Speaker 1: A common piece of advice that I've seen out there for filmmakers and videographers is do free shoots in order to get more work from that client. And that's something I could not disagree with more. So I wanted to make this quick video to share my experience, why I think doing free work in order to get paid work from that is a terrible idea and what you could do instead. The advice that I've seen out there is basically call up businesses, video production companies, and tell them that you'll make a video for them for free or do a shoot for them for free. And then the idea is that if you do a good enough job, that same company will hire you the next time around and they'll pay you what you want. Okay. Now I've been doing this long enough to know that almost never works. If I had to estimate, because it does work sometimes, I would say probably one out of 10 times that you go out there and you do this, that company that you did a free shoot for will actually pay you. Now, the problem is they will never pay you what you deserve to get paid anyway, because you started with a free shoot. The first impression of that company, the first impression they had about you is that you provided free labor, right? So even when you do an amazing job and they decide to hire you again, which rarely happens, they'll really never pay you the industry rates that you should be charging. So I've gone this path many, many times when I was starting out and it always ended the same way. You get stuck in this box that you create for yourself and you're going to be known as whatever that first impression of you was. So what's the better way to go about this that actually leads to getting good paying clients? After I went down this path myself multiple times, I realized I had to work with a bunch of businesses and clients to even get one of them to pay me, right? So let's say I did five free shoots. One of them led to a paying gig. Again, a paying gig, not paying the rate that I wanted to get paid anyway, right? Because I started for free. So this is what I do instead. I do, again, a type of shoot that's considered free work for a company, but I don't intend to work with that company again, okay? Now, why do I do this? I do this because I need an example, especially when I'm starting out, right? This is exactly what I did when I started out over 10 years ago. I did a free shoot to be able to show that type of a client what I'm capable of, not that specific client though, that type of client, that industry. So I don't have an example yet. So it's really hard to get that type of clients. My examples, let's say I'm shooting weddings and I'm trying to do a marketing video for a law firm. I can't use that wedding sample to show that marketing video what I could do. They're never going to understand how that translates, right? So I have to do some sort of an example. So the free shoot I do, I consider it a spec commercial. Spec is basically when you make a fake commercial in order to get a better one. And it's a marketing expense for my company, right? I don't consider a free shoots. I'm just trying to get work in that industry. So I see it as an exchange, right? They're basically giving me their time and that gives me a marketing asset. And in exchange, they're getting a video in return. So this is a spec commercial. This is a marketing expense. It's actually not costing me any money though. Typically, if I end up doing a lot of the work myself or in house, but it's a marketing asset. So that's the expense, the marketing asset that I could use for the next five years. So this is sort of the game plan. I make a marketing video and in exchange, I get to use that marketing video to get more clients like that. The company I did the video for gets a free video in return. But the whole point here is I'm not trying to get that company to give me more work. That's the general, basically tip out there to do free work, to get that company, to give you more work. But they'll pay you fully for that work, which again, doesn't happen. So the goal is to use that company as an example, but don't ever pursue that same company. That's basically I'm burning that bridge with that company because they saw me as the person that does free work. But now I'm using that example to pursue clients in that industry that will pay me full price. And then the next step is once I have that from that client, I build a landing page and that landing page will target very similar type of clients. So to give you an example of what I did exactly, I made a marketing video for a law firm. I did this for free. This was my marketing expense. But in exchange, I asked that law firm, Hey, I'm going to use this marketing video that you're getting, which typically let's say costs $10,000 as an example to get other law firms in the area. Do you agree with that? Basically, I'm not trying to tell them, Hey, I'm working for free for you. I'm asking for something in return. I'm asking for a marketing asset. So when they agree to that, we both got something in exchange. Now I never do this a second time or a third time. I don't go down to a bunch of law firms trying to do a free shoot for them so they could pay me later. I got the marketing assets. My relationship with this law firm is over. Okay. That's what they gave me. And that's that. Now I create this landing page and that landing pitch has that example. The landing page will have an offer around it that shows a marketing bundle. Then what I do is I send other type of law firms. I target other law firms to that landing page and I don't discount the shoot. I don't do free shoots. This is a one-time deal to get that example. Now, every time I pitch or I tell a new law firm about this offer is a full industry rates, right? I don't have to minimize my rate at all because I have a very relevant example for that industry. Now I've done this exact strategy in my early days in multiple industries. So I could actually break into two or three different industries. So I did this with law firms. I did this in the healthcare industry and I did it with food and travel. And then I got eventually the biggest clients in those type of niche or industries, and I never needed to discount my rates and I never needed to do a free shoot at all. So this wasn't like, Hey, let me do free shoots with five law firms. And hopefully one of them keeps hiring me. So don't do free shoots, hoping that the clients would give you paid work. Instead, shoot a video for a company only as an example. So you could target similar companies with that example. That sample company never needs to be your clients. That's not the goal. And that is the common thing that I've seen out there as basically the way to get work. The goal is to use them to break in into a new industry and charge full rates without ever needing to do free work or doing discounted work again. So I hope you found this video useful and I'll see you next time.