[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Travis,

Congratulations!

I don’t think that there many people on this forum that will answer your specific questions. And there are plenty of similar posts in the library of the COW, so you just got to go and search those.

However, I’ll be helpful with the following hints:
1) Pay a lawyer to help take you through the legal status of an LLC or a Corp? They might also be the people to set it up for you and prepare all contracts.
2) Pay an accountant to sort out all of your tax affairs and advice on how get the best return on your earnings.
3) Read the Bootstrappers bible by Seth Godin.

If you can’t afford the two first points and the insurance, then you are not ready for being a company owner.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Reminds me of a long time ago when I was looking for new space. A local “Media” office style building showed us an unfinished audio studio in their basement that we could have our offices in. Apparently they had till that point spent $125,000 and then left it without finishing it.
As I was asking the question “Why?”, and Underground train passed through right beneath our feet…

I agree with Mark, unless you can get a really good gyro or steadicam + sound proof with triple layer insulation and hang the floor from the ceiling down, you are not going to make that space work for you.

Obviously you may want to tough it out for 6 months to prove to your boss that the concept works and could do with a better location – just be careful that boss doesn’t think that you managed that far, and can go on managing…

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Well that may work – except for us who works with some grinders who pays the discounted rate after 90-180 days, and not the full one…

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Al,

Interesting point about failing to deliver to expectations.

In particular in creative industries it is “often in the eye of the beholder”. I have in the past had clients who moved the goal-post a couple of miles from initial idea to development, through script to final delivery. At which point I state how much work that has been done on the project, and why we could not afford to pay them for having their video produced – it is a very crude way of doing it and not one I like using. It does deal with clients not being specific enough, which is often happening when you’re working on mid to large projects for the CEO, but managed by a nervous underling.

If you do deliver a project at the specified length, then one must assume that you’ve completed the job. If the client doesn’t feel happy, it could be argued down to circumstances outside anyone’s control.

But it is likely to be the producer/director/sales manager not managing expectations – i.e. client thought that they were getting a “Super Bowl” size advert, and instead got cable channel no 783 after hours low-budget car commercial. If you don’t manage the client, you won’t win on delivery. And some clients you’ll never be able to manage, which are the ones you pass on to your competitors… 🙂

Ultimately, it is about delivering the project and get the client to accept your delivery. If it is easy to rectify, just do it. If not, and it is your fault, make sure to be insured on any project costing more than you can afford to fix.

My 5p

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

No problem, happy to help 🙂

Remember that you no longer need to state interest charges on your original invoice/T&C as these are effective by law.

When you send the council the invoice with the interest on, another good encouragement is to complete a copy of a court form https://hmctscourtfinder.justice.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/n001-eng.pdf
Add to your cover letter that it will be filed within 72 hours unless payment has been received. “At which point the council will go to court, and will loose, and will have to pay the case cost, your solicitor and credit collector”

I too have done (paid) work for several of the political parties and government. My suggestion would be to put your invoice and thank you letter up on a word-press blog, tag (#) the tory main twitter account and Tweet it out – I’m sure that you’ll soon get paid or awarded another paid job…

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tom,

A few years back, under Gordon Brown, the government put a rule into place for securing payment for small suppliers within 10 days. You also have the government 30 day rule, after which you can automatically apply interest to your invoices.
https://www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-recovery/when-payment-becomes-late

If you don’t intend to work for them again, my suggestion would be to email a copy of invoice and communications to the head of the council, copying in the mayor and the largest opposition leader, and the person not getting you paid – that normally kick people into touch…

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

As much as you should give your client the final production, this may not necessarily involve the source project files and materials.

For-example if you’re contracted to deliver a video production, and you have delivered the video, including signing over the copyright. It is in my opinion entirely OK for you to say to the client that the project structure and execution is proprietary to your workings, and that to disclose those would have an adverse impact on your business not included in your contract for producing a video.

Where on the other hand, if the agency hired you to make an FCP project and After Effects templates, then you should hand those over for them to have.

The Devil is in the Detail.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Charlie,

Welcome to the Cow.

I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it is not very cool to run the same discussion across three COW forums simultaneously.

Prices are falling across the board and the clients are getting ever more demanding due to an abundance of “suppliers” wanting to work in media.
The rates that you should be charging should equal the service that you give to your clients, rather than the kit that you’re using.

If you are a “by the hour” operation, rather than project based, you might be better of getting a researcher to call your 20 nearest competitors and ask them what they charge?
Not forgetting that many companies have moved video functions in-house to be managed by the “nephew” with a small camera and FCP.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Jonathan,

Interesting question.

In my opinion the last thing that you want to study is media…

Cisco Networking or similar, Microsoft server tools, maybe a bit of Linux?
SaaS backbone/management.
Mobile (smart) phone/tablets integration and delivery.
There money to be made in QC and testing of applications too.
App and web development.

Netflix, Lovefilm (Amazon), Yousendit (Google), DropBox, spotify etc would be good places to start for hands-on work experience. They are also the people to tell you what kind of person they would be looking for.
There are also plenty of companies offering Cloud tools for the professional part of the media industry – Adobe and DAX comes to mind.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Sam,

Just an observation:

I can identify with your frustrations. But looking at their pricing: https://voicejockeys.com/voiceDemos/priceList and comparing that with spending (UK based) £150.00 on a good artist and £100-£250 on the studio with an engineer, then $125 for 150 words seems reasonable.

What I’m missing from your post is whether you were happy with the artist’s voice and delivery? Which is equally important to the length of the piece.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk