As the owner of a 22-year old production/post-production facility, I have found a way to survive in these disruptive times by diversifying.
What I mean is, I still provide production and post-production at my standard rates but I also provide other services such as e-learning development (instructional design and content development), live-streaming (yes, this is becoming a commodity too now), website design, hosting and support and print design.
This gives me some flexibility when one side of the house is slow.
It does take some time to understand and budget the e-learning side of things but I approached a trusted client of mine to give me a shot and he did. e-learning is now about 20% of yearly revenue.
I teach these young “bucks” at a local college and try to make them understand how a real business works and I know some of them will be my competitors…that’s fine…as long as they remember the ethics component of my class.
Some of these “cheap” folks do not understand or ignore copyright laws for using video from films and music. They are the ones who make it hard for me to compete on a level playing field since I properly license music.
So, Bob, I agree that the business is hard these days but not impossible. If one can keep expenses under control and use freelancers on properly budgeted projects, one can keep the facility FTE headcount down to a minimum.
I look forward to coming to work every Monday morning!
Regards,
Chuck Johnson
President
Big Bad Wolf Creative Group
Fort Worth, Texas