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Need advice for a student-run videography company
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Honestly the only thing I can see coming from play ing the student card is potential clients will try and get you to agree to a lesser price, because by saying we are students you are also saying we don’t know fully what we are doing.
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[Zane Barker] “Honestly the only thing I can see coming from playing the student card is potential clients will try and get you to agree to a lesser price, because by saying we are students you are also saying we don’t know fully what we are doing.”
I agree and he has admitted that. The first thing to do is pull down that wannabe-rate-card and get real. There’s not a single example of work on the site that says they’re worth it. Nick may complain that’s too harsh – but they’re not in his market. So they miss a valuable lesson by coddling to them. They’re not in my market either – but I’m reacting as if they were. See the difference, Nick?
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[Nick Griffin] “First of all – lighten up Raymond. I don’t know how honed your skill set was at 17 or 18, but for high school kids these guys appear to be well on their way. Yes the web design is just OK, but Ryan isn’t representing himself as a cutting edge Silicon Valley design firm.”
At $4000 a web-site, that’s exactly how he’s representing himself! Look at his rate-card.
What are they ‘well on their way’ to?
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If you want to use the fact of being students in your communications, market it not as cheap inexperienced low-risk labor, but as innovative, creative, avant-garde’, the next generation. When a bunch of California film students got together and called themselves Zoetrope, they were all still very raw talents, only one or two small projects in their portfolios. But they had energy and a fresh outlook, they wanted to express ideas thru film in new ways. They marketed themselves as the up-and-comers, the people with an insight to the youth culture, just as that culture was becoming more important to business.
But youth by itself is not enough to sell what you do. More powerful to sell ORGANIZATION: That you have a collective, a TEAM, that brings all these various cutting-edge skills to the table. From where I sit, that’s your group’s greatest strength, and you need to play to it. That there’s a whole crew of you, each an expert in one facet, not just one or two guys, trying to fake equal skill in every department. When you buy into the pitch, you’re getting the whole team working for you. This also should make clients feel more secure in that you’ll have enough resources between all of you to execute what you’ve promised. So you have to make visible this “team-ness” of your organization in your marketing materials, IMO. When I hear “students”, the next thing I think of is “unreliable”- they are like mayflies, temps: if you love what they do, it hardly matters because they’re gone soon, replaced by new unknowns that may be geniuses or flakes. The sense of an overall ORGANIZATION brings with it the promise of some CONTINUITY in service level that lasts more than a semester. This is a very powerful concept when linked to the advantages of youth because it mitigates the downside of that youth.
Breaking down the website into sub-sites is a very important early step. Your customers self-select thru this initial filtering mechanism. You want the grinders and tire-kickers to lose interest and filter out, and only the actual prospects with money to move ahead to contact. So don’t be afraid to price yourselves above the bottom-feeders, because you’re right that you can’t survive there anyhow. Keep a distinct Event video presence and keep it separate visually and mentally from the business/advertising and documentary/theatrical arms. Even if all the phones really ring to the same desk in mom’s basement.
Something else you might want to work on is to gather in a public spot monthly to showcase your projects and make contacts. Regular screening parties somewhere at a bar or whatever, run a monthly contest or theme for short demo projects, enter any and all local competitions. Make a public presence in the local culture scene. This is good team-building stuff for the group’s morale and lets you build additional contacts by word of mouth. Contacts that can lead to sales leads or at least to more human resources for future projects. Each individual of the team also needs to try and make at least one new contact a week out in the community, to tell about the group and their services. Active real-world Networking.
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Ryan,
As far as doing biz as LLC or DBA, all I have to say is “accidents will happen.” That’s why they’re called accidents.
For insurance, I pay $590/Year for Worker’s Comp via Zurick (just me) and $38.73/Month for $1 million general liability policy with an Inland Marine clause for “videotizing” it. It includes insuring my office equipment (laptops, scanner, etc.)
Overall, my policies are pretty cheap when compared to all the other things I have to pay for to run my biz.Because I don’t own my own video equipment (I sub out shooters and editors) I don’t have any advice or experience on major equipment insurance.
Bruce
Bruce Bennett,
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC – http://www.bmmp.com -
Hi Ryan.
I applaud your tenasity, man.
First, as mentioned, the ole website needs some pizzaz. Today, in many ways, that really is your demo reel. If it does not impress, the phone wont ring from it’s hits.
I would not put rates on your site. It paints you into a corner. You’ll find without having that restriction, you can grow your budgets on the fly, while negotiating sometimes.
Utilize your strength and that is youth. Advertise that you guys are young, hip and edgy. Put your personalities in everything you do from that site, to your cards to your appearence when dazzling clietele. Being middle aged and balding, I have to convence my new clientele how hip I am with samples of my work. With you guys, that can automaticly be assumed without even bustin’ out a reel.
Create some labors of love. If you keep shooting and editing weddings, you will naturally become a wedding videography house. Assuming this is not the goal, go shoot those things you really want to be getting paid to shoot. Be that music videos or shorts, you will not get these gigs if you have not done these gigs.
Above all, have fun. This is somthing that can be sensed over the phone, man. If you guys are having a blast, peopel will gravitate to you. If it’s a job, there is a place down the road where they have fun.
take care, man
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[Ryan Mast] “Is it better to start at $90 and offer $75, or just set it at $75 (or lower)? What do you think is a fair wage?”
Your appearance of professionalism is enhanced by taking the position that the price is the price. If further sweetening is still needed to close the deal do so by throwing in freebies. For example on a wedding package, throw in 20 extra DVDs. Tell them that you’ve found this to be very popular with brides because that way every member of the wedding party can get one as can Aunt Martha in Iowa who was unable to attend.As to what to charge, please don’t take this as a dodge or wise ass comment, but the amount you charge should be as much as you can get without losing the business. Research what others in your area charge. Find out what they include and what the make ala carte. Use that knowledge to construct pricing that is appealing.
If I have to be blunt, the wedding stuff on your site does not appear — to ME, someone with zero knowledge of the wedding video market — to be of the level to justify the prices you are publishing. So keep doing more and work on getting prettier and more elegant imagery.
[Ryan Mast] ”
In addition to incorporating as an LLC, what else should we be getting? Liability insurance? Insurance for equipment? Do we need to get insurance to cover equipment we rent? We all work as subcontractors (1099’s), so does TIP need to get any kind of workman’s comp or insurance to cover the workers?”Students or not you MUST have liability insurance. Not sure how easy or hard that will be to get given your age(s), but even if it’s booked in the name of a parent not having it is playing with fire.
Yes, you should insure your own equipment and ESPECIALLY anything you rent, unless that coverage is explicitly spelled out in the rental agreement — making it redundant and therefore an avoidable expense.
I don’t know what coverage you need for your 1099 employees so make sure that’s something you ask the insurance agent about. I assume that’s all part of your “umbrella” liability policy.
One more point about insurance. If you’re going after corporate work you will likely run into situations where you have to present a certificate of insurance as PROOF that you are covered in case anything goes wrong. This seldom happens for talking head shoots but is an almost certainty for shoots taking place in factories and similar workplaces.
My friend Randall has responded below to my original post, so I’ll continue on other aspects of this conversation there.
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Randall, Randall, Randall. (Heavy sigh.)
Yes, I guess on further examination you have a point. Also, on further reading, perhaps I was mistaken to assume that these guys were high school students rather than college students. Hence I would be a lot more forgiving in judging the quality of their work. So Ryan – how old are you guys? Are you 16 year old high school sophomores or 26 year old grad students?
I have the impression that the rates quoted are just being floated in the hope that they will someday be able to charge these amounts. These kids are likely to run into quite a few grinders along the way and they’ll have to learn how to balance work quality against market price just as the rest of us have. And yes, $4,000 for a website of this nature does seem a bit out of alignment with the real world. But then if the same amount of coding and beneath the surface work were combined with $500’s worth of a decent Art Director’s time, it might be worth $4,000 — or more — to someone. Maybe. Your mileage may vary.
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Please see my reply above.
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[grinner hester] “Being middle aged and balding…”
Hey! I resemble that remark! Then again so do the overwhelming majority of my clients and that’s a tool that works for me. People hire people like them because they can relate to them, understand where they are coming from and where they are likely to go. We also get hired based on bringing a level of knowledge and competence to the table. The beard may be turning gray but there’s still a fire burning between the ears. Energy and attention are required and that can come across in middle age as well as youth.
[grinner hester] “Above all, have fun. This is something that can be sensed over the phone, man. If you guys are having a blast, people will gravitate to you. If it’s a job, there is a place down the road where they have fun.”
Grin, you really hit the nail on the head with this comment! In competitive markets and competitive situations fun can make all the difference. It also connotes a positive attitude. Who do you want to work with, the guy who says, “Oh… that could be a problem?” Or the guy who says, “Wow, that’s challenging, I love challenges, let’s see how we solve this.”
(And on a side note, Grinner, I hope your adventures are taking you new and interesting places, that you are continuing to rule your own world and that the new year will bring you nothing but happiness and success!)
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