Between Takes with 1413
The two creatives spearheading 1413 Visuals are talking about all things studio life -- work, music, love etc.
Between Takes with 1413
Ep 2: Client Red Flags (and green flags)
Navigating the choppy seas of client relationships in the creative industry can be as complex as a baroque symphony. Ever bumped into a client who seems to turn a blind eye to your meticulously curated portfolio or, worse yet, balks at your pricing as if you quoted them the moon? Well, you're not alone. We've all been there, and in this session, we're discussing those red flags that should have you running for the hills. But don't fret, it's not all storm clouds on the horizon; we also share those heartwarming moments when a client not only gets it but suggests your golden talent is worth its weight in platinum.
Now, let's switch from business to beats. Did you ever listen to a song that left an indelible mark on your soul? That's the kind of magic we felt when we first heard the emotional tempest of Thrice's "Hurricane" and the haunting narrative woven by Pony Bradshaw in "10 by 10." These artists have crafted something truly special, and we want to bring you along for the ride. Their powerful vocals and compelling lyrics have secured a spot in our "forever songs" trove, and we're eager to share this treasure with you. So, tune in, and join us for an auditory adventure that's sure to stir your spirit, with all tracks waiting for you on our "Between Takes" Spotify playlist.
Song of the Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7lDyWnUnAmvuUkf8wj7ilK?si=df11343db17c4df0
Follow us on social media
- Instagram
Josh: https://www.instagram.com/1413_visuals/
Sam: https://www.instagram.com/samantha.with.a.camera/
- Facebook
Josh: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=1413%20visuals
Sam: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551623922249
Watch the Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNEbTpI9bZA7POvKaNto2RQ
Would you be faster to give away your raw footage or your raw photos?
Speaker 2:I'm not giving away raw anything.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about red flags.
Speaker 1:Yes, red flags with clients to be specific. Yeah, potential clients, potential clients, so what's a red flag for me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right off the bat, their approach, how they ask me to do work for them. It can be a red flag, for example, if they see me with a camera.
Speaker 1:You stole mine.
Speaker 2:Just automatically, without asking you know if I have social media or what kind of work I do ask me to photograph some random thing, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:You stole mine because that actually happened, because I think, a few days ago, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I think those types of potential clients, they are shopping for a certain price tag and not a certain style or specialty, which I understand in some cases, but I already know that that's most likely a client I don't want to work for or with, because my price is for what I feel I'm worth and for the expertise and experience I bring in, what I normally do, and so if you haven't looked at my work, then there's no way for you to know that I would fit your vision or what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:It's very rare that somebody's just off the street that sees you with a camera and is like, oh, I need pictures taken that they're going to be an easy client to deal with or be able to not afford you, but like have to be interested in knowing what your style is. Does it mesh?
Speaker 2:with what they're going to be asking you for a service that you actually do, like we experienced not too long ago when we got the. I saw the camera on your hand, so I was hoping to get usually that's a question, is a picture.
Speaker 1:You do weddings.
Speaker 2:It's a red flag for someone to ask you to work for them without seeing any of your work.
Speaker 1:Mine's kind of once you've gone the step like you get a message on on social media.
Speaker 2:So they've probably seen something You've done. They have done yeah.
Speaker 1:So they've done that immediately into like bargaining mode after you tell them a price. And I get that. People have budgets and a lot of times when I can sense that they're not going to be able to afford my rate and if it's something that I'm like, ok, well, I want to do this. This is worth. You know, I feel I support whatever they're doing or whatever that's what their budget is. But when they come right off the bat and if they're aggressive about what you tell them, your price, they're like whoa, damn, that's too much, I couldn't afford you. That's obviously a red flag and I do not proceed with that.
Speaker 1:I have had people because there's a way that I have had, there's ways to have those discussions. There is and there's a way to react and I've had the phone calls with people that they are in a cover band and they want me to put together a like montage of things and I tell them what it cost and I've had people that are like, oh my God, I, oh, that's just way too much, and they hang up and I've had people like I didn't understand what went into this, I didn't even know where to start. I apologize for wasting your time not wasting your time, but you know what I mean. Like they're like. Oh, I didn't think about how much work it is to do this and the phone call with them, with us both having respect for each other. They didn't know. I let them know when they overreact about the price. That's a big sign that you don't need to work with them. They're not.
Speaker 2:They may not understand, like the worth of the work and how much really goes into it. Yeah, and usually you can tell the people.
Speaker 1:That just didn't know. They didn't know that, oh, I want to shoot a talk show. Ok, well, that's going to cost you two, three, four thousand dollars just to set the setup. Like, oh, we got some iPhones, can we make that work? And it's just like they didn't know.
Speaker 2:Another one for me is someone reaches out. You know they see other people working with me and so they reach out and they want to work with me. But their first part of their like tactic to, or their reasoning was, or their reasoning for wanting to work with me, or even just maybe not their reasoning. But a very early comment in the conversation is talking negatively about another creator, like a local creator. I understand you're. Everybody's not going to have good experiences with everybody. I totally understand that.
Speaker 2:I understand that people's working style, creative style, lifestyles aren't going to coincide or even like people's time frames or editing styles aren't going to be for everyone. But it goes back to the hiring people for a price point and not for a style. But if you come, if you message me to do some work for you, and then you and your first, one of the first things you say is negative things about the last local creator you worked with. I have, you know, a ton of respect for all of the other local creators and stuff. It's not a good impression to me. First impression to me it's it does not make me want to do work with you If you're so quick to bash other creators to me in the situation that's happened to me before. I know that that creator is talented. You know what I think is a green flag.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 2:Client quoting their price and they say you should charge more.
Speaker 1:It's almost an insult, because it's like you're not charging enough for what you're worth.
Speaker 2:I had a couple of people who are like I don't want to tell you how to, you know, run your life, but you could be charging way more. And I have taken taking those people's advice and I, you know, increase my, increase, my prices. It's a huge green flag. When someone is excited about your work, their message is I love the stuff you've been making and I want to be a part of that. What are your rates? How much do you charge? And you give them a rate and they say that's amazing, I please book me for these next five or six days, which has happened to me a number of times recently.
Speaker 1:I think another green flag and this is kind of after the fact, after the shoot is when you get the follow up message if you deliver the stuff, and they're like oh my God, I keep looking at these. These are awesome. You make us look really good, you made me look really good. The video recap is awesome. Little things like that, I think, are huge and I'm going to beat you to chase on this one Profile pictures and they tag you in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've made a whole reel about that. I do love. I think that's such a big compliment when someone makes a photo. You took their profile picture Because everybody's making a picture. They really like how they look in as a profile picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I do love when that happens. If you changed your picture to a picture I took, I see it and it really does make my day every single time. It never gets old.
Speaker 1:I told Sam that my recommended people page on Facebook cause she deals with a whole set of people, especially musicians. I'm looking at them like. This is like a bunch of pictures Sam took in the I was like okay look at you.
Speaker 2:Look at me Flourishing, flourishing.
Speaker 1:Another green, one, another green flag.
Speaker 2:I would just say good communication in general, which I guess now we're just talking about green flags in clients, and not even just potential clients, but someone who you send them stuff and they look they don't have to look at it right away, but even like rather sooner, and then actually telling you like, oh, these are great. Some sort of response. Good, effective communication is like such a good, absolutely, because you do get the rock stars who are just are terrible. Communication.
Speaker 1:If I tried to like give that back to clients, I'll send a like a reminder, you know, a few days before I shoot, like hey, just want to make sure everything is good to go for three to four on next Thursday at X place and it kind of covers all the things that you need to to know about the shoot. When I send off like something I was excited about that shot that I think is really good, and I send it off and I'm waiting for the, the read receipt to happen and then, like nothing happens in my head I'm like they hate it.
Speaker 2:You're sending stuff at your own time. Yeah, so some people are busy.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Part of the good communication. Green flag is even just being like can't wait to look at them yeah. And then you know that they read it. They didn't look at it and hate everything. They just haven't had a chance to look at it yet. And you'll get the ones that it will be days and then they'll be like, oh, just got a chance to look at them, love everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But for those few days you're like holy shit, they hated every single thing I did.
Speaker 1:It's totally in your head. It's totally in your head. I do the same thing. When I'm doing videos for, like corporations stuff, it's pretty common that the video has to go through a board of people and then it's like here's the revisions. But I'm talking about like the music stuff I do where I'm like, oh, this is really cool. Look at, look at this really cool thing we did Red flag thing. I thought of Going back to red flag. It's a big one. I don't need all the raw footage when you're done.
Speaker 2:I've got a couple of my regular people that I work with and they like to make edits on. They like to make little edits on their own, which I'm totally fine with and something. And there's actually a lot of musicians too that use their stuff for their social media. They love the recap videos, the sizzle reels. But there's a number of them who also want just like decent clips. They'll say like, oh yeah, you can send me the raw footage, like I like to make my own edit. I just say like, okay, like I'll send you a sizzle reel or one, or I say one to two recaps and then I send a number of just clips and they're not raw. I try to explain I can't send you raw clips because I color grade my footage.
Speaker 1:Trying to explain to me what S log is. It's not easy. That has no idea what it is and how to handle it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I try to send like seven to 10 that are just like of just like clips that are good shots and they're color graded and then that's all I do. I don't do any like extensive editing on it, I just basically color the clip. I'll just cut just the little clip that's a good shot, color it and then I export it in a size that's conducive for like social media and I'll put you know, like I said, seven to 10 of those clips in with the Dropbox as well and so that they can use them in their little Capca edits or trendy edits or even just story posts or literally whatever they want. And that seemed to be really successful for me. I guess I don't think it's a red flag that people ask for raws.
Speaker 1:Can I rephrase the? What makes it a red flag? If you're going into it knowing that you, that they want, like yeah, I want some little clips to post, that's not a red flag. The red flag is when you do it edit and that's what you were hired to do, and then they ask for it after the fact.
Speaker 2:All the raws.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yikes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so red flag.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I mean it's. Why do they?
Speaker 1:why do they want that? Well, because when, when that happens, it's like are they not happy with what I did? This is what they paid for. Maybe they weren't. Would you be faster to give away your raw footage or your raw photos?
Speaker 2:I'm not giving away raw anything.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:When I discuss what you know, when I give my quote and I discuss what's included in that quote, I tell them this many recaps, this many edited photos, this many standalone clips and that's what you're getting. I mean, I don't really want to send my raw like video of me accidentally hitting record anyway.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but you talk about though you hit record when you think you're hitting it's backwards, when you think you're hitting record, but really you're hitting stand, I think everybody that does video knows exactly that feeling where you think you're hitting stop and then you hear the stark sound and you're like oh, sometimes I well sometimes like a shows you can't hear that sound. I don't realize it until I go back to watch the clip and it's like nothing of the band is just me walking. It's your feet, yeah, and so it's like shaking.
Speaker 1:You like going in between people to try to get a better angle.
Speaker 2:It's worse when a camera was like facing something and I was like, yes, I got that shot Right, yeah. And then I go and I like stop it and then I go to watch because I'm so excited about the shot and I had it. I had it opposite and I there's no more let down. Like no, there's not a greater let down than the. That's a red flag on my part.
Speaker 1:That's a red flag for videographers. Yes, song of the week. Song of the week what you got. All right, I guess I'm going first, since you told me to. I have thrices, hurricane.
Speaker 2:Is that the song that I've made you?
Speaker 1:listen to.
Speaker 2:I liked it.
Speaker 1:That's the song, though I said yeah, and it kind of when I heard it.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying I'm actually would like this one I didn't like that huge thrice fan and it kind of grew up with them and they to me. In my opinion. I feel like they've changed their sound so much and I've. A lot of people don't like when bands change their sound, but I grew up, grew at the same time I think they did as a band. It worked out for me. The lyrics of hurricane are extremely beautiful and the least singer of thrice If I could have, if I could, if I had a wish to just inherit somebody's voice, it would be the least singer of thrice, like if I could just sing like him, that would be my wish. So hurricane, super powerful song, love it. That's my song of the week.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you're talking about his voice, because my song of the week is 10 by 10 by Pony Bradshaw, and I have on record said that Pony Bradshaw has one of those voices that's made to be unvinyl Just absolutely insane. One of my favorite musicians, probably ever of all time. I have yet to see him live, but I will, it's going to happen. I don't care how far I have to go, but I absolutely love a number of his songs, but 10 by 10 is one of my favorites. He's a really, really, really talented lyricist, so his lyrics, I feel like, are really strong. They're intense. It's the sad music that some of the you know every song the same music yeah.
Speaker 2:It's sad music, but I think it's really powerful. I think it's always forever going to be at the top of my list, but I've been listening to it a lot lately.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you have songs that are forever songs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a playlist of songs that are just like. When I'm in the mood to listen to my absolute favorite songs, I listen to that playlist. And it's all over the place, but because it's songs that I've liked for 10 years, it's songs that I've listened or loved for two months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice Song of the Week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, song of the Week. Again, they'll be on the Between Takes I couldn't remember the name of our podcast. They'll be on the Between Takes Spotify playlist linked below, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Hello, wherever it's at. Yeah. In the description somewhere on whatever you're looking at.
Speaker 2:You'll be able to find it. We'll make it easy for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same way.
Speaker 2:We'll make it easy for you.