(jazzy piano)
- Now I started my photography and video business
about 10 years ago, that's a decade.
Damn I've been doing this a long time.
Now the first few years were rough,
I barely made any money and to be honest,
I took a lot of shitty photos.
And you bet your ass I made
a hell of a lot of mistakes.
What is going on everybody,
in today's video, we are going to be talking
about the five business mistakes
that I've made throughout my career.
Now, long story short,
I (beep) up so you guys don't have to.
As you guys know, we just recently got an office,
which is super exciting,
and there's a lot of errands to run for that.
We have to get shelves,
we gotta bring gear in,
all this other business that needs to get done.
So I will be taking you along on that journey.
Look, I'm already messing up,
breaking the eggs, already making mistakes
in the mistakes video.
All right, we'll start here
and we'll move on.
Aw there's a shell!
Gah!
(jazzy piano beat)
(eggs sizzling)
All right, lesson number one,
your clients are not your guinea pigs.
Let me tell you the story.
(metal clanking) All right, so,
it was my second year of business,
I was just starting to get a few
better paid clients, which was actually really exciting,
so I was investing back into the company,
I was buying gear,
like all the gear we're trying to move
to the office right now.
And I bought these three big Freznel lights.
They were cheap Chinese made ones,
but they were better because I had
never used lights before.
Key point, never used lights before.
So it's the day before the shoot,
I buy the lights, and the next day I'm on set,
I set up all the lights,
and I start asking the talent
"Hey, go and stand in the lights over there."
So the talent stands in the lights,
and literally this is the talent.
They were like "Ah! Is this normal?
"This is so bright!"
And I was like "Yes, it's totally normal,
"this is how production is Hollywood does it."
PS, it's not how production in Hollywood does it.
So I shot the client for them
trying to read the script,
literally their eyes were like squinting,
they're like trying to get through it
and they started getting red
because they were getting really really hot
because the lights are old and they're really bright
and they're really hot.
So then I finished the video,
I sent it to them, and they're like
"Oh, this is great, we love it."
And it really wasn't great at all.
It looked really bad.
So what did I learn through all of this?
You gotta be comfortable with your gear
before you use it on a paid project.
So, test out your gear on personal projects
or you're gonna lose clients.
Guitar case, that's gonna stay.
♪ Say say say I'm sorry ♪
♪ I could just say say say we're through ♪
♪ Why did you take take take my heart away? ♪
(door closes)
All right, lesson number two:
knowing when to give discounts.
Also, fun fact, C Stands make great coat hooks.
(snap)
All right, do I have a story for you.
So a few years ago I was hired for a destination wedding.
A woman hired two videographers.
Myself, and someone else.
And without getting into too much detail,
the day before the wedding,
I couldn't make it down to the location,
but the other videographer could make it.
So, now here I am,
calling rental houses in the middle of nowhere
to get camera bodies and lenses
and lav mics for this other videographer
to shoot this wedding.
So, the only person that could actually go up
and pick this stuff was the bride.
Oh I am the worst human
in the entire world.
She's already stressed out
and now there's a videographer
"Um, sorry, can you go to this rental house
"and pick up a lav?"
And she's like, "I don't even know what a lav is!"
But now she's picking it up.
So, we finished the project,
the other videographer did a really great job,
and guess what I did?
I sent this woman a bill,
for the full price that we agreed on.
What? I wasn't even there!
All right, so, what's the lesson here?
Know when to give discounts.
This woman was so furious when I sent a full bill.
And looking back, it makes sense.
That's a stupid move,
but I didn't have a lot of money then and I needed it.
And in that case,
the best thing that you should always do
is take a hit on your business
because your integrity is worth more.
Know when to give a discount.
Lesson number three,
do not charge for things
that you did not agree on up front.
All right, a couple years ago I did a project
let's say it was for $2,000.
And I had to travel a very far distance for this.
So I sent them a bill with transportation
because I heard somewhere that
you're supposed to charge for transportation.
But, we didn't agree on it up front.
And then I get an email back,
they're like "Well, you got transportation in here,
"we didn't talk about this."
And I was like "But I needed to get to this spot."
And they're like "Okay."
And then I never heard from them again.
So, make sure you label everything up front.
Where are my keys?
All right, lesson number four,
safety trumps everything.
(cart rattling)
(funk beat)
All right, so it was about five or six years ago,
we were making a music video one day.
And music videos notoriously have
super low budget, but we want to get creative
and have fun, so we don't make money,
we put all the money into the production.
And at that time, we had not shot with a RED,
so we're like "Let's get a RED camera."
And the DJI Ronin had just come out
and we're like "And we'll put it on the DJI Ronin.
"It's gonna look so good!"
So we spent all the budget on that,
and the one thing that we didn't rent,
which is arguably the cheapest thing
that you can rent, was sandbags.
I think you know where this is going.
So, it's lunch time now,
and everyone's getting a little tired,
and someone bumps into this Ronin and RED,
and all of a sudden the RED falls over
and then it hits a light stand
and then that light stand falls over
and hits another light stand.
Literally it was like the domino effect.
Like it was, what do they call that,
Rube Goldberg Machine?
We built our own Rube Goldberg Machine,
so everything's falling and then one light,
there's an assistant here,
goes ... an inch past her head.
It could've destroyed her.
Luckily it didn't, but I could've faced
a serious lawsuit there.
So always put safety first.
Like literally out of everything
in this video, this should be the one,
put safety first always.
Do not risk your life
or the crew's life for the production.
I don't know why I walked by the cart,
I still need this.
(chill pop beat)
What's up guys?
Fancy tricks with remotes.
All right, final lesson.
The last mistake for you.
Always, always get everything in writing.
Couple years ago,
everything is always a couple of years ago.
In the last couple of years
I haven't been making as many mistakes,
but a couple of years ago,
I was on the phone with a client,
we agreed on $4,000 for a project.
I was like "Wow, 4k, all right, let's go."
So we went out, we shot this whole video,
we spent around like $2,000 to $3,000
on like locations, people, talent,
all this stuff, and then I showed them the video
and they're like "Wow, this looks great,
"send along the bill!"
Sent the bill for $4,000, and he was like,
"$4,000? I thought we said two?"
And I was like "No, you definitely said $4,000
"on the phone."
And he was like "Well, do we have this
"anywhere in writing?"
Nope, we didn't have it in writing,
we just agreed, over the phone,
and I went out and spent $3,000
and got paid two.
So always get everything in writing.
All right, so here's the truth.
It takes a lot of courage to start your own business.
Nobody's gonna hold your hand
and trust me, you're going to make mistakes.
But what's on the other side of that?
You're gonna learn, you're gonna build a business
from the ground up and you're gonna
start succeeding, which is the exciting part
of the chase.
From there, you'll start getting the clients
that you've always dreamed of.
It might be one year,
it might be five years, or it might be 10.
But I can promise you,
if you stick at it, it's going to happen.
A friend of mine once told me
that you've gotta make a lot of shit
before you shit gold.
That always stuck with me,
and as crude as it sounds,
it's so true.
So go out there, make some mistakes,
and maybe, just maybe, you'll shit gold.
(chill pop beat)
Guys, guess what?
You made it to the end of the video.
Just like in the last video, ASMR clap.
(soft clapping)
I realized I didn't film an outro.
That's always fun when you're really into the video
and then you're like "Wait a second,
"I didn't do anything to say
"here's the end of the video."
So you guys made it to the end of the video,
thank you so much for watching.
If you guys enjoyed this video,
please press like.
That stuff always means a lot to YouTubers.
Did you know that?
That's why everybody always asks you to do it.
Because they're like "Hey, algorithm,
"I need your help to build a career!"
So if you could do that,
that'd be really helpful.
Thanks so much.
Subscribe and hit the bell
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And I thought I'd also take a quick second to mention
Lizzie and I just announced our big
travel course and photo course
that we're gonna be doing
in the next little while,
so if you guys wanna check that out,
we're going to the Azores,
which is this awesome island
in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean,
one of my favorite places.
We're hosting a course,
we're gonna teach you everything about
business, photography, you're gonna have an amazing time.
There's some testimonials and other fun stuff
so if you guys wanna hit the link below
to sign up for that photo course
and just have a killer time in Portugal,
I'd love to see you guys there.
All right, guys, we'll catch you guys in the next one.
Peace out, let's say guys a couple more times.
Hey guys, hey guys, I'm a YouTuber,
what's up guys? Hey.
Hey guys.
- What's up guys, I'm a YouTuber.
- Sup guys, I'm not a YouTuber.
- What's up guys, I claim to do this for a profession
and people are like "Oh, you make money with that?"
That was my weekend.
Bye.
(chill hip hop beat)