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Inside the Buyer's Mind: Paul Killebrew on Hiring Boutique Production Companies
313 Plays1 year ago
Paul Killebrew boasts experience as both a seller and buyer within the production industry. His tenure in sales cultivated his fondness for smaller boutique production firms over larger ones. Now, with nearly a decade on the buying side, Paul has honed distinct views on what captures his attention and fosters enduring partnerships. Tune in to glean insights and best practices for collaborating with clients who genuinely root for your success.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Crossing the Axis'
00:00:05
Speaker
You're listening to Crossing the Axis, the podcast that explores the commercial side of film production with your host, James Kebles. Welcome listeners and thank you for tuning in to the show.
Common Mistakes in Client Relations
00:00:28
Speaker
The conversation for this episode is about mistakes.
00:00:32
Speaker
and how to avoid them. These are the mistakes we might make when trying to sell our service to a prospective client. For example, what's important to you might not be important to them. Or the mistakes we might make after we landed the job, such as timing complications, managing expectations, or the dreaded budget reasons.
00:00:50
Speaker
It might be the mistakes we make after the job has been completed. For instance, what should an after-action process look like? Are we leaving money on the table by not asking for more work or some referrals?
Introduction to Paul Kilibrew
00:01:01
Speaker
To guide us through this maze of mistakes, as if he's the Gandalf of the production world, we have Paul Kilibrew. Paul has spent a lot of time sitting at the production table. In fact, he's probably carved his initials into it. He's been the seller, the buyer, and has done his fair share of crew work in between.
00:01:18
Speaker
He has a love affair with small boutique production companies and with a decade in the buyer's shoes, he's got some tips, some tales, and maybe a rant or two about what catches his eye and keeps him coming back for more. Paul, welcome to the show. Thanks James. That was a great intro. Thanks for having me. Don't make any mistakes in my introduction about you. We'll talk about that later.
Paul Kilibrew's Journey into Film
00:01:40
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:01:43
Speaker
Well, because I know your background and point of view, I want to use this conversation to get your take on the full spectrum of the client-agency relationship, from the courtship to the completion, right? And by the way, I'm going to use the words production company and agency interchangeably, because while I think they have different meanings, I recognize that clients often say agency is a catch-all term. So there's that.
00:02:05
Speaker
All right. So since I know you're going to be giving me strong points of view, I think it's important that the listeners understand what has actually shaped that point of view. So let's get a little bit of your background. Where is your entry into the film business? How'd you get started here? And please share as many mistakes as possible. So I actually got started not until I don't know, about when I was about 30 years old.
00:02:33
Speaker
I was a business school graduate, had started my career in marketing, et cetera, et cetera. And then I was assigned a video project without a lot of budget. And I decided rather than hiring somebody, I'd go do it myself. It was mostly a post-production project and went down to the old rocket pictures that used to be in Seattle as a post-house and did the work. And I found myself completely obsessed with this particular little project.
00:03:00
Speaker
way more than my regular work and just decided to like, there must be something to this and started pursuing video work. It was the dawn of the video age. I went out and bought myself a camera and an editing system, Final Cut 1.0.
00:03:17
Speaker
and started making my own work and doing some commercial work and pursuing documentary work, which is my true passion in life. That's how I got started. I made a professional transition from a side hustle to full-time several years later.
00:03:35
Speaker
and have never looked back, never had a real job since.
Advantages of Small Production Companies
00:03:39
Speaker
So you said you were getting a business degree. I didn't know that about you. Was it in marketing and advertising specifically? Yeah, it was in marketing. So University of Washington Business School. That adds up, actually, because I know you to have a good, not only a production point of view, but that marketers point of view, which I think is going to be important for this conversation. But I didn't know that about your background, but now it's starting to make sense. So with that background, when you were doing the production company side,
00:04:03
Speaker
Were you selling as well? Were you trying to land clients? Were you part of that hustle? Absolutely. Singing for your dinner is what I call it.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So my first, I would say, real production company gig, I was head of production. And yeah, I was out there pitching, selling, trying to grow the business, trying to get the business. It was a small production company at the time. I think I was the fourth employee. So yeah, every bit counted. So we went out and pitched our little heart out for every project.
00:04:38
Speaker
And were you pitching mostly to agencies, clients, brands or both? Directly to brands. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What kind of work are we putting out there? Uh, you know, it's the company started as, as a live like webcasting type company. And, and then we wanted to grow into more creative work. And so we were kind of working our client base from, from that and saying, Hey, we can,
00:05:05
Speaker
gradually build and build and build from there. That large software company in Redmond was our big client, so there was lots of fertile ground to pick from, and we were very connected to their main studio there.
00:05:18
Speaker
And then from there is when you leaped over to the other side on the client side.
Effective Pitching Strategies
00:05:22
Speaker
Did that for quite a while, for five years, worked for another production company in town as an executive producer, did my own thing for a while. And then Amazon and Microsoft were my two big clients as a freelancer, but Amazon just kept taking more and more and more of my time and my work.
00:05:45
Speaker
I wasn't interested in necessarily building out a company per se. I was shoving aside my Microsoft clients to do the Amazon work, and it was finally this time to make the leap and become an employee instead of an imbalanced freelancer.
00:06:00
Speaker
And so now that you've been on the client side, I know you to have a particular type. You have a boutique type, right? That's why I put in the introduction. You, you tend to want to work with smaller production companies versus the bigger houses. Why, why is that?
00:06:16
Speaker
Well, I think talent lives everywhere and I think that talent lives in the boutique companies as well as the larger companies. But what I like about the boutique companies is the removal of the layers in between you and the creators and the idea that you're taking your budgets.
00:06:34
Speaker
and putting as much of that as possible onto the screen and not into their sales efforts and account directors and those type of expenses that have nothing to do with what goes on the screen. So having that direct connection to people who are actually creating your work, that's what I love. I hate the layers in between. It just drives me insane.
00:06:58
Speaker
So account managers would be problematic for you. I can't stand account managers. When you make a phone call, do you want to make the phone call to the executive producer or the creative head or where is your preferred relationship when you're working with the company?
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, I think it depends. If you're in the weeds of a project, I want to talk to the producer-producer. If you're at the beginning stages of a project, more towards the executive producer. So it kind of depends. Or I want to talk to the creative director or the person that's hands-on with what we're doing. Again, just to eliminate those layers and eliminate misinterpretation or somebody watering down what I have to say or whatever.
00:07:48
Speaker
Like just, you know, let me, let me communicate it myself directly to the person involved. So in this kind of courtship part of the, of the relationship that's developing, what mistakes do you think production companies make when they're talking about their services? They're pitching you, right? They're like, Hey, we do stuff. Exactly. Exactly. So I've, I've this long on the other side of the table, I've probably heard hundreds, like easily hundreds and hundreds of pitches.
00:08:16
Speaker
I make it a habit to talk to almost anybody that wants to call. So the biggest mistake when somebody is pitching is the whole, like, we can do anything you want. Just tell us.
00:08:30
Speaker
And usually when that conversation starts to go that way, I'll just shut them off right away and say, look, you might be able to do everything, but you're not best at everything. And I want to know what you're best at. Tell me your core competency. That's what I want to hear about, and that's what I want to see. And that's the reason that I'll call you when the right project comes up.
00:08:54
Speaker
Right. So the expertise, how they are a specialist versus a generalist. So I'm here and you say you're not a fan of the one-stop shop that says they can do it all. You want to find someone that has a particular specialty like say they might be strong in design work or they might be strong in animation or they might be live action or narrative driven or something else. Is that what you're talking about? VR.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And you can even go deeper than that, right? Like live action. Great. What kind of live action? Are you really good at comedy? Tell me about that because that's a tough one. Are you just into making really beautiful cinematography? Sure. Tell me what's your best at? Is it post? Is it a special effects? Is it most people kind of do do everything? But tell me what's your best at?
00:09:42
Speaker
And what about things like writing is writing a specialty that, that rings your bell or what other things the, that you've noticed stands out to you when you're being pitched. Yeah. So, so another thing that I, that I hear a lot that I can't stand is that we are storytellers and we love story and blah, blah, blah. Who isn't?
00:10:05
Speaker
I mean, and that word gets so overused. It's ludicrous. I hear, oh, I'm a storyteller from UX designers. And I hear, oh, we're telling stories from marketers. And everybody uses that term. And it's just so, so, so overused. And anybody in the film business, that's what they're in there for. Don't spend a lot of time on that.
00:10:27
Speaker
That's sort of a given. Tell me what kind of stories tell me what tell me what like attracts you to a particular story. Is it is it the authenticness of your characters? Is it is it documentary? Is it is it farce? What is it? I had a pitch the other day from a company here in London and they had made TV show that I hadn't seen and I went and watched it and it was just it was brilliant like and it was complete.
00:10:55
Speaker
sort of the office style that's set in London, office style, meaning sort of this farcical documentary style. And it was fantastic, right? And they just had nailed this humor and this thing. And that brought me to them. And I think I'm wearing their t-shirt today. So. That's great. And they pitched themselves that way? You know, they did and they did. They were pretty humble about
00:11:25
Speaker
the origins of the show, and it was actually a pretty popular TV show in Britain. But that caught my eye when they were showing some of that trailer, and the trailer was great. And I was like, oh, OK, these guys.
00:11:36
Speaker
These guys know humor quite well. So again, it's one of those specialty things that is right there.
Flexible Production Approaches
00:11:41
Speaker
So you don't want to know just the broad thing, but what kind of, of, of point of view in that broad thing. What about the, how is process important to you? Like, do you need to understand a production company or agencies methodology for how they get to things? Is that something that resonates with you? That is a value.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, so what's really important to me in this particular role that I'm in at the moment is
00:12:07
Speaker
sort of matching your production style to the problem. Let me give you an example. I've worked on million dollar productions and I've worked on bare bones, shoestring. Can we just get a couple of people out to shoot something? As a freelancer, I would occasionally do the one band band thing too. I know the difference and I know the pitfalls of each. What I don't like to hear is that we have this one way of doing things.
00:12:37
Speaker
And when we set up a production, we have a DP and two ACs and a full lighting crew and an audio and a line producer.
00:12:49
Speaker
And that's how we do it. What I want to hear is, is we want to understand what your needs are. And we'll shape that accordingly, be as a, as a, you know, somewhat sophisticated buyer. Like I get it, right? Like I know what my budget's going to buy me and what isn't. I know what the pitfalls of, of that budget and that
00:13:08
Speaker
That crew are and i want that flexible approach you know that for example we just recently went out with a project that i knew was gonna be tough to pull off in the budget that we had but i also knew that we could do it with.
00:13:21
Speaker
like three people. And it was all exterior and it was a lot of running. Like we can do running scenes and we can shut down a street and I can really go all out and get it exactly right. But I knew I didn't need it exactly right either. I wanted it to have sort of that authentic documentary style. And I knew, like I know the rules here in London as far as that goes. And I knew how we could do it with just a few people, get it off right. And I didn't want to hear, like as I went out to the companies,
00:13:50
Speaker
with this particular project, it's like, oh, well, we're going to have to shut down these streets and we're going to have to get this, that, and the other thing. And it's going to cost $3,400,000. I didn't have that. I had tens of thousands of dollars. And I wanted three or four locations. And I know what the permitting
00:14:09
Speaker
is here in London, and I knew we could be done. So I just wanted to hear that back, to say, cool. We're not afraid of what you have, and we'll adapt to that, and we'll still get you good stuff. I know what the other way is also going to get me, but I also know what this sort of guerrilla style is going to get me. And that's what I was looking for. And that's what I had the money for, to be honest with you.
00:14:32
Speaker
I like that you take that approach and you know, the differences. I think too often there's a, you know, a low budget, but a high expectation. And you know that when you have a low budget, the expectation needs to be lowered. Do your, the people that you report to understand that, do it, does everybody understand that? Or is there a fight in that? Like you have to get more than what you're paying for.
00:14:55
Speaker
Another way of saying this might be, are you sensitive to agencies need to have margins to make money when they're trying to do something? So I think it's fine. You have $20,000 to make something. Okay, great. We can do that for you. We also have to make money. We're not going to spend all 20,000. We have to, you know, 20% should be reasonable. Is that something that's reasonable to you? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, one of my, one of my pet peeves, you know, for,
00:15:24
Speaker
a big major corporation like ethically the idea of squeezing these little companies out of their profit is doesn't sit well with me at all they're here to make money they have to make money in order to keep getting to the next project and not expecting them to to
00:15:42
Speaker
do something for free because that's not really sustainable. So, I mean, 100,000%. Please make your money. Please make your markups because that's how we all come out ahead. Plus, I understand also having worked on the other side that by the time you get whittled down to a project that's a money loser or a money no maker,
00:16:06
Speaker
the attitudes go in the toilet and you know suddenly like as a producer who's who's representing the project to the owner of the production company was questioning why should you be doing this is we're making you know it's like it's just everybody loses but in the end me as the client loses because now i don't have people there.
00:16:25
Speaker
that are interested in doing this stuff anymore.
Discovering New Talent and Companies
00:16:28
Speaker
They're just sort of battered and abused, doing the bare minimum. Well, the output is the output is going to match the input. I understand that while this is a business, people do it because they love to do it. And keeping people interested and excited and enthusiastic to do what you want to do is going to give you
00:16:52
Speaker
you know, it's sort of a priceless piece, right? Like it's not on any spreadsheet, but comes out in the end, right? Like that excitement and passion to do good work is...
00:17:04
Speaker
has, you know, you can't put a value on that, but it's there. And so you never want to wipe that out. Another sales technique that I've seen a lot of agencies use is selling their people. You know, we have a particular team or a person or anything like something like that. Is that something that is important to you or does it just or not?
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is. Well, I mean, it absolutely is. And so when you're dealing with, say, kind of the A-list agencies or the A-list production companies, say, out of LA or whatever, there's a certain cast of that here in London as well. Sure, you know, they're going to be pitching their directors, et cetera, et cetera. And knowing, you know, I understand the value of those individual directors and what they bring and why you would want that. Typically, there's pretty huge cost of that.
00:17:56
Speaker
I'm also interested on the more boutique side, like, OK, sure, who's in-house? And a lot of folks, they have a couple of folks that are strong directors or strong DPs, and they show you that work. So of course, yeah, absolutely. I want to see that and hear that.
00:18:12
Speaker
you know, show me what you got. And I'm, and I'm not, you know, I believe people are capable of doing more than one thing on that side of things. So if you're an in-house director and you've, you've moved across the different projects, you know, show me that you're interested in that as well. I don't think like everybody's stuck on their one style. Where do you learn about new companies and agencies? Like, do you,
00:18:35
Speaker
get newsletters? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you actually follow trade magazines and read them? Instagram? Are you subscribed to Harvard Business Journal? How does anyone get in front of you so that you can get a glimpse of their work? Where do you find new stuff? I would say first contact usually comes from direct sales of some sort or direct contact. Usually they're finding me on LinkedIn or
00:19:03
Speaker
Uh, somehow they've, they've got my contact as a referral or something else. Uh, but usually it's, it's a reach out. Uh, and it's usually a personal email or some, you know, some message by some platform, someplace that says, Hey, you know, we do this thing and, you know, would you be interested in talking to us, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, and like I said, I'm pretty accommodating. Uh, I like that to have as much knowledge of who can do what and that sort of thing. So.
00:19:32
Speaker
First contact usually comes there and then follow-up contact is often in the form of newsletters, you know, in the process of talking to a lot of different companies and hearing their pitches, etc. You know, I'll be honest, you do kind of tend to forget who you talk to.
00:19:49
Speaker
six months ago versus a month ago. And when you have a particular project come up, who is top of mind? Maybe the one you talked to a little more recently. So I probably get 10 to 15 newsletters a week on average through the email. Quite frankly, I don't get them all. But especially if they're featuring their work, I'll look at their work because I'm interested in
00:20:12
Speaker
what other people are doing, et cetera, et cetera. That's a good way to stay top of mind without that direct sales moment of, hey, we're still here, don't want me to bother you, et cetera, et cetera. So that feels like a light touch and sense of keeping up. What makes for a good newsletter? Talking about what you made recently, being funny, being... What makes for a good newsletter?
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, I was showing the work that you've done recently that you're proud of and why, and maybe some behind the scenes of how you got there, keeping it short, like busy, just like everybody's busy. So if it's a big, long thing with four pieces of work, I'm not going to watch that. Show me the one thing you're most proud of, maybe some of the story behind it or some of the challenges you faced. For as long as I've been doing this, I learned something new on every shoot.
00:21:01
Speaker
tell me what you learned as well.
Developing Creative Pitches
00:21:04
Speaker
That's how we keep getting better and better. Okay, so in this evolution of a relationship and we're working through our mistakes, we've got your attention and we've found a fit. You think we have something that could be of value to you and we think you're a good client. After that has been established, do you typically send RFPs? How do you engage? Do you
00:21:28
Speaker
Do you look for a minimum of three bids all the time? How's your typical process? It kind of depends. For the most part, we know what our budget is. In this scenario that I'm in now, it's really driven by campaign spends and it's going to be a certain percentage of that campaign spend.
00:21:46
Speaker
which is predetermined before it lands on our desk. So we know what we have to spend. In my case, I'm the creative director. So with my production background, though, I'm generally driving creative in a way that I know will fit into the budget that we have. I'm reasonably confident. Oh, and I'm typically going to be developing at least the core of the creative before we reach out. And that determines a lot, you know, who we're reaching out to to say, okay,
00:22:14
Speaker
We've got to do this thing. I've got this much money. These folks are potentially a good fit for that. So a lot of times it's reaching out in that single way to say, hey, we think you might be a good fit for this project. Here's what we're trying to do. Here's our budget. Do you think you can handle it?
00:22:30
Speaker
Will it work? And of course, as a creative also, I'm usually pushing the boundaries a little bit on budget, but not completely out of the ballpark. So usually it's a one-on-one. The scenarios that I will triple bid is I'm not looking for lowest cost. I'm looking for who can elevate the idea. So in some cases, I've got a core of an idea, I think
00:22:55
Speaker
We know which way to go, but I really think that some other expertise or director or somebody can elevate that. I want to see what that could be, and that's a scenario where we'll triple bid. I want to do more than triple because it's not fair to have less than a 33% chance of getting the work because you're asking people to do quite a bit of work on speculation that they might get the work.
00:23:19
Speaker
Always keep it limited to three. But in that case, I'm looking for like, okay, how would you take this core concept and elevate it? What's an ideal balance between responding to treatments with ideas versus approach? Do you want them to actually come up with an idea on top of a solutions or is it enough to go, here's what, if you want to work with us, here's what we're going to run. Take your idea. We're going to run it through this, you know, production mill. We're going to,
00:23:46
Speaker
distress test it and we're gonna challenge it and look at all these kind of ways. This is the team that's gonna work on it. We imagine this kind of feel, you know, and we can give kind of little examples in that, but not give actual ideas. Or do you give ideas? You expect to see, okay, these people are taking it further. They already have an idea on this and that resonates with me more than just, oh, I'm being told about a process that will lead to an idea if I engage them.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, at that point, I'm fishing for good ideas. So I want to see a full treatment. I mean, if you're fortunate enough to have a big enough body of work that you can show me examples that are close to it, I'm OK with that to say, OK, you know.
00:24:28
Speaker
We're going to do something like this, the mood board, whatever. Give me a description of how you would approach it. That's OK. Or you can kind of go all out. But it's enough to build confidence, right? Even in the work now, because I'm actually on both sides of the table now, right? So we hire production companies to do the work. But in order to get the work, I have to go pitch it to different brands.
00:24:56
Speaker
I work within Amazon, I work on the advertising side, and we work with different brands. And I have to go convince them that they should work with our internal team versus working with their own production company or their own agency. In their case, they're looking to gain confidence that we can do it. And in order to get that confidence, they want to see it. They want to be able to visualize what we would do with it. And that's part of what I do before I
00:25:22
Speaker
contact any production company. So it kind of kind of go both ways. And sometimes I take that all the way up to, you know, I'll write a script. If I feel like I need that to under have them understand the subtleties of the idea, or sometimes it's just, you know, a paragraph description of
00:25:40
Speaker
how we would treat it and what we would do with it. So like I'm making that judgment call already. I feel like this is what I need to convey that idea. And so I would say the same the other way, like just give me enough information.
00:25:53
Speaker
so that I can visualize what you want to do. And like I said, if the cleverness of my script is part of that idea, I can't tell them that I'm going to write to a clever script. I'm going to have to write it or at least write a sample of it so that so that they can see that. So kind of the same rule applies. I think that it's a fair request to ask for ideas if
00:26:15
Speaker
You are open to talking with them. You know, you can't just get a creative brief and then you get 30 minutes that you get to give them a summary in person and say, OK, you know, give me your best stuff on Tuesday. I mean, if you're given ideas, you may not come up with the idea. You may not even think about the strategy in that summary or from the creative brief a day later might inspire something. We're like, I wonder. So I guess my question to you is, is it OK to encourage
00:26:44
Speaker
or do you frown upon when an agency is kind of coming back to you and saying, yeah, we'll respond to this, but we're going to need a couple of check-ins because we're going to let this thing absorb, and then we're going to test your ideas. And also, is it okay for them to go into
00:26:59
Speaker
the goals of what you're trying to hit, right? So I can go, all right, Paul, you have this thing that you're trying to sell. How many of these are you trying to sell in exactly who you're selling it to so that I can get as close to your outcome as I can possibly get to with the idea? And if I don't know those things, if I don't know exactly what your metrics are for knowing if this is gonna work or not, then my idea will probably come up short. So you need to give me the time to figure that out and think about that in order for me to produce good ideas. How do you feel about that?
00:27:28
Speaker
I honestly wouldn't trust a production company or an agency who didn't do that. So I'm going to assume that my brief is not the be all, the end all, and that there are questions or holes or like you just want to understand it a little bit better. So absolutely, please, please, please schedule that follow up. Ask questions. That makes me feel like you're hearing me and listening to me.
Building Trust with Clients
00:27:56
Speaker
If I just gave you a brief and you gave me a response,
00:27:58
Speaker
I would assume you didn't put any effort into it. You just sort of rolled something out of the boilerplate and said, okay, here's our response. I hope this is good enough for you. Bye. So yeah, that's part of the trust building, I think, is when you do those follow-ups and ask questions, really good questions. That's when you start to see that somebody's getting at what you're trying to do or where you're trying to go.
00:28:21
Speaker
And what about budget when we're responding with, uh, you know, how much we can do it for what's in your budget. Do you need to see the details of that? Do you need to see every line or can you just see some top level stuff? Oh, total top level. In fact,
00:28:36
Speaker
I prefer just top level. I know it's hard to get to a number without doing the detail of the budget. Depending on the scenario, it's like conscientious of the time spent. So just give me a top line. And really the question is, I know how much we have. Can you do it? Yes or no? And be honest, don't fake it. Don't say you can do it if you don't think you really can. Or if you think you're going to say yes and then come back later and ask for more, that's the worst thing you can do.
00:29:04
Speaker
Say you have a project, it's $150,000 and I go, okay, we can do this 450. Here's how, I'll give you some really clear ideas. Also, we could do more and we think we can get closer to the outcomes that you're trying to make if you were to spend $250,000 or even more than that and we give you scenarios and how that plays out and how that would meet your goals too.
00:29:29
Speaker
So you'd get, okay, this is what we could do for your 150,000. Here's what we could do for 250,000. Here's what we could do for 500,000. If you saw that, would that be insulting? Or would you think, oh, well, they're really leaning into what I'm trying to get at. I can't afford those other things, but I appreciate them doing it. Or would you go, fuck, that's an interesting idea. Maybe I should take it up the ladder to see if anyone wants to cop out more money because we can sell more beans, whatever, you know, is how does that kind of stuff resonate?
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah, that is well received. And as a matter of practice, I do that myself. Typically, when we're pitching creative, we'll do one straight down the line. And then we'll do some incremental ideas that we think are bigger, but might cost more. They might get them more excited. So it does a couple of things. One, it shows your creative competency. If it's something that can justify a bigger budget, then great. Now you've got something bigger and better to do. So yeah, actually very encouraged.
00:30:24
Speaker
It doesn't cheapen the first proposal though, right? So you wouldn't say, would you see it and go, wait, you're going to, I want that $250,000 outcome to look in my $150,000 scenario. I mean, you know, like that's the, that's the, the worry is that, oh, but they're going to see that there's more that they can get, but we're not offering that to them. And so it looks like we're holding things hostage.
00:30:50
Speaker
Not for me personally, because I have enough understanding of all that stuff. So absolutely not. You have to be careful recently. When a gig from a brand, we pitched one down the middle, like exactly what they were looking for right in the price range. We pitched a really, really good idea that was way over budget. And then we like stuck something in the middle to stick something in the middle for to have something in the middle.
00:31:17
Speaker
And of course that's the one they chose and we didn't even think it through. Well, there's psychology there that we have a tendency to pick the ones in the middle. So Starbucks has made a killing on this. Okay. So let's say we've, uh, we've landed the job. We're very excited. What mistakes do you think production companies make after they've won your business? Is it?
00:31:43
Speaker
they changed the people on you or the way they handle change orders or they didn't use the process that they sold you on or anything else that comes to mind about what you've seen as a mistake that happens after the job has been awarded. I think trust is like the most important thing that you can engender with your clients. If you put yourself in the shoes of the client and I will tell you what it's like.
00:32:11
Speaker
I have this project. This project is super important to me. It's like the biggest thing you're doing at this particular time. And if you're a marketer, especially like somebody who doesn't do this a lot all the time, you're very nervous because you don't really know, you know, you're out of your element a little bit. It's going to be really important, really visible. Like you're just nervous about it. What you can do as as the production partner is build that trust all along the way.
00:32:38
Speaker
And you do that by providing the right check-ins at the right time, understanding how those will be perceived, and understanding who your audience is to perceive them. I'll give you an example of a project I'm working on right now. It's an animation project. The production company that we're working with went above and beyond. So we were at the animatic stage to do our check-in. And instead of creating animatic, they actually did quite a bit of the animation.
00:33:06
Speaker
Uh, but they didn't finish the look of the animation. And so it's, which is fine. Like I get that, but I can't show that around to my different stakeholders because it kind of looks finished yet. It looks like ass. Right. They wouldn't be able to know what, what stage of the segment they look at. They going to look at that because if my stakeholders are not experienced, maybe have never even done this before and they're going to be like,
00:33:35
Speaker
Uh, you know, that doesn't look great. You're like, no, no, no. You know, it's like, we're actually over-delivering on what you should be seeing and you have to explain it and so we actually had to go back and take stills out of the animatic and create a proper animatic just to set expectations that this is not a finished video.
00:33:55
Speaker
It had too much motion in it before, too much finished motion. But it didn't look like a finished project to anybody. But anyway, understanding who you're dealing with and what their thing is and establishing that trust. Had I used that piece to go around and show my stakeholders to do that check-in, they would lose trust. Because they're looking at it and be like, this looks like ass. I was like, no, no, no, it's not done. 80% of the work still has to be done. We're at a stage.
00:34:24
Speaker
we're just going to over-deliver it on an animatic, and they don't get that. They don't understand that. They've gotten that first taste of it and they're like, I don't know if this is good, and now they don't have trust. Now they're like, I don't know if these guys can handle this or not, and now I'm worried. What makes it worse, and any producer will have felt this, is that once you lose the trust of the client, then they get more involved and start solving your problems.
00:34:52
Speaker
in ways that you don't want. And because they're your client, you have to listen and suddenly it's like you're getting directed in the wrong way and they're getting the wrong kind of feedback and you've lost control of it all. So it's really like building that trust slowly and incrementally along the way and delivering on what you said, when, that's a key, right? So if you set your dates
00:35:14
Speaker
Don't just miss them or blow them. There may be reasons you have to miss them. Explain that. Be really proactive in your communication. Don't just blow it. And say, oh, that's right. Yeah, I know we were going to get that to you today, but we're still working on it. And we'll get it to you in a couple of days. It's like, now you start to erode that trust. It's like, oh, is there a problem? Do they not know what they're doing? Et cetera, et cetera.
00:35:33
Speaker
And another lesson that I've learned along the way is there was a point where I had to build a huge team really, really fast of producers. And I hired some line producers to step into this customer-facing role. And what I didn't understand on the difference between line producers and customer-facing producers
00:35:55
Speaker
is that line producers are trained to identify where things go wrong and communicate that, which is great. That's what they're supposed to do. A line producer should communicate to the producer, hey, red flag, red flag, red flag. This may affect budget, production timeline, et cetera, et cetera. And then the producer will discern what that means. Now, you put that same person in front of a client, and it's
00:36:21
Speaker
fucking disaster, right? Because they're going red flag, red flag, red flag. And now you've got this stakeholder who doesn't know anything about what's going on. They're like, Oh, my God, everything's going to hell. And I had to like, mitigate, you know, as the as the senior producer, like, to do a lot of mitigation with stakeholders and clients, just like, No, everything's cool. That's fine. It's normal. There's just that. So it's like, really walking that balance between proactive communication and, you know, not
00:36:50
Speaker
oversharing some of the usual pitfalls and tribulations of getting a project done. Make them feel confident.
00:36:57
Speaker
I know another issue with potentially losing trust is around overages, right? If there's overages, that's problematic. How do you recommend a production company handle a situation where they're providing deliverables, let's say they're in post, for instance, and they cut everything, it's going up, and then some top brass says, no, that's not what I want. I want it different.
00:37:21
Speaker
and it's gonna take a fair amount of work to undo that and build something new is it you know that's cost money to the production company but it's is there an expectation that the production company eat that or that they can say we can do that it's going to be x amount dollars more in the proceed how does how does the company handle that.
00:37:39
Speaker
The best way to handle that is to anticipate that and build that into your budget with contingency so that you can always say, yeah, no problem. We can do that because it's going to happen. It always happens. It happens almost every damn time. Know that. Don't cut yourself so tight that you have to renegotiate the budget every time it does. I know you're perfectly within your rights to do so. It's like the rule is if I've caused the problems, then it's on me to pay for that overage and I get it.
00:38:10
Speaker
However, understand that me as the client working within the brand, I have to go through this huge process to get more money. And every time I do, I have to go and explain to my superiors who may or may not know that much about production why I don't know how to do my job.
00:38:26
Speaker
Right. Like that's literally what I'm explaining. Hey, I didn't estimate this right. Or we didn't follow the right process or we didn't do something right. And now I need more money. Can you reauthorize this, this addition to the purchase order? Uh, you have to explain it to, you know, the finance person who does not much. Um, and then they're going to question like, okay, did you fail? You know, did.
00:38:53
Speaker
Did the vendor fail? Like, why did this happen? And you just have to explain over and over and over again, why you suck at your job. And that's not fun. It's not fun. So build it in. And again, there's a, there's a, I talk about that trust. That's another way where you can build trust. You know, when I say, Oh my God, so-and-so swooped in, didn't expect them. I have to make this change. Can you, can you save the day? If the answer is yes.
00:39:20
Speaker
you've just bought my trust and loyalty with that. So if you can figure out a way to do it, again, I don't advocate eating the costs. That's not a winning solution, but if you can find a way to...
00:39:32
Speaker
to build it into your system where the answers are yes to unexpected changes, that's a win.
Post-Project Client Engagement
00:39:38
Speaker
Huge win. I think too often we think our client is the corporation or the company. Our client is the individual. It's that person and the stress that they're going through and you really got to make that person feel smarter, stronger, confident, capable of
00:39:56
Speaker
of challenging their superiors that are, you know, breathing down their neck. And I think that's having that mentality of being in it for them I think is really important.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yep, 100%. And you always remember, you know, these are big, expensive projects. They're extremely visible. People get really excited about them. So for that individual, this is really important in their career. And I've done videos where, you know, I've made somebody's career because they came out that good and it went
00:40:27
Speaker
that well that that person then got promoted to the next level or advanced within their career. The opposite holds true. If you screw it up, they look like dipshits and they're going to put some damage on their career. At the end of the day, people are trying to manage their careers. As a video producer production company, you hold that career pretty loud for the period in which you're doing this project.
00:40:56
Speaker
Not only have I seen you do that for people and launch their careers, I've seen you do it for production companies. That's what I've always appreciated about you. And one of the reasons why I wanted you on the show is because you do help these smaller production companies with an opportunities to do something pretty spectacular in a very visible way and to launch themself. So that's kind of cool. I always appreciated that. Thank you. Thank you.
00:41:17
Speaker
We've sold ourselves. We've negotiated a deal. We did the job. It's turned out great. Everyone's happy. Rockets are firing up. Is it okay afterwards to do follow-ups? What's your feeling on after-action reports and check-ins, debriefs? Can we ask for referrals? Can we ask for testimonials? Are those things inappropriate? What's your take on that?
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think the easiest thing to ask for and the most effective is to ask for a referral, especially when you're working with somebody in a large corporation, right? There's lots of stuff happening all over the place and it's really hard to figure out where that is, etc, etc.
00:41:59
Speaker
If you're asking somebody to refer you to the next thing, like if you think as a production company, if you think we can help somebody else, we would love to reach out to them. And you know, don't ask them to make the introduction unless they offer, but you know, just ask for a name, something that will help you then move on to that next.
00:42:18
Speaker
and ask if you can use their name when you contact, when you reach out as a referral. What becomes tough when you're part of a large brand is you're not allowed to endorse, you know, public endorsements, right? Like you can't, we call it voice a customer, but right? Like that's usually tough. And I work with a lot of big brands and we're always asking for that because we're doing the same thing. Oh, well almost always impossible to get it from the big brands. They're just as a policy don't. So
00:42:44
Speaker
Yeah. Referrals are your best bet. Ask if you can check in with them, you know, in six months just to, to see, you know, ask for that permission for that next point of contact, whatever it is. I wouldn't do like full on post mortems, um, unless it's gone wrong that you're going to have to. That's why you should do them when they're good because it feels good. It feels because so many times it's bad. Don't do a post mortem, throw a celebration, right? There you go.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, take them out to drinks. Follow up with with t shirts. Yeah, give me a t shirt. And you are my friend for life. And every time I wear it, I think of your company. So follow up if everything went well, just follow up with some fun stuff. You don't have to do it an in depth analysis of why it all went right. Everything went right. And that's, that's all that mattered.
00:43:35
Speaker
There's a fear I've seen in production companies that they're afraid to ask for referrals because they believe that you, uh, the client wants to keep them just to yourselves. And you don't want to show you want to believe that you're the most important client and that no one else matters. And that if anyone else were to have access to this, that it would come at the expense of what they could do for you. Is that true? Or is that just a big myth?
00:44:00
Speaker
I think that's a big myth. I've never heard of that. Oh, I've heard it many times. Really? Yeah. I feel like the opposite is true, right? If I found a great company and I think of me building my own career, I'm trying to network and do people favors. I mean, that's how you build out your network, right? I want to spread the word. I want those folks that I'm working with to make more money
00:44:24
Speaker
So it's like the overall value of that production company working with me becomes bigger and greater. That reciprocity becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. The more I can do for them, the more they can do for me later.
00:44:39
Speaker
Paul, this has been such an informative conversation. You've given out such good tips and pieces of advice, very practical. I'm so grateful for that. Are there any lasting thoughts, any parting thoughts you would want production companies to know that we haven't talked about already? Good question.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, this one thing. Remember that your client is probably having the most fun that they're going to have for the next six months, especially when you're dealing with marketers who just do video projects every once in a while. This is the coolest thing that they're doing. This is the thing that they're going to take home and show to their family. They're not taking their spreadsheets home.
00:45:20
Speaker
or their marketing analysis or their ROI calculations home to show their family. They're taking this movie that they made and they're so thrilled to be on set. Lean into that. Embrace that piece of it and let your client have fun and let them be part of that process and bring them into it. Like I said, just lean into it. Never forget that your client is having fun. It's all business.
00:45:47
Speaker
But this is the funnest thing they're doing. Make it more fun. Bring them behind the scenes. Bring them on set. I know there's sometimes issues with bringing clients on set, but it's really the best thing you can do. It's the coolest thing. They're always so thrilled to see the glamour of movies and all that kind of stuff. Bring them on. Do it. Make them part of the process and collaborate and protect. You as the expert are protecting what you're doing and making sure that
00:46:16
Speaker
what they need happens, but that it doesn't corrupt the creative process, but also be super collaborative. And if you want to bring their ideas in, and if you can accommodate them, accommodate them without wrecking budget or wrecking the thing.
00:46:32
Speaker
for them to know that they had some piece of that or they had input and they were part of it. Embrace it. Do not shy away. Do not scoff at the client who doesn't know what they're doing. These are the folks that are, A, paying your bills, never forget that, and B, they want to have fun and do something cool. Love it. Embrace it. Bring them in.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yeah. And it's one of the great things that you can offer. We're in this creative business and, uh, not a lot, we take it for granted perhaps, but for others, it's a completely novel experience. And to bring them in, I think that's wise, wise words, Paul Killebrew. Thank you so much for being on the show and, uh, giving us all this good advice. Awesome. Thanks for having me, James. This is super fun. I can talk about this forever. So some other, some season two, season two. Exactly. Exactly. I look forward to it. All right. Thank you, Paul. Thanks, James.
00:47:22
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Crossing the Axis with James Keblis. If you're interested in joining the conversation or have a topic you'd like covered, please drop a note at keblis.com. That's K-E-B-L-A-S dot com.