First. Yes. I think I’m hilarious. Second – this post does have relevant information for you to connote. Ok. That was the last one.

Contra deals are simply trading your services for someone else’s product or services so that both parties are happy – and typically actual money is not involved in the deal.

Contra can help when you need something and might not be able to afford it. It can also help when someone else wants what you offer but can’t pay you in actual cash – but can do something for you that could be useful to you or your business.

Contra can also be good for connecting with potential partners which will help to grow your network.

We have had both good and bad experiences with Contra deals.  We have had some deals that have worked out very well for both parties and we have also had experiences where we have felt that we didn’t get the best outcome or even what we had hoped to get out of the deal.

As a video professional – you have the ability to create some pretty awesome resources for just about anyone which is a huge asset for you. The important thing to remember with Contra is that you need to ask ‘what’s in it for me?’  You also have to ensure that ‘what’s in it’ is actually equally beneficial for your business as money would be had you charged it.

A very important part of the Contra process is to accurately value what is being traded on both sides.  This is where you can get into trouble if you’re not specific.  An example of this is if you’re getting something with a price tag on it – but creating a video in exchange without putting a price tag on it.  The person you’re trading with may not understand that changes to your video equal more editing time which equals more value. And then you’ll be frustrated because you’re not getting more for the extra time you’re putting in.

The first example of Contra I can give you is regarding… diapers.  My sister Jen is expecting her first child in February of 2012. She is very excited about cloth diapering. She showed me the website for a new company called Glowbug Diapers and I noticed the company had place-holders saying ‘video coming soon’. So I emailed and said – “hey – can we make you a video or two in exchange for some free diapers?” We set up a meeting and discussed what our videos were worth and the price tag of the diapers. In the end – we agreed on 5 sets of 12 cloth diapers – so now we have some ammo for future baby showers! Here’s the video if you’re interested. The owners of Glowbug recently had a baby trade show and said our video alone helped them sell 15 cases of their diapers and they were pleased! Everyone wins!

A more business oriented Contra exchange that has benefited us is with the organizer of a local high-end wedding show called The Wedding Co. The owner of the show recently announced that she was about to publish a high-end Toronto based wedding magazine and enter the world of wedding publishing in print. She asked if we would create a series of short teaser videos to promote the launch of the magazine in exchange for ad space in the magazine and on their blog.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We have worked hard on the four videos for this upcoming magazine launch – but being featured in this magazine and more prominently on their blog will really help us and only cost us our time.

Here’s an example of a contra deal that isn’t written in stone – but still works for us and is an example of relationship building as well. We have a relationship with a high-end wedding gown designer in Toronto where we will make videos for her in-store television as well as for her trade shows and website. Her end of the deal is not exactly tangible for us – but every single one of her clients sees our work and we have actually booked 4 weddings as a result of simply having our work play in her store. We have also received over 20 inquiries from this relationship. So we give a little but we gain a little too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And finally- another form of contra can be creating a video for a charity. In these types of deals – you often don’t get money back – but you can get both charitable donation receipts for your work as well as the recognition from the charity as helping out your community. We have done that at times in the past – a good example is this video we made for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So in conclusion – Contra deals are a good thing as long as both parties are clear about what they want out of the deal and providing you not only deliver – but get what you want in the end!

What are some examples of your Contra deals – those that have worked for you, and those that have blown up in your face!

Andrew Sorlie

Andrew and Emily Sorlie are the owners of Honey & Dear, a successful Toronto, Canada - based wedding cinematography company. They attended their first [In]Focus conference in Austin, Texas in 2010, and it radically changed the direction of their company. With the knowledge and experience they gained, the Sorlies rebranded their now-flourishing business from Sorlie Arts to Honey & Dear. Together, they have filmed more than 80 weddings all over the world including Australia, Dominican Republic, Singapore & Canada.

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With this every changing economy did you know that you can actually grow your company and expand your brand to create additional revenue streams? Imagine that, expanding your business and growing your revenue in a down economy. 

Taryn Bills from Serendipity Videography shows you what they did to evolve their business model and grow their revenue by creating a new brand that targets a different bride than whom they were currently marketing and reaching. Not only did this help them grow their main brand but it helped them to expand to a market that was not currently tapped.

TarynP

Taryn Bills attended Arizona State University and graduated Cum Laude from the Walter Cronkite School of Broadcast Journalism. She worked in community relations at the Phoenix NBC affiliate, then moved on to an account executive position for Infinity Broadcasting where she discovered her passion for Sales and Marketing. After 3 years she left radio for a 3-year stint in pharmaceutical sales, during which time she and her husband started Serendipity Videography. She has served as the sales and marketing director of award winning Serendipity for 6 years as well as with their baby sister company Simply Cinema. When she is not busy growing her own businesses, she offers marketing and consulting services for various companies who need assistance in growing their brand and increasing their sales.

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In this video blog, Andrew Waite of HDM/Lovestruck Films shares one of his secrets to success in both the business world as well as event filmmaking – A very simple concept that has changed his life by changing the way he looked at business. Having a business that you run rather than having a business that runs you is the only way you will be able to be happy in life as a small business owner.

Check out the book review and let us know what you think! 

The E-Myth: Revisited on Amazon.com!

Andrew Waite

Supreme Commander of HDM/Lovestruck Films conquering Land, Sea, and Air in the world event filmmaking. Not satisfied with the camera always being no more than 6 feet off the ground, Andrew has pushed his work to new "levels" by incorporating underwater and aerial cinematography into his wedding films.

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This post is dedicated to those that are just getting started as a Wedding Cinematographer. When we first began 6 years ago there were a lot of lessons we had to learn the hard way (and in some cases the VERY hard way).  It seems that the lessons that cost us the most were the one that we learned the fastest!

I remember thinking “I wish there was someone who could help us figure some of this stuff out!” Back then, people were not so forthcoming with the information. It was almost as if they wanted you to go through the struggles and the challenges as if it were a rite of passage or something.

Well I am all about paying-it-forward and helping raise the bar as an industry – so take a look at my “10 Things We Wish We Knew Before We Started Our Wedding Cinematography Business.” Take what you like and leave the rest but be sure and comment to share a few tips or tricks that you wish someone would have told you when you began your business!

TarynP

Taryn Bills attended Arizona State University and graduated Cum Laude from the Walter Cronkite School of Broadcast Journalism. She worked in community relations at the Phoenix NBC affiliate, then moved on to an account executive position for Infinity Broadcasting where she discovered her passion for Sales and Marketing. After 3 years she left radio for a 3-year stint in pharmaceutical sales, during which time she and her husband started Serendipity Videography. She has served as the sales and marketing director of award winning Serendipity for 6 years as well as with their baby sister company Simply Cinema. When she is not busy growing her own businesses, she offers marketing and consulting services for various companies who need assistance in growing their brand and increasing their sales.

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No matter how many times you tell a couple how long their film will take to complete, there is always that Bride that calls the studio the week after her wedding, asking, “When will my film be done?!?”

It is extremely important to be in communication with our couples as to the status of their film. And we’ve found that the best way to communicate the progress of their film is through, “status e-mails.” These e-mails have been received extremely well by our couples. Because the status e-mails monitor the progress of their film, they don’t have to be constantly calling our studio to inquire about their project (which frees-up our time to actually work on them).

Our system consists of 8 different stages: processing, editing, audio, color grading, finishing, exporting, packaging, and completion. With each e-mail, there is a detailed description of what that specific stage entails. For example, the first stage is “processing.”  In this e-mail, our couples will learn how their footage is converted into useable video files, and that that action can take up to 1 week. After reading this e-mail, the couple knows they can expect their next update within a week.

The progress bar at the top of the e-mail indicates how far along their film is in relation to the entire process. With each e-mail they get a bit closer to the finished project!

As simple as it sounds, communication with your clients is key to building a great relationship with them. And keeping them informed and telling them the details of the entire process helps to build that communication. We are very conservative with our time estimates, this is to afford us more time in the event we get backed up. I always say, it is better to under promise and over deliver!

You can download our complete “Status E-mail Updates” @ http://hdmweb.com/emailstages/…. of course, you will want to update them with your information and make them your own! Good luck!

Andrew Waite

Supreme Commander of HDM/Lovestruck Films conquering Land, Sea, and Air in the world event filmmaking. Not satisfied with the camera always being no more than 6 feet off the ground, Andrew has pushed his work to new "levels" by incorporating underwater and aerial cinematography into his wedding films.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

I admit this is tough to do if you are just now starting it and have 10 years of wedding films in the kitty, but it is doable. I’m choosing the month of April each year to be my “archive” month. If people don’t get back to me in that time frame, I’m not going to spend time chasing them down until the following April. It’s been sort of fun to reconnect with old clients from long ago, but it’s also been hard to track them all down.  That still leaves me feeling the responsibility of saving “the best copy” for them. Not something I want to have to deal with moving forward.

Meg Simone

Wedding filmmaker, avid skier, and travel enthusiast!

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Lets be honest. When is the last time you sold a copy of a clients wedding you had to “re-burn” (DVD) or export (HD delivery in .mov file) for MORE then $500 or $1,000? If you are like me, you probably charge less then $50 for a DVD copy, or even if it’s something you have to pull out of the archive, maybe no more then $200.

How much of a pain is it to track a client down once they are back into “work and real life” mode? If you have to, try to sell them their archive for their anniversary. Make a goal list for what you will do with the money from those sales. By new gear? Pay for your seat at In[Focus]?

I’ve hemmed and hawed about this for a good year, and moving forward I’ve decided that it’s just not worth my time and energy AFTER the wedding, to try and sell my clients on a new form of archiving. I want them to have the best when they are at their best! Meaning, I want them to have an HD .mov file of their wedding when they are still basking in the post wedding glow. I don’t want to wait until three years later to sell them on that.  I may have missed a few years of referrals, and by year three I’m going to wish I never edited the film like I did and probably want to re-edit it before I send it out to them (which I won’t do because they aren’t paying for that). Hopefully you get the picture.

I want to know: Do you give your client a HD file or file based archive? Or as of right now does your client only have in their possession a few DVD copies of the biggest day of their life? Discuss.

Meg Simone

Wedding filmmaker, avid skier, and travel enthusiast!

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Click here to view the embedded video.

I know when I started my business, the internet did exist, but I didn’t know 1/10th or have access to 1/1,00oth of the information we do today. I was doing what I knew best at that time. BUT it was not good enough. I know for a fact the DVDs I used for weddings from 2000-2007 are not going to work much longer if they even work today. I just haven’t heard from those clients…yet.

I want to contact them with a solution first. I’m trying to clear my conscience and get my past clients a new and improved way of archiving that will benefit not only them, but me.

This is Part 1 in a 3 part series on Archiving. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you have been doing to archive your old wedding videos.

Part 2: Current Years
Part 3: Transfer Responsibility

Meg Simone

Wedding filmmaker, avid skier, and travel enthusiast!

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Hi, I am Taryn Bills, co-owner of Serendipity Videography in Phoenix, Arizona. My husband Jeff and I started our journey into Wedding Cinematography almost 6 years ago. Jeff was a Emmy Award Winning News Videographer ready to make his way out of the news business and I was a Broadcasting Major from Arizona State University who had worked in TV, Radio and was in a corporate Sales and Marketing gig that I was just plain over.

One day we got a call from my best friend who was getting married and she said “Hey I hate to do this to you because I want you to be a guest at my wedding but can you shoot my wedding film?” I shouted “YES!” because I had been saying for years “We should be shooting weddings.” Jeff, however, had not been on board until then we were both at a crossroads in our careers so I signed us up.

So at the end of the night after we shot the wedding I looked at him and said “So what did you think?” and he said “I LOVED it! Shooting a wedding is everything that shooting news used to be.” Tonight I got to tell a great story,”  – he was sold.

I of course was ecstatic because what girly girl doesn’t want to work in weddings? It was that day that Serendipity Videography was born. The word Serendipity means to find something great by accident and that is exactly how our business has come together. Piece by piece it has formed like a puzzle in a very serendipitious fashion. Plus we love the movie Serendipity and we are huge John Cusack fans so we had to be Serendipity Videography.

When it all began I was shooting with Jeff but as much as I enjoyed the shooting, my passion was truly the sales, marketing and the business aspects of Serendipity. So I left the shooting behind and became the brains of the operation handling all sales, marketing and business and he is the Creative Genius overseeing our team of Videographers and Editors.

PS. When you watch my video please know that we actually do understand audio. Our office gets bloody hot and that hum in the background is our fan on full blast. If I didn’t have that on I would have been sweating profusely and that would be gross and a bad first impression.

PSS. Oh yea and apparently my word of the day when I shot this was “super”.

TarynP

Taryn Bills attended Arizona State University and graduated Cum Laude from the Walter Cronkite School of Broadcast Journalism. She worked in community relations at the Phoenix NBC affiliate, then moved on to an account executive position for Infinity Broadcasting where she discovered her passion for Sales and Marketing. After 3 years she left radio for a 3-year stint in pharmaceutical sales, during which time she and her husband started Serendipity Videography. She has served as the sales and marketing director of award winning Serendipity for 6 years as well as with their baby sister company Simply Cinema. When she is not busy growing her own businesses, she offers marketing and consulting services for various companies who need assistance in growing their brand and increasing their sales.

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At IN[FOCUS] 2011, featured presenter Patrick Moreau of StillMotion presented how wedding filmmaking is Your Gateway to a variety of creative commercial projects.

In this clip, Patrick elucidates on the diversity and uniqueness of the wedding filmmaker’s skill set and how it blows the minds of commercial producers.  Ron Dawson also touched on this topic this week – check out this thoughts as well.

Click on any of the links below to hear more from StillMotion about the BTS from their commercial projects:

Callaway – Stuart Appleby, Alvaro Quiros, Ernie Els, Annika Sorenstam, Trevor Immelman, Morgan Pressel

The NFL – The 2010 NFL Combine, “The Season,” The Super Bowl, The Combine Helmet Camera

Patrick will be on tour this summer as a part of the Canon Live Learning Tour.  Register for any of the dates listed using the coupon code “Focus” and you will receive a 10% discount!

Patrick Moreau