it's, you know,
you're barely taking breaks andit's fun because it's because

(23:28):
each one is different, and it'sfun just seeing all the heavy
people and just being arounddifferent cultures and stuff
like that.
So it was amazing that point.
But but the same time it's it'sa grind.
I'm like man, this is a lot ofwork, uh.
But even though the payout isbetter, you know, better than
being a, it being a nine to five, it's like man, I can make, you
know, a month's salary withinan eight month time period, but

(23:49):
then your body's taking the tollof it.
So I just went through that andthen I just took a hiatus.
You know, he kind of like hekind of fell back from weddings
too, and again I went to apromotion because I wasn't at
that time taking it seriously.
So I took about a year and ahalf to where I was able to get

(24:10):
another gig.
At that point he had a lot ofconnections to where he would
hit me up like, hey, want to dothis and that, do that.
I'm like, yeah, I'll do it.
It was the last time he hit meup to do one of his friends
needed a wedding and it was alast minute wedding and I'm like
I really don't want to do it.
So I put out an outrageousnumber and she's like, yeah,
cool.
I'm like, oh well, okay, well.
I guess I'm coming to yourwedding then.

That's how most people raise their heads.
They go.
I don't want to do this.
It's an absurd number andpeople.
Just you know you'd be amazed.

Tony Smith (24:38):
So then after we did that, one was an all day.
She really wanted an all day,so we were there from 6 to 11.
Oh wow, 6 am Because she wantedlike a documentary style
capture, the whole day typething, wedding After that.
You know that's when I startedtaking it serious.

Everybody was like you know you're really good
with this.
What's the crazy number?
Can you tell us?

Tony Smith (24:57):
At that time it was 6,500.

That's pretty good for a wedding video and that's
what you're saying at that time?
Yeah, at that time.

Tony Smith (25:09):
Because then, like you said, I wasn't a company at
this time, I wasn't LLC'd.
At this time I wasn'tincorporated.
I was just a random guy who hetexted me like, hey, she needed
a video for a wedding.
It's all day what you doing.
I'm like I really want to do ithere.
Just just, just just tell herit's, you know, it's 6500, yeah.

(25:34):
And she's like, okay, great,great, great, what, like you
know, you're gonna pay this,like so again.
So, even with that, that kindof what threw me off too,
because, again, I wasn't Iwasn't.

You should be charging for your weddings.
If you do weddings, $6,500minimum, minimum.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
I'm learning so much I'm likelook, tony.

Tony Smith (25:51):
But it also depends on what kind of weddings you're
doing, because I've also doneIndia weddings.
Charge double that.
Oh yeah, it's like a party.

That's how I wanted to.
Enough to say I didn't want tohave a wedding, because you know
I grew up in weddings.
You know I thought that wasnormal.
Obviously, you know weddings goon for freaking weeks and
thousands of people.

Tony Smith (26:12):
I was like this is crazy yeah and then, um, no, I
was like I, I can't do this yeah, so with that last wedding, the
issue that I had was, like Isaid, I wasn't a business and I
didn't understand business.
You know etiquette and lingoand all that.
I didn't have no contracts andall that.

So I didn't have a sign of contract.

Tony Smith (26:29):
It was all word of mouth, so the issue with that
was payment time at the time upfront so at that time I was, I
was doing even I do, I was doing50% of the time up front and
then 50% the day of um, the theday of that you receive your
final video.
Um, I was doing that based offof what I heard in the industry,

(26:52):
stuff like that.
So I was nothing, nothing inwriting.
Yeah, um, so we got, because itwas last minute, it was like
two days after she hit me up, soit's like a Monday.
And when it's like on aWednesday, so you know, I'm like
, okay, cool, normally at thattime you'll get the full payment
up front.
Because it's like, hey, youjust right here.
So I'm like, okay, he, she'snot gonna screw me because it's

(27:13):
your friend.
You know y'all are cool, you'renot going to screw me, knowing
that, you know who this is.
So I'm like, okay, I took theleap in my eye, who just gave me
50?
And we'll work out on the backend whenever you hit the video.
So, um, do the wedding again.
It was actually a disasterbecause it was cool for the
first half, because we wasinside the house and then it
started pouring down, raining.

(27:34):
We're in florida and it wasn't,you know, a regular florida
rain.
You know where.
It rained for 10-5 minutes andyou're done.
No, this is when the hurricanewent, where it rained for six
hours straight.
It started at like one o'clock.
It didn't end to 10 that's likea nightmare for.

And it was outdoor wedding, oh, outdoor and apart,
move it inside or no?

Tony Smith (27:53):
it was no, no, they still tried to do it in the rain
.
They did it in the rain again.
I'm not a production company,so I don't have protective gear,
I don't have raincoats, I don'thave raincoats, I don't have
covering, so I'm outside with atrash bag over my camera to make
sure it is protected.
Yeah, and it was just.
It was just.
I mean, we made it work forwhat it was.

(28:14):
It could have been a lot better, but again, it was.
It wasn't, it was out of ourhands.
At that point, you know, we werewaiting, losing sunlight,
losing a lot of, um, you know,just valuable time, just because
we were waiting, hopefully, forthe you know rain to pass, and
it just never happened.
So we just had to do what weneed to do.
At that point, again, it took.
So after that, it took abouttwo months to actually do the

(28:35):
final video.
And so at this point I'm I'mhere to wrap, like, hey, I'm
ready for the final payment, Ihave your video ready, let me
know when you're ready to sendthe money.
Oh, give me a week, okay, aweek goes by.
Oh, give me another week, okay,a week goes by.
Give me another month.
A month goes by.
She doesn't want her own wedding, she doesn't want hey at this

(28:55):
point I kind of wash my handswith it.
I'm like it six months goes by.
Well, four months go by.
I hit her up again.
She's like ah, I still don'thave it.
Give me time.
So at this point I just wash myhands with it.
I'm like it's done, I'm noteven gonna worry about it.
At the six month point she hitme up like hey, I got your money
, great, oh, okay, it's myaccount.

(29:17):
Here's the number.
Once you send it, then I'llsend you a video.
And she sent the money.
I was shocked because I'm like,six months later, like you know
, so, to get the money, I senther the video.
She loved it, they loved it.
It was like and she wanted todo some more.
But at the time I'm like no, Ican't, I can't do more work with
you just because of how youwere running your At least she

(29:38):
paid you.

But you, you're absolutely right, and that's the
power of contracts man.
But that's okay, you were new, Imean, we've all done it.
You know don't have contracts.
Long time ago when I wasfreelancer I did that a ton.
Now that I know I'm like neverBecause you got to protect
yourself plus the payment upfront.
The only time I'm okay with thepayment on the day off is when

(30:01):
I'm working with friends LikeI'm working with, like friends,
like I'm a DP or whatever, andplus somebody I know I'm like
sure that's okay, you could payme, you know, at the end of the
shoot Like, but even then onthat day, like I'm not expecting
payment, you know, a week lateror whatever, and I've never had
issues with payment.
but that's because I've liketalk to an attorney, get a

(30:24):
really good contract.
Because not you?
I mean, I'm sure you havefigured it out by now, yeah.
Because you want to have those.
They call them like the acts ofGod or weather clause or
whatever in there.
I'm not a lawyer, right, so Idon't know, but point is, they
can have lots of clauses inthere to protect you in that
case, um, because you know youcan't.

(30:44):
You can't predict it at least,right?

Tony Smith (30:47):
uh, I guess you can look at the weather app, but
they're not typically reliable,especially florida, like at
least it was in a florida rain,because yeah, here it'll just
rain for 10 minutes randomly andthen yeah, that's like nothing
happened anyway.

Uh, but no, that that's good, but that's a good
lesson though right, at leastyou didn't lose money.
And now you learned that, hey, I, I got to have contracts, I got
to have payment terms.
Plus, have you changed it Now?
Do you charge like upfrontbefore, like the shoot is
starting or whatever, becausethat's how I do it I do it, you
know, if they want to split itMost funny enough, again, all

(31:20):
the good clients don't even careabout splitting it.
But it's okay, I'm.
I understand like they may nothave that big chunk, so I'll let
them do 50 up front, but then50 before shoot.
You know I'm not shootingunless I have 100.

Tony Smith (31:31):
So so I kind of it's kind of kind of similar still I
still, well, now I do 50, 30,60 days prior to shooting um,
and then the other 50 the day of, just depending on the client,
because I know some clients donet 30s, net 60s, um, I know you
talked about that where youdon't do clients like that, you
don't do net 30s, I don't dothat, but it's okay I don't have

(31:52):
any any issues with people whodo that.

That's okay, because there are some companies
where, like, I don't do thatunless it's the government yeah,
state or federal.
That's okay because I I trustthe and maybe I'm wrong, but
I've never had issue with theany state, government or federal
government.
So I do have colleges and stuffthat are state-owned and they
have policies, whatever.
But, funny enough, even I havehad them pay me in like before

(32:15):
delivery, because then they'llsay, oh, but we can't also not
process this 30-day paymentuntil you deliver.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, we'regonna get a deposit and it
takes 30 days.
So we'll pay 30 and then we'llfilm it.
And then you know, obviouslyit'll take them 30.
So normally I try to delivervideos in two weeks.
I'm like I purposely put theirdelivery dates in 30 days.

(32:35):
Uh, so I'm like, okay, when thepayment comes I'll give you the
video.
You know what I mean at the endof the day.
But they've always paid.
Obviously the government findat least always pays their bills
.
But outside of that, I don'tcare how good the company is, I
don't take that risk.
But I also do have enoughfriends that do take that risk
and haven't had issues.
So it's kind of like I thinkyou have to decide what your

(32:56):
risk factor is.
So I think that's a personalthing.
I just don't take that risk.

Tony Smith (33:10):
It's not worth it.
Yeah, when at your level youhave to, where we can turn down
money, like that, uh, but I'mjust happy I can pay my bills.
Nah, that's me too, uh, so,just, you know, I'm just, I just
I try not to be, you know, anasshole at all times, you know.
But sometimes you have to be ata business owner.
You have to be stern, you know,because people walk over you if
you're not.
But yeah, yeah, I do 30, 30days prior and then the day of
to get the payment.
But if I'm cool with you, youknow, and we're actually friends

(33:32):
, I'll kind of lean that towhere I'll go back to my prior,
where I'll do 30 days prior andthen I'll give you time to get
the money up to then, where Igive you the video, you give me
the rest of the money, the video.
That's if I'm cool with you.
We got to be on a on a wholenother level for me to do that.
But if it's just a randombusiness, no, I need to.
Before I show up, that paymentneed to be, you know, pending,

(33:53):
you know, as I show up.
So, if not, you pick anothertime on my calendar and then we
can shoot from there.
But yeah, you know now Ilearned a lot, a lot, a lot of
lessons just going through.
You know what I've been throughwith the weddings and then
other corporate events, just youknow.
You don't know what you don'tknow.

(34:13):
Like I said, you know, I'm justgoing through.
I didn't have no mentors,nothing like that, so I'm just
going off my own merit, justwhat I thought was right and and
and and how I felt about it.
But I said you learn and youmake better choices.

That's awesome and you know, that's what the
journey is and hopefully you canreduce some by talking to other
people and learning from theirmistakes.
So I hope, coming back to, Ithink, where we started, like
when you hit me up, hopefullyyou hit a bunch of other people
up and you kind of learn fromother people's mistakes and
they're like, oh, did they hadthis happen?
Hopefully it won't happen to menow, because you're already

(34:48):
prepared for it, and thenobviously you've been doing this
enough time that you knowyou've had your own mistakes.
But the other thing I want totouch on is, um, I don't know
how much you could talk about it, but you're also an engineer
with a government job andeverything you're you're?
you're like trying to achieveeverything here, uh, working on
cool stuff.
Are you able to talk about itor no?

Tony Smith (35:08):
I don't know what kind of job that is so basically
, I'm not your, your yourtypical, you know video
production company.
You know I do have a nine tofive.
Still I'm.
I'm the part-time guy.
You know who does thispart-time, who's trying to do
this full-time?
Um, so yeah, I work forLockheed Martin.
I can't say that much.
But yeah, went to school forengineering North Carolina.

(35:32):
They flew me down here,interviewed to work down here in
Orlando, florida, and been downhere for 15 years with them.
So what I do on a day-to-daybasis, I work for the government
.
I design missiles for the Armyand Air Force.
I can't go into much about whatI do, but I can basically give
you that much that we makemissiles.

(35:53):
So you're making literalmissiles on one hand, and the
other side, you're makingpeople's vetting videos.
I mean talk about versatility.

Typically I'm all about.
You know you got to go all intovideo, but I'm like, hey, if
you're making missiles, it's notbad to have video people.
I don't know, it sounds veryinteresting to me what you do
and obviously it's okay Like,don't go too deep into it.
We don't want to have thegovernment shut this podcast
down.

Tony Smith (36:21):
No, no, it ain't just on the surface it sounds
amazing, but really that youknow your whole day to day is
really just sitting on acomputer doing a lot of Excel
and PowerPoints andpresentations.

You know it's this yeah.

Tony Smith (36:32):
You know, so you know, you don't think, no, you
know, no, I'm not Tony Starksand I'm, you know, You're not.

No, you didn't.
You don't have a hidden ironarmor that you guys are testing,
that we don't know about.

Tony Smith (36:43):
Now we do have testing, All these drones
showing up, hey we do havesecret labs.
We do all this stuff.
I'm not a nose, but we dotesting on what we design.
It's not all the time, but wedo go through testing where we
get to test it and blow it upand see how they react in the
field, things like that allthese alien crafts the

(37:04):
government, uh, and again, it'sokay, don't comment.

But the rumors, all these alien crafts the
government captures goes tolockheed martin to for research.
I wonder if you've seen, hasseen any?
He can, I'm only just blinkonce if it's true.

Tony Smith (37:19):
No, I don't have that type of clearance.
I don't have that.
Uh, you know that's the top,that's the top secret clearance.
I don't have that.
You know that's the top that'sthe top secret clearance.

I don't have that.
So that's, that's a wholenother.
You're not denying that.

Tony Smith (37:28):
No, I can't, I can't , I can't approve or deny that.
Is this a true fact or not?
But, but they did come out andsay it was true.
So I don't, I can't.

Hey topic, but it's kind of fun anyway.
But that's been like so fun toask because I don't know that
many people who work at lockheedmartin, so it's like, oh,
that's, that's prettyinteresting.
Anyway, all right back to ourregular schedule.
Talk um, so anyway.
So you, so you're an engineerand you're a video person, that
must be really hard finding time, and plus, you know family of a
is like how are you managingtime management in work and life
?

Tony Smith (38:05):
yeah, so it's definitely hard.
Yeah, I said I'm doing thispart-time to where you know I
work nine to five.
I work, you know, really ithelps because I work four tens.
So I work monday throughthursday, you know, 10 hour
shifts, um, so that's so pretty.
Uh gives my weekend friday,saturday, sunday to do my work.
So I schedule all my shoots onfriday, saturday and sunday, you
know I, you know, and then I doall my shoots on Friday,

(38:26):
saturday and Sunday, you know,and then I do all my maintenance
work, all my, you know,scheduling work on nights to
where, you know, after I get offwork I can get on my laptop and
then now I can, you know, startdoing all the manual work.
You know all the tedious workthat people don't like to do,
you know.
And returning emails and youknow trying to, you know contact
and do all that to to where I,you know, on my schedule or on

(38:48):
my calendar, you knoweverything's booked out.
It's booked Monday throughThursday because it looks like
I'm busy but I'm really just atwork.
So you can pick between Friday,saturday, sunday.
So you know, okay, cool, yeah,okay, yeah.
So that's know it's hard, andthen with a wife and child at
the house.
It's trying to balance that towhere I spend time with them
throughout the week, which youknow.

(39:09):
I try to do that Monday throughThursday try to always have
time to where, when she comeshome from work, we can sit down
and eat dinner every time andplay with my daughter when she's
there, and then at the sametime, I try to bring them along
to all my shoots as well.
Um, and then at the same time Itry to bring them along to all
my shoots as well.
If it's not going to be anuisance you know my daughter in
the background screaming thenlike that or if it's allowable,
I'll try to bring them along asmuch as possible.

(39:30):
That's awesome, just so there'saround, you know have you had
any pushback from any clients oranywhere bringing your family.
No, not from the clients, butbut but from my wife.
It's like no, you, you knowthat's that's they don't sound
like a event to where we need tobe yet, so we're gonna stay
here and let you do that alone.
So it's really from her, youknow yeah.

So you know, everybody loves kids.
They want nothing to do with.
Yeah, right, you know no buteverybody loves kids.

Tony Smith (39:54):
So once you bring a kid around, everybody just falls
into.
You know a bliss.
So you know that that kind ofhelps.
So and I think I might use thatstrategy more often when I'm
talking to businesses to bringmy child along, you know,
because my daughters are helpful.

I've been doing these podcasts and they were
asleep when you came, but youknow, hopefully they'll be awake
when you leave, but there havebeen a constant attraction here,
like everyone shows up.
It's like a 10 minutedistraction with my girl.
So, like you said, yeah, thatis an actual advantage.
I mean, they have to be a kidperson.

Tony Smith (40:30):
Some people are not, but, yes, most people yes, I
find that they're moreinterested in my kids once they
meet them, because especially um, uh, do you have a boy or a
girl?
I have a girl, I have all girls.
I have, yeah, I have threegirls, so they go, I have two
girls and man they can.

They're very loving, so you know absolutely
like always like oh, they're socute, you know and stuff like
that and it can be a you know afun, you know distraction or
whatever yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm,I'm just gonna start testing
that um theory out.

Tony Smith (40:52):
I'm gonna start taking her on um business um
calls with me, uh, in person,and I have a 16, uh nine and one
okay, so the 16 year old you'retalking about taking with you,
no, the one year old.
Oh, the one year old, the oneyear old, because, like I said
at that point, you know,everybody just loves playing
with little kids in age right?

how are you that?
That must be difficult tomanage.
Well, I'm black um and that'sthat will be.

Tony Smith (41:15):
Does it kind of will be it just means, you know, we
just have a wide range of justkids.
You know you might.
You might have a 25 year oldand a one year old.
You might have a 30, 15, 6, 7,8 and in a newborn.
You know it's just.
You know we, you know we're thetype of people that just just
have kids at random times.
You know you just ain't nostructure to it.

(41:37):
You just hey, I'm just saying,my family is huge.
I have uncles, that's, you know, 10 years younger than me, you
know so it's just, but hey, itworks, it works, it works, it.

I have uncles, that's, you know, 10 years
younger than me, you know.
So it's just, but hey, it works, it works, it works, it works.
I mean that's awesome, I don'tknow.
So, hey, maybe advise me,because the biggest because my
daughters are obviously foreignand like, the biggest scary
thing is a girl.
Like I said, I love my girls,but it scares me already.

Tony Smith (41:59):
I'm like dealing with a 16 year old it's, it
ain't too bad, even though thewhole communication is, you know
it's iffy sometimes because,you know, since you don't want
to always talk to dad and alwayswant to be around and you know
it's it's one of the thingswhere you just got to get them
on space and just let them knowthat you are there.
You know what I'm sayingbecause they, you know, they're
going through their own personallives with their own personal

(42:21):
friends and and school and boysand trying to understand college
and just figure out life.
You know, just let them knowthat you're there but at the
same time, give themindependence to where they can
go through and, and you know,but with their own person it's
so crazy for me because that,like I said, the older ones
eight, and then 16, it'sliterally doubled.

So eight year difference they become like
currently my daughter wants uh,not one minute away from me, you
know right, and she wants toonly talk like so, talk to me
all the time, be around me allthe time, and you're telling me,
in eight years she'll wantnothing to do with me, I'll
leave it at long one day.

Tony Smith (42:55):
At long, I'll say about three or four more years.
It'll be about hit, about 12.
That's when it's gonna start.

That sounds so crazy to think about that.
It's such a huge difference,right, that they're like oh, I
want nothing to do with your dadbecause it comes become.

Tony Smith (43:09):
It just becomes, you know, with school.
You know a lot of influencearound you know, junior high,
high school.
That's a huge influence andthey just get that, get that in
them.
Just depend on the person too,because sometimes you know, they
, they, they take on that andthen try to rebel and try to be
a different person than who theyreally are.
But if you're in their life andyou have that deep, you know,

(43:30):
same core within them, thenthey'll be the same person and
they know who you are.
So that's something I try toinstill in them Just be who you
are.
Don't try to conform to thecrowd.
Be your own person If you don'tfit in at one point, because
people will try to gravitatetowards you know, you know,
towards you at one point in life.
You know don't, you might bepopular in high school, but you
will be in 30 years you know.
So it's just one of them thingsto where.

(43:51):
Don't try to, you know, beeverybody's friend, cause
everybody's an instant.
It's not likable.
Everybody's not your friend, sostick to yourself, and if
everybody doesn't like you,that's fine one, or two friends,
you'll be okay all right, that,that's well said, my friend.

Uh, let's go to back to weddings for a second.
I want to know more aboutindian weddings.

Tony Smith (44:13):
So you filmed one, right, yeah, how many have you
filmed?
I filmed one, okay, how?

was that experience?
How many days was it?

Tony Smith (44:20):
uh.
So I had a shout out my guyEd's with Ed's studio.
I mean not Ed's studio, anton'sstudio, that's my guy.
He does a ton of weddings herein Florida, probably one of the
premier Indian weddingvideographers video guys out
here.
So he hired me for one.
He was double booked and heneeded a couple of help Helps

(44:42):
for one.

We went down to Naples to film it.
It was a three-day event.

Tony Smith (44:49):
It was three days yeah, it was three days.
Uh, again I'm coming in.
I didn't do my research so Ididn't know exactly what I was
looking for.
He told me three, three days.
I was like, okay, that's a long, long time for a wedding.
I'm like it's a short weddingyeah, and you know, and just not
realizing the actual time foreach day, each day is as long as
well.
Yeah, so we're talking about 1012 hour days as well,

(45:09):
throughout the day.
So it's it.
So it was interesting because,you know, I'm not used to it.
So coming in to seeing all thepeople and and just seeing how
everything is structured and andit's totally different than a
regular american wedding it'stotally different like what type
of indians they were or no no,okay, because you know indians
are also massive country andmassive amount of different,

(45:32):
very different weddings.

Yeah, yeah okay.

Tony Smith (45:34):
So my biggest take from that was realizing that in
india, as you know that, thewedding is like the holy grail
of if of is it.
It's like that's how you showpeople that you know you kind of
got money, or or or like yeah,your status, your status in life
.
Yeah, so, that's so.
That's the biggest thing inamerica.
It's just like, okay, you wantto have a party, but they do it

(45:55):
a thousand times bigger than wedo.
It, it's, it's, it's, it's,it's not even close.

Did they treat you well?
Did they give you some goodfood?
Oh yeah, the food was amazing.

Tony Smith (46:03):
the food was amazing .
The food was amazing.
Everybody was super nice.
You know everybody, but it'sweird because you have to
understand what's going on,because each group is doing
something different throughoutthe whole day yeah.
You know, it ain't just like awedding where you're sitting
there, you got the reception,you got the ceremony, you got
the speeches.
You have that, but then at thesame time, speeches you have

(46:26):
that, but then at the same timeyou have a group of women over
here doing something totallydifferent.
Got the kids over there doingsomething different.
You got the pastor sayingsomething on mic, and then he
said something on mic.
Everybody just looks right backat him this and yes, agree, and
then go back to what they'redoing.
I'm like what does?
What'd he say?

because you know so.

Tony Smith (46:40):
And then he was just like.
He told me one thing he's likedon't stop shooting never, turn
the camera off, never turn itoff.
I'm like I don't have that manystarted, uh, I mean sd cards on
me.
I don't know how long to shoot,you know.
You know, uh, so, shooting, forthe one day I filled up four sd
cards, four 256 terabyte, Imean, uh, gb cards, and I had to

(47:03):
spend that whole night dumpingthem.
And you know, as you know, uh,I was trying to do it on my
laptop.
You know, most people don'thave terabyte or plus hard drive
, so I was trying to.

You know, you know that one so I'm trying to go
run and get an emergency?

Tony Smith (47:18):
no, because it was closed again.
I didn't get home till aboutone o'clock in the morning to be
to then get right back up at 6to be right back over there.
So at the time I had Dropbox.
I'm trying to dump it toDropbox online, but I'm using a
Wi-Fi through the hotel.

And we know how slow that is.

Tony Smith (47:35):
That wouldn't get done by then for hours, man, so
it didn't get done until 4 thatmorning.

So you didn't get much sleep.

Tony Smith (47:41):
I didn't get no sleep Because I was so weary
that, oh man, this ain't gonnaload this ain't gonna end on
file, so it went through I wasdoing a dump and I did that for
the three days I'm like I needto invest in 12 more cards.
Yeah, no, you needed to have acopy much faster yeah, but I was
doing it and I was doing both.
I had an sd card, but then Iwell, I was also double.
I was also double, uh, backingup, because just in case the

(48:04):
hard drive failed at some point,I wanted to make sure I had it,
you know best of all stored.

No, that's very smart.

Tony Smith (48:09):
So again, indian wedding, all day event, you know
, and and it's shocking becausethey don't talk throughout any
wedding Like the bride and groomdon't really talk.
You know, they're just reallythere just showcasing their love
, and people come show them loveand the pastor's talking, and
so it was just like I'm takingit all in and just trying to

(48:30):
understand what to film and whatnot to film.
And you know, can I step onthis rug?
No, you can't step on that rug.
Okay, you can't step on thatrug.
Okay, I can't go around thisway.
So it was a lot of rules tounderstand.
You can't just show up andshoot one without having
somebody who's there to teachyou.

That's a good point that you're saying.
It may be good to actuallywatch a couple of videos that
somebody else has made, I guess,to get an idea.
And the funny thing is, like Isaid on my side, I'm telling you
there's like different,completely different types.
Obviously it may still be a bigparty, yeah, but different
types of Indian weddings.
So you may learn about one.
And then you're like, oh, I'mready for the next one, and then

(49:10):
you go, it's a differentculture, their customs may be
different.

Tony Smith (49:15):
And then now you're like oh, I feel like I'm saying
it right, but it was a greattime, you know, and what I
realized with them, one of thebiggest things is the intro.
I guess I actually forgot thename of it, but when the groom
comes into the venue or whereverhe's coming from, it's like a
parade that they do with him.
And he has the car.
He might have a Lamborghini, hemight have a Rolls Royce.

He might have a Lamborghini, he might have a
Rolls Royce, he might have a, orthey come in a horse.

Tony Smith (49:41):
Or they come in a horse, or they come in a horse.
No, he had a.
I forgot what he had, but hecame in with that, with the
people, with the drums and youknow, it's the whole parade.

It's like a mile long and they meet right there
and that's very important tofilm.
Yeah, you don't want to missthat, so it's if.

Tony Smith (50:01):
I can, it's, I say it's.
If you think American weddingsare tense and and and and very,
you know, nerve wrackingfeminine any wedding is 10 times
worse because.
So you, we know that because ofhow it's trafficking, the
redness are already.
You know, they're already inmillion dollar places that you
know people, you know, I hadpeople.

(50:21):
Well, he told me that he hadpeople who who um around a whole
hotel and he had and they toldthe hotel to change out all the
carpet in the in the hotelbecause they didn't like the
carpet in it and they paid ahotel to change the carpet out
just for just for just for acouple days, you know.
So I know I said, but again, asas I was there, I was talking to

(50:45):
the other videographers andother photographers and they was
telling me, because they dothis for a living, it was like,
yeah, uh, this, this and that,and this is the biggest thing,
and you know, they save sincebirth, you know, for the child,
since birth, for, uh, you know,uh, for this point.
You know this is again to showtheir wealth, to show so they
love and they say since birth,for this, uh, for this reason,

(51:06):
and everybody's, there issomebody, you know.
As you know, indians are alwayseither a doctor, lawyer, you
know, there's some highprofession you guys are amazing.

That's what I'm trying to say you guys were
amazing that I am not a doctor,engineer, I'm not.

Tony Smith (51:21):
Oh, but you're made more than them right now.
So we already know that.
You know you're right therealong.
You know, right there alongwith them.

Tell that to my parents.
My mom is just like you're, nota doctor engineer.

Tony Smith (51:31):
As you know exactly.
So you know all the gifts thatthey're able to receive and if
you ever have a chance to justexperience one, just to go to
one, go to it, just so you cansee the difference in culture
and how they treat it.
You know we treat it here aslike, yeah, like it's a big

(51:53):
thing, but to them it's that.
That is the thing you know, Iloved it.
To them, that is the thing youknow.
I loved it, you know, eventhough it was super stressful,
super, super high stress, and itwas just like because, again,
my first one, so I didn't knowwhat really to expect.

But after doing it just like oh man, this is cool.
It's awesome that you'veexperienced an Indian wedding
You've even filmed it, which iseven crazy.
Because you know at least whenyou're attending it you could
just eat and have fun.

Tony Smith (52:24):
Well, even with the eating was weird to me because I
didn't know that the men eatfirst.
Oh yeah, the men eat first,which just stole me, stole me
completely off.
So I got in line, just thinking, not thinking who's in line
with me.
I got in line and then I gavemy wife the plate because I'm
like, let me go get you a food.
So she's eating as I'm lookingaround.
I'm like no other female iseating.
Um, hold on, give me the plateback.

(52:46):
I don't know what's going on,you know so.
So I slid it back and and, likea guy came up like that's okay,
is this okay?
Yeah, I'm like, yeah, it's likeit was weird because, like the
men eat before the women andchildren and just like, oh, this
is this is different, okay, Idon't know if that's common, at
least I again.

Uh, I'm used to punjabi weddings where everyone
just eats okay, yeah, it was, itthrew me off.
You eat and you drink and youparty.
It's a crazy party.
So that's what I'm saying.
It's slightly different, I'mnot used to that, but again, I
don't.
I don't like indian weddingsbecause it's too much for me.
I'm uh, you know, as you can,can tell I'm very low key in
terms of that, so to me they'vealways been like hyper, but the

(53:22):
food is awesome.

Tony Smith (53:23):
The food is amazing.

I have in mind attending them because I'm like
I can eat the food, but that'sgreat.
So now, obviously, I don't doweddings.
That's great that you got yourstart with weddings, and I know
for a fact you've donecommercial and corporate work,
which is again what I love to do.
And tell me about the switch inthat and now, currently at

(53:46):
least, are you focusing more onweddings or you just want to do
both?
so first, tell me how do you gofrom weddings to like building a
brand video or whatever withsomeone, and then again, which
one did you like better?
So the switch came from after,to like building a brand video
or whatever with someone, andthen again, what, which one did
you like better.

Tony Smith (54:02):
So the switch came from after the Indian wedding
because it's like, oh, okay,this is a lot.
I don't know if I can do thisevery time.
Um, even though knowing howmuch you can make doing any
witness, like yeah, that's thatsounds amazing Like you can make
a ton of money doing Indianweddings.
So it came from like I said.
After that I took a breakbecause, again, I wasn't doing
this full-time, this ain't myfull-time job, so it wasn't like

(54:25):
I needed to do it.
I was just doing it to help.
You know, he'll always call mefor certain things.
He'll do a lot of weddings, notIndian weddings, but regular
weddings, and I'll do those.
And it was just like, okay,they're cool, but it's not
really my lane, like I'll stilldo one today.
If somebody called me, asked mefor help or they needed to do
one, I'll do it.
But it was like, okay, that'snot really what I want to do.

(54:50):
Um, so I kind of took a breakand just trying to just start
researching about different youknow, video industries and
different uh services that weoffer.
And it's like, okay, I think Ilike the corporate world if I
can, or documentaries.
Um.
So ironically, one of my wife'sfriends contacted me because
she wanted to do a documentaryon her life.
Basically, um, for the month ofoctober, which is natural

(55:10):
stillbirth, uh, month ofreadiness for, you know,
pregnancy month and um, shewanted to do a documentary on
her life, about what she wentthrough, her struggles as far as
getting pregnant and trying toconceive and all that and losing
babies and all that.
So I went out there and did adocumentary for her and just
fell in love with it.
It was kind of like a one-day,half-day type shoot and put

(55:32):
together a whole documentary forher.
Yeah, like a little short, putthat together and I kind of just
fell in love with the processof this.
Actually a story.
You know it's different than Imean a witness the story, but at
the same time it's kind ofalready structured the way it's
supposed to be structured.
But when you're actuallycreating the video, creating the
scenes and creating, you knowthe story.

(55:54):
You know it's different becausenow you're putting your own
spin on it, you're able to putyour hands on it and actually
make it something that'sdifferent.
Um, so I put that together andand everybody loved it.
Oh man, this is amazing.
Like you told the story, theywas crying and all this.
I'm like, yeah, when you feelthat emotion, again it goes back
to my high school days when Iwas able to, you know, bring in

(56:15):
emotion because, because peoplenowadays don't understand the
difference, the importance ofthe music and and audio and
video.
It's really better, it's reallymore important than a video.
If you got, you know, greataudio.
You know, we know this becausewe watch crime shows all the
time, where they will just showyou a picture of a pothole with
a person over talking it.

You know, and you're intrigued, you know so
you know and you're intrigued,you know, so you know.
No, I always say, as again, asa dp camera operator director,
first, you know, um, it's thelighting and the audio that
makes the video, not the camerapeople need to stop obsessing
over cameras.
But yeah, go ahead yeah.

Tony Smith (56:51):
So so doing that and you know the process was
interesting because, like I said, I never did it before, so I
was just trying to understandbecause you know you come
through with your own questions.
You know there's there's no setstandard for a documentary.
You're like, okay, this x, x, yand z x, this x, this, ask that
, do this, do that.
Everything's off your businessand your own merit and and and
how you feel, and you go off ofwhat their responses are and you

(57:12):
pay off for that.
You know you might have a wholelist of questions that you
might never get to ask becausethey're going so deep into stuff
and and you just keep trying to, you know, bring in, bring out
that emotion and and all that,which is a better story anyway
than what you probably had inyour head.
Yeah, so that's how kind of howit happened and it's like just
kept pulling, kept pulling andthen editing processes.

(57:32):
You know how do I structurethis to make it coherent and
completely different than I'mguessing of editing, right?

oh no, totally different, totally different.
More videography, I would say,and documentary is more
filmmaking right because inwedding you can I mean some you
can put lights, but most likelyyou can't control lighting.
You can't control, um, you know, like you said, structure, so
you're just telling the day orwhatever in just a nice way.
Yeah, versus um, documentary,sure, the settings and the stuff
, but it's completely different,like you said, the sound and

(57:59):
the stuff, but it's completelydifferent.
Like you said, the sound andthe lighting is going to make it
far more different every time,based on how you do it, than the
filming part of it.
So it's a completely differentchallenge, right?

Tony Smith (58:12):
Completely different challenge.
And then again I'm notresearching, just kind of going
on my own thoughts and processes.
It's like, okay, how do I thinkthis is a look, or how do I
think this would, you know, makesense?
You know, do I feel emotionalwatching it?
You know, if I could feelemotional watching it as a man?
And now it is, I know thefemales are going to just fall
into putty you know what I'msaying with you know doing that

(58:37):
and and that just sparked awhole nother you know thing in
me to be like, okay, I love, Ilove, I love this work right
here Going cause we went intothis which got me into you know
more of the corporate work, towhere I was able to, you know,
get a contract with anotherfriend who actually worked with
me at the time, up a um which iskind of weird to say, but it

(58:58):
was a sewing conference likesewing like knitting and wow and
crocheting.
There's a conference of thatconference.
There's a conference, so whenshe approached me but I'm like,
what you mean by sewing like,like, yeah, sewing like, sewing
like machine sewing, like makingbags and all I'm like, okay,
well, yeah, I can, I can shootthat.
You know she was creating anevent or she had already created

(59:19):
and she was just trying to getmore promotion, more, um, more,
uh, promotion out there for forthe events, because she had one
prior and then she's like, okay,trying to get bigger, for the
next year is coming, so sheneeded promotion for it.
So I came out, shot some stuff,we did a little small promotion
video.
She loved it.
So then she was doing athree-day event.

(59:40):
She started doing three-dayevents every year, um, and she
needed event coverage for thatum, so I started doing her
events for that three-day,three-day events for that.
And it was like it wasdifferent, because I'm coming
from documentary, I'm comingfrom wedding and now I'm at a
sewing conference with you know,a wide range of women, you know
.
So know you're talking aboutyoung kids to old ladies.

(01:00:02):
They're all sitting here and Icome in with the You're telling
me, men don't sew.
No, there's a few men there,there's a few there, but most of
them were there with theirwives.
So it wasn't like they werethere by themselves, they were
there with their wives and like,well, I'm here, let me try this

(01:00:22):
as well.
So, uh, so.
So I did that and and it wasamazing experience because it
was totally out of my bubble,totally out of my realm it's
like I didn't even know thisword even existed.
You know, it's like man, you,you can make money doing this,
like, yeah, so I'll be in thereand seeing these old ladies and
these kids in there make actualhandbags from scratch, like I
see the fabric, I'll come by, Ifilm the fabric and then I'll
come back a few, a few hourslater and it's already into a

(01:00:44):
handbag and I'm just like youmade that from that.
You made that's an actual, realhandbag.
Yeah.
You know, and they're makingshoes and they're making.
You know, it was just, it wasjust amazing.
It's like and it's weirdbecause I said I'm the only you
know big black guy there.
So the first year was realtimid because you know they're

(01:01:06):
like who are you, why are youhere?
Why is the camera in my face,why is this and that?
And I got a lot of pushbackfrom the actual attendees
because I was like hey, I wantto be filmed and I don't want to
be this on camera, because Iguess they're also the first
time being there and they werekind of nervous about how to do
it, cause they asked a lot ofquestions and they don't want to
feel like slow or dumb oncamera.

(01:01:26):
But I'm like, I'm trying totell you like you know,
everything that I put in therewon't be what you think it is.
I can edit the film to make,but you know I got a lot of
pushback from that.

Vipul Bindra (01:01:38):
And then how do you encounter, like, how do you
counter the pushback?
What's the approach that youtake?

Tony Smith (01:01:44):
For me.
I just try to be personable.
You know, I try to be friendlyand try to make them smile, make
them laugh and just let themknow that, hey, this ain't what
you think it is, you know.
But at the same time I alsorespect their boundaries.
At the same time I also respecttheir boundaries.
So I would just be like, okay,I understand, and then I'd move
to somebody else.
You know it's a big conference.
You know the first one that Iattended, you know they had at

(01:02:06):
least, I want to say, 400 peoplethere.
You know 400 people.
So I have a ton of people to goto to get more footage from.
So once they see that I'minteracting with other people
and they're laughing, they're,you know, psychic, kind of
loosen up, like, okay, maybehe's not as bad as I thought it
was, and then they'll loosen upand make me, you know, in the
next class, might come up to meand talk to me now and say
something so, um, that was thefirst year.

(01:02:29):
The first year was interestingbecause I said, I'm just trying
to get used to it, you know likethat.
But but the second year that wedid it was totally different,
because now that everybody knowswho I am now people.
As I walk in the door, peoplescream my name hey, tony, how
you doing?
You know so now, it's that, youknow so now.
People want to be on camera now.
People want to show their work,people want to be this and that
.
That's so awesome and I justknow you so yeah, it's an
amazing feeling, because now allthe new people who were there

(01:02:52):
for that year are looking like,oh okay, so now that same 10
minutes is already gone alreadybecause, you know it can already
be more effective.

Exactly.

So now I can be right here in your face.
Yeah.
And you're smiling and laughingwithout being like, oh my gosh,
go back, like you know.
So now I can get those niceclose-up shots and you know, if
I don't have my 85 or 200 onthere, I can be right there in
your face with a 50, and youknow, and you're laughing and
smiling, you know, and and westarted setting up interview um
stations as well, to where wecan talk to the people attendees

(01:03:23):
, and and and like get theirexperience and how that.
So before that they wouldn't doit because they didn't know.
And and they're like no, Idon't want to talk, I don't want
to be on camera, but but, butthe whole second year it's like,
oh yeah, let's go where you atagain, you're over there.
Okay, give me five minutes,I'll be over there.
You know.
So it was, it was.
You know, it's just for metelling us and to other people,
just like, just be personal,like just be nice.

(01:03:45):
You know, just be kind.
When people see you smiling,they smile, and when we see you
having fun, they having fun.

So you just got to be that person on set and then
just be who you are, you knowand as a filmmaker man, I love
because, sure, obviously I lovelighting and sound and all that,
like I said, love doing talkinghead.
But what I love aboutconferences is living in Orlando
.
We're like like Vegas, we're abig conferences, learning what

(01:04:11):
the stuff like every conferencefor everything, like from
antivirus software to like Idon't know, like from antivirus
software to like um I don't know, uh, needles, like one of the
ones I attended was forliterally a flooring conference
and I was there 10 hourslistening to like sub floors of
freaking 200 types and I'm likeI would have never known that

(01:04:33):
there was so many products forone purpose and from so many
different companies and they'reall you know coming up and talk
about how their products are theright solution.
Anyway, what I'm saying is it'slike I at least love that that
it can never get boring, becauseeven though conferences are
pretty much same thing you dofor you know most of them, like
you said, you know you'recreating maybe a recap, video,

(01:04:53):
cap sessions or whatever, butwhat keeps is interesting is
because every time it's likesomething going on it's random
once we covered, like a beybladecompetition.
You know what I'm saying islike it's so random what you're
gonna find it.
It can never get boring and andthat was amazing to me and,
like I said, I didn't even knowthere was a sewing uh conference

(01:05:15):
.
But then I'm like, why am Iweirded?

out into so many.
No, it's amazing because thatalso lets you know that.
You know, people think that themarket is saturated.
It really is not.
You know you, it's so many,it's so much work out there that
you don't even know that, youcan't even tap into because you
don't even understand.
Yeah, and you don't even knowthat market.
You know it's crazy.
Yeah, until you get to.

That's what I'm saying.
Stop worrying about and not toyou, but I'm saying in general,
people should stop worryingabout uh, there's not enough
work, or who has what work.
Don't be concerned about that,you know, don't be envious, just
just go do it.
And then go make these contactsbecause you'll be amazed what
all is happening, especially inyour town, or especially
especially in our town, whereit's like there's literally

(01:05:57):
every day tens of conferenceshappening and for all sorts of
random things that you are noteven thinking about right now,
and plus it makes it fun RightLike that sewing thing I'm
pretty sure you're not intosewing, but you had a lot of fun
with that right, definitely,definitely a lot of fun.

I say because it brings you out of your comfort
zone.
You know, I was again.
I was timid as well the firsttime because I didn't know what
to expect and I didn't know whatI was walking into.
But by the second, the third,fourth year, it's like oh man,
like I know how to do this.
Like you got to put that one ontop of that.

So then you know I'm going to take a class.
You know what I'm saying.
You're building this space.
Excuse me, talk about thatFlooring.
I was like I know exactly thesubfloor.

I'm going to pick.
You know what I mean.
It's so funny.

I would have never thought about it.
I'm like how do I know this?

Yeah, you were like using the wrong pen.
You did the eight pen out often.
Just change that out.
Exactly right, and we're noteven trying to learn.

We're obviously trying to do what we're there to
do, which is art.
But back Last year, with mybuddy Adam, we filmed so many of
these EMS conferences orwhatever.
Now, like every time, I'm likeI'm not a doctor or medical
expert, but like sometimes I'mlike, oh, they need CPR or
whatever.
Right, you know what I mean.
It's like you start to think ofthese extra things that you

(01:07:14):
never thought about or you'relearning on the back of your
mind.
So, like I said, I love it.
It's always interesting, andthat's another avenue to make
such a killer living that peopledon't even think about.
Yeah, Anyway, coming back.
So which one do you like better?
Now you've done weddings.

You've done kind of like a mini documentary.

You've done conferences and corporate work
or whatever.
So what do you prefer?
Where are you headed towards?
What do you see your future?
Do you see quitting your jobbecoming full-time over the
video, or are you happy whereyou are?

I kind of want to know what you're leaning towards
so right now I'm doing a lot ofuh, more commercial work.
Right now I'm working with acouple businesses right now, to
you know, get up therepromotional as far as um, not
event coverage but more fortheir seasonal products.
That I'm doing a lot of.
We just did a holidaycommercial shoot and now we're

(01:08:04):
going to do a valentine's dayand just trying to get um I
think alex uh minor told me thisyou know, call it a digital,
digital business card.

You know brand video or brand video there you
go talk to alex yeah, I'm gonnahave him in a few weeks excited
uh.

So I'm doing a lot of those, you know, basically
because you know like theconcept is like basically who
you are.
You know you make greatproducts but nobody knows who
you are, so doing a lot of those.
Um, my main thing now is that Iwant to get into is, um, not
testimonials, I do those, but doa lot of trainings.
I want to get into trainings asfar as internal trainings for

(01:08:44):
companies.
I just feel like that's thesame line as documentary work
for me, because you kind of can,you know, make the script how
you kind of want it, but sametime, with their input, and you
know make it a little different.
And again, training is alsowhere the money is.
You know it's residual.
You know you make it.
You know you get a nice sizecompany that's doing a lot of

(01:09:06):
training.
You can make a killer living.
Yeah, just in that onedepartment I love making courses
, you know.
So, as you know, it's one ofthose things where it, you know,
like the giving keeps giving.
You know, and if you make onefor one company I mean
department other departmentneeds training videos and it
just keeps recycling.
The next year you need new onesand it just Exactly Plus you're
making them less boring becausethe amount of companies.

I've seen their training videos, man, that put
people to sleep at the end ofthe company.
You have to understand, youknow, and and I'm sure you get
this at this point but likethey're spending a lot of money
training people, right, lastthing they want is the person to
have to retrain an employee.
That costs way more money andthen having to also the churn

(01:09:49):
right the employees that they'renot good at the job because
they slept through the training.
Having to rehire and thenretrain people.
So it's a lot more ROI for themto train the current hires
better.
And the best way to do that isto make more effective training
videos.
And the type of training videosthat existed, at least in the
past, were so boring and thatpeople would either go to sleep

(01:10:13):
or the videos didn't exist atall.
And here now we can come in, wecan make them effective, we can
can make them entertaining butat the same time very
information dense, so thecompanies can save so much money
and then we can make so muchmoney and everyone.
It's a win-win situation andthey get less churn because the
employees actually wanted towatch those videos and they

(01:10:33):
actually did better, right?
I love training videos and it'sa different way to think,
because, Because initially, youknow, my thinking was oh,
they're not, it's not sales,right?
How do I capture ROI?
Because my whole thing is letme make you money right.
And I'm like but how do I sellthem?
They're not making money.
You have to go the other route.
You have to think rememberhours saved is also money, roi,

(01:10:54):
exactly Because that's money youdidn't spend.
You know money.
Say, a penny saved is a pennyearned, right?
So so it's a differentperspective, but it's the same
thing ultimately, right?
Yeah, so that's great thatyou're thinking that.
So it seems like weddings are athing of the past I say it's a
thing that passed.

But again, if somebody approaches me, says
they need one, the price isgonna be crazy.
And if you say, yeah, I'llshoot it.
I might outsource it though sothere's always a number it's
always a number.
There's always a number.
Trust me, you shoot one too.
Somebody came to you and said20 000 no number, I have no
number for.
So somebody offered you 50 000for a wedding center.

Wow, okay, here's what I'll do.

I'm a business owner you're gonna take it in the
outsourcing right absolutely,absolutely.

And then I'll say, tony, we need a wedding here uh
, can you wear a bender shirtand?
Go make this happen, butnormally no, I, I generally
don't even want to cut becauseat the end date that's not what
we do.
Right, my whole branding is youknow, we.
We make awesome videos forbusinesses, so why would I?
uh, you know want to entertain,because I'm lying, I'm saying no

(01:12:00):
now I'm doing that and I'venever done them.
Plus, like I said, I don't wantto do them.
It's never intrigued me.
Plus, I consider my I don'tknow, this is going to ruffle
some feathers.
I consider myself a filmmakerand if I can't control lighting,
which I know again.
On the other side, I can'tcontrol lighting that much
anyway, but my whole thing withvetting was always like I can't
really control much.

(01:12:20):
You know, uh, and uh, you know,and obviously I'm not gonna
ruin their day, right, I'msupposed to be, uh, letting them
have the best day.
I was like I don't fit there asmy style of filmmaking and I'm
letting other people who areexperts that were good at that
do that.
Um, but anyway, but yes, sothere's no number, but if there
is a huge number, then I'mcalling you and taking the cut,

(01:12:41):
uh, but coming back to so that'sgood, though, man and there's
nothing wrong.
Like I said, I love gettingvideographers.
I respect them.
I know a bunch of my friends dothis, so hey, hats off to them
yeah.

So for me, like I said, weddings kind of because
yeah, I like structure, like yousaid, I like I like structure,
you know, you can, you know Iknow, um, people now are kind of
getting to uh, they're callingin uh documentary style, uh
weddings people doing now if Ihad to get a you know a bedding
video made or whatever for me.

I would love to get one of those.

Yeah, they're very intriguing, yeah, so yeah, so
people are doing that nowadays,but to me it's still a wedding
at the end of the day.
But again, I like structure, Ilike sitting down.
Let's come up with a script,let's, let's.
Let's come with an actual plan.
Let's set up the lighting,let's set up.
Okay, let's do another take,let's.
I love that fact.
Um, so again, I'll shoot awedding.
Somebody comes to me, but that'sthe thing in the past, me,

(01:13:30):
right now, I want to focus oncorporate.
I want to focus on, you knowagain, get into some um, doc
work can.
But, yeah, my main focus rightnow is corporate because it's
it's it's easier and structured.
You know, a lot more lenient.
You know when, uh, with theirtime and and and and effort, you
know you can, you can, you cankind of.

(01:13:51):
You know again, you know when,my time being limited, you know
what I have.
You know, going to corporateworld, just just you know, going
to corporate world, just just.
You know, just to me makes moresense.
You know I'm able to book, youknow, out.
You know, let's do a fridayshoot.
Okay, great, that soundsamazing.
You know, with a wedding, youknow it really all depend on
when the venue is open.
You know, okay, I only have,you know, tuesday open.

(01:14:12):
Well, I guess we don't knowtuesday wedding, you know so,
you know.
So you know, it's one of thosethings like now, now I gotta
shove everything around and doall this and that.
But you know, if you look at so, you know it's one of those
things like, well, now I got toshove everything around and do
all this and that.
But you know, if you look at mycalendar, you know you only see
Fridays, saturdays, sunday.
Well, that's the only days youcan choose from you know, so
yeah, so that's my main focusright now.

(01:14:40):
And as far as staying with thejob at the moment, I'll probably
stay just because I'm able to,you know, do it right now with
the way I'm working.
But if I, if I'm able to get toa point to where I can for me,
I always said I have to triplemy income to leave.
You know, it has to be morethan triple.
But then, at the same time, ifI hit triple, I'm like well,
shoot, why would I leave when Ican make?
you know what I'm saying so it'slike now I can add both.
You know, it's like one of thethings where, you know, it was

(01:15:03):
always triple my number as faras my salary goes, with video.
So at the same time, if I dohit triple, one thing I do want
to do is try my wife first, youknow, let her be able to, you
know, do things that she wantedto do, and then just let me keep

(01:15:23):
turning that burden on.
As far as that, oh my goodness.

You're making all of us look bad.
No, I don't know.

I mean, I ain't trying to man you, just you.
Just different, different lives, that's all it is.

No, but that's great man.
That means, like I said, Irespect that you're, which I
mean.
Family is everything to me,that you know.
You're putting your familyfirst and your goal is hey, I'm
going to retire my wife first,then I'm going to maybe retire
myself.

Yeah, because you know you just try to find your
lane man.
That's all I'm trying to do,you know.

So 3X is the number right.

Yeah, for me, me it's always been 3x, but again
once you hit the 3x you'relooking like yeah, let's look at
the.

To be real, I think again.
What your job is sounds prettycool too.
But if you look at the businessside of it, if in three days of
the week you can 3xhypothetically in this right,
and if you do it four times, howmuch more can you know there's
no ceiling to this right?

it's that give and take.
It's like well, you able tomake that much money only doing
a weekend work.
What if you did this full time?
How much money can you makeagain?
Nothing is guaranteed.
You know you can have threehundred thousand one.
You're gonna lose all yourclients next year.

I'll give that I know, I mean, I don't know where
that going.
Well, I'm just you know, yeahanything happened with the world
.

You know anything happened.
So it's just, you know, for meit's always been you know.
I want to say not for us beingscared, but at the same time
it's just having that comfort ofalways knowing that you have a
fallback, you know, and it'salways there to make sure that I
have something there for themno-transcript successful people

(01:17:30):
in the industry.

And then by the time I did that, uh, and all the
advice they gave me I was like,oh, I had already figured it
out.
It just took me years ofstumbling to get there.
And had I had information likethis man, I could have done this
years ago.
But either way, I finally gothere and I'm like I don't change
anything because obviously it'sbeen an incredible journey.
But no, so you never know.

I'm saying when you go through time, but at the same
time again if you're notmiserable at your job, you're
making a great living.

Why even quit?

right so.

I see that perspective.
See, on one side I'm like Iwould never go back to a 9-to-5.
That's literally my drivingforce, that as long as I can do
this and not go to a 9-to-5,I'll do this forever.
But then, at the same time, I'mlike, ooh, if I was doing
something cool like that, maybewhy quit?
You know, especially if you'rehappy you know it's a personal

(01:18:21):
thing you can do both.
I mean, you are the perfectexample of you can do both and
you are doing both and uh, seemsto be like it's working really
well right, yeah, I mean.

Well, that's all I'm suggesting.
Really well, I don't know aboutreally well, but hey, I'm
surviving okay what does thatmean?

I want to know so.
So to me on the outside side islike you have a good job right
that pays decent.
Then you're making a decent youknow rates because most people
are trying so, just so you know,the, the typical people I talk
to who are starting in this ornot successful in this thing,
they're struggling to evencharge 5k for a video, right,
and you obviously, obviouslycrossed that barrier doing this

(01:18:59):
part time, so charging bignumbers isn't really seems like
your struggle, right uh.

So what is your struggle?

let's talk about so what struggles are you facing
right now?

I would say it's always a struggle just because
everybody's different.
You know, just because you didit one time don't mean that's to
be their constant.
Unless you're constantlybooking, then you can constantly
charge that.
But every industry is different.
Every, every customer isdifferent.
Um so my biggest struggle, yeah.
So my biggest struggle is againyou, just as everybody is just,

(01:19:29):
you know, getting constantcustomers.
Uh, so my biggest thing now is Iwould love to get retainers, um
, try to get away from theone-off clients just doing
videos and then kind of you know, pitching them something in it,
like no, I'm okay, I don't needthat, but then.
So now I was just trying to getit.
You know, retainers try to getaway from the one-off clients
just doing videos and then kindof you know pitching them
something and they're like, nah,I'm okay, I don't need that,
but then.
So now it's just trying to getit.
You know, retainers trying toget you know, basically, uh,
basically month to monthcustomers or year to year
customers, if we can.

(01:19:50):
So my struggle right now is, youknow, just getting that
consistent work as far ascustomers.
You know it ain't always,you're not always shooting and
always.
So my biggest thing is justgetting that consistent work,
getting a consistent client.
We're not clients, but me.
I personally would love to have, you know, anywhere between
five to fifteen real personalcustomers to where I'm working

(01:20:14):
with them every single month andwe're just doing that.
You know it's having to havethe every single month, every
single week, trying to findsomebody new, trying to find
something different.

Yeah, and that's not even realistic, like I said
and talk about what I was justmentioning.
So when I found out, um, youknow, because initially when you
look at you know maybe whoeveryou're you're looking forward to
like, oh, I want to be likethat.
You see, it's a dp that they'reconstantly, you know, working,
it's a production company that'sconstantly making.
So you think, uh, you know therealistic ways.
Every month I'm going to find10 50 new clients the thing is

(01:20:43):
it's not realistic.
I mean, uh, literally the mostcommon thread.
I found anyone I'm talkingpeople making anyone that I
found that makes seven figuresor more in this, doing this in
the corporate and commercialworld.
They have like top four to fiveclients that pay like 80 of
their their revenue and then theone off or the maybe a couple
of month of repeat clients onlypay like the bottom 10 to 20% of

(01:21:05):
the revenue.
And when I compared I was like,oh, that was very similar to me
.
You're just we're all chasingthose same you know, retainer or
repeat clients Because at theend, the idea again that 10, 15
new clients with 10, 15 bigprojects are coming every other
month or every month um, youknow, out of the blue, and
you're going to be able to closethose deals.

(01:21:25):
Do pre-production, doproduction to push for like
everything that we need to doit's unrealistic and anyone's
thinking that's possible.
I don't know anyone.
If you were that like, I wantto talk to you because I don't
know anyone who's doing that?
um, you know it's so.
Like you said, that's theperfect thing that you're
chasing, because that is therealistic way to make good
living here is to find yourselfsome clients that need work.

(01:21:45):
Right, they need content, andyou can provide the content to
them.
And, um, the other thing, um,and tell me if you've noticed
this.
A lot of people are like thenbut why wouldn't, if they're
paying you, I don't know, two,three hundred thousand dollars
of $300,000 of their budget,whatever one client, right?
Why would they not just do thisin-house?
Because you know, what I findis because it's cost effective.

(01:22:06):
Because if they, hire peopleright, you work, you have to
give PTO you have to gethealthcare.
You have to get healthcarewhich costs money.
Now you have to follow rules andregulations of how many hours
they can work, plus what if youdon't have work for them now.
Now you need you know for amonth and now you need five
videos made.
They can't 5X the people.
You can't just hire people fora month and then fire them and

(01:22:28):
plus equipment.
In our industry everything'schanging.
Then constant training Point isit's not financially viable
unless they're like a hundredmillion, like a very huge
company.
It like a hundred million, likea very huge company.
It is not viable for them tohave a media department and here
we can offer them a milliondollar media department for a
fraction fraction, because weare splitting that between all
our clients, right, so itdoesn't make sense for them to

(01:22:51):
do in-house and and we can doway better job than a one to two
man video team.
So it makes sense for both ofus and we.
We can be effective because wecan split our resources among
many clients.
We don't get bored, uh, right,and we get to make them good
content, and then they don'thave to now spend so many
resources hiring, training,providing help absolutely so I

(01:23:12):
think it's a win-winrelationship.
Uh, I don't know why anyonewould get in the mindset
thinking that's not possible.

That's like those clients are out there.
They're plenty.
No, that's definitely out there.

You know, you know and I have a few though, so I'm
not, I'm like, come on, I love,I love to have some of those.

Yeah, um.
But now you know, people justdon't realize how stressful it
is to keep trying to find newcustomers you know going to b2c
route you know business tocustomer route is is so
stressful because now you'redealing with emotion sort of
business and dealing with youknow business.
You know customers want tolowball you.
Customers want everything toptier but want to pay cheap.
You know business is like howmuch is it?

(01:23:45):
Okay, great, let's go ahead andget it done.
Yeah, you know it's like theylike there's no hassle back and
forth.
I mean, yeah, they might hasslebecause they have budgets.
But at the same time, dealingwith a business with a budget
versus a customer with a budgetis two totally different things
exactly.

Plus, they're looking at roi.
Their budget isn't based likefor a customer.
It's like, hey, I made thismuch, this is all I have like,
right, there's not that muchflexibility.
That's what their paycheck isand that's what the extra money
they have to buy whatever theywant to buy, or credit card,
right, you know.
But the point is that thebusiness they're not looking at
it from what money they have.
They're looking at roi.
They're thinking, hey, you know, if I spend this five grand,

(01:24:21):
ten grand, whatever, whatevermoney they're spending with you
doing this video, they allthey're thinking is how much
money can they make back?
from you right, and as long asthey they see a positive net
return and whatever the roifactor that they're looking for,
they're gonna buy.
It doesn't matter.
I've had clients buy and andthen a lot of people get in the
weeds thinking about this.
But I've had clients buy thosebrand stories and so usually the

(01:24:44):
smaller ones.
But that's okay, I love helpingthem and they've been like oh,
we want a band story.
They know, at least they'rethey're they're full buy-in.
But they're like we don't havethat money.
And I've had them put that ontheir credit card and you know I
wouldn't recommend thatfinancially to anyone like I
wouldn't do that.
But the the other side of it isthey have made money because
those same clients where I'mgoing, you know sometimes you

(01:25:05):
have to back a minute.
You're like what?
They're just putting all thison the credit card.
That means they clearly can'tafford it but they want to work
with me, and but then you findout like that, you know, three
months later, whatever are you,because I at least like to check
in with my clients, I'm likehow's it going?
Man, I'm as close as a big deal.
I mean 100K or 200K or whatever, and that is such a.
That's why I don't think aboutit anymore when they're like

(01:25:27):
putting this on credit card orwhatever, because you don't know
the money they're going to makeon the back end, right?

They need it.

Yeah, you are their video person, so that's
what you need to focus on and,at the end of the day, as long
as you're good at what you do,they're gonna make their money
tenfold or more right back,because videos work, right.
We just want to share the rightstories with their customers who
, like you said, who want to paylittle.
But then when they're comparingcompetition, they see these
videos and they go.
Oh, maybe I want to pay alittle premium to go with this
because I like the personalityof this business owner.

(01:26:01):
I like the products better,whatever we are, or service
better, whatever we're pitchingto our clients.
So, um, you know, at the end ofthem saying sometimes these
business customers will even gointo debt to get your video
service because they are smartenough to understand the return
on their investment that they'regoing to get.

Yeah, they need again.
Everybody needs video.
Everybody understands.
Well, businesses understandthey need video, they need
promotion, they need the content.
Customers don't understand that.
They just see dollars comingout the check and not realizing
that, hey, you do own a smallmom and pop store, but nobody
knows you're here.
So how are you supposed to getout Exactly?

(01:26:40):
You know your marketing issupposed to be your biggest
budget period, you know.
So what do you know?
Yeah, talk about that.

I have talked to businesses, not every business
is your client and that itsometimes.
Again, these are things I have.
I have had to at least learnand I hope somebody doesn't have
to struggle with this because,uh, I had to learn to like let
go, because there's sometimesyou'll meet with a business
right, and initially people haveno idea.
Right, and it's also ourenvironment.
People don't know how muchvideo costs because there's such

(01:27:08):
variety of people.

There's somebody, green, you know, with a tiny
camera will make it for free or300 bucks right.

And then there's big companies who want million
dollar commercials or nothingand there's everything in
between.
Um, so clients don't know a lotof times especially their small
business what to expect.
Uh, but I've had meetings, youknow, where they're like full
buy-in, they're like we want it,but then they don't have the 5,
10, 15, 20k, whatever theproject is that they need the
solution for them and they, andthen you know you really want to

(01:27:36):
help them, like ah, and then towalk away from that meeting
where they were interested andyou were interested and you know
you could transform theirbusiness overnight with these
videos.
But you can't help them becausethey don't have the budget.
But you have to learn to alsoknow that you know it's not you
At the end of the day.
Our job is to get to know them,get to figure out what the pain

(01:27:58):
point in the business is andoffer a solution at the best
price point that you can offerit at and hopefully the customer
has the buy-in and theknowledge to get it.
But some clients don't.
I've had it where, like I said,the meetings where they go,
they know they want video butthey don't understand the power
of video.
They go, okay, well, 20 grand,but for 20 grand I could go buy

(01:28:20):
more inventory or whatever andI'm like sure that is smart
business.
But you know, if you don't haveanyone to buy that, then you
know, and then that's where thelack of knowledge comes, and
it's typically these, either newbusiness owners or business
owners who don't understandmarketing and they're oh yeah,
we do zero marketing and youknow, and I'm like but but then

(01:28:43):
how are people finding out?
Because if people don't knowyou exist, and then people don't
know what you're selling andwhy you're different and why to
buy from you, you cannotliterally physically go meet
every single person, right?
especially when you're b2c, it'swhat it's one thing to be b2b
you can go to networking eventsor whatever.
But if you're b2c, it's whatit's one thing to be b2b you can
go to networking events orwhatever, but if you're b2c your

(01:29:04):
client base is huge, like youhave to tell them who you are,
what you stand for and why tobuy from you and what your
products are, or at least youknow, have good photos, videos,
whatever, a few products andservices.
And that at that point again,initially, like I said, I used
to have that emotional reactionand now I'm, like I had to come
to terms that, like, look, whatI can do is show them right.

(01:29:25):
Literally, they tell you so I'mlike, okay, so you're telling
me this is a problem.
After you ask a few questions,right, I generally approach my
meetings with like okay, tell meabout it.
Because they reach out right,like, so would you reach out?
Okay, we want a video.
Perfect, what type of video?
Why do you want it?
Do you have an example?
And slowly, just by askingsimple questions, you'll find
they'll tell you exactly thepain point yeah, oh, well, for

(01:29:49):
example, like the one we weretalking about.
Like, well, we have inventorythat's not moving.
Okay, well, I mean sales, right, so why aren't you getting your
sales?
And then the biggest thing iswell, how are you getting your
current sales?
Right?
So maybe you can expand intothat.
And right, so we have todiagnose the problem.
And once you do, now you see ifvideo can fit anywhere to
actually solve that problem.

(01:30:09):
And once you do figure it out,you know you say, okay, now how
much is that going to cost me?
Right?
That's the cost analysis thatwe're doing.
And then you go, okay, well,this is what I can do.
It's going to be this much orthis much, and this is what
we're going to do and this ishow it can help you.
And at that point, the, thedecision is there to make like
if they see, if they have thebuy-in, because the other thing

(01:30:31):
I found is that if they youdon't have their buy-in, it
doesn't matter how the awesomethe video is if they don't
implement it.
They don't integrate it becauseyou know, let's say, you design
it to go on their website orthe social media or whatever,
and then they don't put it, it'snot going to do anything right.
So you have to have total buy-in, because otherwise also you
can't make a difference yeah,unless you, unless they have a

(01:30:52):
amazing word of mouth yeah youknow word of mouth campaign
going on.

Yeah, you definitely need it.
Everybody doesn't have that.

Yeah, and viral marketing can work, but you
can't guarantee it.
Trust me, nobody in video canguarantee it.
Now, yes, there's some formulaswe can follow to create, maybe,
a viral marketing campaign, butstill nobody can guarantee you
the video will go viral.

No, definitely.

You know what I mean.
There's a lot of other factorsinto it than just making an
awesome viral video, yeah, soyou have to build a full
strategy, right?
Sure, viral marketing can bepart of it, but it can't be all
of it.
You know what I mean,especially if it's not working.

And that's why I like B2B, just because it's not
emotional, it's business.
At this point, customers areemotional because it's their own
personal money, businesses.
They have budgets.
It's the company money and,depending on the size of the
business, they have to spendthat money that year or they

(01:31:56):
actually lose it next year.
So they have to spend the moneyand and if you're good with
certain companies, they're,they'll hire you just because
you know a christmas party yeahyou know, and you might charge
four thousand and they mightgive you 18, just because they
have extra budget and they needto spend it, exactly you know.

So companies will december is good month for me
because sometimes they will justpay me for the next year's
marketing, because they justneed the write-off and they have
a budget, yeah they didn'tspend their advertising budget.
They're like, hey, we'll applyit to 2025 because you know they
need to spend it.
And I'm like, absolutely pleaseyeah uh, but yeah.
But coming back to the, uh, Iwant to take the other side of
it.
You're absolutely right.

(01:32:30):
That's why I love businesses,because it's not the money, it's
more the roi, but it's.
But there is some emotioninvolved because guess what now?
Now your client isn't a person,right, your client is that
marketing manager or thatmarketing director, and for them
it's emotional because nowthey're going.
Will I look good to the boss?
Yeah, they say yeah.

Right Now, their job depends on it.

Yeah, their job depends on it.
Or if they've spent $8,000,$10,000 on something that you
know that's not going to andthey're, they're on the hook,
not us.
So so the emotion aspect isslightly different, because
they're not thinking about themoney aspect of it, they're
thinking how they're gonna look,and that's why I pay huge
attention on that.
I am not working, um, torepresent, like, like I don't

(01:33:13):
care about, like my branding,like in front, like I get all
the credit.
That's one thing at least forme is not at all.
I don't care who gets thecredit for it Because, again,
it's not me, it's going to bethe people that I hire.
I just want the marketingmanager, the marketing director,
to look good.
And even if I'm workingdirectly with the business, I'm
like no, you take full credit,right, if this works.

(01:33:33):
You go to your team and likelook, see, we did this and I
made this happen and then yourboss goes oh wow, you know,
especially if it's theirmarketing director, they're
gonna look good and hopefullyget a promotion.
Because we have to rememberthat that's who we are working
for.
We're not yes, the company'spaying us, but our job is to
make them look good, absolutelynot get the credit.
Sometimes filmmakers are, and Iknow I did this when I was

(01:33:54):
young because we wanted credit.

You know because we watch grow up watching movies.

It's like oh, I just want my name and as soon as
you can let go, especially inthis corporate commercial world.
Uh, because half my money comesfrom nda clients, where I don't
even get no credit.

No, you can't but.

but I'm like, and now that I've let go, it doesn't
matter me at all.
I just want to be on cool setsand make cool content.
I don't care if I get zerocredit, because otherwise I
wouldn't be on the sets and Iwouldn't be making that money.
But at the end of the day, mygoal is not to have my name out
there, my goal is to make thatmarketing agency or whoever is
hiring me, look good.
And as soon as you accept whatyour role is, I think you'll be

(01:34:32):
far more successful and they'llbe very fast to open their
company's wallets Becauseremember, it's not their money,
absolutely Like you said's, it'sjust about the.
The only emotional part here isare they going to look good?

and as soon as they, you build that trust with them.

That no, I'm going to make you look good and uh
for you, your company, to getthe roi.
So again, you look good, you'reright there, you get their
buy-in and then, and obviouslyonce you give that result,
coming back to our retainer andrepeat client thing, I think
they're they're more bound tolike keep coming back because
now they're like oh, I'm lookinglike a genius here yeah and and
my boss loves me I'm about to,you know, get cfo or I don't

(01:35:12):
know whatever role they'reaiming for.
uh, because they're doing sogreat here and ultimately, again
, both win, because, all becauseall we're trying to do is make
the company money and themarketing manager's trying to do
the same thing, so at the end,we're all on the same team.

No, absolutely, and I'm the same way as you.
I don't really care too muchfor the accolades and the name
being out there.
A lot of customers ask me whydon't I put my name at the end
or at the beginning orthroughout the video?
because I'm like, because it'snot my video, it's your video
yeah put your name and say I'mputting your company name and
name and you know, at the frontend of it it had nothing to do
with me.

(01:35:48):
I'm just a tool.
You know I can care less aboutmy name being on it because I
know that the return on the backend is going to be even greater
.
You know, when they realizethat this is a great video, and
then when people come to ask youwho did the video, now you can
promote me and you know, andthen blow me up from that point
of stand.
You know I don't need my name tobe blasted throughout your
video, as if I'm, you know,trying to upshow your video.

(01:36:13):
Like why I need to be in atraining video with corporate
level media and you know saying,you know, throughout the, you
know why does that matter?
You know.
But when they see the quality,and they see it and and you know
, and they feel the emotion likeoh man, who?
Who did that?
Like I need him, or or, or Ineed them, now you can go ahead
and you know, and and stand onthe mound and shout my name at

(01:36:34):
that point, because then, onceyou do that, then you know there
is no more.
You know limitations, becausenow you know my income or your
budget doesn't matter, becausenow I can charge whatever I
charge and I don't haveemotional attachment to it,
because now you're looking at,just trying to, you know, figure
out who I am.
So when it comes from that pointof stand, you know it's great

(01:36:55):
because I'm out of itemotionally too, because I said
you didn't cause, I didn'tapproach you.
You know these are, these aremy prices, my price of my prices
.
You know, and they mightcontact me first Like, hey, this
guy might contact you, you know, go full out, you know.
Or, or you know they got money,you know.
So it's one of those things too, you know it.
Just it's all about theconnection, is all about making

(01:37:17):
you know your current customerslook amazing, because that is
your showcase.

Talk about a very good point.
You hit on like my price is theprice.
How are your feelings ondiscount, because I'm very much
against any discounts.

Yeah, I do discounts again, just the people that I
like.
You know, if it's an industrythat I'm trying to break into, I
might do it, like this time onthe first video and then after
that.
Then I'll go on full throttle,just so I can show you.

So would you tell them like would you say, okay,
this is going to be $4,000 orwhatever, but now I'll do it for
$3,000 or whatever, or wouldyou?
Just say it's $3,000 now andthe next time up the rate.

No because I do all proposals.
So in my proposal it'll show adiscount.
And then once I contact themagain and and uh, we actually go
for proposal and I'll I'll letthem know that hey, I gave you a
discount this time just becauseI wanted to let you know that
we're serious and I want to showyou I'm saying I'll work and
everything like that, but goingforward we'll be charging full
price.
At this point okay so there's noguessing games as far as you

(01:38:18):
know.
Oh, it's $3,000 now.
Why is it $5,000 now?
So you'll see it in my contractwhere it says discount 25%,
discount 15% or whatever it is,and you will know that.
Oh, okay, he gave me a discount, but you can see the full price
there too.
It just says discount andyou'll be like, okay, it's
$5,000 for that.
He gave me this.
Okay great, I okay great, I'lltake it, you know.
So it's like that.

No, that's a very smart way to approach it In my
opinion, which is why I'm soglad we're having this
conversation so people can hearboth perspectives.
My perspective is different.
I'm just like I don't want togive, because if I'm giving a
discount, that means to theclients I had that much margin
right.
Then my prices aren't my pricesand again my prices are anyway

(01:39:01):
too low.
I need to raise my prices forwhat I'm providing.
But ultimately, the way I do itis very simple my cost
calculation I used to do, andagain I have dabbled in
value-based pricing.
That's different, because nowyou're just pricing is arbitrary
, based on the result.
I don't do that anymore.
For me now it's simple.
Like we're a production company.
I'm going to make you anawesome video.
Uh, here's what we want to make, obviously right.

(01:39:23):
Then 20 production company out,then it's just the people and
the equipment.
Now I can obviously make moremoney as a company, because I
could take my fee as director ordp and bring that in and, or,
um, my some a lot of equipmentthat we own.
I can take the rental chargesand bring that in-house too.
So, so there's places where wecan dabble, uh, but what I'm

(01:39:44):
saying is, uh, at the end theycost a cost because they're
genuinely calculated based on,uh, the amount of people and the
equipment I need.
So it's not like I havefreaking hundreds of dollars or
thousands of dollars, just playwith and uh, so like and plus
what I like with my client.
At least it's's like no, thisis the price.
There's not even $50 that Ihave.

(01:40:04):
This is what I need to makethis happen.
Now, can I make the video for adifferent price?
Yes, so, for example, I'm doinga talking head with B-roll for
a mank.
Let's say, yes, can I do it forfive grand?
Absolutely, I'll bring me in anassistant.
We'll make talking head.
Absolutely, absolutely, I'llbring me in an assistant.
Right, we'll make talking head.

(01:40:25):
Absolutely, I got my cameracard, we'll run it in, but same
thing now, if I have 30 grand,I'll bring me plus five crew.
Plus, we'll set bigger lights,we'll light better, we'll uh
bring alexa, you know, minis andlfs and we'll bring, you know,
uh, signature, prime lenses, uh,so the product will be better
quality.
It'll still be very similarvideo.
It's just do your, does yourbank bank represent that quality

(01:40:45):
or does your bank representthis quality?
Right, the only thing I canguarantee is at that price point
, nobody can make better videoat that price point than me.
Nobody has the amount offreaking equipment that they can
absorb the cost they wanted toat the lower prices than I can.
But I'll say that I'm not doingsomething crazy.
The price is the price, becausethe price was calculated based
on my equipment and my peoplecost right, plus what it takes

(01:41:07):
for me to get out of the bed,right then I have a minimum that
I've set, like, hey, I'm notleaving the bed until I'm making
that much, which I don't thinkit's that high.
But what I'm trying to get to isbut to make that specific video
, because if I changing theprice, the video is going to be
different.
It's not only the video and Ifound yes, some people will not
like that, and those are notyour clients, at least my

(01:41:29):
clients but most people get itbecause it's like no, this is
the price.
There is no you know this isn'tlike I just ran my butt and made
up a number and I was like hereyou go, right, right, and now
people do that again.
That the other side is I'veheard people, you know, have
huge success with value basedpricing where they're like okay,
I'm going to make you how muchis the average sale?

(01:41:49):
How many sales do you think youcan get with this?
Okay, so it's, uh, I don't know, a thousand bucks times 50.
So it's going to be $50,000 ofvalue.
Give me 50 of that.
So the video is 25 000, eventhough your cost may be 1500
because it's you shooting it orwhatever.
And if that works, then that'sgreat.
But my thing is, at the end ofthe day, there's so many other

(01:42:12):
production companies that arejust production companies that
are happy to come in and, uh,you know, just make the video
for the what the actual costsare, and still make good money.
Uh, then you're, you know,unless you're the video for what
the actual cost and still makegood money, then you're, you
know, unless you're trying to bea marketing agency, that's
different.
They can pull that easier, Ithink.
Value-based pricing.

But I'm the same way , like you've been saying, my
price is my price, I don't.
It only varies depending on theactual project, if that makes
sense.
So how many people I need, howlong days we're shooting hours,
you know equipment needed, um,all that changes based off of

(01:42:49):
that.
So when somebody asks me howmuch would it cost, I can't tell
you that without knowing thefull scope of what you need, and
I don't like giving out blanket.
You know prices because now youfixated on that price.
You know, if I say you say youwant a talking head, and I'm
like what do you need?
Like I don't know what you know.
Can you just give me a base, aballpark?
I'm like, and if I say it's 3500, now you fixate on 3500, not

(01:43:11):
knowing that you need ateleprompter, you need
backlighting, you need frontlighting, I need mics, I need,
um, a three-man crew.
You know now that 3500 justcame to 75, yeah, and now now
you come back and be mad at me,like I said, why did it double?
Well, it didn't double.
This is what you needed, basedoff of what you asked for and to

(01:43:32):
and for me to get out of that.
It's all my proposal.
So when I show your proposal.
It lists everything that I haveand I'm bringing to that shoot.
So I have check boxes in myproposal to where I check
beforehand and if you say it'stoo much, then uncheck what you
don't need.
It ain't based off me, it'sbased off the price is already
in there, so don't so, so, so,so you can't come to me and say,

(01:43:53):
hey, this is too much, when yousee the full breakdown or every
penny that I charge you know myproposal, so that's pretty cool
.

I'm glad you brought that up.
I would love to go more intothat.
So the way you're doing yourproposal, which what?
What software are you using foryour?
Uh, right now I'm usingproposal, fire proposal okay,
and then, um, so how are youbreaking down your proposal?
And I love that idea of sayingso you, the customer, could just
check.
It's like I want this this yeahso how?
Give me an example?
For a corporate video orwhatever.

So basically, so I'm trying to think of a shoot that
I just shot.
I just do all rent, yeah.
So basically I'm a proposal Igo through, you know who we are,
what we're going to do, who youare, and then from there I have
three tiers of basic packagesyou got to.

You know, um, executive corporate presidential
so good, better, best strategyyeah, get better best yeah um,
then from there, they choosethose packages and then you'll
highlight, you know, what's thename again?

executive, presidential and executive okay,
no executive presidential.

And what?

uh, just threw me off.

Yeah, my bad, my bad, I know sorry that was a
nugget you threw me at and I waslike oh.
I got to know because thenaming is also important.

I just lost that train of thought that fast
Executive residential He'll comeback to me but basically it's a
play off the corporate levelmedia.
I'm still going with thatcorporate structure when it
makes sense.
But basically you got good,better best um, and as you know
you're good is basically justyou just showing up kind of

(01:45:29):
thing, and your best is like, sooutrageous, like okay, I can't
afford that.
So let's go to the middle.
So you're trying to funnel itto them to the middle, um, but
then within they can de-clickand click certain add-ons.
So an add-on for, say, we'redoing a talking head, we're

(01:45:50):
doing a talking head.
So you choose the best package.
I mean you choose the betterpackage.
It comes with two cameras setup.
You know, main light back light.
Two mics, boom plus laugh,standard.
You know, main light back light, um, two mics, boom plus laugh,
um, standard, you know.
But you say, hey, I actuallywant to do a psa or something to
talk to my, you know, talkingto my crowd.

(01:46:11):
Okay, great, you don't need.
You know you're going to needanother camera.
I'm gonna need an, um, uh,teleprompter, I'm gonna need
this and that.

So go in and check that, check that, check that um
now you're like actual video,or are you putting equipment in
there?
Does it say add psa?
Yeah?
So video, or does it say no,add a teleprompter or this or
whatever?
So we'll say what are youtrying to actually sell to them,
at least on their side?

so on that side it actually says teleprompter.
It says, uh, third camera, soif you say that, so, so, so
again we go through aconversation call.
So I already know kind ofsomewhat of what you want.
So I'll go and already check italready.
So if I, if I know that youneed that, then I know I'm gonna
need a third shoot, I mean athird person, and you're gonna
need to tell a problem.
You need that.
So it's gonna be alreadychecked already.

(01:46:56):
But it's gonna say add-on, soit's gonna say video add-ons
with a whole list of add-ons forthat.
So I have multiple contractsand multiple proposals for
different shooting.
So everything's not on there,but I know what you know for
this type of shooting.
This is what kind of standardfor this so if you say I want
everything, you go and checkeverything and you see the price

(01:47:16):
.
Okay, now let me take that off.
So then you see the price goingback down.
That way that it ain't on me,it's on you to choose what you
want.
But basically it's a page fullof video add-ons that says
teleprompter and then itexplains what a teleprompter is.
Uh, it'll say third shooter andit'll explain why third shooter
is needed.
It'll say, um ta, you know,just because you got this, now I

(01:47:38):
need this person to come in anddo this, so it will list all
the video add-ons from that.
And then that's the productionside.
I also have pre-production, soI don't charge for consultations
, that's free.
But say that I need to go.
Do you know scouting locations?
I need to scout locations.
That's a price that you cancheck, or you do it yourself.

(01:48:00):
Uncheck that.
If you need model scouting, Ihave that in the contract.
You check that if you need to.
If you need models that saythat you don't want to talk but
you want to find, you know.
You know, have somebody elsetalk, or you need background,
anything like that, I can gofind models for you script
writing, all that is in there aswell.
So basically, so basically Isaid my proposal was a one-stop

(01:48:23):
shop where I don't have to doany any extra talking, even the
post production, even posts.
You know we do standard.
You know, minute, 30 seconds,depending on what you want.
Yeah, um time rate.

(01:48:43):
Do we need this hd?
Do we need ultra hd?
Uh, how fast do you need it?
You know standard is two weeks.
You want it faster than that?
That's a fee.
You want it even faster thanthat?
You want a couple days from now, it's even even.
It's a rate for that.
Yeah, um, you want the rawfiles?
You're going to pay for that.
That's in there, you can checkit.
Yeah, but their rate for that?
You don't want that.

Yeah, you don't want that rate yeah, you don't
want to to rate yeah, so it'sgoing to be a lot.

It's going to be a lot, um.
So all that is in there, andthen after that I have my
monthly subscription.
So so say you like this and youwant to do this monthly, I can?
You know it's a checkbox forthat.
Let's do this every month.
So again, my proposal is once Italk to you and I send you that
, you choose the price you know,what it reminds me of is that
have you ever been to one ofthose dumpling restaurants?

I don't know where they give you, or maybe a sushi
restaurant where the menuactually has, like, is laminated
and you give you a sharpie.
You check what you get and yougive it to the chef and then he
gives it to you and you alwaysend up getting more than what
you wanted to get.
So I see, you see, and this iswhy, like I said, I loving this
talk, because I my wholeperspective um is different like

(01:49:44):
I give them good, better, best,yeah, but that is the price,
right, that's what they're gonnaget, based on what we talked
about.
But talking talking about ourfriend alex minor that we
brought earlier years ago, Italked to him and he mentioned,
you know, these add-on thingsand I was like I don't want to
make a list, but I did add a fewadd-ons and they, like you know
, add a sound guy or add amakeup artist or whatever, and I

(01:50:06):
did find, surprisingly enough,people will actually choose that
and makes our product better.
And, you know, it doesn't hurtme because it's just on there on
the software that I'm using andit adds zero seconds to my
anything because it's just inthe template and it can be a

(01:50:26):
little bit extra revenue.
Plus, it's helping me be ableto provide income to local or
wherever I'm going,professionals in the industry,
and why wouldn't I want to dothat?
But this is a very goodapproach and has it worked out
for you?
Like, have people picked a lotof things that you weren't
expecting them to pick?

Yeah, absolutely.
And it also gives that thatwhole energy off of you because
you feel guilty, you know,throwing in extra stuff that
that they don't need.
And now you show up with thisand then like I didn't ask for
that, why, why, why is it hereand why are you charging me for
it?
You know, so it was like nowyou got to go back and forth

(01:51:05):
with OL, but if you check itit's on you.
You chose what you wanted.
Yeah, it's nothing on me.
So now when I say so, now whenit says it starts at 35, it
starts at 35.
That's basic with nothing elseto add on.
But then when you checkeverything and it goes up to 75,
to 17,000.

That it's on you, that's on you.
But also, do you find thenpeople can, because a lot of
people do that for me?
There's also skill in thisindustry, meaning, like you know
, for example, I've been to, youknow, I don't know tens of
thousands, I've seen a lot ofproblems I can be on set and be
prepared for more solutionsright.
Plus, I'm like a simple thinglike I'm recording to two cards

(01:51:42):
they're very high quality cardsand I'm backing them up to three
places, then I'm putting themin cloud.
You know, there's also areliability factor, why I'm like
somebody should hire me and payme um things that clients
typically don't see, right?
Um, so what I'm trying to sayis like but there's also a
factor like between pickingvideo people is the skill level.
Um, how do you find and I finda lot of clients that are hiring

(01:52:04):
us are not experts in our field, right?
it's one thing for an agencythat is experienced because they
can see through all this.
But what I'm saying is atypical small business owner
doesn't know difference betweensomebody just coming out of a
full sale or whatever, right,being brand new with an fx6
because they just give you oneright Part of the course, versus
somebody who's like anexperienced DP, who's been doing

(01:52:26):
this for years and hassolutions to solve most common
problems and anyway, they willjust look at this as a DP with
an FX6.
This is a DP with an FX6, right, because that's what they say.
Right, right, right.
The point I'm trying to make isright, because that's what they
say.
The point I'm trying to make isdo you find yourself that your
clients some it may not be allcan go then now start rate
shopping because they're like oh, he's charging me, I don't know

(01:52:48):
what your rate, but a hundredbucks for a teleprompter, 500
for a start shooter, and youknow, I don't know for editing
extra.
And now they'll go to someoneelse and hopefully or not
hopefully, but let's assumethey're like you too they're

(01:53:09):
doing a breakdown, and then theycan go.
Oh, but his second shooter isonly 450 versus 500.
Maybe I got to go with him,even though we don't know the
skill level.
The end result is the videoright, which is what matters,
right?
And we don't know, obviously,the skill level difference.
And this one I'm saying for aclient side perspective.
Do you think that that is acase?

Or could that be hurting you?
It's definitely a case as faras hurting.
I wouldn't say no just becausethat means that you weren't
meant for me to work with.
I mean to work with um, but I'mwe.
I mean we all price shop.
I mean we all.
You know we all do it.
So it's a human nature just tofind the cheapest price for the
best.
No, find the best item for thatfor for the cheapest price out
there.
That's, I mean, that's whateverybody does, so I don't have

(01:53:52):
a problem with that.
My thing is that's why I buildmy company the way it is, just
because I know most people don'tdo what I do as far as proposal
work does.
When you look at my proposal,I've not one client yet has not
been amazed by my proposal basedoff of how I put it together.
Most people I know just sendout you know where are they

(01:54:15):
called?
Not quotes, but where are theycalled Estimates.
You just send out estimates witha couple of lines a camera
package, light package.
You know, know my fee yeahtotal.
You know.
He's like okay, what is?
What is it?
That's all I get you know.
But when I break down, when Ibreak down everything and
there's an actual contract withall the clauses and everything
in it, and it's like it'spersonalized with your picture

(01:54:36):
and name and all that, and he'slike, oh man, you put working in
this like this is you'reimpressing them because now it's
like, oh well, you seem like aprofessional.
Yeah versus yeah, he might becheaper, but is he coming with
the same quality?
That I'm coming with is?
Is he showing you the samevalue up front before you can
work together, you know?
So I'm coming with a.
I'm coming from a place where Iwant to be professional as

(01:55:00):
possible.
I want to be an actual company.
Where you're looking at me likean actual company.
I am an actual company.
So I want to present myself asan actual company, not just a
freelancer.
Who would you know, would itjust?
I mean no shot to freelancers,but I'm just saying with you
know just one sheet, and youjust saying it's my price.
Yeah.
I want to let you know whatwe're doing.
Yeah let you know what we'redoing, yeah, why we're doing it.
Because you told me your whyand I want to give you proof as

(01:55:22):
far as veto, testimonials andstuff like that that showcases
my work and in there as well.
So it's like there's there's noguessing of what we can do for
you, you know so preach myfriend.

So now.
So it's just like amazing and Ilove hearing it, because you
know we're doing similar things,or we're trying to do similar
things, but at the same time,you bring this amazing different
perspective.
And that's why it's importantto have these conversations,
because now I can hear your sideand your way of doing it and
you can hear my side andobviously we're both trying to
do the same thing make anawesome video for client um and

(01:55:53):
seeing what's working, what'snot working.
So I'm loving this man this isgreat um, thanks for telling me
all about it.
I would love to off the cameraonce we get.
I would love to see yourproposal.
I want to see all the rates,man.
I want to see how you're doingit, because I'm already
intrigued, so I'm so glad we hadthis conversation.
Now, as we're wrapping this,before we end this, I really
want to know because, like Isaid, I'm learning so much from

(01:56:15):
you today.
I what are you talking about,like, how are you handling your
calls or your meetings?
So obviously they've approachedyou and before you send this
right, there's a gap in between.
So they've approached you andyou've sent them this rate list
type of proposal which is and,like you said, they're loving it
because you and you customizeit, you built it to your their.

(01:56:36):
So there's a big thing inbetween.
That you're doing is eithercall or in person.
Which one would you prefer?

so me, I love in person, because telling somebody
no in person is a lot harderthan on the phone when you sit
next next to somebody and you'reactually having a conversation
about money, you know if thatperson's not a you know, not an
asshole or whatever.
They don't care about yourfeelings, but but.
But somebody with feelings willunderstand like, okay, I can't,
I can't, let me talk to himlater off the phone, tell him no
, but for me I prefer face toface just because it's more

(01:57:06):
personable.
I can actually look in youreyes and you can see my eyes and
know that I'm telling the truthand I'm and I'm and I'm loyal
and I'm, and you know, and Iknow what I mean and I'll say
what I say.
Um, so I definitely love youknow face to face.
So that's why, even even online, I'll do a zoom versus, you
know, just on a phone call,because anybody can be on the
phone yeah you know, I love tosee your face while I'm talking

(01:57:27):
to you.
I love to see what you're doing,because if you're not engaged
with what I'm doing, then how wework together, you know how
we're going to work, you know.
I wanted to be a truthfulconversation, you know, and I
want you to actually meet.
I want you to actually want meto work on your videos and not
just pick a random personbecause anybody can work on your
videos.
But I want to be because I wantto build a relationship.
I want to.
I wanted to make it bepersonable because I consider I

(01:57:48):
don't I don't go that far assaying as friends, but you know,
at least, at least to where wecan, you know, be cordial and
where I can call you and sayhappy birthday or something.
You know, not just be a randomnumber, like OK, that's just a
video guy, don't worry about whothat is.
You know, I want to be able to,you know, call you personally,
like, hey, congratulations onyour daughter, or invite you to
my daughter's birthday party.
That's just me personally.

(01:58:10):
I mean, that's just mepersonally as far as how I like
to run my business, as far as mycustomers.
I like to be on a personallevel, because I just feel like
personal will bring in moremoney, because now they can talk
to other people about you on apersonal level.
You know, I know him as aperson versus just a company and
you know, even though thecompany does great work, the

(01:58:33):
person behind the company is anamazing person as well.

Exactly, that's awesome, man.
You're building relationships.
So how do you tackle these?
Call these either Zoom orin-person meetings.
How do you approach them?
Do you have a structure or like, how do you uh, especially on a
get to like, how do you tellthem how this proposal is going
to come, what to do on it, orwhatever?
How are you handling thatconversation?

Uh, so first I'll come through with um I use what
was it?
Um Miller notes.
So I'll come in with abasically like a PowerPoint,
basically just a structure, afront, to tell it what, what
we're capable to do.
You know what my concepts werewhen you first approached me.
Put my thoughts down there andshow them my thoughts, and show
them what I think would be best,and then we can break it down

(01:59:16):
from there.
Me, I approach every businessdifferent.
I don't have a structure.
I just kind of just flow with.
You know what they give me,what's the energy they give me,
and we go from there because Ialready have my.
You know, I already have mybullet points set up.
Yeah, I already have whatyou're looking for, so I can go
off of that and put in mythoughts and then we can talk
about that and then break itdown from there okay.

So and then now you've come up with the proposal
.
You are well, you know whatthey want to do.
You've come up with a proposal.
Well, you know what they wantto do.
You've come up with the rightsolution.
Do you write there and thentell them the price, or do you
say I'm going to send you aproposal?

I say I send a proposal, I don't tell them
price at all.
I send a proposal and let themsee the price right in the mail.

So you send the proposal after the meeting.
Yeah, Okay.
And they have never seen theprice, never seen the price.

Do you explain to them, like, how the software
works, or you just let themfigure it out?
So I send it to them?
Yeah, so, so so I send it tothem and I let them look at it,
because as soon as they open itup, I get an email saying saying
you know, saying they'reopening it up With their
software Proposify, you canactually see where they spend
the most time at.
So you can actually see thatthey spent the most time on the
pricing or or the most time onthe videos that's in there.
And so now when I follow upwith you, I'm like, hey, I seem
to spend a lot of time on apricing and I understand that

(02:00:26):
it's a lot.
But let me you know, let mereassure you, why is this?
Okay, let me tell you why isthis.
You're using the analytics youcan see where they spend how
much time they spend what theydo.

That's incredible.
You know to be able to figureout, you know where they're at
or what's maybe causing thehiccup Cause for me.
Uh, I'm not even sending themthe proposal until I'm sure
they're there, Right?

Otherwise it's even different.
Yeah, so what's?

the point of sending a proposal, wasting my
time, Because at the end, if I'msending a proposal, they should
already be ready to buy.
But no, that's incredible man.
This has been amazing, soawesome.
Thanks for coming.
It's always a pleasure to talkto you.
Before we go, though, is thereanything else you want to say or
talk or ask about, or I don'tknow?
Shout out I don't know.

(02:01:18):
Tell people your Instagram.

I don't know oh yeah , we gotta do this again.
You know, this has been fun.
You're welcome.

Hey, we're just trying this.
Like I said, I just wanted todo this and I'm already like
look, we just talked for twohours and I feel like there was
so much to learn.

Yeah, we ain't even scratched the surface, and I've
been doing this for 15 years andI learned so much.
Entertainment man long planerides long drives, I mean
there's no, I guess we're twohours and we can talk for
another six hours but now youknow again, my name is tony,
owner of corporate level media.

(02:01:49):
Um, that's corporate leveleverywhere.
Um.
Instagram, corporate level,facebook, youtube, corporate
level.
Um.
You also follow my personalinstagram, which which is
ToneDeaf Tone underscore Deaf314.
It's T-O-N-E underscore D-E-F314.
It's my personal.
Again.
There ain't much on therebecause you know, I focus more

(02:02:09):
on clients and that's actuallyone of my goals for this year is
to get more, you know, socialpresence out there.
Same thing with me, man.

I've been so, so busy working.
Like I said, even this took twoyears to make it happen, while
I was saying over and over Igotta record these conversations
that I keep having with peopleuh, but no, I, that's my goal
too this year.
We gotta be more active onsocial media, um, and share more
so people can uh follow.
But no, go follow tony and uh,man, thanks again for coming.

(02:02:37):
You're welcome back anytime.
Let's try how the season onegoes and, if incredible, we'd
love to have you back in seasontwo and continue this
conversation.
I'm pretty sure we'll learneven more.

And, like I said, maybe we should bring the
proposal.

I would love to find a way, you know, but the
eighth time to put it up and letpeople explore, as long as you
don't mind, because I'm allabout like sharing knowledge,
because Only brings more moneythan takes anything away.
So I really appreciate you.
Again, man, thank you forcoming.

Appreciate it, thank you.

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