[Nick Griffin]

Oh. Your post came in while I was writing my earlier reply. Sounds like you’re well on your way and not quite as “bare bones” as I might have thought.

The BIG thing to remember is only buy things when you absolutely HAVE to have them and the job(s) will quickly pay them off. That’s why renting for individual jobs so often makes sense. (IMHO.)

[Nick Griffin]

Alright. Just to get started…

You can almost always hire a shooter or you can rent shooting gear on an as needed basis. This is a very good way to get started without a huge investment. So assuming your computer situation is under control, if you just want to post you’ll need:

An NLE – lots of flavors and price points to pick from.

Adobe AfterEffects – you can start with Standard Edition. (Although some will argue that Apple’s Motion is more than good enough with which to get started.)

A playback/record deck in whatever format you will receice & send out.

A Monitor (Decent TV with video input jack will suffice, but only until you run into issues you missed due to not having underscanning to see the whole picture.)

Powered Speakers

LOTS of disk space.

At least 2 gig of RAM.

Some may disagree, but personally I can’t conceive of doing any kind of production without having Photoshop handy.

It would be nice to have an audio mixer if only to manually control levels and handle monitoring. And then if you had that a patch bay would be pretty important, but you CAN live without this — if only for a short period of time.

OK, guys. What did I miss for a bare bones start-up?

[Nick Griffin]

Dean –

I’m not a marketing consultant, but I do play one on TV… Wait a minute. I AM a marketing consultant.

I fully agree with almost everything said above. You have a brand to protect and should not take that lightly. Maybe what you really want, to satisfy that desire to have a new identity, is something as simple as a new logo.

Or maybe what you want is a means of re-branding that doesn’t discard the old name. For example, say your present name is Circle Video Productions (and I’m just guessing here), you could change your public name to CVP with Circle Video Productions as small type underneath.

The real truth of the matter is preserving the client relationships is crucial. As long as you are in close contact with your clients they won’t care what you call yourself. If some “creators” view you as only a production house that’s fine. No need to rub their noses in the fact that you are also in the creative business. If new potential clients want to think of you as much more than simply the production house, so much the better — and a dececnt reason for calling yourself CVP.

And finally, say hi to Bob for me. (BTW – If you want to email me add a “G” after my first name and before the @. The old email was dropped to protect me from SPAM.)

[Nick Griffin]

Well. At least this thread is getting down to the real purpose of the Biz Cow .. hosts jabbing at each other.

Welcome, Franklin.

-Nick Griffin

[Nick Griffin]

Well… I GUESS it’s okay, Ron. But only on one condition: you either have to grow a beard or work for NASA.

(Actually, I always thought you WERE part of the Biz Cow.)

[Nick Griffin]

Great piece, Ron!

Much as cold calls are universally hated, they’re a necessity for all but the most obscenely successful businesses. If you’re too busy working on the current projects to worry about the next ones you are doomed to hitting periods of no projects.

One thing that we’ve found especially effective is to use (what I call) “Door Openers.” These are well packaged items which contain a pitch about us either on them (in the case of a label) or attached to them or the package. Last year we did a mailing which utilized a hot sauce for which we created a new label which stated a few witty things about the company. The outer box led in with a statement that “We have the hots for you.”

Then, once your prospect has received this Door Opener item (which because it’s a 3Dimensional object, not a letter almost invariably bypasses the secretarial screen) you can call.

Viola! It’s no longer a cold call!! They know you.

My experience with Door Openers is 9 times out of 10 the prospect will take the call, and they’re usually chuckling.

[Nick Griffin]

Call it a luxury of being fairly successful, but several years ago I stopped doing business with companies who take too long to pay their bills. If I’ve got to worry, why have them as a client?

Big downside to 2%/10 discounts is too many people pay at 30, 45 or 60 and still take the discount anyway. Similarly, charging interest typically gets ignored. What are you going to do about it? Risk alienating a client over a very minor fraction of the work they’ve just given you?

Common sense, but… at the start of any relationship simply state the terms under which you expect to be paid. (We have it as a clause in our contract.) Then if the reality is too far out of synch with what you originally requested, bring it up with them.

Funny thing about all of this is that the people who always seem to have the biggest last minute “Oh, my God — drop everything” emergencies also tend to be the ones who can’t quite seem to get an invoice approved and paid in a reasonable time. Funny thing, huh?

[Nick Griffin]

As for hiring someone…I’ve seen too many people hire staff only to have it bite them in the backside,

Been there, Done that. Got the T-Shirt. The real key is stupifyingly obvious but it;s all about hiring the “right someone” and not just any someone. Look for an extremely strong work ethic and a passion for accomplishing things, not just staying busy.

One of the things that I’ve seen in highly successful companies is the amount of time they devout to finding and interviewing potential employees. Four, five and more interviews. Rigorous follow-up on references and so on.

I would also submit to Greg that if you’re “barely supporting yourself” AND turning away work you need to raise your self-esteem and especially re-price your services.