Speaker 1: We've been doing social media and video production for the last, what seems like forever, but officially since 2018. In that time, we've had the privilege of working on some really cool projects with some really cool clients. These include Mammut, Land Rover, Jaguar, and Volvo, as well as one other company that I'm not allowed to name just yet, but I will give you a hint, they are in the Fortune 500. So that's pretty cool. Keep your eyes out for a video about that. But in that process, we've been able to build a six-figure video production company. In our time of building this business, we've had many ups and downs, as well as learned many tips and tricks that we feel would be good for you guys to know. So in this video, we want to go over the top eight things that we wish we knew when starting a video production business in case you plan on doing the same. So let's get into it. Tip number one is that your name doesn't matter. When you're starting out, the first thing that people try to come up with is the name for their company. And that's rightfully so. This is the most outwardly facing part of your company and is the thing that differentiates you from everyone else. This is also the most important part of the business building process, so you need to find the perfect name. Now that would be a good tip if it was true, but it's not. You don't know how many times I've seen people want to start a creative business and they get so far as to choosing the name and the whole process grinds to a halt. This is because without a name, you can't create a website, you can't make business cards or do anything like that. But the one thing that I can tell you is to not obsess over it too much because the name really doesn't matter. Your clients will not care at all what your name is as long as you provide a good product that they're happy with. Our name, for instance, is made up of the first three initials of the three founding members, T-M-S. Now this is the least creative name you could probably ever think of, but we've never had an issue with our name ever. A great place to start for a name if you have no idea where you want to start is to use your first and last name. This is super easy because odds are it's going to be super easy and cheap to get the domain name and Instagram handle associated with it. But again, the name is not nearly as important as it may seem. People will promise you the world. This has happened to us all the time when we were starting out. Someone will come to us asking us to make a video for them. We will then quote the project and tell them what it costs, and then they will come back to us and hype us up by saying that they have so many more videos that they want to film down the line and ask for a discount of the project we are currently working on with promise of more work in the future. From my experience, never take this deal because it often rarely ever happens. I think out of all the times that we've been offered this deal, it's worked out a total of zero times. So don't make the same mistake we did and insist on the rate that you originally quoted because future work doesn't pay the bills now. Now I'm not saying that this will never work out. For some people that, yes, it's true, you will get future work down the line and this could be a good deal. However, in most cases that we've experienced, this isn't the case and people often promise you the world and nothing ends up coming from it. You will undercharge when you start and that's okay. That's right. When you first start, you will undercharge. We have probably left thousands of dollars on the table when it comes to quoting a project and we've even had it where the client comes to us after the project is done and tells us that we could have charged for at least twice if not three times what we originally quoted. Now this is a real kick in the pants because you will constantly overthink and ask yourself what if? And the reason that this is okay is because you will learn from this mistake, you'll learn your value and you'll make this mistake less and less going into the future. When we were told that we could charge double for that project, we instantly knew what a project of that caliber should normally go for and down the line when a similar project came our way, we were able to charge accordingly. Something that I wish I knew about when starting on this whole video production journey is about music services like this video sponsor, Epidemic Sound. Especially when doing videos for clients, dancing around music licenses can get extremely tricky. That's why we like to use Epidemic Sound to get music for our client projects extremely easily. Epidemic Sound also allows our clients to use their music for paid ads on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. They have an extensive collection of over 35,000 songs as well as 90,000 sound effects that we use for pretty much every single one of our videos. They also have a really handy sorting system that makes it easier than ever to find either the sound effect or song that you're looking for. They have a ton of different categories so you can really narrow down your search and find just that perfect song. Also for their sound effects, they have a similar type of thing which is a tagging system which makes it really easy to narrow down the sound effects and find the exact one you're looking for. Also, something that I really like is that they have a wide variety of the same sound effects. For example, if you search up cash register, there will be three, four, or even more sound effects of a cash register so with a little bit of searching you can find the exact sound effect that fits your needs. The commercial plan allows you to use their music on all your social media as well as your client's social medias and their website. If you are at all interested in Epidemic Sound, there's going to be a link in the description down below where you can get yourself a 30-day free trial. We highly recommend it. Payment will always take longer than expected. Something I didn't realize when starting this entire thing is just how long it would take for some people to pay you. Now, some clients are great. They will pay you literally the minute that you submit your invoice, but there are clients out there that if you have a 30-day payment term, they will take that entire 30 days to pay the invoice. A good amount of your time will be spent chasing people for the money that they owe you, but that's just the nature of the business. You don't need the latest and greatest gear. You've probably heard that you don't need the latest and greatest gear, and that is 100% true, especially when you're starting out. When we started TMS, we were using the Canon SL1, which is literally the cheapest DSLR that you could get at the time, and we did actually our first couple client projects on that camera. In many cases, the client will not care at all what kind of a camera you are using as long as they get a good product at the end of the day. Knowing how to use the camera that you currently have is way better than using the most expensive camera. Do social media. Even if you never have the goal of being a famous YouTuber or Instagrammer or LinkedIn-er, support social media because it is very important. This is because social media is a very good way to get your work out there and get it seen. I would say that a majority of our client work comes from the fact that we do social media, people see our videos, and they want to hire us. When it comes to doing social media for your business and your goal isn't to become a famous YouTuber, you don't have to worry about gaining followers or gaming the algorithm. I would recommend that you post your videos to social media more as like a public portfolio so that people can see it and maybe they might stumble across it when they're online. If you never post anything to social media and you don't have a social media presence, then people don't know that you exist and if people don't know that you exist, they can't hire you. Under promise and over deliver. Under promising and over delivering is probably one of my favorite tips to give to somebody who is starting a business in a creative field like this. This is because it almost always lands them a reoccurring client. For this, we like to go just a little above and beyond on the project so that the client feels like they are getting good value for their money. For example, when we first started working with Land Rover, we were only ever hired to make a video for them. Then when we got the car and we were filming our video, we also got photos at the same time. Then when the video was done, we sent them the final video as well as a bunch of edited photos that we had taken as well at no extra charge. These photos weren't a ton of work for us to get and the client was extremely appreciative of them and they could take these photos and post them to their Instagram or basically anything else they wanted to use them for. Since then, we have worked with Land Rover multiple times as well as with Volvo and Jaguar and the goal here is to just make it so your client feels like they are getting good value for their money. There will be at least one problem on every single project. This is one of those tips that if I heard it, I probably wouldn't believe it, but it is true. On almost every project that you do, there will almost always be at least one problem that you run into. Whether it's a dead battery in the camera while you're recording or whether it's you accidentally deleting the footage or if it's something as small as leaving the AC on when you are recording audio. We have found that there is almost always something and oftentimes they are things that you would never have expected. Now this is another one of those tips that I don't necessarily have a definitive solution for. I just want to make sure that you're aware so you can keep an eye out for it and hopefully prevent at least one of these problems from happening. This job is an extremely good test of your creative problem-solving skills. Anyways, that is it for this video. I hope you guys maybe learned something about what it's like creating a creative company like this. I hope you guys enjoyed the video and if you're new here, make sure you go and follow us on Instagram at TeamSProductions. Also go leave a comment, like and subscribe because it really helps us out and we'll see you guys in a future video.