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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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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When Dani and I were married back in May 2008, we had two of our assistants shoot our wedding video (I helped shoot the father/daughter dance which made for a really cool photo op). Our assistants shot with my cameras and I ended up taking all the cameras and footage with me at the end of the wedding day. During our honeymoon, Dani and I ended up watching all of the footage from our wedding on one of the TV’s in our cabin. It was so much fun for us as a couple to just sit and watch our own raw footage the day after. I haven’t forgotten this over the last few years and I try to apply what I learned with my own wedding experience to our continuing workflow.

No matter how much our industry moves forward, we still need to be honest with ourselves and remember that we are documenting a real event involving real people with real emotion.

I understand that we want to knock our clients socks off and we should. That’s what they are usually looking for in a modern event filmmaker. Doc edits aren’t going to be something that you’ll share on your blog or use for marketing, but it is going to be something that the couple and their close family will treasure more than you ever know. We don’t typically have the emotion connection to the people giving the toasts, but the couple does. If you highlighted the father of the bride’s toast within the feature, the couple will love to remember all the “dad being dad” quirks that might otherwise be hidden forever if you didn’t share it with the couple. The full ceremony and toasts still have value even if portions of them didn’t support the story you are trying to tell in the feature.

Do you offer extended/documentary edits to your couples? What methods are you using to up-sell them? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for watching!

Jet

Jet Kaiser saved up enough money to by his first camcorder at the age of 14 and he's been creating films ever since. He eventually created the Indianapolis-based, Jet Kaiser Films where he collaborates his with his lovely wife, Dani. Together they produce cinematic, story-rich, "motion pictures for those in LOVE™ "

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Discounts and why you probably shouldn’t be offering them.

There has been a lot said on this topic, but I wanted to share with you my viewpoint on discounts and why I think they’re dangerous.

Groupon and other group-buying websites have been growing at a ridiculous pace in the last 12 to 24 months.  You’ve probably used the site yourself.  The concept is simple: one website organizes a bunch of wallets to head to one place.  It’s not exactly a new concept; stores have been using ‘loss-leaders’ for decades. 

Lately, I’ve seen local photographers advertise “90% off studio fees” or “buy one print, get 5 free” or other crazy deals like that.  What’s the first thing I think of when I see that? It’s probably garbage photography. It might not be true, but that’s honestly the first place my mind goes.  If they’re willing to reduce their price so much, they must not be that good (or else they wouldn’t need to discount).  That might be extreme, but tell me you haven’t thought that.

By discounting your product, you are telling your customer the pricing you have initially offered is too much for the value you are providing.  You’re telling them that you’re not worth as much as you said you were. You’re teaching them to expect that if they wait just a little longer, they’ll get an even better price. That is a dangerous precedent to set.  

If you haven’t been on the weddingwire.com bride forums or any other open discussion website, check one out today. Brides talk to each other. They will openly share that they saved 15% off at caterer so-and-so by simply asking.  Or they will advise tactics like threatening to walk out the door to get that discount.  More than ever before, couples are armed with this kind of information. Once you get a reputation of any kind—be it for discounting or anything else—it will take a long time to change.

Think about how you feel when you hear that smarmy “Oh Boy!! You lucky consumers, you!” from the automobile industry. “You get the opportunity to buy one of our shiny new cars for the same exact price that our employees pay!!  Congratulations!” That always drives me nuts (pun intended).  You don’t walk away thinking, “Man. That car will be the car of my dreams.” Instead, you walk away asking yourself whether it’s really how much the employees are paying. The bottom line is you’re still thinking about price and you’re wondering, “I wonder if I could pay even less had I just asked?”

My favourite author, Seth Godin, said this in a 2007 blog post: “Maybe the reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is… that you haven’t given them anything else to care about.”

By offering discounts, you’re taking the conversation away from the experience of working with you and the amazing film you’re going to make, and you’re spoon-feeding your customers to be thinking about negotiating prices. 

Be firm on your pricing. Have enough confidence in the art you make to walk away if you have a couple who demands a discount. Another couple will walk through the door.  A cinematographer friend of mine from Australia named Dave Cowling pointed out this website to me a few years back, which talks about discounting.

I’ll add one more thought that may help you as you continue to grow your business.  In my opinion (and there will be some people who disagree), there is a benefit to forming a strong relationship with a particular planner and sharing privately that you will give their clients special privileges based solely on working together.  I wouldn’t advertise this, but I would argue at this point it’s not called discounting, but merely offering a reward to clients of ‘so and so wedding planner’ as a thank you.  

One other thing that you may do which I don’t believe to be harmful is giving repeat customers a slight break (your bride from last year’s sister is getting married and now is calling you). Again, the difference here is that you’re not reducing your price in order to get a sale; you’re rewarding a good customer with a generous offer.  That would be the only way I would ever say discounting is a good idea.

Bottom line: discounting on a site like Groupon is fine for restaurants that have 100 seats to fill each night, but we are not in a volume industry.  We are not selling toothpaste. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Even if you have three or four teams, I still would not recommend discounting. It’s only a race to the bottom.

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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Giving your clients a digital copy not only creates a convenient off-site back up, it also enables them to share your work more easily. There are tons of online companies that offer custom flash drives, I’ve had great luck with Flashbay & usbmemorydirect.com.

Do you offer digital copies on flash drives or other medium? Feel free to share your experiences by commenting below. The IN[FOCUS] community would  love to hear what works well for you and your company.

Jet

Jet Kaiser saved up enough money to by his first camcorder at the age of 14 and he's been creating films ever since. He eventually created the Indianapolis-based, Jet Kaiser Films where he collaborates his with his lovely wife, Dani. Together they produce cinematic, story-rich, "motion pictures for those in LOVE™ "

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Okay.  Let’s talk about Cash Deals. It’s probably no surprise to you that Cash Deals to avoid sales tax are illegal. It’s how the world works.  

So you meet a bride or groom and start up a conversation. Things are going well. You like them. They like you. You have their date available. Then comes the business end of things. They put on their game face for the big question. “Can we pay in cash?” the bride asks. (This is generally phrased in one of two ways—either very cautiously as to not offend, or quite stubbornly with the attitude of taking control of the negotiation). 

You find yourself thinking, “Well, if I say no, they might walk… If I say yes, I’ll need to keep this quiet, and he or she better not tell anyone.”  STOP. Right there. Did you see that? You thought about it and how you were going to get away with it. Any further and you would have just broken the law.  

Now I realize that there are going to be regional variances in tax law. But for the most part, you are required as a business to charge some form of sales tax for the services you are providing the product you are creating and selling.  So why is it so common that we get asked? (For us, we get asked about 25% of the time.)  

Some people think that, by avoiding tax, they will be able to get more wedding stuff into their budget for the same price. And there are some vendors out there who are accepting no-tax deals. Here’s the problem. You’re running a business and you need to play by the rules. If you are a hobbyist, you may not charge tax, but I’m assuming this blog is read by professionals. In Canada, one only needs to charge sales tax once they reach $30,000 in sales (EBIT) in any 12-consecutive-month period. After they have hit that mark once, they must continue to charge tax regardless of sales from that point on.

If you accept one wedding as a cash deal, it won’t be hard for you to accept another. And then another. And then another. And then comes tax time. You give your accountant a shoebox of receipts, reporting only 12 of the 15 weddings you actually filmed. Now you’re starting to sweat. You’ve broken the law and now you’re praying you don’t get caught.  

Now, I’m not sure about the United States, but I can tell you that our Canadian Government can go back up to seven years when conducting an audit. They have the right to examine every piece of paper you have. They can talk to your suppliers, your customers, and even your family members. It’s not a matter of if you’ll get audited, but more accurately when you’ll get audited. And if they find something, they will bill you for it. And they will charge interest on what they are billing you for. In severe cases, jail time is part of the punishment. Do you really want to go to jail to save your bride and groom a couple hundred bucks?  (Bueller??) 

There are a lot of positives for charging and collecting tax.  The biggest one is you can write off the tax you spend (on items for your business). This can often help come tax time. The other advantage to charging tax is you are immediately (if not only sub-consciously) regarded as more of a professional. People know they have to pay tax on things they buy; this isn’t a new concept for anyone. They wouldn’t dare ask at a high-end restaurant if the server could hold the tax, right?  Would they ask their realtor if they could somehow just not pay tax when they buy their home?  No. So you just need to be firm and confident. Explain that you’re running your business above board and you won’t avoid tax, as it’s just not worth it to you. 

If you have been in the habit of not charging tax, then today is a good day to quit that habit. 

Contact your accountant or look into your local business Chamber of Commerce or even your local I.R.S. Branch. In Canada, the Canadian Revenue Agency (our IRS) offers free courses to small business owners on how to begin charging tax. It can be a bit of a headache to start, but once you get in the habit, you won’t notice it. One last suggestion: open a separate bank account that you can hook up to your business checking account. Ensure that you have the ability to do online transfers and promise yourself that the tax money you store in that account will be used solely for remitting your tax money. Some people I know use ING Direct or a similar higher interest savings account, which doesn’t add up to much—but 3% is better than nothing. Just DON’T use that money for anything other than the tax you’ll owe. Tell yourself that it’s not your money to begin with and it’s not available to buy that lens or even… gulp… to pay for your In[Focus] ticket.

Stay tuned for Part 2

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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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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So you just finished up a beautiful 20-minute wedding feature and you are so excited to send it off to the couple. You create and upload a trailer to tease everyone and everybody cannot wait to see the final product. But wait! The full wedding film is on DVD…only.

But there are dozens if not hundreds of individuals eager-to-view, what about them? How will they get to see it? One solution is for the couple to buy some extra DVD/Blu-ray copies, but for the most part, couples are unmotivated to do so and have more on their plate.  If the full wedding film is restricted to optical media only, most of the guests at the wedding will never have the chance to see the full, finished masterpiece that you spent the last 2 weeks piecing together.

Making your longer edits (features, short forms, or whatever the kids are calling them now-a-days) available online creates an open avenue to display your true talent and product to anyone connected to the happy couple. The video above shares some ideas and some basic how-to’s to get you started if you haven’t already began sharing your longer edits online.

The couple is going to be thrilled that their film is online and easily shareable. You can offer full wedding video hosting as an addition to a package or surprise the couple with it after they receive their package. It’s up to you as to how you’ll offer it, but the key is to understand how important it is for the couple to have it sharable online. Happy couples should always be your top priority!

Since everyone’s sites are setup differently, I can’t tell you the best way to add an online checkout to your site/blog. We use PayPal because it easy and most web-savvy folks have a PayPal account. I’d encourage you to explore some of the options that PayPal has for merchants. Google Checkout is another popular online selling tool which has grown in popularity the last couple of years. Definitely worth looking into as well.

Has sharing your features online worked out for you and your company? Let me know. Have some concerns? Lemme know your thoughts

Jet

Jet Kaiser saved up enough money to by his first camcorder at the age of 14 and he's been creating films ever since. He eventually created the Indianapolis-based, Jet Kaiser Films where he collaborates his with his lovely wife, Dani. Together they produce cinematic, story-rich, "motion pictures for those in LOVE™ "

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

At IN[FOCUS] 2011, John Goolsby from Godfather Films opened the book on many of the under-the-hood decisions that will make or break a business.

In this video, John speaks to many of the details you need to consider to protect yourself, your employees, and your gear. John has been in the business for over 20 years, so he knows about every possible scenario in which insurance is need, so even if you have liability and error & omissions, you still might find that you are under-insured!

This is a taste of the 10+ hours of seminars we have online from our 2011 event. You may buy these 8 seminars by clicking on the button below. The price remains at a discounted rate of $197 until we get them all uploaded and polished ($250 thereafter). To know more about which seminars are included in the bundle, and to login to view them, click here.

The Reporter

Team IN[FOCUS] believes that there's no better life than living it as a filmmaker, and we empower you to survive, thrive, and serve in that capacity through the most progressive means of education and community.

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At IN[FOCUS] 2011, John Goolsby from Godfather Films opened the book on many of the under-the-hood details that will make or break a business.

In this video, John lays out the pros and cons in how you legally establish your business. Even if you’ve already created an LLC, Sole Proprietorship, or a Corporation, you might find that you are better off switching from one to the other.

This is a taste of the 10+ hours of seminars we have online from our 2011 event. You may buy these 8 seminars by clicking on the button below. The price remains at a discounted rate of $197 until we get them all uploaded and polished ($250 thereafter). To know more about which seminars are included in the bundle, and to login to view them, click here.

The Reporter

Team IN[FOCUS] believes that there's no better life than living it as a filmmaker, and we empower you to survive, thrive, and serve in that capacity through the most progressive means of education and community.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts