Latest / Studio B Sessions / Why Networking is the Ultimate Cheat Code for Video Business Growth

Transcript

Why Networking is the Ultimate Cheat Code for Video Business Growth · Studio B Sessions

• 0:04
  Vipul Bindra: Tony, thank you for coming.
• 0:06
  Vipul Bindra: Sir, I really appreciate you taking the time and coming to talk to me, not that we haven't done this before.
• 0:11
  Vipul Bindra: Who are?
• 0:11
  Vipul Bindra: You?
• 0:12
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, I was like it wasn't just recorded, but I mean it was the same thing.
• 0:15
  Vipul Bindra: So thank you again for taking the time out and coming and talking to me Like we were discussing a few minutes ago.
• 0:21
  Vipul Bindra: For years, you know, I wanted to start this podcast because I wanted to capture the type of conversations that I'm having with people, cause I know years ago it would have helped me.
• 0:30
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, you know, it's just general entertainment.
• 0:32
  Vipul Bindra: You know you're on a flight, you're driving, you know, listening to people who think like you, who think business video, you know, first can, and coming back to it.
• 0:42
  Vipul Bindra: That's exactly how I want to start.
• 0:44
  Vipul Bindra: So how we met is obviously through David's networking events, but also you hit me up because you wanted to.
• 0:52
  Vipul Bindra: You know, talk, improve your craft, improve your business strategies.
• 0:56
  Vipul Bindra: So walk me through that.
• 0:58
  Vipul Bindra: I want to learn more of what made you reach out to me and what did you want to ask me.
• 1:05
  Vipul Bindra: You then find that out.
• 1:06
  Vipul Bindra: You know, go in depth, because we have a lot of time here.
• 1:09
  Vipul Bindra: And then also, um, did that help you in any way?
• 1:12
  Tony Smith: so just so again, tony, but now a little bit the better yeah yeah.
• 1:19
  Tony Smith: So tony, um, so we met a couple times, uh, through the networking events, and just I wanted, wanted to pick your brain a little bit further than what we were discussing in a general setting.
• 1:30
  Tony Smith: You know, it's a lot of people around, a lot of noise, a lot of people, so it's a lot of moving pieces.
• 1:34
  Tony Smith: So I was wanting to one-on-one to just sit down and just figure out.
• 1:37
  Tony Smith: You know who you are.
• 1:39
  Tony Smith: You know who is this guy with you know, with this nice shirt, coming on looking clean with the Jordans and all this, and I'm just like who is this guy, you know, and he's talking like he knows what he's talking about and I just want to, you know, just understand you know why, how, who, you know who you were, and then just sitting down and just picking your brain and just hearing, like you know, like all the knowledge that you had, you know, and coming coming from a place that where we kind of can, you know, relate to being, you know, brown skin.
• 2:13
  Tony Smith: You know there's no obvious, obvious, you know, saying thing here, but just wanted to see somebody else who, kind of, you know, went through the same struggles that I might go through, you know, throughout my journey in this Pretty new to this, you know.
• 2:23
  Tony Smith: Only, you know, been shooting for a total of six years, really, business two and a half years, you know.
• 2:30
  Tony Smith: So I just wanted to get with somebody who's been in it for you know a long time you said 15 years and you went through a lot of hurdles and you know tribulations, to figure out the space you're in now.
• 2:42
  Tony Smith: I'm sure you had a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of headaches, a lot of you know all that.
• 2:46
  Tony Smith: So I just wanted to, you know, if I can, you know, get over that without having to go through it, at least, you know, get with somebody who can understand, you know, who kind of looks like them.
• 2:56
  Tony Smith: Be like, okay, don't do this, do this instead, so then I don't have to go through that same same journey.
• 3:06
  Tony Smith: I can leap over that and then keep moving.
• 3:07
  Tony Smith: Uh, those, my, that's my whole reason of sitting down.
• 3:09
  Tony Smith: Um, you, just one of the guys that you know, david, looked up to you know he, he would come to you and ask you questions.
• 3:14
  Tony Smith: I'm like, okay, he must be the expert in this field, you know, and I appreciate david if we even started, because without him we probably would never even run, you know, run paths exactly, yeah I love those meetups, man, I'm telling david they just do, and I know he's a busy guy.
• 3:28
  Vipul Bindra: I hope to have him on the podcast, uh, podcast in the next few weeks.
• 3:31
  Vipul Bindra: But you know he, uh, you know he's a busy filmmaker like all of us.
• 3:37
  Vipul Bindra: So so for him to do that, uh, how many people I've met through his meetups, it's been incredible.
• 3:41
  Vipul Bindra: So I'm glad you know he did those and we met.
• 3:44
  Vipul Bindra: And then I'm so glad you reached out and us talking and you know, typically I mean let's get onto it, there's no off topic here I typically I'm so obsessed, you know I have that obsessive personality, but I know that you can tell.
• 3:57
  Vipul Bindra: You know I love video.
• 3:59
  Vipul Bindra: And then once I finally made this like this, is it right and it's bigger than me, I'm gonna build this company.
• 4:08
  Vipul Bindra: I just went all in and so all I could talk about is video.
• 4:09
  Vipul Bindra: So I never stopped for a minute and think about the other factors that affected me, because I was always just blaming the video industry.
• 4:14
  Vipul Bindra: Right, oh, why can't I get this contract?
• 4:16
  Vipul Bindra: Or why can't whatever, whatever the like you said, the hurdle.
• 4:19
  Vipul Bindra: Hurdle was at the time.
• 4:21
  Vipul Bindra: But the truth is there was race to a factor.
• 4:23
  Vipul Bindra: Right, I don't typically talk about it, or even think about it, for that matter, in my brain like, oh, that's holding me back, but the truth is that is sometimes can be the factor, because we've all been through meetings or things where you can think about like, hey, um, you know, was race a factor in me not getting that project, or me not getting that meeting or whatever.
• 4:43
  Vipul Bindra: Right, initially, I Initially I found it was the, it was the uh.
• 4:46
  Vipul Bindra: Another thing that you know people don't think about is age Cause I was young, you know I was uh, uh, you know I'm 33 now, but I find myself I like to keep a little, you know grayish beard.
• 5:07
  Vipul Bindra: That helps, even though I made thousands and rather tens of thousands of videos and, you know, made companies hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
• 5:12
  Tony Smith: When you show up and you're like a young guy and you're late like 20s or early 30s or whatever.
• 5:15
  Vipul Bindra: The CEOs, who are generally your marketing managers, are in their 40s, 50s, 60s.
• 5:18
  Vipul Bindra: They don't take you seriously.
• 5:21
  Vipul Bindra: And so when I walk in, I know and I noticed that I genuinely like people are like oh, why are you trying to look, you know, with a beard, you know trying to look older.
• 5:29
  Vipul Bindra: And I was like, hey, the truth is, my market is these older gentlemen or whatever.
• 5:36
  Vipul Bindra: They're going to judge me instantly.
• 5:38
  Vipul Bindra: I walk into the room and for me to be taken seriously, I have to look like I belong Right Now.
• 5:46
  Vipul Bindra: I know for a fact the solution that I'm offering is totally worth the cost and it's going to totally give them the roi.
• 5:51
  Vipul Bindra: But if they didn't even give me a chance, it doesn't matter what I have to sell to them, right.
• 5:57
  Vipul Bindra: And so as soon as I found out, when I did the the whole you know beard thing and just took on this persona of somebody who looks older, rather than say that it helped me close more deals, and ever since I'm like, okay, well, it's my life, thank goodness I don't have to go look for girls Anyway, but that helped a lot.
• 6:19
  Vipul Bindra: So I completely see how age can be a factor and how many great video people out there aren't getting deals just because they're not even being considered, just because the person on the other side doesn't consider them experienced enough or whatever.
• 6:32
  Vipul Bindra: And then obviously, race is another huge factor, right, you see, not that many, um, black people or indian people in the industry, and I think that's, uh, that's most likely.
• 6:44
  Vipul Bindra: It is because not only now do you have to be, um, a great videographer or a filmmaker or sound guy or gaffer, whatever you're trying to be your dp, you have to now, you know, be extra good, right, right, uh.
• 6:58
  Vipul Bindra: So so that was a very interesting topic and I'm so glad you discussed that, because that kind of made me step for a second.
• 7:03
  Vipul Bindra: Think about all the times I've been meetings where it was race a factor.
• 7:07
  Vipul Bindra: Or was it just my skill set, right?
• 7:10
  Tony Smith: Or vice versa, I mean, you could have got a job because you were.
• 7:13
  Tony Smith: Oh I know for a fact Diversity hour yeah.
• 7:18
  Vipul Bindra: So I haven't worked with that many Indian companies, to be real, but I totally.
• 7:23
  Vipul Bindra: And here's coming.
• 7:24
  Vipul Bindra: I'm so glad you say that.
• 7:26
  Vipul Bindra: I am totally for it.
• 7:27
  Vipul Bindra: I don't want to hear be one of those guys uh who says, oh, you know, you have this advantage, your privilege or whatever, so now you should lower your privilege.
• 7:37
  Vipul Bindra: I'm saying no, take advantage of it.
• 7:39
  Vipul Bindra: You know um there's so many um like indian businesses and and if I'm Indian and they give me business, I'm going to happily take it because I want to make awesome videos Absolutely, and if that's the factor that gets me the video, I'm taking it.
• 7:53
  Vipul Bindra: Sir.
• 7:53
  Vipul Bindra: And same thing, if I remember correctly, I told in the meeting.
• 7:57
  Vipul Bindra: I'm like hey look, yes, it's probably a factor, but then why don't you find there's so many black Americans that are building amazing, incredible businesses and guess what?
• 8:06
  Vipul Bindra: They need Videos.
• 8:07
  Vipul Bindra: So guess what?
• 8:08
  Vipul Bindra: You have now an advantage as long as you hyper-target yourself to those folks and it doesn't mean discount other companies Obviously we'll work with them.
• 8:15
  Vipul Bindra: But I'm saying, if you don't have privilege somewhere else, we have privilege somewhere other than that and we should go take full advantage of that.
• 8:24
  Vipul Bindra: Do you agree with me or not?
• 8:25
  Tony Smith: no, absolutely.
• 8:26
  Tony Smith: I mean, you gotta, you know, you gotta find your lane you know you gotta, you gotta go in.
• 8:29
  Tony Smith: Basically, you gotta get where you fit in, you know, and can't just try to keep trying to, you know, force your way into certain industries that don't want you there.
• 8:38
  Tony Smith: You know you gotta find your people yeah you know whether that's you know it don't have to be your color, but just your people.
• 8:45
  Tony Smith: Just be people who relate to you and people who, like you, trust you, um.
• 8:49
  Tony Smith: But I definitely agree with that, um, because you don't want to just keep trying to force your way into a, to a hole that doesn't want you there, or to an industry that don't want you there.
• 8:57
  Tony Smith: Go build your own lane, go build your own, you know.
• 9:00
  Tony Smith: Find your own, find your own circle and there's enough work for everyone.
• 9:03
  Vipul Bindra: There's so many businesses that need video.
• 9:05
  Vipul Bindra: That I don't think enough work is an issue.
• 9:09
  Vipul Bindra: You just have to a have your skill be there and then you have to have your business skill be there and I don't think anyone will have issue getting enough work.
• 9:16
  Vipul Bindra: The other thing is, um, now, but I'm all for playing up the part, like we we discussed a few minutes ago.
• 9:22
  Vipul Bindra: But I'm all for like, hey, I go to network now until you get there.
• 9:26
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, like, initially, when I'm going networking events, I'm saying years ago, you gotta play your part, put on a suit, put on a tie, dress nice, because that's how they're dressed.
• 9:36
  Vipul Bindra: You know these business owners that are making millions of dollars.
• 9:38
  Vipul Bindra: Um, when they go to networking events, they put on a suit.
• 9:42
  Vipul Bindra: So if you're trying to make millions or even hundreds of thousands you know of six figures everyone wants to make then dress like that.
• 9:49
  Vipul Bindra: That's an effort on you.
• 9:51
  Vipul Bindra: I don't count that, as you know, anything extra or something that somebody is asking of you.
• 9:57
  Vipul Bindra: You have to belong.
• 9:58
  Vipul Bindra: If you, and to be real, I am at the stage now where I don't give a crap.
• 10:02
  Vipul Bindra: So I have shown up with my, because to me my branding is everything.
• 10:05
  Vipul Bindra: But I'm saying but at this point.
• 10:07
  Vipul Bindra: I like to pick and choose and my clients, but the point I'm trying to make is if you need clients and your clients are in a room in a networking event, then dress like them, belong there and make an effort, obviously to fit the part.
• 10:23
  Vipul Bindra: You know, if you were just a rebel and who's like, no, I'm just going to show up in a t-shirt, then they're not going to take you seriously and at that point I don't think it's them, it's you right so.
• 10:34
  Vipul Bindra: So there's both sides of the coin.
• 10:36
  Vipul Bindra: Fine, obviously, find your lane if there's a room.
• 10:38
  Vipul Bindra: Even after you put all your effort, they don't want you, then it's okay.
• 10:41
  Vipul Bindra: Just move on to where you belong, right, but at the same time first make an effort to fit right yeah, like I said, I only really you have to fit the part.
• 10:51
  Tony Smith: But to come in as you are, you have to.
• 10:53
  Tony Smith: You have to be at a level to where they trust you so much that they don't even care what you come.
• 11:00
  Tony Smith: As you know you, you made them so much money they're like oh, that's just, that's just him, that's how he is right you become friends with's how he is what do the people say?
• 11:08
  Vipul Bindra: I think you have to have like nine or ten touches or whatever in person for them to like, buy from you.
• 11:12
  Vipul Bindra: People buy from people.
• 11:13
  Vipul Bindra: They know like and trust.
• 11:15
  Vipul Bindra: And uh, for me it's like you'd be amazed.
• 11:18
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, I'm very I'd like to be active in the chamber of commerce's and I'd love to talk about that, you know, some other time or even today if you wanted to.
• 11:24
  Vipul Bindra: But uh, you know you, you have to be active in your business community.
• 11:28
  Vipul Bindra: You're a business owner, right, and that's if you want to be.
• 11:30
  Vipul Bindra: Obviously, if you're dp, I don't know if that's relevant, but if you're trying to build a production company and you're a business owner, go, hang out with other business owners, find out what they want, right, and I found, um, a huge success with that, but it doesn't come immediately.
• 11:42
  Vipul Bindra: I've had a lot of people again ask me like what should I do?
• 11:45
  Vipul Bindra: And I tell them they're like, oh, I went to five events and nothing happened, right, and I'm like well, it's not going to happen in five minutes.
• 11:52
  Tony Smith: This is a long-term play.
• 11:54
  Vipul Bindra: You're trying to build a relationship.
• 11:55
  Vipul Bindra: These people aren't just ready for you to show up with your card I want.
• 11:59
  Vipul Bindra: I mean you could get lucky.
• 12:01
  Vipul Bindra: But you know what I?
• 12:02
  Vipul Bindra: It's a long-term play Plus it's also genuine relationships.
• 12:05
  Vipul Bindra: If you walk in there genuinely trying to meet other local businesses, build a community, help each other out, pass referrals, because I'm sure somebody's like, hey, I need a roof done and maybe you know now a roofer that you didn't.
• 12:16
  Vipul Bindra: Or you know I don't know another chiropractor or whatever business owner that you meet right at these events.
• 12:22
  Vipul Bindra: Now you're giving them leads too, because I'm sure somebody in your life is asking absolutely I don't know I found the huge success with that.
• 12:29
  Vipul Bindra: If you're just great and you just build these relationships, I've had, uh, people go a year later like, hey, vipple, I was thinking about making a video, let's do it.
• 12:37
  Vipul Bindra: And I'm like, awesome, let's do it.
• 12:39
  Vipul Bindra: And I've known this person for a year, right, and so money comes back.
• 12:42
  Vipul Bindra: I've had enough huge amounts of roi from from networking.
• 12:46
  Tony Smith: It's just don't expect it to be immediate and that's, and that's the whole thing with these.
• 12:51
  Tony Smith: You know, you know bm, bnis and uh chambers, and you know people can sense that uh desperation you know they can sense when you you're just there just for that.
• 13:03
  Tony Smith: yeah, you know you're just coming in just pitching video, not trying to build a genuine connection with everybody there.
• 13:10
  Tony Smith: So they can sense when you're, you know, trying to pray, so that's one thing.
• 13:15
  Tony Smith: Those are the slow burn.
• 13:17
  Tony Smith: Slow, you know, slowly getting there, maybe two, three, four months, even a year, to even get one.
• 13:25
  Tony Smith: And then once you get that one, then it's kind of like a snowball effect after that, once you do a good, a great job for that one person, then he goes to somebody else.
• 13:32
  Tony Smith: Now it's, now it's.
• 13:33
  Tony Smith: You got the whole chamber now on your back now trying to get you to do a video, exactly man for the chamber, let people watch it, because I don't need to, for me at least.
• 13:47
  Vipul Bindra: I'm not trying to um sell to each person.
• 13:48
  Vipul Bindra: I'm just saying, hey look, I'm gonna partner with the chamber, I'm gonna make them an awesome ass video and then I'm gonna let them play you that video and now I want you to go to them like who did that?
• 13:57
  Vipul Bindra: video that video is amazing because you know, and it's all about storytelling.
• 14:01
  Vipul Bindra: Again, don't get up.
• 14:02
  Vipul Bindra: At least I don't get obsessed about camera.
• 14:05
  Vipul Bindra: You know and like, obviously your art is important, your camera is important, your lens is important, but I'm not getting too in depth.
• 14:10
  Vipul Bindra: I'm worried more about the story.
• 14:12
  Vipul Bindra: That's my focus.
• 14:13
  Vipul Bindra: How can I tell an impactful story?
• 14:15
  Vipul Bindra: And I want those people to watch those impactful stories and then automatically go.
• 14:21
  Vipul Bindra: I want that for my business and they ask the chamber and the chamber will obviously say this is the chamber member that did it and that's how I like to do it.
• 14:29
  Vipul Bindra: I'm like completely like.
• 14:30
  Vipul Bindra: I'm like forget the hand shaking the card, saying I just want to make what I, what I love making, right.
• 14:36
  Vipul Bindra: I would be doing this anyway if this wasn't a job.
• 14:38
  Vipul Bindra: I'm just lucky that I can make a living off of this and I find when you genuinely like to make awesome videos, people want them and they come to you.
• 14:46
  Vipul Bindra: But you do need people to see it.
• 14:48
  Vipul Bindra: If they don't know you exist, they just don't know you exist.
• 14:51
  Vipul Bindra: And these type of partnerships, like you said, bni, a chamber of commerce or any other networking or any other organization, like even our filmmaker meetup if you're a DP and trying to find producers or whatever is an incredible opportunity for you to get your work out there and get your personality out there because that matters too right, so everything clicks.
• 15:13
  Vipul Bindra: You may be talented, but you know, if you're not jiving or whatever, vibing with the other person, then it ain't gonna work trust me, I've done through that a lot.
• 15:23
  Tony Smith: I've tried to hire, you know.
• 15:24
  Tony Smith: So that's my big thing is I'd love to give new people you know, or people with less status to you know, be on, shoot and and hire them, because you know everybody doesn't have that talent to, you know.
• 15:35
  Tony Smith: Be the front runner, you know, but you know, be the producer, to be the, be the main man talking and all that.
• 15:39
  Tony Smith: People just wanted to shoot, people just want to be holding the camera, people just want to take pictures and it's hard when you don't have that personality to be out there to do that.
• 15:47
  Tony Smith: Now you, now you're stuck because now you got to figure out how to get more personality because you don't have it and and and just do the thing that you love.
• 15:55
  Tony Smith: So I love to be that person in between, you know, get the job and hire these low, low-end people, but at the same time, you know, when you don't have that personality, that also shows on the set and it's like I, I don't like the way you do that.
• 16:07
  Tony Smith: I don't like the way you're moving.
• 16:08
  Tony Smith: You know you're doing a little too much.
• 16:10
  Tony Smith: Why are you talking to the customer like that?
• 16:12
  Tony Smith: Why you fall back some?
• 16:14
  Tony Smith: You know you're doing too much on my shoot.
• 16:15
  Tony Smith: Now you make me look bad because you're representing me while you're here.
• 16:18
  Tony Smith: So now I can't rehire you because now you know I don't know how you're going to act next time.
• 16:22
  Tony Smith: Yeah, so Exactly.
• 16:24
  Vipul Bindra: No, you're saying it perfectly, man.
• 16:28
  Vipul Bindra: It's all about, you know, again, sharing opportunity.
• 16:31
  Vipul Bindra: But personality is everything.
• 16:32
  Vipul Bindra: And if you don't have it, guess what you don't need to See.
• 16:35
  Vipul Bindra: You need to find, like you said before, we were talking about finding your lane.
• 16:39
  Vipul Bindra: If you're like, hey, my personality isn't where I want to be, interacting with a client, or whatever, right, that's okay, you can find a role there's so many roles in what we do where you know you can make your personality fit in you, you fit in the.
• 16:52
  Vipul Bindra: You know, don't feel like you don't.
• 16:53
  Vipul Bindra: You just have to find where you fit in.
• 16:56
  Vipul Bindra: It may not be the role than you're, because then you, you know you only have two choices, right, let's say you want to be client facing, you're like, I just want to be a production company owner, but you're like an introvert like me.
• 17:13
  Vipul Bindra: You can find two ways, which is what I had to do.
• 17:14
  Vipul Bindra: It's like, no, you can dig deep and say, no, I'm gonna go talk to this client.
• 17:15
  Vipul Bindra: Or you know you can, you can just be a dp or whatever.
• 17:17
  Vipul Bindra: I'm saying we can't, you know, choose a different lane.
• 17:19
  Vipul Bindra: And I was like, no, I have to fight through, uh, this urge of, uh, you know, not wanting to just make random talk or whatever, right, you have to do that and then that's.
• 17:29
  Vipul Bindra: That's on the person and them.
• 17:31
  Vipul Bindra: I feel like just digging deep and figuring out how they, their personalities, fit.
• 17:36
  Vipul Bindra: Either they're going to change their personality or they're gonna um, you know, change the style of work or whatever the role that they want to be in.
• 17:43
  Tony Smith: Yeah, you got to be in, yeah, you got to be uncomfortable with the comfortable.
• 17:46
  Vipul Bindra: You got to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
• 17:47
  Tony Smith: Exactly, you know so you got to push through it without any, without any like traumas or adversity in your life.
• 17:55
  Tony Smith: You don't.
• 17:55
  Tony Smith: You know, you don't know anything.
• 17:57
  Tony Smith: You know, you just think the shade through life is going to get you there.
• 17:59
  Tony Smith: But you got to have some kind of drama, some kind of you know, you got to go through something to get you over that hump.
• 18:03
  Tony Smith: You know, you don't know the other end.
• 18:06
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, exactly Awesome.
• 18:08
  Vipul Bindra: So tell me more about why video how did you get?
• 18:16
  Tony Smith: into video, yeah.
• 18:17
  Tony Smith: So I kind of like looked into this or just fell into this.
• 18:20
  Tony Smith: It wasn't always my passion, even though I liked it.
• 18:24
  Tony Smith: You know, I used to have growing up.
• 18:26
  Tony Smith: We had production classes in high school and I took one of them, not just because I loved it, it was just something else to do because I didn't, you know, have anything else for elective.
• 18:36
  Tony Smith: So I just picked it and we had to remake the ending of what?
• 18:43
  Tony Smith: What's the?
• 18:44
  Tony Smith: Is the base motel or what's the one with the?
• 18:46
  Tony Smith: Uh his cock, with the uh, with the hotel, when it was killing the people in the hotels?
• 18:53
  Tony Smith: And um, I've got the name of the movie, but yeah but basically we had to remake the ending of that to make it something different than what it was.
• 19:02
  Tony Smith: So you took that and I was just going through that and just like, oh man, this is cool.
• 19:06
  Tony Smith: Um, and also in that class we were able to learn emotion through video and through sound.
• 19:12
  Tony Smith: Um, so we watched a lot of music videos with no music.
• 19:15
  Tony Smith: Just watch the video, and then teachers be like uh, what do you feel?
• 19:21
  Tony Smith: Just, you know, with no sound, how do you feel?
• 19:23
  Tony Smith: Like okay, looks okay, like I'm okay, and then she'll play it with the sound.
• 19:27
  Tony Smith: Oh man, I feel totally different.
• 19:28
  Tony Smith: Like this is, this is so I'm sad now.
• 19:30
  Tony Smith: Like this is this is sad.
• 19:32
  Tony Smith: Um, so going through that, not knowing that future in life, that that would help me with my beauty of making, because now I understand how to provoke emotion and and how people feel through video.
• 19:42
  Tony Smith: Uh, that was my start.
• 19:44
  Tony Smith: And not knowing that.
• 19:45
  Tony Smith: So I really got started just by.
• 19:48
  Tony Smith: You know, my wife had bought me a GoPro just off the whim, because I like to make random videos.
• 19:53
  Tony Smith: I was playing softball and she'll come and film and I'll just chop up the videos, make little quick, little videos, or I'll make little cooking videos, just to, you know, just be playing around with it, not thinking that I love it, just I'm, you know, just playing around.
• 20:08
  Tony Smith: So, uh, when my friend saw it he was a also a photographer here in Orlando he saw that, oh man, it's dope, like that's, that's amazing.
• 20:15
  Tony Smith: I'm like this is a random video, like it ain't nothing to me.
• 20:19
  Tony Smith: So he, he hit me up.
• 20:20
  Tony Smith: It's like, hey, you want to shoot a wedding?
• 20:22
  Tony Smith: Uh, absolutely, why, why, why not?
• 20:25
  Tony Smith: You know?
• 20:25
  Tony Smith: So this is.
• 20:26
  Tony Smith: So again, throughout this whole process I never owned a camera.
• 20:28
  Tony Smith: Yet I'm still like I got a gopro, I got my phone.
• 20:31
  Tony Smith: I'm not.
• 20:31
  Tony Smith: I had never actually owned or held a camera at this point.
• 20:35
  Tony Smith: So my first time actually holding a camera was at somebody's wedding oh wow, so that that's a risky took, sir I would never because you know a this only happens once.
• 20:45
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:47
  Tony Smith: I've not got amazing footage.
• 20:48
  Tony Smith: So so what the crazy part was?
• 20:50
  Tony Smith: I didn't know how to turn it on.
• 20:51
  Tony Smith: I didn't know what the start button was, I didn't know what at the time, I didn't know what ISO was, I didn't know what aperture was.
• 20:56
  Tony Smith: He was basically, it was like it's already set.
• 20:58
  Tony Smith: Oh.
• 21:06
  Tony Smith: So you put hit start.
• 21:07
  Tony Smith: Yeah, it was like just hit start, okay, cool.
• 21:08
  Tony Smith: So so again at a wedding, you know, you understand that at a wedding you're basically second in line, it's the bride and groom, then you yeah, everybody else doesn't matter because they're paying you to be there.
• 21:13
  Tony Smith: So you need to make sure that you're able to capture what you need to capture without grandma being in the way.
• 21:18
  Tony Smith: Cousin, uncle, you step out, you get in front of them, exactly.
• 21:22
  Tony Smith: So when he told me that I'm like okay, I got it because I was with him at the time, because like, because, because I'm gonna be that guy that tells you know, grandma to move.
• 21:29
  Tony Smith: But but you know, but at the same time they're paying me and then they'll be mad at me when I don't get the footage.
• 21:34
  Tony Smith: Because you're like, why didn't you get it?
• 21:36
  Tony Smith: Because grandma's in, you know.
• 21:37
  Tony Smith: So, knowing that I'm like okay, now I, I have authority to move people and they understand why.
• 21:44
  Vipul Bindra: So I expect, by the way, people who do weddings I've never done one and I will never do one.
• 21:48
  Vipul Bindra: I'm happy with my business owners, but weddings is a grind.
• 21:53
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Tony Smith: You have to love weddings to do weddings.
• 21:55
  Tony Smith: So, so, just going through that process of just you know again, I didn't have no references.
• 22:00
  Tony Smith: I was just really just going off my own perception or or preference of what I would think a wedding video would look like.
• 22:06
  Tony Smith: I didn't go on youtube and look up anything prior to that.
• 22:09
  Tony Smith: I was just filming stuff that I thought would look cool.
• 22:11
  Tony Smith: Um, so I did it, put the video together.
• 22:14
  Tony Smith: Everybody loved it.
• 22:15
  Tony Smith: Amazing.
• 22:16
  Tony Smith: Like, oh my god, this amazing video.
• 22:19
  Tony Smith: Two months later, he's like hey, we'll do another one.
• 22:20
  Tony Smith: Okay, yeah, great, yeah, yeah, why, let's go ahead and do it?
• 22:24
  Tony Smith: So do it.
• 22:25
  Tony Smith: Do it again Again.
• 22:26
  Tony Smith: This time, I got a little more knowledge now from the first one.
• 22:28
  Tony Smith: Now, this time, I'm doing a little more research on YouTube and trying to figure out what is the actual process and how do you do this and that Cool, so do that one.
• 22:37
  Tony Smith: Great, they love that one.
• 22:39
  Tony Smith: Two months later later, hey, you want to do another one.
• 22:46
  Tony Smith: Why not?
• 22:46
  Tony Smith: Yeah.
• 22:46
  Tony Smith: Now at this point I'm like, okay, is this my passion?
• 22:47
  Tony Smith: This is my, this is my goal in life.
• 22:48
  Tony Smith: To do weddings like this is my.
• 22:49
  Tony Smith: Because it's like it's just coming free, because I'm not doing a promotion.
• 22:50
  Tony Smith: I'm not doing nothing.
• 22:51
  Tony Smith: It's really just you know, connection based somebody you know is just hitting you up, going yeah, like so you know it takes people 10, 15 sometimes, you know, never do three weddings in in their lifetime.
• 23:02
  Tony Smith: You know it takes two years to get through weddings and I'm doing it within six months.
• 23:05
  Vipul Bindra: You know, I don't even know I would go to that many weddings you know.
• 23:08
  Tony Smith: So it's like not even even on the camera.
• 23:10
  Tony Smith: I don't, I don't, I don't own a camera on a light, I don't own anything.
• 23:13
  Tony Smith: I'm doing everything off of what he has.
• 23:15
  Tony Smith: Um, so do the third wedding, and it's like I like this, though, but again, the same time it's the grind.
• 23:22
  Tony Smith: You know you're there from 10 to 10 and and it's, you know, you're barely taking breaks and it's fun because it's because each one is different, and it's fun just seeing all the heavy people and just being around different cultures and stuff like that.
• 23:33
  Tony Smith: So it was amazing that point.
• 23:35
  Tony Smith: But but the same time it's it's a grind.
• 23:36
  Tony Smith: I'm like man, this is a lot of work, uh.
• 23:39
  Tony Smith: But even though the payout is better, you know, better than being a, it being a nine to five, it's like man, I can make, you know, a month's salary within an eight month time period, but then your body's taking the toll of it.
• 23:52
  Tony Smith: So I just went through that and then I just took a hiatus.
• 23:55
  Tony Smith: You know, he kind of like he kind of fell back from weddings too, and again I went to a promotion because I wasn't at that time taking it seriously.
• 24:02
  Tony Smith: So I took about a year and a half to where I was able to get another gig.
• 24:11
  Tony Smith: At that point he had a lot of connections to where he would hit me up like, hey, want to do this and that, do that.
• 24:14
  Tony Smith: I'm like, yeah, I'll do it.
• 24:15
  Tony Smith: It was the last time he hit me up to do one of his friends needed a wedding and it was a last minute wedding and I'm like I really don't want to do it.
• 24:24
  Tony Smith: So I put out an outrageous number and she's like, yeah, cool.
• 24:26
  Tony Smith: I'm like, oh well, okay, well.
• 24:29
  Tony Smith: I guess I'm coming to your wedding then.
• 24:31
  Vipul Bindra: That's how most people raise their heads.
• 24:32
  Vipul Bindra: They go.
• 24:33
  Vipul Bindra: I don't want to do this.
• 24:34
  Vipul Bindra: It's an absurd number and people.
• 24:36
  Vipul Bindra: Just you know you'd be amazed.
• 24:38
  Tony Smith: So then after we did that, one was an all day.
• 24:41
  Tony Smith: She really wanted an all day, so we were there from 6 to 11.
• 24:45
  Tony Smith: Oh wow, 6 am Because she wanted like a documentary style capture, the whole day type thing, wedding After that.
• 24:52
  Tony Smith: You know that's when I started taking it serious.
• 24:54
  Vipul Bindra: Everybody was like you know you're really good with this.
• 24:55
  Vipul Bindra: What's the crazy number?
• 24:56
  Vipul Bindra: Can you tell us?
• 24:57
  Tony Smith: At that time it was 6,500.
• 25:01
  Vipul Bindra: That's pretty good for a wedding video and that's what you're saying at that time?
• 25:06
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, at that time.
• 25:09
  Tony Smith: Because then, like you said, I wasn't a company at this time, I wasn't LLC'd.
• 25:14
  Tony Smith: At this time I wasn't incorporated.
• 25:15
  Tony Smith: I was just a random guy who he texted me like, hey, she needed a video for a wedding.
• 25:21
  Tony Smith: It's all day what you doing.
• 25:23
  Tony Smith: I'm like I really want to do it here.
• 25:25
  Tony Smith: Just just, just just tell her it's, you know, it's 6500, yeah.
• 25:34
  Tony Smith: And she's like, okay, great, great, great, what, like you know, you're gonna pay this, like so again.
• 25:37
  Tony Smith: So, even with that, that kind of what threw me off too, because, again, I wasn't I wasn't.
• 25:42
  Vipul Bindra: You should be charging for your weddings.
• 25:43
  Vipul Bindra: If you do weddings, $6,500 minimum, minimum.
• 25:46
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 25:48
  Vipul Bindra: I'm learning so much I'm like look, tony.
• 25:51
  Tony Smith: But it also depends on what kind of weddings you're doing, because I've also done India weddings.
• 25:55
  Tony Smith: Charge double that.
• 25:58
  Tony Smith: Oh yeah, it's like a party.
• 26:05
  Vipul Bindra: That's how I wanted to.
• 26:06
  Vipul Bindra: Enough to say I didn't want to have a wedding, because you know I grew up in weddings.
• 26:08
  Vipul Bindra: You know I thought that was normal.
• 26:09
  Vipul Bindra: Obviously, you know weddings go on for freaking weeks and thousands of people.
• 26:12
  Tony Smith: I was like this is crazy yeah and then, um, no, I was like I, I can't do this yeah, so with that last wedding, the issue that I had was, like I said, I wasn't a business and I didn't understand business.
• 26:24
  Tony Smith: You know etiquette and lingo and all that.
• 26:26
  Tony Smith: I didn't have no contracts and all that.
• 26:28
  Vipul Bindra: So I didn't have a sign of contract.
• 26:29
  Tony Smith: It was all word of mouth, so the issue with that was payment time at the time up front so at that time I was, I was doing even I do, I was doing 50% of the time up front and then 50% the day of um, the the day of that you receive your final video.
• 26:49
  Tony Smith: Um, I was doing that based off of what I heard in the industry, stuff like that.
• 26:53
  Tony Smith: So I was nothing, nothing in writing.
• 26:55
  Tony Smith: Yeah, um, so we got, because it was last minute, it was like two days after she hit me up, so it's like a Monday.
• 27:02
  Tony Smith: And when it's like on a Wednesday, so you know, I'm like, okay, cool, normally at that time you'll get the full payment up front.
• 27:08
  Tony Smith: Because it's like, hey, you just right here.
• 27:10
  Tony Smith: So I'm like, okay, he, she's not gonna screw me because it's your friend.
• 27:13
  Tony Smith: You know y'all are cool, you're not going to screw me, knowing that, you know who this is.
• 27:18
  Tony Smith: So I'm like, okay, I took the leap in my eye, who just gave me 50?
• 27:20
  Tony Smith: And we'll work out on the back end whenever you hit the video.
• 27:23
  Tony Smith: So, um, do the wedding again.
• 27:27
  Tony Smith: It was actually a disaster because it was cool for the first half, because we was inside the house and then it started pouring down, raining.
• 27:34
  Tony Smith: We're in florida and it wasn't, you know, a regular florida rain.
• 27:38
  Tony Smith: You know where.
• 27:39
  Tony Smith: It rained for 10-5 minutes and you're done.
• 27:41
  Tony Smith: No, this is when the hurricane went, where it rained for six hours straight.
• 27:44
  Tony Smith: It started at like one o'clock.
• 27:47
  Tony Smith: It didn't end to 10 that's like a nightmare for.
• 27:49
  Vipul Bindra: And it was outdoor wedding, oh, outdoor and apart, move it inside or no?
• 27:53
  Tony Smith: it was no, no, they still tried to do it in the rain.
• 27:56
  Tony Smith: They did it in the rain again.
• 27:58
  Tony Smith: I'm not a production company, so I don't have protective gear, I don't have raincoats, I don't have raincoats, I don't have covering, so I'm outside with a trash bag over my camera to make sure it is protected.
• 28:09
  Tony Smith: Yeah, and it was just.
• 28:11
  Tony Smith: It was just.
• 28:12
  Tony Smith: I mean, we made it work for what it was.
• 28:14
  Tony Smith: It could have been a lot better, but again, it was.
• 28:18
  Tony Smith: It wasn't, it was out of our hands.
• 28:20
  Tony Smith: At that point, you know, we were waiting, losing sunlight, losing a lot of, um, you know, just valuable time, just because we were waiting, hopefully, for the you know rain to pass, and it just never happened.
• 28:29
  Tony Smith: So we just had to do what we need to do.
• 28:30
  Tony Smith: At that point, again, it took.
• 28:32
  Tony Smith: So after that, it took about two months to actually do the final video.
• 28:35
  Tony Smith: And so at this point I'm I'm here to wrap, like, hey, I'm ready for the final payment, I have your video ready, let me know when you're ready to send the money.
• 28:43
  Tony Smith: Oh, give me a week, okay, a week goes by.
• 28:47
  Tony Smith: Oh, give me another week, okay, a week goes by.
• 28:50
  Tony Smith: Give me another month.
• 28:51
  Tony Smith: A month goes by.
• 28:53
  Tony Smith: She doesn't want her own wedding, she doesn't want hey at this point I kind of wash my hands with it.
• 29:02
  Tony Smith: I'm like it six months goes by.
• 29:03
  Tony Smith: Well, four months go by.
• 29:04
  Tony Smith: I hit her up again.
• 29:05
  Tony Smith: She's like ah, I still don't have it.
• 29:06
  Tony Smith: Give me time.
• 29:07
  Tony Smith: So at this point I just wash my hands with it.
• 29:09
  Tony Smith: I'm like it's done, I'm not even gonna worry about it.
• 29:10
  Tony Smith: At the six month point she hit me up like hey, I got your money, great, oh, okay, it's my account.
• 29:17
  Tony Smith: Here's the number.
• 29:19
  Tony Smith: Once you send it, then I'll send you a video.
• 29:21
  Tony Smith: And she sent the money.
• 29:23
  Tony Smith: I was shocked because I'm like, six months later, like you know, so, to get the money, I sent her the video.
• 29:29
  Tony Smith: She loved it, they loved it.
• 29:30
  Tony Smith: It was like and she wanted to do some more.
• 29:32
  Tony Smith: But at the time I'm like no, I can't, I can't do more work with you just because of how you were running your At least she paid you.
• 29:39
  Vipul Bindra: But you, you're absolutely right, and that's the power of contracts man.
• 29:42
  Vipul Bindra: But that's okay, you were new, I mean, we've all done it.
• 29:44
  Vipul Bindra: You know don't have contracts.
• 29:46
  Vipul Bindra: Long time ago when I was freelancer I did that a ton.
• 29:51
  Vipul Bindra: Now that I know I'm like never Because you got to protect yourself plus the payment up front.
• 29:55
  Vipul Bindra: The only time I'm okay with the payment on the day off is when I'm working with friends Like I'm working with, like friends, like I'm a DP or whatever, and plus somebody I know I'm like sure that's okay, you could pay me, you know, at the end of the shoot Like, but even then on that day, like I'm not expecting payment, you know, a week later or whatever, and I've never had issues with payment.
• 30:21
  Vipul Bindra: but that's because I've like talk to an attorney, get a really good contract.
• 30:25
  Vipul Bindra: Because not you?
• 30:26
  Vipul Bindra: I mean, I'm sure you have figured it out by now, yeah.
• 30:28
  Vipul Bindra: Because you want to have those.
• 30:29
  Vipul Bindra: They call them like the acts of God or weather clause or whatever in there.
• 30:33
  Vipul Bindra: I'm not a lawyer, right, so I don't know, but point is, they can have lots of clauses in there to protect you in that case, um, because you know you can't.
• 30:44
  Vipul Bindra: You can't predict it at least, right?
• 30:47
  Tony Smith: uh, I guess you can look at the weather app, but they're not typically reliable, especially florida, like at least it was in a florida rain, because yeah, here it'll just rain for 10 minutes randomly and then yeah, that's like nothing happened anyway.
• 30:59
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, but no, that that's good, but that's a good lesson though right, at least you didn't lose money.
• 31:04
  Vipul Bindra: And now you learned that, hey, I, I got to have contracts, I got to have payment terms.
• 31:07
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, have you changed it Now?
• 31:09
  Vipul Bindra: Do you charge like upfront before, like the shoot is starting or whatever, because that's how I do it I do it, you know, if they want to split it Most funny enough, again, all the good clients don't even care about splitting it.
• 31:22
  Vipul Bindra: But it's okay, I'm.
• 31:23
  Vipul Bindra: I understand like they may not have that big chunk, so I'll let them do 50 up front, but then 50 before shoot.
• 31:28
  Vipul Bindra: You know I'm not shooting unless I have 100.
• 31:31
  Tony Smith: So so I kind of it's kind of kind of similar still I still, well, now I do 50, 30, 60 days prior to shooting um, and then the other 50 the day of, just depending on the client, because I know some clients do net 30s, net 60s, um, I know you talked about that where you don't do clients like that, you don't do net 30s, I don't do that, but it's okay I don't have any any issues with people who do that.
• 31:54
  Vipul Bindra: That's okay, because there are some companies where, like, I don't do that unless it's the government yeah, state or federal.
• 32:00
  Vipul Bindra: That's okay because I I trust the and maybe I'm wrong, but I've never had issue with the any state, government or federal government.
• 32:07
  Vipul Bindra: So I do have colleges and stuff that are state-owned and they have policies, whatever.
• 32:11
  Vipul Bindra: But, funny enough, even I have had them pay me in like before delivery, because then they'll say, oh, but we can't also not process this 30-day payment until you deliver.
• 32:20
  Vipul Bindra: I'm like, no, no, no, no, we're gonna get a deposit and it takes 30 days.
• 32:25
  Vipul Bindra: So we'll pay 30 and then we'll film it.
• 32:27
  Vipul Bindra: And then you know, obviously it'll take them 30.
• 32:29
  Vipul Bindra: So normally I try to deliver videos in two weeks.
• 32:32
  Vipul Bindra: I'm like I purposely put their delivery dates in 30 days.
• 32:35
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, so I'm like, okay, when the payment comes I'll give you the video.
• 32:39
  Vipul Bindra: You know what I mean at the end of the day.
• 32:41
  Vipul Bindra: But they've always paid.
• 32:42
  Vipul Bindra: Obviously the government find at least always pays their bills.
• 32:45
  Vipul Bindra: But outside of that, I don't care how good the company is, I don't take that risk.
• 32:49
  Vipul Bindra: But I also do have enough friends that do take that risk and haven't had issues.
• 32:53
  Vipul Bindra: So it's kind of like I think you have to decide what your risk factor is.
• 32:57
  Vipul Bindra: So I think that's a personal thing.
• 33:00
  Vipul Bindra: I just don't take that risk.
• 33:10
  Tony Smith: It's not worth it.
• 33:11
  Tony Smith: Yeah, when at your level you have to, where we can turn down money, like that, uh, but I'm just happy I can pay my bills.
• 33:14
  Tony Smith: Nah, that's me too, uh, so, just, you know, I'm just, I just I try not to be, you know, an asshole at all times, you know.
• 33:17
  Tony Smith: But sometimes you have to be at a business owner.
• 33:19
  Tony Smith: You have to be stern, you know, because people walk over you if you're not.
• 33:23
  Tony Smith: But yeah, yeah, I do 30, 30 days prior and then the day of to get the payment.
• 33:28
  Tony Smith: But if I'm cool with you, you know, and we're actually friends, I'll kind of lean that to where I'll go back to my prior, where I'll do 30 days prior and then I'll give you time to get the money up to then, where I give you the video, you give me the rest of the money, the video.
• 33:44
  Tony Smith: That's if I'm cool with you.
• 33:45
  Tony Smith: We got to be on a on a whole nother level for me to do that.
• 33:48
  Tony Smith: But if it's just a random business, no, I need to.
• 33:49
  Tony Smith: Before I show up, that payment need to be, you know, pending, you know, as I show up.
• 33:54
  Tony Smith: So, if not, you pick another time on my calendar and then we can shoot from there.
• 34:02
  Tony Smith: But yeah, you know now I learned a lot, a lot, a lot of lessons just going through.
• 34:07
  Tony Smith: You know what I've been through with the weddings and then other corporate events, just you know.
• 34:12
  Tony Smith: You don't know what you don't know.
• 34:13
  Tony Smith: Like I said, you know, I'm just going through.
• 34:15
  Tony Smith: I didn't have no mentors, nothing like that, so I'm just going off my own merit, just what I thought was right and and and and how I felt about it.
• 34:21
  Tony Smith: But I said you learn and you make better choices.
• 34:26
  Vipul Bindra: That's awesome and you know, that's what the journey is and hopefully you can reduce some by talking to other people and learning from their mistakes.
• 34:34
  Vipul Bindra: So I hope, coming back to, I think, where we started, like when you hit me up, hopefully you hit a bunch of other people up and you kind of learn from other people's mistakes and they're like, oh, did they had this happen?
• 34:45
  Vipul Bindra: Hopefully it won't happen to me now, because you're already prepared for it, and then obviously you've been doing this enough time that you know you've had your own mistakes.
• 34:53
  Vipul Bindra: But the other thing I want to touch on is, um, I don't know how much you could talk about it, but you're also an engineer with a government job and everything you're you're?
• 35:02
  Vipul Bindra: you're like trying to achieve everything here, uh, working on cool stuff.
• 35:06
  Vipul Bindra: Are you able to talk about it or no?
• 35:08
  Tony Smith: I don't know what kind of job that is so basically, I'm not your, your your typical, you know video production company.
• 35:15
  Tony Smith: You know I do have a nine to five.
• 35:17
  Tony Smith: Still I'm.
• 35:17
  Tony Smith: I'm the part-time guy.
• 35:19
  Tony Smith: You know who does this part-time, who's trying to do this full-time?
• 35:22
  Tony Smith: Um, so yeah, I work for Lockheed Martin.
• 35:25
  Tony Smith: I can't say that much.
• 35:27
  Tony Smith: But yeah, went to school for engineering North Carolina.
• 35:32
  Tony Smith: They flew me down here, interviewed to work down here in Orlando, florida, and been down here for 15 years with them.
• 35:40
  Tony Smith: So what I do on a day-to-day basis, I work for the government.
• 35:44
  Tony Smith: I design missiles for the Army and Air Force.
• 35:48
  Tony Smith: I can't go into much about what I do, but I can basically give you that much that we make missiles.
• 35:53
  Tony Smith: So you're making literal missiles on one hand, and the other side, you're making people's vetting videos.
• 35:59
  Tony Smith: I mean talk about versatility.
• 36:03
  Vipul Bindra: Typically I'm all about.
• 36:04
  Vipul Bindra: You know you got to go all into video, but I'm like, hey, if you're making missiles, it's not bad to have video people.
• 36:10
  Vipul Bindra: I don't know, it sounds very interesting to me what you do and obviously it's okay Like, don't go too deep into it.
• 36:15
  Vipul Bindra: We don't want to have the government shut this podcast down.
• 36:21
  Tony Smith: No, no, it ain't just on the surface it sounds amazing, but really that you know your whole day to day is really just sitting on a computer doing a lot of Excel and PowerPoints and presentations.
• 36:30
  Vipul Bindra: You know it's this yeah.
• 36:32
  Tony Smith: You know, so you know, you don't think, no, you know, no, I'm not Tony Starks and I'm, you know, You're not.
• 36:39
  Vipul Bindra: No, you didn't.
• 36:39
  Vipul Bindra: You don't have a hidden iron armor that you guys are testing, that we don't know about.
• 36:43
  Tony Smith: Now we do have testing, All these drones showing up, hey we do have secret labs.
• 36:48
  Tony Smith: We do all this stuff.
• 36:48
  Tony Smith: I'm not a nose, but we do testing on what we design.
• 36:53
  Tony Smith: It's not all the time, but we do go through testing where we get to test it and blow it up and see how they react in the field, things like that all these alien crafts the government, uh, and again, it's okay, don't comment.
• 37:07
  Vipul Bindra: But the rumors, all these alien crafts the government captures goes to lockheed martin to for research.
• 37:12
  Vipul Bindra: I wonder if you've seen, has seen any?
• 37:15
  Vipul Bindra: He can, I'm only just blink once if it's true.
• 37:19
  Tony Smith: No, I don't have that type of clearance.
• 37:21
  Tony Smith: I don't have that.
• 37:22
  Tony Smith: Uh, you know that's the top, that's the top secret clearance.
• 37:24
  Tony Smith: I don't have that.
• 37:24
  Tony Smith: You know that's the top that's the top secret clearance.
• 37:26
  Vipul Bindra: I don't have that.
• 37:26
  Vipul Bindra: So that's, that's a whole nother.
• 37:27
  Vipul Bindra: You're not denying that.
• 37:28
  Tony Smith: No, I can't, I can't, I can't approve or deny that.
• 37:31
  Tony Smith: Is this a true fact or not?
• 37:32
  Tony Smith: But, but they did come out and say it was true.
• 37:34
  Tony Smith: So I don't, I can't.
• 37:45
  Vipul Bindra: Hey topic, but it's kind of fun anyway.
• 37:46
  Vipul Bindra: But that's been like so fun to ask because I don't know that many people who work at lockheed martin, so it's like, oh, that's, that's pretty interesting.
• 37:50
  Vipul Bindra: Anyway, all right back to our regular schedule.
• 37:52
  Vipul Bindra: Talk um, so anyway.
• 37:54
  Vipul Bindra: So you, so you're an engineer and you're a video person, that must be really hard finding time, and plus, you know family of a is like how are you managing time management in work and life?
• 38:05
  Tony Smith: yeah, so it's definitely hard.
• 38:06
  Tony Smith: Yeah, I said I'm doing this part-time to where you know I work nine to five.
• 38:09
  Tony Smith: I work, you know, really it helps because I work four tens.
• 38:12
  Tony Smith: So I work monday through thursday, you know, 10 hour shifts, um, so that's so pretty.
• 38:16
  Tony Smith: Uh gives my weekend friday, saturday, sunday to do my work.
• 38:20
  Tony Smith: So I schedule all my shoots on friday, saturday and sunday, you know I, you know, and then I do all my shoots on Friday, saturday and Sunday, you know, and then I do all my maintenance work, all my, you know, scheduling work on nights to where, you know, after I get off work I can get on my laptop and then now I can, you know, start doing all the manual work.
• 38:37
  Tony Smith: You know all the tedious work that people don't like to do, you know.
• 38:40
  Tony Smith: And returning emails and you know trying to, you know contact and do all that to to where I, you know, on my schedule or on my calendar, you know everything's booked out.
• 38:50
  Tony Smith: It's booked Monday through Thursday because it looks like I'm busy but I'm really just at work.
• 38:53
  Tony Smith: So you can pick between Friday, saturday, sunday.
• 38:56
  Tony Smith: So you know, okay, cool, yeah, okay, yeah.
• 38:59
  Tony Smith: So that's know it's hard, and then with a wife and child at the house.
• 39:04
  Tony Smith: It's trying to balance that to where I spend time with them throughout the week, which you know.
• 39:09
  Tony Smith: I try to do that Monday through Thursday try to always have time to where, when she comes home from work, we can sit down and eat dinner every time and play with my daughter when she's there, and then at the same time, I try to bring them along to all my shoots as well.
• 39:23
  Tony Smith: Um, and then at the same time I try to bring them along to all my shoots as well.
• 39:25
  Tony Smith: If it's not going to be a nuisance you know my daughter in the background screaming then like that or if it's allowable, I'll try to bring them along as much as possible.
• 39:30
  Tony Smith: That's awesome, just so there's around, you know have you had any pushback from any clients or anywhere bringing your family.
• 39:39
  Tony Smith: No, not from the clients, but but but from my wife.
• 39:40
  Tony Smith: It's like no, you, you know that's that's they don't sound like a event to where we need to be yet, so we're gonna stay here and let you do that alone.
• 39:46
  Tony Smith: So it's really from her, you know yeah.
• 39:49
  Vipul Bindra: So you know, everybody loves kids.
• 39:50
  Vipul Bindra: They want nothing to do with.
• 39:51
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, right, you know no but everybody loves kids.
• 39:54
  Tony Smith: So once you bring a kid around, everybody just falls into.
• 39:57
  Tony Smith: You know a bliss.
• 39:58
  Tony Smith: So you know that that kind of helps.
• 39:59
  Tony Smith: So and I think I might use that strategy more often when I'm talking to businesses to bring my child along, you know, because my daughters are helpful.
• 40:07
  Vipul Bindra: I've been doing these podcasts and they were asleep when you came, but you know, hopefully they'll be awake when you leave, but there have been a constant attraction here, like everyone shows up.
• 40:16
  Vipul Bindra: It's like a 10 minute distraction with my girl.
• 40:20
  Vipul Bindra: So, like you said, yeah, that is an actual advantage.
• 40:22
  Vipul Bindra: I mean, they have to be a kid person.
• 40:30
  Tony Smith: Some people are not, but, yes, most people yes, I find that they're more interested in my kids once they meet them, because especially um, uh, do you have a boy or a girl?
• 40:33
  Tony Smith: I have a girl, I have all girls.
• 40:34
  Tony Smith: I have, yeah, I have three girls, so they go, I have two girls and man they can.
• 40:38
  Vipul Bindra: They're very loving, so you know absolutely like always like oh, they're so cute, you know and stuff like that and it can be a you know a fun, you know distraction or whatever yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just gonna start testing that um theory out.
• 40:52
  Tony Smith: I'm gonna start taking her on um business um calls with me, uh, in person, and I have a 16, uh nine and one okay, so the 16 year old you're talking about taking with you, no, the one year old.
• 41:03
  Tony Smith: Oh, the one year old, the one year old, because, like I said at that point, you know, everybody just loves playing with little kids in age right?
• 41:10
  Vipul Bindra: how are you that?
• 41:11
  Vipul Bindra: That must be difficult to manage.
• 41:12
  Vipul Bindra: Well, I'm black um and that's that will be.
• 41:15
  Tony Smith: Does it kind of will be it just means, you know, we just have a wide range of just kids.
• 41:20
  Tony Smith: You know you might.
• 41:21
  Tony Smith: You might have a 25 year old and a one year old.
• 41:24
  Tony Smith: You might have a 30, 15, 6, 7, 8 and in a newborn.
• 41:29
  Tony Smith: You know it's just.
• 41:30
  Tony Smith: You know we, you know we're the type of people that just just have kids at random times.
• 41:34
  Tony Smith: You know you just ain't no structure to it.
• 41:37
  Tony Smith: You just hey, I'm just saying, my family is huge.
• 41:41
  Tony Smith: I have uncles, that's, you know, 10 years younger than me, you know so it's just, but hey, it works, it works, it works, it.
• 41:45
  Vipul Bindra: I have uncles, that's, you know, 10 years younger than me, you know.
• 41:46
  Vipul Bindra: So it's just, but hey, it works, it works, it works, it works.
• 41:47
  Vipul Bindra: I mean that's awesome, I don't know.
• 41:48
  Vipul Bindra: So, hey, maybe advise me, because the biggest because my daughters are obviously foreign and like, the biggest scary thing is a girl.
• 41:54
  Vipul Bindra: Like I said, I love my girls, but it scares me already.
• 41:59
  Tony Smith: I'm like dealing with a 16 year old it's, it ain't too bad, even though the whole communication is, you know it's iffy sometimes because, you know, since you don't want to always talk to dad and always want to be around and you know it's it's one of the things where you just got to get them on space and just let them know that you are there.
• 42:17
  Tony Smith: You know what I'm saying because they, you know, they're going through their own personal lives with their own personal friends and and school and boys and trying to understand college and just figure out life.
• 42:27
  Tony Smith: You know, just let them know that you're there but at the same time, give them independence to where they can go through and, and you know, but with their own person it's so crazy for me because that, like I said, the older ones eight, and then 16, it's literally doubled.
• 42:41
  Vipul Bindra: So eight year difference they become like currently my daughter wants uh, not one minute away from me, you know right, and she wants to only talk like so, talk to me all the time, be around me all the time, and you're telling me, in eight years she'll want nothing to do with me, I'll leave it at long one day.
• 42:55
  Tony Smith: At long, I'll say about three or four more years.
• 42:58
  Tony Smith: It'll be about hit, about 12.
• 43:00
  Tony Smith: That's when it's gonna start.
• 43:01
  Vipul Bindra: That sounds so crazy to think about that.
• 43:03
  Vipul Bindra: It's such a huge difference, right, that they're like oh, I want nothing to do with your dad because it comes become.
• 43:09
  Tony Smith: It just becomes, you know, with school.
• 43:11
  Tony Smith: You know a lot of influence around you know, junior high, high school.
• 43:14
  Tony Smith: That's a huge influence and they just get that, get that in them.
• 43:17
  Tony Smith: Just depend on the person too, because sometimes you know, they, they, they take on that and then try to rebel and try to be a different person than who they really are.
• 43:26
  Tony Smith: But if you're in their life and you have that deep, you know, same core within them, then they'll be the same person and they know who you are.
• 43:34
  Tony Smith: So that's something I try to instill in them Just be who you are.
• 43:36
  Tony Smith: Don't try to conform to the crowd.
• 43:38
  Tony Smith: Be your own person If you don't fit in at one point, because people will try to gravitate towards you know, you know, towards you at one point in life.
• 43:45
  Tony Smith: You know don't, you might be popular in high school, but you will be in 30 years you know.
• 43:49
  Tony Smith: So it's just one of them things to where.
• 43:51
  Tony Smith: Don't try to, you know, be everybody's friend, cause everybody's an instant.
• 43:54
  Tony Smith: It's not likable.
• 43:55
  Tony Smith: Everybody's not your friend, so stick to yourself, and if everybody doesn't like you, that's fine one, or two friends, you'll be okay all right, that, that's well said, my friend.
• 44:09
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, let's go to back to weddings for a second.
• 44:11
  Vipul Bindra: I want to know more about indian weddings.
• 44:13
  Tony Smith: So you filmed one, right, yeah, how many have you filmed?
• 44:16
  Tony Smith: I filmed one, okay, how?
• 44:17
  Vipul Bindra: was that experience?
• 44:18
  Vipul Bindra: How many days was it?
• 44:20
  Tony Smith: uh.
• 44:20
  Tony Smith: So I had a shout out my guy Ed's with Ed's studio.
• 44:24
  Tony Smith: I mean not Ed's studio, anton's studio, that's my guy.
• 44:29
  Tony Smith: He does a ton of weddings here in Florida, probably one of the premier Indian wedding videographers video guys out here.
• 44:36
  Tony Smith: So he hired me for one.
• 44:39
  Tony Smith: He was double booked and he needed a couple of help Helps for one.
• 44:47
  Vipul Bindra: We went down to Naples to film it.
• 44:49
  Vipul Bindra: It was a three-day event.
• 44:49
  Tony Smith: It was three days yeah, it was three days.
• 44:50
  Tony Smith: Uh, again I'm coming in.
• 44:52
  Tony Smith: I didn't do my research so I didn't know exactly what I was looking for.
• 44:55
  Tony Smith: He told me three, three days.
• 44:56
  Tony Smith: I was like, okay, that's a long, long time for a wedding.
• 44:58
  Tony Smith: I'm like it's a short wedding yeah, and you know, and just not realizing the actual time for each day, each day is as long as well.
• 45:07
  Tony Smith: Yeah, so we're talking about 10 12 hour days as well, throughout the day.
• 45:10
  Tony Smith: So it's it.
• 45:11
  Tony Smith: So it was interesting because, you know, I'm not used to it.
• 45:16
  Tony Smith: So coming in to seeing all the people and and just seeing how everything is structured and and it's totally different than a regular american wedding it's totally different like what type of indians they were or no no, okay, because you know indians are also massive country and massive amount of different, very different weddings.
• 45:33
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, yeah okay.
• 45:34
  Tony Smith: So my biggest take from that was realizing that in india, as you know that, the wedding is like the holy grail of if of is it.
• 45:42
  Tony Smith: It's like that's how you show people that you know you kind of got money, or or or like yeah, your status, your status in life.
• 45:49
  Tony Smith: Yeah, so, that's so.
• 45:50
  Tony Smith: That's the biggest thing in america.
• 45:51
  Tony Smith: It's just like, okay, you want to have a party, but they do it a thousand times bigger than we do.
• 45:57
  Tony Smith: It, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not even close.
• 46:00
  Vipul Bindra: Did they treat you well?
• 46:01
  Vipul Bindra: Did they give you some good food?
• 46:02
  Vipul Bindra: Oh yeah, the food was amazing.
• 46:03
  Tony Smith: the food was amazing.
• 46:04
  Tony Smith: The food was amazing.
• 46:05
  Tony Smith: Everybody was super nice.
• 46:06
  Tony Smith: You know everybody, but it's weird because you have to understand what's going on, because each group is doing something different throughout the whole day yeah.
• 46:15
  Tony Smith: You know, it ain't just like a wedding where you're sitting there, you got the reception, you got the ceremony, you got the speeches.
• 46:20
  Tony Smith: You have that, but then at the same time, speeches you have that, but then at the same time you have a group of women over here doing something totally different.
• 46:27
  Tony Smith: Got the kids over there doing something different.
• 46:28
  Tony Smith: You got the pastor saying something on mic, and then he said something on mic.
• 46:31
  Tony Smith: Everybody just looks right back at him this and yes, agree, and then go back to what they're doing.
• 46:35
  Tony Smith: I'm like what does?
• 46:36
  Tony Smith: What'd he say?
• 46:38
  Vipul Bindra: because you know so.
• 46:40
  Tony Smith: And then he was just like.
• 46:41
  Tony Smith: He told me one thing he's like don't stop shooting never, turn the camera off, never turn it off.
• 46:47
  Tony Smith: I'm like I don't have that many started, uh, I mean sd cards on me.
• 46:51
  Tony Smith: I don't know how long to shoot, you know.
• 46:52
  Tony Smith: You know, uh, so, shooting, for the one day I filled up four sd cards, four 256 terabyte, I mean, uh, gb cards, and I had to spend that whole night dumping them.
• 47:05
  Tony Smith: And you know, as you know, uh, I was trying to do it on my laptop.
• 47:10
  Tony Smith: You know, most people don't have terabyte or plus hard drive, so I was trying to.
• 47:15
  Vipul Bindra: You know, you know that one so I'm trying to go run and get an emergency?
• 47:18
  Tony Smith: no, because it was closed again.
• 47:20
  Tony Smith: I didn't get home till about one o'clock in the morning to be to then get right back up at 6 to be right back over there.
• 47:25
  Tony Smith: So at the time I had Dropbox.
• 47:27
  Tony Smith: I'm trying to dump it to Dropbox online, but I'm using a Wi-Fi through the hotel.
• 47:33
  Vipul Bindra: And we know how slow that is.
• 47:35
  Tony Smith: That wouldn't get done by then for hours, man, so it didn't get done until 4 that morning.
• 47:40
  Vipul Bindra: So you didn't get much sleep.
• 47:41
  Tony Smith: I didn't get no sleep Because I was so weary that, oh man, this ain't gonna load this ain't gonna end on file, so it went through I was doing a dump and I did that for the three days I'm like I need to invest in 12 more cards.
• 47:53
  Tony Smith: Yeah, no, you needed to have a copy much faster yeah, but I was doing it and I was doing both.
• 47:58
  Tony Smith: I had an sd card, but then I well, I was also double.
• 48:01
  Tony Smith: I was also double, uh, backing up, because just in case the hard drive failed at some point, I wanted to make sure I had it, you know best of all stored.
• 48:07
  Vipul Bindra: No, that's very smart.
• 48:09
  Tony Smith: So again, indian wedding, all day event, you know, and and it's shocking because they don't talk throughout any wedding Like the bride and groom don't really talk.
• 48:20
  Tony Smith: You know, they're just really there just showcasing their love, and people come show them love and the pastor's talking, and so it was just like I'm taking it all in and just trying to understand what to film and what not to film.
• 48:33
  Tony Smith: And you know, can I step on this rug?
• 48:36
  Tony Smith: No, you can't step on that rug.
• 48:37
  Tony Smith: Okay, you can't step on that rug.
• 48:38
  Tony Smith: Okay, I can't go around this way.
• 48:41
  Tony Smith: So it was a lot of rules to understand.
• 48:43
  Tony Smith: You can't just show up and shoot one without having somebody who's there to teach you.
• 48:48
  Vipul Bindra: That's a good point that you're saying.
• 48:50
  Vipul Bindra: It may be good to actually watch a couple of videos that somebody else has made, I guess, to get an idea.
• 48:56
  Vipul Bindra: And the funny thing is, like I said on my side, I'm telling you there's like different, completely different types.
• 49:02
  Vipul Bindra: Obviously it may still be a big party, yeah, but different types of Indian weddings.
• 49:06
  Vipul Bindra: So you may learn about one.
• 49:07
  Vipul Bindra: And then you're like, oh, I'm ready for the next one, and then you go, it's a different culture, their customs may be different.
• 49:15
  Tony Smith: And then now you're like oh, I feel like I'm saying it right, but it was a great time, you know, and what I realized with them, one of the biggest things is the intro.
• 49:23
  Tony Smith: I guess I actually forgot the name of it, but when the groom comes into the venue or wherever he's coming from, it's like a parade that they do with him.
• 49:32
  Tony Smith: And he has the car.
• 49:35
  Tony Smith: He might have a Lamborghini, he might have a Rolls Royce.
• 49:39
  Vipul Bindra: He might have a Lamborghini, he might have a Rolls Royce, he might have a, or they come in a horse.
• 49:41
  Tony Smith: Or they come in a horse, or they come in a horse.
• 49:44
  Tony Smith: No, he had a.
• 49:44
  Tony Smith: I forgot what he had, but he came in with that, with the people, with the drums and you know, it's the whole parade.
• 49:56
  Vipul Bindra: It's like a mile long and they meet right there and that's very important to film.
• 49:59
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, you don't want to miss that, so it's if.
• 50:01
  Tony Smith: I can, it's, I say it's.
• 50:02
  Tony Smith: If you think American weddings are tense and and and and very, you know, nerve wracking feminine any wedding is 10 times worse because.
• 50:14
  Tony Smith: So you, we know that because of how it's trafficking, the redness are already.
• 50:17
  Tony Smith: You know, they're already in million dollar places that you know people, you know, I had people.
• 50:21
  Tony Smith: Well, he told me that he had people who who um around a whole hotel and he had and they told the hotel to change out all the carpet in the in the hotel because they didn't like the carpet in it and they paid a hotel to change the carpet out just for just for just for a couple days, you know.
• 50:41
  Tony Smith: So I know I said, but again, as as I was there, I was talking to the other videographers and other photographers and they was telling me, because they do this for a living, it was like, yeah, uh, this, this and that, and this is the biggest thing, and you know, they save since birth, you know, for the child, since birth, for, uh, you know, uh, for this point.
• 50:59
  Tony Smith: You know this is again to show their wealth, to show so they love and they say since birth, for this, uh, for this reason, and everybody's, there is somebody, you know.
• 51:08
  Tony Smith: As you know, indians are always either a doctor, lawyer, you know, there's some high profession you guys are amazing.
• 51:16
  Vipul Bindra: That's what I'm trying to say you guys were amazing that I am not a doctor, engineer, I'm not.
• 51:21
  Tony Smith: Oh, but you're made more than them right now.
• 51:22
  Tony Smith: So we already know that.
• 51:23
  Tony Smith: You know you're right there along.
• 51:25
  Tony Smith: You know, right there along with them.
• 51:26
  Vipul Bindra: Tell that to my parents.
• 51:27
  Vipul Bindra: My mom is just like you're, not a doctor engineer.
• 51:31
  Tony Smith: As you know exactly.
• 51:31
  Tony Smith: So you know all the gifts that they're able to receive and if you ever have a chance to just experience one, just to go to one, go to it, just so you can see the difference in culture and how they treat it.
• 51:49
  Tony Smith: You know we treat it here as like, yeah, like it's a big thing, but to them it's that.
• 51:56
  Tony Smith: That is the thing you know, I loved it.
• 51:58
  Tony Smith: To them, that is the thing you know.
• 51:59
  Tony Smith: I loved it, you know, even though it was super stressful, super, super high stress, and it was just like because, again, my first one, so I didn't know what really to expect.
• 52:13
  Vipul Bindra: But after doing it just like oh man, this is cool.
• 52:16
  Vipul Bindra: It's awesome that you've experienced an Indian wedding You've even filmed it, which is even crazy.
• 52:20
  Vipul Bindra: Because you know at least when you're attending it you could just eat and have fun.
• 52:24
  Tony Smith: Well, even with the eating was weird to me because I didn't know that the men eat first.
• 52:29
  Tony Smith: Oh yeah, the men eat first, which just stole me, stole me completely off.
• 52:32
  Tony Smith: So I got in line, just thinking, not thinking who's in line with me.
• 52:37
  Tony Smith: I got in line and then I gave my wife the plate because I'm like, let me go get you a food.
• 52:39
  Tony Smith: So she's eating as I'm looking around.
• 52:42
  Tony Smith: I'm like no other female is eating.
• 52:43
  Tony Smith: Um, hold on, give me the plate back.
• 52:46
  Tony Smith: I don't know what's going on, you know so.
• 52:48
  Tony Smith: So I slid it back and and, like a guy came up like that's okay, is this okay?
• 52:51
  Tony Smith: Yeah, I'm like, yeah, it's like it was weird because, like the men eat before the women and children and just like, oh, this is this is different, okay, I don't know if that's common, at least I again.
• 53:00
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, I'm used to punjabi weddings where everyone just eats okay, yeah, it was, it threw me off.
• 53:06
  Vipul Bindra: You eat and you drink and you party.
• 53:08
  Vipul Bindra: It's a crazy party.
• 53:09
  Vipul Bindra: So that's what I'm saying.
• 53:10
  Vipul Bindra: It's slightly different, I'm not used to that, but again, I don't.
• 53:12
  Vipul Bindra: I don't like indian weddings because it's too much for me.
• 53:15
  Vipul Bindra: I'm uh, you know, as you can, can tell I'm very low key in terms of that, so to me they've always been like hyper, but the food is awesome.
• 53:23
  Tony Smith: The food is amazing.
• 53:24
  Vipul Bindra: I have in mind attending them because I'm like I can eat the food, but that's great.
• 53:30
  Vipul Bindra: So now, obviously, I don't do weddings.
• 53:32
  Vipul Bindra: That's great that you got your start with weddings, and I know for a fact you've done commercial and corporate work, which is again what I love to do.
• 53:41
  Vipul Bindra: And tell me about the switch in that and now, currently at least, are you focusing more on weddings or you just want to do both?
• 53:52
  Vipul Bindra: so first, tell me how do you go from weddings to like building a brand video or whatever with someone, and then again, which one did you like better?
• 53:58
  Vipul Bindra: So the switch came from after, to like building a brand video or whatever with someone, and then again, what, which one did you like better.
• 54:02
  Tony Smith: So the switch came from after the Indian wedding because it's like, oh, okay, this is a lot.
• 54:07
  Tony Smith: I don't know if I can do this every time.
• 54:09
  Tony Smith: Um, even though knowing how much you can make doing any witness, like yeah, that's that sounds amazing Like you can make a ton of money doing Indian weddings.
• 54:17
  Tony Smith: So it came from like I said.
• 54:20
  Tony Smith: After that I took a break because, again, I wasn't doing this full-time, this ain't my full-time job, so it wasn't like I needed to do it.
• 54:25
  Tony Smith: I was just doing it to help.
• 54:27
  Tony Smith: You know, he'll always call me for certain things.
• 54:29
  Tony Smith: He'll do a lot of weddings, not Indian weddings, but regular weddings, and I'll do those.
• 54:34
  Tony Smith: And it was just like, okay, they're cool, but it's not really my lane, like I'll still do one today.
• 54:40
  Tony Smith: If somebody called me, asked me for help or they needed to do one, I'll do it.
• 54:43
  Tony Smith: But it was like, okay, that's not really what I want to do.
• 54:50
  Tony Smith: Um, so I kind of took a break and just trying to just start researching about different you know, video industries and different uh services that we offer.
• 54:55
  Tony Smith: And it's like, okay, I think I like the corporate world if I can, or documentaries.
• 54:58
  Tony Smith: Um.
• 54:59
  Tony Smith: So ironically, one of my wife's friends contacted me because she wanted to do a documentary on her life.
• 55:06
  Tony Smith: Basically, um, for the month of october, which is natural stillbirth, uh, month of readiness for, you know, pregnancy month and um, she wanted to do a documentary on her life, about what she went through, her struggles as far as getting pregnant and trying to conceive and all that and losing babies and all that.
• 55:24
  Tony Smith: So I went out there and did a documentary for her and just fell in love with it.
• 55:28
  Tony Smith: It was kind of like a one-day, half-day type shoot and put together a whole documentary for her.
• 55:34
  Tony Smith: Yeah, like a little short, put that together and I kind of just fell in love with the process of this.
• 55:40
  Tony Smith: Actually a story.
• 55:41
  Tony Smith: You know it's different than I mean a witness the story, but at the same time it's kind of already structured the way it's supposed to be structured.
• 55:47
  Tony Smith: But when you're actually creating the video, creating the scenes and creating, you know the story.
• 55:54
  Tony Smith: You know it's different because now you're putting your own spin on it, you're able to put your hands on it and actually make it something that's different.
• 56:00
  Tony Smith: Um, so I put that together and and everybody loved it.
• 56:06
  Tony Smith: Oh man, this is amazing.
• 56:07
  Tony Smith: Like you told the story, they was crying and all this.
• 56:09
  Tony Smith: I'm like, yeah, when you feel that emotion, again it goes back to my high school days when I was able to, you know, bring in emotion because, because people nowadays don't understand the difference, the importance of the music and and audio and video.
• 56:23
  Tony Smith: It's really better, it's really more important than a video.
• 56:27
  Tony Smith: If you got, you know, great audio.
• 56:28
  Tony Smith: You know, we know this because we watch crime shows all the time, where they will just show you a picture of a pothole with a person over talking it.
• 56:35
  Vipul Bindra: You know, and you're intrigued, you know so you know and you're intrigued, you know, so you know.
• 56:42
  Vipul Bindra: No, I always say, as again, as a dp camera operator director, first, you know, um, it's the lighting and the audio that makes the video, not the camera people need to stop obsessing over cameras.
• 56:50
  Vipul Bindra: But yeah, go ahead yeah.
• 56:51
  Tony Smith: So so doing that and you know the process was interesting because, like I said, I never did it before, so I was just trying to understand because you know you come through with your own questions.
• 56:58
  Tony Smith: You know there's there's no set standard for a documentary.
• 57:01
  Tony Smith: You're like, okay, this x, x, y and z x, this x, this, ask that, do this, do that.
• 57:06
  Tony Smith: Everything's off your business and your own merit and and and how you feel, and you go off of what their responses are and you pay off for that.
• 57:12
  Tony Smith: You know you might have a whole list of questions that you might never get to ask because they're going so deep into stuff and and you just keep trying to, you know, bring in, bring out that emotion and and all that, which is a better story anyway than what you probably had in your head.
• 57:27
  Tony Smith: Yeah, so that's how kind of how it happened and it's like just kept pulling, kept pulling and then editing processes.
• 57:32
  Tony Smith: You know how do I structure this to make it coherent and completely different than I'm guessing of editing, right?
• 57:39
  Vipul Bindra: oh no, totally different, totally different.
• 57:40
  Vipul Bindra: More videography, I would say, and documentary is more filmmaking right because in wedding you can I mean some you can put lights, but most likely you can't control lighting.
• 57:49
  Vipul Bindra: You can't control, um, you know, like you said, structure, so you're just telling the day or whatever in just a nice way.
• 57:56
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, versus um, documentary, sure, the settings and the stuff, but it's completely different, like you said, the sound and the stuff, but it's completely different.
• 58:00
  Vipul Bindra: Like you said, the sound and the lighting is going to make it far more different every time, based on how you do it, than the filming part of it.
• 58:09
  Vipul Bindra: So it's a completely different challenge, right?
• 58:12
  Tony Smith: Completely different challenge.
• 58:13
  Tony Smith: And then again I'm not researching, just kind of going on my own thoughts and processes.
• 58:18
  Tony Smith: It's like, okay, how do I think this is a look, or how do I think this would, you know, make sense?
• 58:23
  Tony Smith: You know, do I feel emotional watching it?
• 58:26
  Tony Smith: You know, if I could feel emotional watching it as a man?
• 58:28
  Tony Smith: And now it is, I know the females are going to just fall into putty you know what I'm saying with you know doing that and and that just sparked a whole nother you know thing in me to be like, okay, I love, I love, I love this work right here Going cause we went into this which got me into you know more of the corporate work, to where I was able to, you know, get a contract with another friend who actually worked with me at the time, up a um which is kind of weird to say, but it was a sewing conference like sewing like knitting and wow and crocheting.
• 59:03
  Tony Smith: There's a conference of that conference.
• 59:05
  Tony Smith: There's a conference, so when she approached me but I'm like, what you mean by sewing like, like, yeah, sewing like, sewing like machine sewing, like making bags and all I'm like, okay, well, yeah, I can, I can shoot that.
• 59:16
  Tony Smith: You know she was creating an event or she had already created and she was just trying to get more promotion, more, um, more, uh, promotion out there for for the events, because she had one prior and then she's like, okay, trying to get bigger, for the next year is coming, so she needed promotion for it.
• 59:32
  Tony Smith: So I came out, shot some stuff, we did a little small promotion video.
• 59:37
  Tony Smith: She loved it.
• 59:37
  Tony Smith: So then she was doing a three-day event.
• 59:40
  Tony Smith: She started doing three-day events every year, um, and she needed event coverage for that um, so I started doing her events for that three-day, three-day events for that.
• 59:49
  Tony Smith: And it was like it was different, because I'm coming from documentary, I'm coming from wedding and now I'm at a sewing conference with you know, a wide range of women, you know.
• 59:59
  Tony Smith: So know you're talking about young kids to old ladies.
• 1:00:02
  Tony Smith: They're all sitting here and I come in with the You're telling me, men don't sew.
• 1:00:07
  Tony Smith: No, there's a few men there, there's a few there, but most of them were there with their wives.
• 1:00:12
  Tony Smith: So it wasn't like they were there by themselves, they were there with their wives and like, well, I'm here, let me try this as well.
• 1:00:22
  Tony Smith: So, uh, so.
• 1:00:23
  Tony Smith: So I did that and and it was amazing experience because it was totally out of my bubble, totally out of my realm it's like I didn't even know this word even existed.
• 1:00:27
  Tony Smith: You know, it's like man, you, you can make money doing this, like, yeah, so I'll be in there and seeing these old ladies and these kids in there make actual handbags from scratch, like I see the fabric, I'll come by, I film the fabric and then I'll come back a few, a few hours later and it's already into a handbag and I'm just like you made that from that.
• 1:00:46
  Tony Smith: You made that's an actual, real handbag.
• 1:00:49
  Tony Smith: Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  Tony Smith: You know, and they're making shoes and they're making.
• 1:00:51
  Tony Smith: You know, it was just, it was just amazing.
• 1:00:54
  Tony Smith: It's like and it's weird because I said I'm the only you know big black guy there.
• 1:01:02
  Tony Smith: So the first year was real timid because you know they're like who are you, why are you here?
• 1:01:08
  Tony Smith: Why is the camera in my face, why is this and that?
• 1:01:10
  Tony Smith: And I got a lot of pushback from the actual attendees because I was like hey, I want to be filmed and I don't want to be this on camera, because I guess they're also the first time being there and they were kind of nervous about how to do it, cause they asked a lot of questions and they don't want to feel like slow or dumb on camera.
• 1:01:26
  Tony Smith: But I'm like, I'm trying to tell you like you know, everything that I put in there won't be what you think it is.
• 1:01:35
  Tony Smith: I can edit the film to make, but you know I got a lot of pushback from that.
• 1:01:38
  Vipul Bindra: And then how do you encounter, like, how do you counter the pushback?
• 1:01:43
  Vipul Bindra: What's the approach that you take?
• 1:01:44
  Tony Smith: For me.
• 1:01:45
  Tony Smith: I just try to be personable.
• 1:01:46
  Tony Smith: You know, I try to be friendly and try to make them smile, make them laugh and just let them know that, hey, this ain't what you think it is, you know.
• 1:01:58
  Tony Smith: But at the same time I also respect their boundaries.
• 1:01:59
  Tony Smith: At the same time I also respect their boundaries.
• 1:02:01
  Tony Smith: So I would just be like, okay, I understand, and then I'd move to somebody else.
• 1:02:03
  Tony Smith: You know it's a big conference.
• 1:02:04
  Tony Smith: You know the first one that I attended, you know they had at least, I want to say, 400 people there.
• 1:02:07
  Tony Smith: You know 400 people.
• 1:02:07
  Tony Smith: So I have a ton of people to go to to get more footage from.
• 1:02:10
  Tony Smith: So once they see that I'm interacting with other people and they're laughing, they're, you know, psychic, kind of loosen up, like, okay, maybe he's not as bad as I thought it was, and then they'll loosen up and make me, you know, in the next class, might come up to me and talk to me now and say something so, um, that was the first year.
• 1:02:29
  Tony Smith: The first year was interesting because I said, I'm just trying to get used to it, you know like that.
• 1:02:32
  Tony Smith: But but the second year that we did it was totally different, because now that everybody knows who I am now people.
• 1:02:37
  Tony Smith: As I walk in the door, people scream my name hey, tony, how you doing?
• 1:02:40
  Tony Smith: You know so now, it's that, you know so now.
• 1:02:43
  Tony Smith: People want to be on camera now.
• 1:02:44
  Tony Smith: People want to show their work, people want to be this and that.
• 1:02:46
  Tony Smith: That's so awesome and I just know you so yeah, it's an amazing feeling, because now all the new people who were there for that year are looking like, oh okay, so now that same 10 minutes is already gone already because, you know it can already be more effective.
• 1:03:00
  Vipul Bindra: Exactly.
• 1:03:01
  Tony Smith: So now I can be right here in your face.
• 1:03:03
  Tony Smith: Yeah.
• 1:03:03
  Tony Smith: And you're smiling and laughing without being like, oh my gosh, go back, like you know.
• 1:03:06
  Tony Smith: So now I can get those nice close-up shots and you know, if I don't have my 85 or 200 on there, I can be right there in your face with a 50, and you know, and you're laughing and smiling, you know, and and we started setting up interview um stations as well, to where we can talk to the people attendees, and and and like get their experience and how that.
• 1:03:26
  Tony Smith: So before that they wouldn't do it because they didn't know.
• 1:03:29
  Tony Smith: And and they're like no, I don't want to talk, I don't want to be on camera, but but, but the whole second year it's like, oh yeah, let's go where you at again, you're over there.
• 1:03:36
  Tony Smith: Okay, give me five minutes, I'll be over there.
• 1:03:38
  Tony Smith: You know.
• 1:03:38
  Tony Smith: So it was, it was.
• 1:03:39
  Tony Smith: You know, it's just for me telling us and to other people, just like, just be personal, like just be nice.
• 1:03:45
  Tony Smith: You know, just be kind.
• 1:03:46
  Tony Smith: When people see you smiling, they smile, and when we see you having fun, they having fun.
• 1:03:51
  Vipul Bindra: So you just got to be that person on set and then just be who you are, you know and as a filmmaker man, I love because, sure, obviously I love lighting and sound and all that, like I said, love doing talking head.
• 1:04:03
  Vipul Bindra: But what I love about conferences is living in Orlando.
• 1:04:06
  Vipul Bindra: We're like like Vegas, we're a big conferences, learning what the stuff like every conference for everything, like from antivirus software to like I don't know, like from antivirus software to like um I don't know, uh, needles, like one of the ones I attended was for literally a flooring conference and I was there 10 hours listening to like sub floors of freaking 200 types and I'm like I would have never known that there was so many products for one purpose and from so many different companies and they're all you know coming up and talk about how their products are the right solution.
• 1:04:41
  Vipul Bindra: Anyway, what I'm saying is it's like I at least love that that it can never get boring, because even though conferences are pretty much same thing you do for you know most of them, like you said, you know you're creating maybe a recap, video, cap sessions or whatever, but what keeps is interesting is because every time it's like something going on it's random once we covered, like a beyblade competition.
• 1:05:03
  Vipul Bindra: You know what I'm saying is like it's so random what you're gonna find it.
• 1:05:08
  Vipul Bindra: It can never get boring and and that was amazing to me and, like I said, I didn't even know there was a sewing uh conference.
• 1:05:15
  Vipul Bindra: But then I'm like, why am I weirded?
• 1:05:17
  Tony Smith: out into so many.
• 1:05:18
  Tony Smith: No, it's amazing because that also lets you know that.
• 1:05:21
  Tony Smith: You know, people think that the market is saturated.
• 1:05:23
  Tony Smith: It really is not.
• 1:05:24
  Tony Smith: You know you, it's so many, it's so much work out there that you don't even know that, you can't even tap into because you don't even understand.
• 1:05:30
  Tony Smith: Yeah, and you don't even know that market.
• 1:05:32
  Tony Smith: You know it's crazy.
• 1:05:32
  Tony Smith: Yeah, until you get to.
• 1:05:34
  Vipul Bindra: That's what I'm saying.
• 1:05:35
  Vipul Bindra: Stop worrying about and not to you, but I'm saying in general, people should stop worrying about uh, there's not enough work, or who has what work.
• 1:05:42
  Vipul Bindra: Don't be concerned about that, you know, don't be envious, just just go do it.
• 1:05:47
  Vipul Bindra: And then go make these contacts because you'll be amazed what all is happening, especially in your town, or especially especially in our town, where it's like there's literally every day tens of conferences happening and for all sorts of random things that you are not even thinking about right now, and plus it makes it fun Right Like that sewing thing I'm pretty sure you're not into sewing, but you had a lot of fun with that right, definitely, definitely a lot of fun.
• 1:06:12
  Tony Smith: I say because it brings you out of your comfort zone.
• 1:06:14
  Tony Smith: You know, I was again.
• 1:06:17
  Tony Smith: I was timid as well the first time because I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know what I was walking into.
• 1:06:21
  Tony Smith: But by the second, the third, fourth year, it's like oh man, like I know how to do this.
• 1:06:25
  Tony Smith: Like you got to put that one on top of that.
• 1:06:28
  Vipul Bindra: So then you know I'm going to take a class.
• 1:06:29
  Vipul Bindra: You know what I'm saying.
• 1:06:30
  Vipul Bindra: You're building this space.
• 1:06:32
  Vipul Bindra: Excuse me, talk about that Flooring.
• 1:06:35
  Vipul Bindra: I was like I know exactly the subfloor.
• 1:06:37
  Tony Smith: I'm going to pick.
• 1:06:38
  Tony Smith: You know what I mean.
• 1:06:38
  Tony Smith: It's so funny.
• 1:06:39
  Vipul Bindra: I would have never thought about it.
• 1:06:40
  Vipul Bindra: I'm like how do I know this?
• 1:06:41
  Tony Smith: Yeah, you were like using the wrong pen.
• 1:06:43
  Tony Smith: You did the eight pen out of ten.
• 1:06:45
  Tony Smith: Just change that out.
• 1:06:45
  Tony Smith: Exactly right, and we're not even trying to learn.
• 1:06:52
  Vipul Bindra: We're obviously trying to do what we're there to do, which is art.
• 1:06:54
  Vipul Bindra: But back Last year, with my buddy Adam, we filmed so many of these EMS conferences or whatever.
• 1:07:00
  Vipul Bindra: Now, like every time, I'm like I'm not a doctor or medical expert, but like sometimes I'm like, oh, they need CPR or whatever.
• 1:07:08
  Vipul Bindra: Right, you know what I mean.
• 1:07:09
  Vipul Bindra: It's like you start to think of these extra things that you never thought about or you're learning on the back of your mind.
• 1:07:16
  Vipul Bindra: So, like I said, I love it.
• 1:07:17
  Vipul Bindra: It's always interesting, and that's another avenue to make such a killer living that people don't even think about.
• 1:07:24
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, Anyway, coming back.
• 1:07:26
  Vipul Bindra: So which one do you like better?
• 1:07:27
  Vipul Bindra: Now you've done weddings.
• 1:07:28
  Tony Smith: You've done kind of like a mini documentary.
• 1:07:30
  Vipul Bindra: You've done conferences and corporate work or whatever.
• 1:07:33
  Vipul Bindra: So what do you prefer?
• 1:07:35
  Vipul Bindra: Where are you headed towards?
• 1:07:36
  Vipul Bindra: What do you see your future?
• 1:07:40
  Vipul Bindra: Do you see quitting your job becoming full-time over the video, or are you happy where you are?
• 1:07:43
  Tony Smith: I kind of want to know what you're leaning towards so right now I'm doing a lot of uh, more commercial work.
• 1:07:48
  Tony Smith: Right now I'm working with a couple businesses right now, to you know, get up there promotional as far as um, not event coverage but more for their seasonal products.
• 1:07:59
  Tony Smith: That I'm doing a lot of.
• 1:08:00
  Tony Smith: We just did a holiday commercial shoot and now we're going to do a valentine's day and just trying to get um I think alex uh minor told me this you know, call it a digital, digital business card.
• 1:08:16
  Vipul Bindra: You know brand video or brand video there you go talk to alex yeah, I'm gonna have him in a few weeks excited uh.
• 1:08:23
  Tony Smith: So I'm doing a lot of those, you know, basically because you know like the concept is like basically who you are.
• 1:08:28
  Tony Smith: You know you make great products but nobody knows who you are, so doing a lot of those.
• 1:08:33
  Tony Smith: Um, my main thing now is that I want to get into is, um, not testimonials, I do those, but do a lot of trainings.
• 1:08:40
  Tony Smith: I want to get into trainings as far as internal trainings for companies.
• 1:08:44
  Tony Smith: I just feel like that's the same line as documentary work for me, because you kind of can, you know, make the script how you kind of want it, but same time, with their input, and you know make it a little different.
• 1:08:57
  Tony Smith: And again, training is also where the money is.
• 1:09:00
  Tony Smith: You know it's residual.
• 1:09:01
  Tony Smith: You know you make it.
• 1:09:03
  Tony Smith: You know you get a nice size company that's doing a lot of training.
• 1:09:07
  Tony Smith: You can make a killer living.
• 1:09:08
  Tony Smith: Yeah, just in that one department I love making courses, you know.
• 1:09:11
  Tony Smith: So, as you know, it's one of those things where it, you know, like the giving keeps giving.
• 1:09:16
  Tony Smith: You know, and if you make one for one company I mean department other department needs training videos and it just keeps recycling.
• 1:09:22
  Tony Smith: The next year you need new ones and it just Exactly Plus you're making them less boring because the amount of companies.
• 1:09:28
  Vipul Bindra: I've seen their training videos, man, that put people to sleep at the end of the company.
• 1:09:32
  Vipul Bindra: You have to understand, you know, and and I'm sure you get this at this point but like they're spending a lot of money training people, right, last thing they want is the person to have to retrain an employee.
• 1:09:44
  Vipul Bindra: That costs way more money and then having to also the churn right the employees that they're not good at the job because they slept through the training.
• 1:09:52
  Vipul Bindra: Having to rehire and then retrain people.
• 1:09:55
  Vipul Bindra: So it's a lot more ROI for them to train the current hires better.
• 1:10:02
  Vipul Bindra: And the best way to do that is to make more effective training videos.
• 1:10:06
  Vipul Bindra: And the type of training videos that existed, at least in the past, were so boring and that people would either go to sleep or the videos didn't exist at all.
• 1:10:15
  Vipul Bindra: And here now we can come in, we can make them effective, we can can make them entertaining but at the same time very information dense, so the companies can save so much money and then we can make so much money and everyone.
• 1:10:28
  Vipul Bindra: It's a win-win situation and they get less churn because the employees actually wanted to watch those videos and they actually did better, right?
• 1:10:35
  Vipul Bindra: I love training videos and it's a different way to think, because, Because initially, you know, my thinking was oh, they're not, it's not sales, right?
• 1:10:42
  Vipul Bindra: How do I capture ROI?
• 1:10:43
  Vipul Bindra: Because my whole thing is let me make you money right.
• 1:10:46
  Vipul Bindra: And I'm like but how do I sell them?
• 1:10:47
  Vipul Bindra: They're not making money.
• 1:10:48
  Vipul Bindra: You have to go the other route.
• 1:10:50
  Vipul Bindra: You have to think remember hours saved is also money, roi, exactly Because that's money you didn't spend.
• 1:11:01
  Vipul Bindra: You know money.
• 1:11:02
  Vipul Bindra: Say, a penny saved is a penny earned, right?
• 1:11:03
  Vipul Bindra: So so it's a different perspective, but it's the same thing ultimately, right?
• 1:11:04
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, so that's great that you're thinking that.
• 1:11:05
  Vipul Bindra: So it seems like weddings are a thing of the past I say it's a thing that passed.
• 1:11:10
  Tony Smith: But again, if somebody approaches me, says they need one, the price is gonna be crazy.
• 1:11:15
  Tony Smith: And if you say, yeah, I'll shoot it.
• 1:11:19
  Tony Smith: I might outsource it though so there's always a number it's always a number.
• 1:11:22
  Tony Smith: There's always a number.
• 1:11:23
  Tony Smith: Trust me, you shoot one too.
• 1:11:25
  Tony Smith: Somebody came to you and said 20 000 no number, I have no number for.
• 1:11:28
  Tony Smith: So somebody offered you 50 000 for a wedding center.
• 1:11:32
  Vipul Bindra: Wow, okay, here's what I'll do.
• 1:11:33
  Tony Smith: I'm a business owner you're gonna take it in the outsourcing right absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:11:40
  Vipul Bindra: And then I'll say, tony, we need a wedding here uh, can you wear a bender shirt and?
• 1:11:44
  Vipul Bindra: Go make this happen, but normally no, I, I generally don't even want to cut because at the end date that's not what we do.
• 1:11:50
  Vipul Bindra: Right, my whole branding is you know, we.
• 1:11:52
  Vipul Bindra: We make awesome videos for businesses, so why would I?
• 1:11:56
  Vipul Bindra: uh, you know want to entertain, because I'm lying, I'm saying no now I'm doing that and I've never done them.
• 1:12:03
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, like I said, I don't want to do them.
• 1:12:04
  Vipul Bindra: It's never intrigued me.
• 1:12:05
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, I consider my I don't know, this is going to ruffle some feathers.
• 1:12:09
  Vipul Bindra: I consider myself a filmmaker and if I can't control lighting, which I know again.
• 1:12:14
  Vipul Bindra: On the other side, I can't control lighting that much anyway, but my whole thing with vetting was always like I can't really control much.
• 1:12:20
  Vipul Bindra: You know, uh, and uh, you know, and obviously I'm not gonna ruin their day, right, I'm supposed to be, uh, letting them have the best day.
• 1:12:28
  Vipul Bindra: I was like I don't fit there as my style of filmmaking and I'm letting other people who are experts that were good at that do that.
• 1:12:34
  Vipul Bindra: Um, but anyway, but yes, so there's no number, but if there is a huge number, then I'm calling you and taking the cut, uh, but coming back to so that's good, though, man and there's nothing wrong.
• 1:12:43
  Vipul Bindra: Like I said, I love getting videographers.
• 1:12:45
  Vipul Bindra: I respect them.
• 1:12:46
  Vipul Bindra: I know a bunch of my friends do this, so hey, hats off to them yeah.
• 1:12:50
  Tony Smith: So for me, like I said, weddings kind of because yeah, I like structure, like you said, I like I like structure, you know, you can, you know I know, um, people now are kind of getting to uh, they're calling in uh documentary style, uh weddings people doing now if I had to get a you know a bedding video made or whatever for me.
• 1:13:08
  Vipul Bindra: I would love to get one of those.
• 1:13:10
  Tony Smith: Yeah, they're very intriguing, yeah, so yeah, so people are doing that nowadays, but to me it's still a wedding at the end of the day.
• 1:13:16
  Tony Smith: But again, I like structure, I like sitting down.
• 1:13:18
  Tony Smith: Let's come up with a script, let's, let's.
• 1:13:20
  Tony Smith: Let's come with an actual plan.
• 1:13:21
  Tony Smith: Let's set up the lighting, let's set up.
• 1:13:23
  Tony Smith: Okay, let's do another take, let's.
• 1:13:24
  Tony Smith: I love that fact.
• 1:13:25
  Tony Smith: Um, so again, I'll shoot a wedding.
• 1:13:28
  Tony Smith: Somebody comes to me, but that's the thing in the past, me, right now, I want to focus on corporate.
• 1:13:32
  Tony Smith: I want to focus on, you know again, get into some um, doc work can.
• 1:13:38
  Tony Smith: But, yeah, my main focus right now is corporate because it's it's it's easier and structured.
• 1:13:44
  Tony Smith: You know, a lot more lenient.
• 1:13:46
  Tony Smith: You know when, uh, with their time and and and and effort, you know you can, you can, you can kind of.
• 1:13:51
  Tony Smith: You know again, you know when, my time being limited, you know what I have.
• 1:13:54
  Tony Smith: You know, going to corporate world, just just you know, going to corporate world, just just.
• 1:13:57
  Tony Smith: You know, just to me makes more sense.
• 1:13:58
  Tony Smith: You know I'm able to book, you know, out.
• 1:14:01
  Tony Smith: You know, let's do a friday shoot.
• 1:14:02
  Tony Smith: Okay, great, that sounds amazing.
• 1:14:04
  Tony Smith: You know, with a wedding, you know it really all depend on when the venue is open.
• 1:14:10
  Tony Smith: You know, okay, I only have, you know, tuesday open.
• 1:14:12
  Tony Smith: Well, I guess we don't know tuesday wedding, you know so, you know.
• 1:14:15
  Tony Smith: So you know, it's one of those things like now, now I gotta shove everything around and do all this and that.
• 1:14:17
  Tony Smith: But you know, if you look at so, you know it's one of those things like, well, now I got to shove everything around and do all this and that.
• 1:14:20
  Tony Smith: But you know, if you look at my calendar, you know you only see Fridays, saturdays, sunday.
• 1:14:22
  Tony Smith: Well, that's the only days you can choose from you know, so yeah, so that's my main focus right now.
• 1:14:40
  Tony Smith: And as far as staying with the job at the moment, I'll probably stay just because I'm able to, you know, do it right now with the way I'm working.
• 1:14:43
  Tony Smith: But if I, if I'm able to get to a point to where I can for me, I always said I have to triple my income to leave.
• 1:14:49
  Tony Smith: You know, it has to be more than triple.
• 1:14:52
  Tony Smith: But then, at the same time, if I hit triple, I'm like well, shoot, why would I leave when I can make?
• 1:14:56
  Tony Smith: you know what I'm saying so it's like now I can add both.
• 1:14:59
  Tony Smith: You know, it's like one of the things where, you know, it was always triple my number as far as my salary goes, with video.
• 1:15:06
  Tony Smith: So at the same time, if I do hit triple, one thing I do want to do is try my wife first, you know, let her be able to, you know, do things that she wanted to do, and then just let me keep turning that burden on.
• 1:15:24
  Tony Smith: As far as that, oh my goodness.
• 1:15:26
  Vipul Bindra: You're making all of us look bad.
• 1:15:28
  Vipul Bindra: No, I don't know.
• 1:15:29
  Tony Smith: I mean, I ain't trying to man you, just you.
• 1:15:31
  Tony Smith: Just different, different lives, that's all it is.
• 1:15:34
  Vipul Bindra: No, but that's great man.
• 1:15:35
  Vipul Bindra: That means, like I said, I respect that you're, which I mean.
• 1:15:38
  Vipul Bindra: Family is everything to me, that you know.
• 1:15:40
  Vipul Bindra: You're putting your family first and your goal is hey, I'm going to retire my wife first, then I'm going to maybe retire myself.
• 1:15:49
  Tony Smith: Yeah, because you know you just try to find your lane man.
• 1:15:52
  Tony Smith: That's all I'm trying to do, you know.
• 1:15:54
  Vipul Bindra: So 3X is the number right.
• 1:16:00
  Tony Smith: Yeah, for me, me it's always been 3x, but again once you hit the 3x you're looking like yeah, let's look at the.
• 1:16:03
  Vipul Bindra: To be real, I think again.
• 1:16:04
  Vipul Bindra: What your job is sounds pretty cool too.
• 1:16:05
  Vipul Bindra: But if you look at the business side of it, if in three days of the week you can 3x hypothetically in this right, and if you do it four times, how much more can you know there's no ceiling to this right?
• 1:16:18
  Tony Smith: it's that give and take.
• 1:16:19
  Tony Smith: It's like well, you able to make that much money only doing a weekend work.
• 1:16:23
  Tony Smith: What if you did this full time?
• 1:16:24
  Tony Smith: How much money can you make again?
• 1:16:26
  Tony Smith: Nothing is guaranteed.
• 1:16:27
  Tony Smith: You know you can have three hundred thousand one.
• 1:16:30
  Tony Smith: You're gonna lose all your clients next year.
• 1:16:32
  Vipul Bindra: I'll give that I know, I mean, I don't know where that going.
• 1:16:36
  Vipul Bindra: Well, I'm just you know, yeah anything happened with the world.
• 1:16:39
  Tony Smith: You know anything happened.
• 1:16:40
  Tony Smith: So it's just, you know, for me it's always been you know.
• 1:16:44
  Tony Smith: I want to say not for us being scared, but at the same time it's just having that comfort of always knowing that you have a fallback, you know, and it's always there to make sure that I have something there for them no-transcript successful people in the industry.
• 1:17:31
  Vipul Bindra: And then by the time I did that, uh, and all the advice they gave me I was like, oh, I had already figured it out.
• 1:17:36
  Vipul Bindra: It just took me years of stumbling to get there.
• 1:17:38
  Vipul Bindra: And had I had information like this man, I could have done this years ago.
• 1:17:43
  Vipul Bindra: But either way, I finally got here and I'm like I don't change anything because obviously it's been an incredible journey.
• 1:17:49
  Vipul Bindra: But no, so you never know.
• 1:17:52
  Tony Smith: I'm saying when you go through time, but at the same time again if you're not miserable at your job, you're making a great living.
• 1:17:59
  Vipul Bindra: Why even quit?
• 1:18:00
  Tony Smith: right so.
• 1:18:01
  Vipul Bindra: I see that perspective.
• 1:18:02
  Vipul Bindra: See, on one side I'm like I would never go back to a 9-to-5.
• 1:18:04
  Vipul Bindra: That's literally my driving force, that as long as I can do this and not go to a 9-to-5, I'll do this forever.
• 1:18:10
  Vipul Bindra: But then, at the same time, I'm like, ooh, if I was doing something cool like that, maybe why quit?
• 1:18:15
  Vipul Bindra: You know, especially if you're happy you know it's a personal thing you can do both.
• 1:18:21
  Vipul Bindra: I mean, you are the perfect example of you can do both and you are doing both and uh, seems to be like it's working really well right, yeah, I mean.
• 1:18:29
  Tony Smith: Well, that's all I'm suggesting.
• 1:18:31
  Tony Smith: Really well, I don't know about really well, but hey, I'm surviving okay what does that mean?
• 1:18:39
  Vipul Bindra: I want to know so.
• 1:18:40
  Vipul Bindra: So to me on the outside side is like you have a good job right that pays decent.
• 1:18:44
  Vipul Bindra: Then you're making a decent you know rates because most people are trying so, just so you know, the, the typical people I talk to who are starting in this or not successful in this thing, they're struggling to even charge 5k for a video, right, and you obviously, obviously crossed that barrier doing this part time, so charging big numbers isn't really seems like your struggle, right uh.
• 1:19:05
  Tony Smith: So what is your struggle?
• 1:19:06
  Vipul Bindra: let's talk about so what struggles are you facing right now?
• 1:19:08
  Tony Smith: I would say it's always a struggle just because everybody's different.
• 1:19:11
  Tony Smith: You know, just because you did it one time don't mean that's to be their constant.
• 1:19:16
  Tony Smith: Unless you're constantly booking, then you can constantly charge that.
• 1:19:19
  Tony Smith: But every industry is different.
• 1:19:20
  Tony Smith: Every, every customer is different.
• 1:19:22
  Tony Smith: Um so my biggest struggle, yeah.
• 1:19:25
  Tony Smith: So my biggest struggle is again you, just as everybody is just, you know, getting constant customers.
• 1:19:31
  Tony Smith: Uh, so my biggest thing now is I would love to get retainers, um, try to get away from the one-off clients just doing videos and then kind of you know, pitching them something in it, like no, I'm okay, I don't need that, but then.
• 1:19:38
  Tony Smith: So now I was just trying to get it.
• 1:19:39
  Tony Smith: You know, retainers try to get away from the one-off clients just doing videos and then kind of you know pitching them something and they're like, nah, I'm okay, I don't need that, but then.
• 1:19:42
  Tony Smith: So now it's just trying to get it.
• 1:19:43
  Tony Smith: You know, retainers trying to get you know, basically, uh, basically month to month customers or year to year customers, if we can.
• 1:19:50
  Tony Smith: So my struggle right now is, you know, just getting that consistent work as far as customers.
• 1:19:55
  Tony Smith: You know it ain't always, you're not always shooting and always.
• 1:19:58
  Tony Smith: So my biggest thing is just getting that consistent work, getting a consistent client.
• 1:20:03
  Tony Smith: We're not clients, but me.
• 1:20:05
  Tony Smith: I personally would love to have, you know, anywhere between five to fifteen real personal customers to where I'm working with them every single month and we're just doing that.
• 1:20:16
  Tony Smith: You know it's having to have the every single month, every single week, trying to find somebody new, trying to find something different.
• 1:20:21
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, and that's not even realistic, like I said and talk about what I was just mentioning.
• 1:20:25
  Vipul Bindra: So when I found out, um, you know, because initially when you look at you know maybe whoever you're you're looking forward to like, oh, I want to be like that.
• 1:20:32
  Vipul Bindra: You see, it's a dp that they're constantly, you know, working, it's a production company that's constantly making.
• 1:20:38
  Vipul Bindra: So you think, uh, you know the realistic ways.
• 1:20:40
  Vipul Bindra: Every month I'm going to find 10 50 new clients the thing is it's not realistic.
• 1:20:44
  Vipul Bindra: I mean, uh, literally the most common thread.
• 1:20:47
  Vipul Bindra: I found anyone I'm talking people making anyone that I found that makes seven figures or more in this, doing this in the corporate and commercial world.
• 1:20:54
  Vipul Bindra: They have like top four to five clients that pay like 80 of their their revenue and then the one off or the maybe a couple of month of repeat clients only pay like the bottom 10 to 20% of the revenue.
• 1:21:06
  Vipul Bindra: And when I compared I was like, oh, that was very similar to me.
• 1:21:08
  Vipul Bindra: You're just we're all chasing those same you know, retainer or repeat clients Because at the end, the idea again that 10, 15 new clients with 10, 15 big projects are coming every other month or every month um, you know, out of the blue, and you're going to be able to close those deals.
• 1:21:25
  Vipul Bindra: Do pre-production, do production to push for like everything that we need to do it's unrealistic and anyone's thinking that's possible.
• 1:21:32
  Vipul Bindra: I don't know anyone.
• 1:21:32
  Vipul Bindra: If you were that like, I want to talk to you because I don't know anyone who's doing that?
• 1:21:36
  Vipul Bindra: um, you know it's so.
• 1:21:38
  Vipul Bindra: Like you said, that's the perfect thing that you're chasing, because that is the realistic way to make good living here is to find yourself some clients that need work.
• 1:21:45
  Vipul Bindra: Right, they need content, and you can provide the content to them.
• 1:21:49
  Vipul Bindra: And, um, the other thing, um, and tell me if you've noticed this.
• 1:21:53
  Vipul Bindra: A lot of people are like then but why wouldn't, if they're paying you, I don't know, two, three hundred thousand dollars of $300,000 of their budget, whatever one client, right?
• 1:22:00
  Vipul Bindra: Why would they not just do this in-house?
• 1:22:02
  Vipul Bindra: Because you know, what I find is because it's cost effective.
• 1:22:06
  Vipul Bindra: Because if they, hire people right, you work, you have to give PTO you have to get healthcare.
• 1:22:11
  Vipul Bindra: You have to get healthcare which costs money.
• 1:22:17
  Vipul Bindra: Now you have to follow rules and regulations of how many hours they can work, plus what if you don't have work for them now.
• 1:22:20
  Vipul Bindra: Now you need you know for a month and now you need five videos made.
• 1:22:23
  Vipul Bindra: They can't 5X the people.
• 1:22:25
  Vipul Bindra: You can't just hire people for a month and then fire them and plus equipment.
• 1:22:29
  Vipul Bindra: In our industry everything's changing.
• 1:22:30
  Vipul Bindra: Then constant training Point is it's not financially viable unless they're like a hundred million, like a very huge company.
• 1:22:37
  Vipul Bindra: It like a hundred million, like a very huge company.
• 1:22:42
  Vipul Bindra: It is not viable for them to have a media department and here we can offer them a million dollar media department for a fraction fraction, because we are splitting that between all our clients, right, so it doesn't make sense for them to do in-house and and we can do way better job than a one to two man video team.
• 1:22:56
  Vipul Bindra: So it makes sense for both of us and we.
• 1:22:58
  Vipul Bindra: We can be effective because we can split our resources among many clients.
• 1:23:03
  Vipul Bindra: We don't get bored, uh, right, and we get to make them good content, and then they don't have to now spend so many resources hiring, training, providing help absolutely so I think it's a win-win relationship.
• 1:23:14
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, I don't know why anyone would get in the mindset thinking that's not possible.
• 1:23:17
  Tony Smith: That's like those clients are out there.
• 1:23:19
  Tony Smith: They're plenty.
• 1:23:19
  Tony Smith: No, that's definitely out there.
• 1:23:21
  Vipul Bindra: You know, you know and I have a few though, so I'm not, I'm like, come on, I love, I love to have some of those.
• 1:23:25
  Tony Smith: Yeah, um.
• 1:23:26
  Tony Smith: But now you know, people just don't realize how stressful it is to keep trying to find new customers you know going to b2c route you know business to customer route is is so stressful because now you're dealing with emotion sort of business and dealing with you know business.
• 1:23:38
  Tony Smith: You know customers want to lowball you.
• 1:23:40
  Tony Smith: Customers want everything top tier but want to pay cheap.
• 1:23:44
  Tony Smith: You know business is like how much is it?
• 1:23:45
  Tony Smith: Okay, great, let's go ahead and get it done.
• 1:23:47
  Tony Smith: Yeah, you know it's like they like there's no hassle back and forth.
• 1:23:51
  Tony Smith: I mean, yeah, they might hassle because they have budgets.
• 1:23:53
  Tony Smith: But at the same time, dealing with a business with a budget versus a customer with a budget is two totally different things exactly.
• 1:23:58
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, they're looking at roi.
• 1:23:59
  Vipul Bindra: Their budget isn't based like for a customer.
• 1:24:01
  Vipul Bindra: It's like, hey, I made this much, this is all I have like, right, there's not that much flexibility.
• 1:24:06
  Vipul Bindra: That's what their paycheck is and that's what the extra money they have to buy whatever they want to buy, or credit card, right, you know.
• 1:24:12
  Vipul Bindra: But the point is that the business they're not looking at it from what money they have.
• 1:24:16
  Vipul Bindra: They're looking at roi.
• 1:24:18
  Vipul Bindra: They're thinking, hey, you know, if I spend this five grand, ten grand, whatever, whatever money they're spending with you doing this video, they all they're thinking is how much money can they make back?
• 1:24:27
  Vipul Bindra: from you right, and as long as they they see a positive net return and whatever the roi factor that they're looking for, they're gonna buy.
• 1:24:36
  Vipul Bindra: It doesn't matter.
• 1:24:36
  Vipul Bindra: I've had clients buy and and then a lot of people get in the weeds thinking about this.
• 1:24:41
  Vipul Bindra: But I've had clients buy those brand stories and so usually the smaller ones.
• 1:24:45
  Vipul Bindra: But that's okay, I love helping them and they've been like oh, we want a band story.
• 1:24:49
  Vipul Bindra: They know, at least they're they're they're full buy-in.
• 1:24:52
  Vipul Bindra: But they're like we don't have that money.
• 1:24:53
  Vipul Bindra: And I've had them put that on their credit card and you know I wouldn't recommend that financially to anyone like I wouldn't do that.
• 1:25:00
  Vipul Bindra: But the the other side of it is they have made money because those same clients where I'm going, you know sometimes you have to back a minute.
• 1:25:07
  Vipul Bindra: You're like what?
• 1:25:07
  Vipul Bindra: They're just putting all this on the credit card.
• 1:25:09
  Vipul Bindra: That means they clearly can't afford it but they want to work with me, and but then you find out like that, you know, three months later, whatever are you, because I at least like to check in with my clients, I'm like how's it going?
• 1:25:19
  Vipul Bindra: Man, I'm as close as a big deal.
• 1:25:22
  Vipul Bindra: I mean 100K or 200K or whatever, and that is such a.
• 1:25:25
  Vipul Bindra: That's why I don't think about it anymore when they're like putting this on credit card or whatever, because you don't know the money they're going to make on the back end, right?
• 1:25:33
  Tony Smith: They need it.
• 1:25:40
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, you are their video person, so that's what you need to focus on and, at the end of the day, as long as you're good at what you do, they're gonna make their money tenfold or more right back, because videos work, right.
• 1:25:46
  Vipul Bindra: We just want to share the right stories with their customers who, like you said, who want to pay little.
• 1:25:51
  Vipul Bindra: But then when they're comparing competition, they see these videos and they go.
• 1:25:56
  Vipul Bindra: Oh, maybe I want to pay a little premium to go with this because I like the personality of this business owner.
• 1:26:01
  Vipul Bindra: I like the products better, whatever we are, or service better, whatever we're pitching to our clients.
• 1:26:06
  Vipul Bindra: So, um, you know, at the end of them saying sometimes these business customers will even go into debt to get your video service because they are smart enough to understand the return on their investment that they're going to get.
• 1:26:20
  Tony Smith: Yeah, they need again.
• 1:26:21
  Tony Smith: Everybody needs video.
• 1:26:22
  Tony Smith: Everybody understands.
• 1:26:24
  Tony Smith: Well, businesses understand they need video, they need promotion, they need the content.
• 1:26:28
  Tony Smith: Customers don't understand that.
• 1:26:31
  Tony Smith: They just see dollars coming out the check and not realizing that, hey, you do own a small mom and pop store, but nobody knows you're here.
• 1:26:37
  Tony Smith: So how are you supposed to get out Exactly?
• 1:26:40
  Tony Smith: You know your marketing is supposed to be your biggest budget period, you know.
• 1:26:44
  Tony Smith: So what do you know?
• 1:26:45
  Tony Smith: Yeah, talk about that.
• 1:26:46
  Vipul Bindra: I have talked to businesses, not every business is your client and that it sometimes.
• 1:26:51
  Vipul Bindra: Again, these are things I have.
• 1:26:53
  Vipul Bindra: I have had to at least learn and I hope somebody doesn't have to struggle with this because, uh, I had to learn to like let go, because there's sometimes you'll meet with a business right, and initially people have no idea.
• 1:27:04
  Vipul Bindra: Right, and it's also our environment.
• 1:27:06
  Vipul Bindra: People don't know how much video costs because there's such variety of people.
• 1:27:09
  Tony Smith: There's somebody, green, you know, with a tiny camera will make it for free or 300 bucks right.
• 1:27:13
  Vipul Bindra: And then there's big companies who want million dollar commercials or nothing and there's everything in between.
• 1:27:19
  Vipul Bindra: Um, so clients don't know a lot of times especially their small business what to expect.
• 1:27:23
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, but I've had meetings, you know, where they're like full buy-in, they're like we want it, but then they don't have the 5, 10, 15, 20k, whatever the project is that they need the solution for them and they, and then you know you really want to help them, like ah, and then to walk away from that meeting where they were interested and you were interested and you know you could transform their business overnight with these videos.
• 1:27:46
  Vipul Bindra: But you can't help them because they don't have the budget.
• 1:27:48
  Vipul Bindra: But you have to learn to also know that you know it's not you At the end of the day.
• 1:27:52
  Vipul Bindra: Our job is to get to know them, get to figure out what the pain point in the business is and offer a solution at the best price point that you can offer it at and hopefully the customer has the buy-in and the knowledge to get it.
• 1:28:10
  Vipul Bindra: But some clients don't.
• 1:28:11
  Vipul Bindra: I've had it where, like I said, the meetings where they go, they know they want video but they don't understand the power of video.
• 1:28:17
  Vipul Bindra: They go, okay, well, 20 grand, but for 20 grand I could go buy more inventory or whatever and I'm like sure that is smart business.
• 1:28:25
  Vipul Bindra: But you know, if you don't have anyone to buy that, then you know, and then that's where the lack of knowledge comes, and it's typically these, either new business owners or business owners who don't understand marketing and they're oh yeah, we do zero marketing and you know, and I'm like but but then how are people finding out?
• 1:28:44
  Vipul Bindra: Because if people don't know you exist, and then people don't know what you're selling and why you're different and why to buy from you, you cannot literally physically go meet every single person, right?
• 1:28:57
  Vipul Bindra: especially when you're b2c, it's what it's one thing to be b2b you can go to networking events or whatever.
• 1:29:00
  Vipul Bindra: But if you're b2c, it's what it's one thing to be b2b you can go to networking events or whatever, but if you're b2c your client base is huge, like you have to tell them who you are, what you stand for and why to buy from you and what your products are, or at least you know, have good photos, videos, whatever, a few products and services.
• 1:29:14
  Vipul Bindra: And that at that point again, initially, like I said, I used to have that emotional reaction and now I'm, like I had to come to terms that, like, look, what I can do is show them right.
• 1:29:25
  Vipul Bindra: Literally, they tell you so I'm like, okay, so you're telling me this is a problem.
• 1:29:30
  Vipul Bindra: After you ask a few questions, right, I generally approach my meetings with like okay, tell me about it.
• 1:29:35
  Vipul Bindra: Because they reach out right, like, so would you reach out?
• 1:29:38
  Vipul Bindra: Okay, we want a video.
• 1:29:39
  Vipul Bindra: Perfect, what type of video?
• 1:29:40
  Vipul Bindra: Why do you want it?
• 1:29:41
  Vipul Bindra: Do you have an example?
• 1:29:42
  Vipul Bindra: And slowly, just by asking simple questions, you'll find they'll tell you exactly the pain point yeah, oh, well, for example, like the one we were talking about.
• 1:29:51
  Vipul Bindra: Like, well, we have inventory that's not moving.
• 1:29:53
  Vipul Bindra: Okay, well, I mean sales, right, so why aren't you getting your sales?
• 1:30:05
  Vipul Bindra: And then the biggest thing is well, how are you getting your current sales?
• 1:30:06
  Vipul Bindra: Right?
• 1:30:06
  Vipul Bindra: So maybe you can expand into that.
• 1:30:07
  Vipul Bindra: And right, so we have to diagnose the problem.
• 1:30:08
  Vipul Bindra: And once you do, now you see if video can fit anywhere to actually solve that problem.
• 1:30:09
  Vipul Bindra: And once you do figure it out, you know you say, okay, now how much is that going to cost me?
• 1:30:13
  Vipul Bindra: Right?
• 1:30:13
  Vipul Bindra: That's the cost analysis that we're doing.
• 1:30:16
  Vipul Bindra: And then you go, okay, well, this is what I can do.
• 1:30:19
  Vipul Bindra: It's going to be this much or this much, and this is what we're going to do and this is how it can help you.
• 1:30:24
  Vipul Bindra: And at that point, the, the decision is there to make like if they see, if they have the buy-in, because the other thing I found is that if they you don't have their buy-in, it doesn't matter how the awesome the video is if they don't implement it.
• 1:30:37
  Vipul Bindra: They don't integrate it because you know, let's say, you design it to go on their website or the social media or whatever, and then they don't put it, it's not going to do anything right.
• 1:30:46
  Vipul Bindra: So you have to have total buy-in, because otherwise also you can't make a difference yeah, unless you, unless they have a amazing word of mouth yeah you know word of mouth campaign going on.
• 1:30:57
  Tony Smith: Yeah, you definitely need it.
• 1:30:59
  Tony Smith: Everybody doesn't have that.
• 1:31:02
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, and viral marketing can work, but you can't guarantee it.
• 1:31:08
  Vipul Bindra: Trust me, nobody in video can guarantee it.
• 1:31:10
  Vipul Bindra: Now, yes, there's some formulas we can follow to create, maybe, a viral marketing campaign, but still nobody can guarantee you the video will go viral.
• 1:31:18
  Tony Smith: No, definitely.
• 1:31:19
  Vipul Bindra: You know what I mean.
• 1:31:19
  Vipul Bindra: There's a lot of other factors into it than just making an awesome viral video, yeah, so you have to build a full strategy, right?
• 1:31:28
  Vipul Bindra: Sure, viral marketing can be part of it, but it can't be all of it.
• 1:31:32
  Vipul Bindra: You know what I mean, especially if it's not working.
• 1:31:36
  Tony Smith: And that's why I like B2B, just because it's not emotional, it's business.
• 1:31:41
  Tony Smith: At this point, customers are emotional because it's their own personal money, businesses.
• 1:31:46
  Tony Smith: They have budgets.
• 1:31:47
  Tony Smith: It's the company money and, depending on the size of the business, they have to spend that money that year or they actually lose it next year.
• 1:31:57
  Tony Smith: So they have to spend the money and and if you're good with certain companies, they're, they'll hire you just because you know a christmas party yeah you know, and you might charge four thousand and they might give you 18, just because they have extra budget and they need to spend it, exactly you know.
• 1:32:10
  Vipul Bindra: So companies will december is good month for me because sometimes they will just pay me for the next year's marketing, because they just need the write-off and they have a budget, yeah they didn't spend their advertising budget.
• 1:32:19
  Vipul Bindra: They're like, hey, we'll apply it to 2025 because you know they need to spend it.
• 1:32:22
  Vipul Bindra: And I'm like, absolutely please yeah uh, but yeah.
• 1:32:26
  Vipul Bindra: But coming back to the, uh, I want to take the other side of it.
• 1:32:29
  Vipul Bindra: You're absolutely right.
• 1:32:30
  Vipul Bindra: That's why I love businesses, because it's not the money, it's more the roi, but it's.
• 1:32:35
  Vipul Bindra: But there is some emotion involved because guess what now?
• 1:32:38
  Vipul Bindra: Now your client isn't a person, right, your client is that marketing manager or that marketing director, and for them it's emotional because now they're going.
• 1:32:47
  Vipul Bindra: Will I look good to the boss?
• 1:32:49
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, they say yeah.
• 1:32:50
  Tony Smith: Right Now, their job depends on it.
• 1:32:51
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, their job depends on it.
• 1:32:52
  Vipul Bindra: Or if they've spent $8,000, $10,000 on something that you know that's not going to and they're, they're on the hook, not us.
• 1:33:01
  Vipul Bindra: So so the emotion aspect is slightly different, because they're not thinking about the money aspect of it, they're thinking how they're gonna look, and that's why I pay huge attention on that.
• 1:33:08
  Vipul Bindra: I am not working, um, to represent, like, like I don't care about, like my branding, like in front, like I get all the credit.
• 1:33:16
  Vipul Bindra: That's one thing at least for me is not at all.
• 1:33:19
  Vipul Bindra: I don't care who gets the credit for it Because, again, it's not me, it's going to be the people that I hire.
• 1:33:23
  Vipul Bindra: I just want the marketing manager, the marketing director, to look good.
• 1:33:28
  Vipul Bindra: And even if I'm working directly with the business, I'm like no, you take full credit, right, if this works.
• 1:33:33
  Vipul Bindra: You go to your team and like look, see, we did this and I made this happen and then your boss goes oh wow, you know, especially if it's their marketing director, they're gonna look good and hopefully get a promotion.
• 1:33:43
  Vipul Bindra: Because we have to remember that that's who we are working for.
• 1:33:45
  Vipul Bindra: We're not yes, the company's paying us, but our job is to make them look good, absolutely not get the credit.
• 1:33:51
  Vipul Bindra: Sometimes filmmakers are, and I know I did this when I was young because we wanted credit.
• 1:33:56
  Tony Smith: You know because we watch grow up watching movies.
• 1:33:58
  Vipul Bindra: It's like oh, I just want my name and as soon as you can let go, especially in this corporate commercial world.
• 1:34:03
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, because half my money comes from nda clients, where I don't even get no credit.
• 1:34:07
  Tony Smith: No, you can't but.
• 1:34:09
  Vipul Bindra: but I'm like, and now that I've let go, it doesn't matter me at all.
• 1:34:12
  Vipul Bindra: I just want to be on cool sets and make cool content.
• 1:34:15
  Vipul Bindra: I don't care if I get zero credit, because otherwise I wouldn't be on the sets and I wouldn't be making that money.
• 1:34:20
  Vipul Bindra: But at the end of the day, my goal is not to have my name out there, my goal is to make that marketing agency or whoever is hiring me, look good.
• 1:34:28
  Vipul Bindra: And as soon as you accept what your role is, I think you'll be far more successful and they'll be very fast to open their company's wallets Because remember, it's not their money, absolutely Like you said's, it's just about the.
• 1:34:46
  Vipul Bindra: The only emotional part here is are they going to look good?
• 1:34:48
  Tony Smith: and as soon as they, you build that trust with them.
• 1:34:49
  Vipul Bindra: That no, I'm going to make you look good and uh for you, your company, to get the roi.
• 1:34:53
  Vipul Bindra: So again, you look good, you're right there, you get their buy-in and then, and obviously once you give that result, coming back to our retainer and repeat client thing, I think they're they're more bound to like keep coming back because now they're like oh, I'm looking like a genius here yeah and and my boss loves me I'm about to, you know, get cfo or I don't know whatever role they're aiming for.
• 1:35:15
  Vipul Bindra: uh, because they're doing so great here and ultimately, again, both win, because, all because all we're trying to do is make the company money and the marketing manager's trying to do the same thing, so at the end, we're all on the same team.
• 1:35:28
  Tony Smith: No, absolutely, and I'm the same way as you.
• 1:35:30
  Tony Smith: I don't really care too much for the accolades and the name being out there.
• 1:35:34
  Tony Smith: A lot of customers ask me why don't I put my name at the end or at the beginning or throughout the video?
• 1:35:40
  Tony Smith: because I'm like, because it's not my video, it's your video yeah put your name and say I'm putting your company name and name and you know, at the front end of it it had nothing to do with me.
• 1:35:48
  Tony Smith: I'm just a tool.
• 1:35:50
  Tony Smith: You know I can care less about my name being on it because I know that the return on the back end is going to be even greater.
• 1:35:57
  Tony Smith: You know, when they realize that this is a great video, and then when people come to ask you who did the video, now you can promote me and you know, and then blow me up from that point of stand.
• 1:36:06
  Tony Smith: You know I don't need my name to be blasted throughout your video, as if I'm, you know, trying to upshow your video.
• 1:36:13
  Tony Smith: Like why I need to be in a training video with corporate level media and you know saying, you know, throughout the, you know why does that matter?
• 1:36:18
  Tony Smith: You know.
• 1:36:19
  Tony Smith: But when they see the quality, and they see it and and you know, and they feel the emotion like oh man, who?
• 1:36:25
  Tony Smith: Who did that?
• 1:36:26
  Tony Smith: Like I need him, or or, or I need them, now you can go ahead and you know, and and stand on the mound and shout my name at that point, because then, once you do that, then you know there is no more.
• 1:36:38
  Tony Smith: You know limitations, because now you know my income or your budget doesn't matter, because now I can charge whatever I charge and I don't have emotional attachment to it, because now you're looking at, just trying to, you know, figure out who I am.
• 1:36:53
  Tony Smith: So when it comes from that point of stand, you know it's great because I'm out of it emotionally too, because I said you didn't cause, I didn't approach you.
• 1:37:00
  Tony Smith: You know these are, these are my prices, my price of my prices.
• 1:37:03
  Tony Smith: You know, and they might contact me first Like, hey, this guy might contact you, you know, go full out, you know.
• 1:37:09
  Tony Smith: Or, or you know they got money, you know.
• 1:37:11
  Tony Smith: So it's one of those things too, you know it.
• 1:37:14
  Tony Smith: Just it's all about the connection, is all about making you know your current customers look amazing, because that is your showcase.
• 1:37:23
  Vipul Bindra: Talk about a very good point.
• 1:37:25
  Vipul Bindra: You hit on like my price is the price.
• 1:37:27
  Vipul Bindra: How are your feelings on discount, because I'm very much against any discounts.
• 1:37:32
  Tony Smith: Yeah, I do discounts again, just the people that I like.
• 1:37:36
  Tony Smith: You know, if it's an industry that I'm trying to break into, I might do it, like this time on the first video and then after that.
• 1:37:43
  Tony Smith: Then I'll go on full throttle, just so I can show you.
• 1:37:46
  Vipul Bindra: So would you tell them like would you say, okay, this is going to be $4,000 or whatever, but now I'll do it for $3,000 or whatever, or would you?
• 1:37:53
  Vipul Bindra: Just say it's $3,000 now and the next time up the rate.
• 1:37:55
  Tony Smith: No because I do all proposals.
• 1:37:57
  Tony Smith: So in my proposal it'll show a discount.
• 1:38:04
  Tony Smith: And then once I contact them again and and uh, we actually go for proposal and I'll I'll let them know that hey, I gave you a discount this time just because I wanted to let you know that we're serious and I want to show you I'm saying I'll work and everything like that, but going forward we'll be charging full price.
• 1:38:15
  Tony Smith: At this point okay so there's no guessing games as far as you know.
• 1:38:19
  Tony Smith: Oh, it's $3,000 now.
• 1:38:20
  Tony Smith: Why is it $5,000 now?
• 1:38:22
  Tony Smith: So you'll see it in my contract where it says discount 25%, discount 15% or whatever it is, and you will know that.
• 1:38:29
  Tony Smith: Oh, okay, he gave me a discount, but you can see the full price there too.
• 1:38:33
  Tony Smith: It just says discount and you'll be like, okay, it's $5,000 for that.
• 1:38:36
  Tony Smith: He gave me this.
• 1:38:36
  Tony Smith: Okay great, I okay great, I'll take it, you know.
• 1:38:38
  Tony Smith: So it's like that.
• 1:38:40
  Vipul Bindra: No, that's a very smart way to approach it In my opinion, which is why I'm so glad we're having this conversation so people can hear both perspectives.
• 1:38:47
  Vipul Bindra: My perspective is different.
• 1:38:49
  Vipul Bindra: I'm just like I don't want to give, because if I'm giving a discount, that means to the clients I had that much margin right.
• 1:38:56
  Vipul Bindra: Then my prices aren't my prices and again my prices are anyway too low.
• 1:39:01
  Vipul Bindra: I need to raise my prices for what I'm providing.
• 1:39:04
  Vipul Bindra: But ultimately, the way I do it is very simple my cost calculation I used to do, and again I have dabbled in value-based pricing.
• 1:39:11
  Vipul Bindra: That's different, because now you're just pricing is arbitrary, based on the result.
• 1:39:15
  Vipul Bindra: I don't do that anymore.
• 1:39:17
  Vipul Bindra: For me now it's simple.
• 1:39:18
  Vipul Bindra: Like we're a production company.
• 1:39:19
  Vipul Bindra: I'm going to make you an awesome video.
• 1:39:20
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, here's what we want to make, obviously right.
• 1:39:23
  Vipul Bindra: Then 20 production company out, then it's just the people and the equipment.
• 1:39:28
  Vipul Bindra: Now I can obviously make more money as a company, because I could take my fee as director or dp and bring that in and, or, um, my some a lot of equipment that we own.
• 1:39:37
  Vipul Bindra: I can take the rental charges and bring that in-house too.
• 1:39:40
  Vipul Bindra: So, so there's places where we can dabble, uh, but what I'm saying is, uh, at the end they cost a cost because they're genuinely calculated based on, uh, the amount of people and the equipment I need.
• 1:39:51
  Vipul Bindra: So it's not like I have freaking hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars, just play with and uh, so like and plus what I like with my client.
• 1:40:00
  Vipul Bindra: At least it's's like no, this is the price.
• 1:40:02
  Vipul Bindra: There's not even $50 that I have.
• 1:40:04
  Vipul Bindra: This is what I need to make this happen.
• 1:40:07
  Vipul Bindra: Now, can I make the video for a different price?
• 1:40:10
  Vipul Bindra: Yes, so, for example, I'm doing a talking head with B-roll for a mank.
• 1:40:14
  Vipul Bindra: Let's say, yes, can I do it for five grand?
• 1:40:17
  Vipul Bindra: Absolutely, I'll bring me in an assistant.
• 1:40:18
  Vipul Bindra: We'll make talking head.
• 1:40:20
  Vipul Bindra: Absolutely, absolutely, I'll bring me in an assistant.
• 1:40:24
  Vipul Bindra: Right, we'll make talking head.
• 1:40:25
  Vipul Bindra: Absolutely, I got my camera card, we'll run it in, but same thing now, if I have 30 grand, I'll bring me plus five crew.
• 1:40:29
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, we'll set bigger lights, we'll light better, we'll uh bring alexa, you know, minis and lfs and we'll bring, you know, uh, signature, prime lenses, uh, so the product will be better quality.
• 1:40:40
  Vipul Bindra: It'll still be very similar video.
• 1:40:42
  Vipul Bindra: It's just do your, does your bank bank represent that quality or does your bank represent this quality?
• 1:40:48
  Vipul Bindra: Right, the only thing I can guarantee is at that price point, nobody can make better video at that price point than me.
• 1:40:54
  Vipul Bindra: Nobody has the amount of freaking equipment that they can absorb the cost they wanted to at the lower prices than I can.
• 1:41:00
  Vipul Bindra: But I'll say that I'm not doing something crazy.
• 1:41:01
  Vipul Bindra: The price is the price, because the price was calculated based on my equipment and my people cost right, plus what it takes for me to get out of the bed, right then I have a minimum that I've set, like, hey, I'm not leaving the bed until I'm making that much, which I don't think it's that high.
• 1:41:15
  Vipul Bindra: But what I'm trying to get to is but to make that specific video, because if I changing the price, the video is going to be different.
• 1:41:21
  Vipul Bindra: It's not only the video and I found yes, some people will not like that, and those are not your clients, at least my clients but most people get it because it's like no, this is the price.
• 1:41:33
  Vipul Bindra: There is no you know this isn't like I just ran my butt and made up a number and I was like here you go, right, right, and now people do that again.
• 1:41:42
  Vipul Bindra: That the other side is I've heard people, you know, have huge success with value based pricing where they're like okay, I'm going to make you how much is the average sale?
• 1:41:49
  Vipul Bindra: How many sales do you think you can get with this?
• 1:41:51
  Vipul Bindra: Okay, so it's, uh, I don't know, a thousand bucks times 50.
• 1:41:55
  Vipul Bindra: So it's going to be $50,000 of value.
• 1:41:58
  Vipul Bindra: Give me 50 of that.
• 1:42:00
  Vipul Bindra: So the video is 25 000, even though your cost may be 1500 because it's you shooting it or whatever.
• 1:42:06
  Vipul Bindra: And if that works, then that's great.
• 1:42:08
  Vipul Bindra: But my thing is, at the end of the day, there's so many other production companies that are just production companies that are happy to come in and, uh, you know, just make the video for the what the actual costs are, and still make good money.
• 1:42:20
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, then you're, you know, unless you're the video for what the actual cost and still make good money, then you're, you know, unless you're trying to be a marketing agency, that's different.
• 1:42:25
  Vipul Bindra: They can pull that easier, I think.
• 1:42:26
  Vipul Bindra: Value-based pricing.
• 1:42:28
  Tony Smith: But I'm the same way, like you've been saying, my price is my price, I don't.
• 1:42:33
  Tony Smith: It only varies depending on the actual project, if that makes sense.
• 1:42:40
  Tony Smith: So how many people I need, how long days we're shooting hours, you know equipment needed, um, all that changes based off of that.
• 1:42:49
  Tony Smith: So when somebody asks me how much would it cost, I can't tell you that without knowing the full scope of what you need, and I don't like giving out blanket.
• 1:42:56
  Tony Smith: You know prices because now you fixated on that price.
• 1:43:00
  Tony Smith: You know, if I say you say you want a talking head, and I'm like what do you need?
• 1:43:04
  Tony Smith: Like I don't know what you know.
• 1:43:05
  Tony Smith: Can you just give me a base, a ballpark?
• 1:43:06
  Tony Smith: I'm like, and if I say it's 3500, now you fixate on 3500, not knowing that you need a teleprompter, you need backlighting, you need front lighting, I need mics, I need, um, a three-man crew.
• 1:43:18
  Tony Smith: You know now that 3500 just came to 75, yeah, and now now you come back and be mad at me, like I said, why did it double?
• 1:43:26
  Tony Smith: Well, it didn't double.
• 1:43:27
  Tony Smith: This is what you needed, based off of what you asked for and to and for me to get out of that.
• 1:43:33
  Tony Smith: It's all my proposal.
• 1:43:34
  Tony Smith: So when I show your proposal.
• 1:43:37
  Tony Smith: It lists everything that I have and I'm bringing to that shoot.
• 1:43:40
  Tony Smith: So I have check boxes in my proposal to where I check beforehand and if you say it's too much, then uncheck what you don't need.
• 1:43:47
  Tony Smith: It ain't based off me, it's based off the price is already in there, so don't so, so, so, so you can't come to me and say, hey, this is too much, when you see the full breakdown or every penny that I charge you know my proposal, so that's pretty cool.
• 1:43:59
  Vipul Bindra: I'm glad you brought that up.
• 1:44:00
  Vipul Bindra: I would love to go more into that.
• 1:44:02
  Vipul Bindra: So the way you're doing your proposal, which what?
• 1:44:03
  Vipul Bindra: What software are you using for your?
• 1:44:05
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, right now I'm using proposal, fire proposal okay, and then, um, so how are you breaking down your proposal?
• 1:44:11
  Vipul Bindra: And I love that idea of saying so you, the customer, could just check.
• 1:44:14
  Vipul Bindra: It's like I want this this yeah so how?
• 1:44:17
  Vipul Bindra: Give me an example?
• 1:44:18
  Vipul Bindra: For a corporate video or whatever.
• 1:44:21
  Tony Smith: So basically, so I'm trying to think of a shoot that I just shot.
• 1:44:25
  Tony Smith: I just do all rent, yeah.
• 1:44:27
  Tony Smith: So basically I'm a proposal I go through, you know who we are, what we're going to do, who you are, and then from there I have three tiers of basic packages you got to.
• 1:44:39
  Vipul Bindra: You know, um, executive corporate presidential so good, better, best strategy yeah, get better best yeah um, then from there, they choose those packages and then you'll highlight, you know, what's the name again?
• 1:44:52
  Tony Smith: executive, presidential and executive okay, no executive presidential.
• 1:44:57
  Vipul Bindra: And what?
• 1:44:58
  Tony Smith: uh, just threw me off.
• 1:44:59
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, my bad, my bad, I know sorry that was a nugget you threw me at and I was like oh.
• 1:45:03
  Vipul Bindra: I got to know because the naming is also important.
• 1:45:07
  Tony Smith: I just lost that train of thought that fast Executive residential He'll come back to me but basically it's a play off the corporate level media.
• 1:45:17
  Tony Smith: I'm still going with that corporate structure when it makes sense.
• 1:45:22
  Tony Smith: But basically you got good, better best um, and as you know you're good is basically just you just showing up kind of thing, and your best is like, so outrageous, like okay, I can't afford that.
• 1:45:33
  Tony Smith: So let's go to the middle.
• 1:45:34
  Tony Smith: So you're trying to funnel it to them to the middle, um, but then within they can de-click and click certain add-ons.
• 1:45:44
  Tony Smith: So an add-on for, say, we're doing a talking head, we're doing a talking head.
• 1:45:51
  Tony Smith: So you choose the best package.
• 1:45:53
  Tony Smith: I mean you choose the better package.
• 1:45:54
  Tony Smith: It comes with two cameras set up.
• 1:45:57
  Tony Smith: You know, main light back light.
• 1:45:59
  Tony Smith: Two mics, boom plus laugh, standard.
• 1:46:01
  Tony Smith: You know, main light back light, um, two mics, boom plus laugh, um, standard, you know.
• 1:46:05
  Tony Smith: But you say, hey, I actually want to do a psa or something to talk to my, you know, talking to my crowd.
• 1:46:11
  Tony Smith: Okay, great, you don't need.
• 1:46:13
  Tony Smith: You know you're going to need another camera.
• 1:46:15
  Tony Smith: I'm gonna need an, um, uh, teleprompter, I'm gonna need this and that.
• 1:46:20
  Vipul Bindra: So go in and check that, check that, check that um now you're like actual video, or are you putting equipment in there?
• 1:46:26
  Vipul Bindra: Does it say add psa?
• 1:46:28
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah?
• 1:46:28
  Vipul Bindra: So video, or does it say no, add a teleprompter or this or whatever?
• 1:46:31
  Vipul Bindra: So we'll say what are you trying to actually sell to them, at least on their side?
• 1:46:35
  Tony Smith: so on that side it actually says teleprompter.
• 1:46:37
  Tony Smith: It says, uh, third camera, so if you say that, so, so, so again we go through a conversation call.
• 1:46:45
  Tony Smith: So I already know kind of somewhat of what you want.
• 1:46:47
  Tony Smith: So I'll go and already check it already.
• 1:46:48
  Tony Smith: So if I, if I know that you need that, then I know I'm gonna need a third shoot, I mean a third person, and you're gonna need to tell a problem.
• 1:46:54
  Tony Smith: You need that.
• 1:46:55
  Tony Smith: So it's gonna be already checked already.
• 1:46:56
  Tony Smith: But it's gonna say add-on, so it's gonna say video add-ons with a whole list of add-ons for that.
• 1:47:01
  Tony Smith: So I have multiple contracts and multiple proposals for different shooting.
• 1:47:05
  Tony Smith: So everything's not on there, but I know what you know for this type of shooting.
• 1:47:09
  Tony Smith: This is what kind of standard for this so if you say I want everything, you go and check everything and you see the price.
• 1:47:16
  Tony Smith: Okay, now let me take that off.
• 1:47:18
  Tony Smith: So then you see the price going back down.
• 1:47:23
  Tony Smith: That way that it ain't on me, it's on you to choose what you want.
• 1:47:25
  Tony Smith: But basically it's a page full of video add-ons that says teleprompter and then it explains what a teleprompter is.
• 1:47:28
  Tony Smith: Uh, it'll say third shooter and it'll explain why third shooter is needed.
• 1:47:33
  Tony Smith: It'll say, um ta, you know, just because you got this, now I need this person to come in and do this, so it will list all the video add-ons from that.
• 1:47:43
  Tony Smith: And then that's the production side.
• 1:47:46
  Tony Smith: I also have pre-production, so I don't charge for consultations, that's free.
• 1:47:51
  Tony Smith: But say that I need to go.
• 1:47:53
  Tony Smith: Do you know scouting locations?
• 1:47:56
  Tony Smith: I need to scout locations.
• 1:47:57
  Tony Smith: That's a price that you can check, or you do it yourself.
• 1:48:00
  Tony Smith: Uncheck that.
• 1:48:01
  Tony Smith: If you need model scouting, I have that in the contract.
• 1:48:04
  Tony Smith: You check that if you need to.
• 1:48:05
  Tony Smith: If you need models that say that you don't want to talk but you want to find, you know.
• 1:48:09
  Tony Smith: You know, have somebody else talk, or you need background, anything like that, I can go find models for you script writing, all that is in there as well.
• 1:48:20
  Tony Smith: So basically, so basically I said my proposal was a one-stop shop where I don't have to do any any extra talking, even the post production, even posts.
• 1:48:27
  Tony Smith: You know we do standard.
• 1:48:28
  Tony Smith: You know, minute, 30 seconds, depending on what you want.
• 1:48:31
  Tony Smith: Yeah, um time rate.
• 1:48:43
  Tony Smith: Do we need this hd?
• 1:48:44
  Tony Smith: Do we need ultra hd?
• 1:48:44
  Tony Smith: Uh, how fast do you need it?
• 1:48:45
  Tony Smith: You know standard is two weeks.
• 1:48:45
  Tony Smith: You want it faster than that?
• 1:48:46
  Tony Smith: That's a fee.
• 1:48:46
  Tony Smith: You want it even faster than that?
• 1:48:47
  Tony Smith: You want a couple days from now, it's even even.
• 1:48:48
  Tony Smith: It's a rate for that.
• 1:48:49
  Tony Smith: Yeah, um, you want the raw files?
• 1:48:51
  Tony Smith: You're going to pay for that.
• 1:48:53
  Tony Smith: That's in there, you can check it.
• 1:48:55
  Tony Smith: Yeah, but their rate for that?
• 1:48:57
  Tony Smith: You don't want that.
• 1:48:58
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, you don't want that rate yeah, you don't want to to rate yeah, so it's going to be a lot.
• 1:49:03
  Tony Smith: It's going to be a lot, um.
• 1:49:04
  Tony Smith: So all that is in there, and then after that I have my monthly subscription.
• 1:49:08
  Tony Smith: So so say you like this and you want to do this monthly, I can?
• 1:49:11
  Tony Smith: You know it's a checkbox for that.
• 1:49:12
  Tony Smith: Let's do this every month.
• 1:49:13
  Tony Smith: So again, my proposal is once I talk to you and I send you that, you choose the price you know, what it reminds me of is that have you ever been to one of those dumpling restaurants?
• 1:49:23
  Vipul Bindra: I don't know where they give you, or maybe a sushi restaurant where the menu actually has, like, is laminated and you give you a sharpie.
• 1:49:30
  Vipul Bindra: You check what you get and you give it to the chef and then he gives it to you and you always end up getting more than what you wanted to get.
• 1:49:38
  Vipul Bindra: So I see, you see, and this is why, like I said, I loving this talk, because I my whole perspective um is different like I give them good, better, best, yeah, but that is the price, right, that's what they're gonna get, based on what we talked about.
• 1:49:50
  Vipul Bindra: But talking talking about our friend alex minor that we brought earlier years ago, I talked to him and he mentioned, you know, these add-on things and I was like I don't want to make a list, but I did add a few add-ons and they, like you know, add a sound guy or add a makeup artist or whatever, and I did find, surprisingly enough, people will actually choose that and makes our product better.
• 1:50:10
  Vipul Bindra: And, you know, it doesn't hurt me because it's just on there on the software that I'm using and it adds zero seconds to my anything because it's just in the template and it can be a little bit extra revenue.
• 1:50:26
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, it's helping me be able to provide income to local or wherever I'm going, professionals in the industry, and why wouldn't I want to do that?
• 1:50:34
  Vipul Bindra: But this is a very good approach and has it worked out for you?
• 1:50:38
  Vipul Bindra: Like, have people picked a lot of things that you weren't expecting them to pick?
• 1:50:41
  Tony Smith: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:50:42
  Tony Smith: And it also gives that that whole energy off of you because you feel guilty, you know, throwing in extra stuff that that they don't need.
• 1:50:52
  Tony Smith: And now you show up with this and then like I didn't ask for that, why, why, why is it here and why are you charging me for it?
• 1:50:56
  Tony Smith: You know, so it was like now you got to go back and forth with OL, but if you check it it's on you.
• 1:51:06
  Tony Smith: You chose what you wanted.
• 1:51:07
  Tony Smith: Yeah, it's nothing on me.
• 1:51:08
  Tony Smith: So now when I say so, now when it says it starts at 35, it starts at 35.
• 1:51:12
  Tony Smith: That's basic with nothing else to add on.
• 1:51:14
  Tony Smith: But then when you check everything and it goes up to 75, to 17,000.
• 1:51:19
  Vipul Bindra: That it's on you, that's on you.
• 1:51:21
  Vipul Bindra: But also, do you find then people can, because a lot of people do that for me?
• 1:51:25
  Vipul Bindra: There's also skill in this industry, meaning, like you know, for example, I've been to, you know, I don't know tens of thousands, I've seen a lot of problems I can be on set and be prepared for more solutions right.
• 1:51:38
  Vipul Bindra: Plus, I'm like a simple thing like I'm recording to two cards they're very high quality cards and I'm backing them up to three places, then I'm putting them in cloud.
• 1:51:47
  Vipul Bindra: You know, there's also a reliability factor, why I'm like somebody should hire me and pay me um things that clients typically don't see, right?
• 1:51:54
  Vipul Bindra: Um, so what I'm trying to say is like but there's also a factor like between picking video people is the skill level.
• 1:52:00
  Vipul Bindra: Um, how do you find and I find a lot of clients that are hiring us are not experts in our field, right?
• 1:52:06
  Vipul Bindra: it's one thing for an agency that is experienced because they can see through all this.
• 1:52:11
  Vipul Bindra: But what I'm saying is a typical small business owner doesn't know difference between somebody just coming out of a full sale or whatever, right, being brand new with an fx6 because they just give you one right Part of the course, versus somebody who's like an experienced DP, who's been doing this for years and has solutions to solve most common problems and anyway, they will just look at this as a DP with an FX6.
• 1:52:35
  Vipul Bindra: This is a DP with an FX6, right, because that's what they say.
• 1:52:36
  Vipul Bindra: Right, right, right.
• 1:52:37
  Vipul Bindra: The point I'm trying to make is right, because that's what they say.
• 1:52:38
  Vipul Bindra: The point I'm trying to make is do you find yourself that your clients some it may not be all can go then now start rate shopping because they're like oh, he's charging me, I don't know what your rate, but a hundred bucks for a teleprompter, 500 for a start shooter, and you know, I don't know for editing extra.
• 1:53:02
  Vipul Bindra: And now they'll go to someone else and hopefully or not hopefully, but let's assume they're like you too they're doing a breakdown, and then they can go.
• 1:53:11
  Vipul Bindra: Oh, but his second shooter is only 450 versus 500.
• 1:53:16
  Vipul Bindra: Maybe I got to go with him, even though we don't know the skill level.
• 1:53:19
  Vipul Bindra: The end result is the video right, which is what matters, right?
• 1:53:23
  Vipul Bindra: And we don't know, obviously, the skill level difference.
• 1:53:25
  Vipul Bindra: And this one I'm saying for a client side perspective.
• 1:53:27
  Vipul Bindra: Do you think that that is a case?
• 1:53:30
  Tony Smith: Or could that be hurting you?
• 1:53:31
  Tony Smith: It's definitely a case as far as hurting.
• 1:53:33
  Tony Smith: I wouldn't say no just because that means that you weren't meant for me to work with.
• 1:53:43
  Tony Smith: I mean to work with um, but I'm we.
• 1:53:44
  Tony Smith: I mean we all price shop.
• 1:53:45
  Tony Smith: I mean we all.
• 1:53:45
  Tony Smith: You know we all do it.
• 1:53:46
  Tony Smith: So it's a human nature just to find the cheapest price for the best.
• 1:53:47
  Tony Smith: No, find the best item for that for for the cheapest price out there.
• 1:53:50
  Tony Smith: That's, I mean, that's what everybody does, so I don't have a problem with that.
• 1:53:53
  Tony Smith: My thing is that's why I build my company the way it is, just because I know most people don't do what I do as far as proposal work does.
• 1:54:00
  Tony Smith: When you look at my proposal, I've not one client yet has not been amazed by my proposal based off of how I put it together.
• 1:54:09
  Tony Smith: Most people I know just send out you know where are they called?
• 1:54:15
  Tony Smith: Not quotes, but where are they called Estimates.
• 1:54:18
  Tony Smith: You just send out estimates with a couple of lines a camera package, light package.
• 1:54:22
  Tony Smith: You know, know my fee yeah total.
• 1:54:24
  Tony Smith: You know.
• 1:54:25
  Tony Smith: He's like okay, what is?
• 1:54:25
  Tony Smith: What is it?
• 1:54:27
  Tony Smith: That's all I get you know.
• 1:54:27
  Tony Smith: But when I break down, when I break down everything and there's an actual contract with all the clauses and everything in it, and it's like it's personalized with your picture and name and all that, and he's like, oh man, you put working in this like this is you're impressing them because now it's like, oh well, you seem like a professional.
• 1:54:45
  Tony Smith: Yeah versus yeah, he might be cheaper, but is he coming with the same quality?
• 1:54:49
  Tony Smith: That I'm coming with is?
• 1:54:51
  Tony Smith: Is he showing you the same value up front before you can work together, you know?
• 1:54:54
  Tony Smith: So I'm coming with a.
• 1:54:56
  Tony Smith: I'm coming from a place where I want to be professional as possible.
• 1:55:00
  Tony Smith: I want to be an actual company.
• 1:55:02
  Tony Smith: Where you're looking at me like an actual company.
• 1:55:03
  Tony Smith: I am an actual company.
• 1:55:05
  Tony Smith: So I want to present myself as an actual company, not just a freelancer.
• 1:55:08
  Tony Smith: Who would you know, would it just?
• 1:55:09
  Tony Smith: I mean no shot to freelancers, but I'm just saying with you know just one sheet, and you just saying it's my price.
• 1:55:14
  Tony Smith: Yeah.
• 1:55:16
  Tony Smith: I want to let you know what we're doing.
• 1:55:18
  Tony Smith: Yeah let you know what we're doing, yeah, why we're doing it.
• 1:55:19
  Tony Smith: Because you told me your why and I want to give you proof as far as veto, testimonials and stuff like that that showcases my work and in there as well.
• 1:55:26
  Tony Smith: So it's like there's there's no guessing of what we can do for you, you know so preach my friend.
• 1:55:32
  Vipul Bindra: So now.
• 1:55:33
  Vipul Bindra: So it's just like amazing and I love hearing it, because you know we're doing similar things, or we're trying to do similar things, but at the same time, you bring this amazing different perspective.
• 1:55:41
  Vipul Bindra: And that's why it's important to have these conversations, because now I can hear your side and your way of doing it and you can hear my side and obviously we're both trying to do the same thing make an awesome video for client um and seeing what's working, what's not working.
• 1:55:54
  Vipul Bindra: So I'm loving this man this is great um, thanks for telling me all about it.
• 1:55:58
  Vipul Bindra: I would love to off the camera once we get.
• 1:56:00
  Vipul Bindra: I would love to see your proposal.
• 1:56:02
  Vipul Bindra: I want to see all the rates, man.
• 1:56:03
  Vipul Bindra: I want to see how you're doing it, because I'm already intrigued, so I'm so glad we had this conversation.
• 1:56:09
  Vipul Bindra: Now, as we're wrapping this, before we end this, I really want to know because, like I said, I'm learning so much from you today.
• 1:56:16
  Vipul Bindra: I what are you talking about, like, how are you handling your calls or your meetings?
• 1:56:22
  Vipul Bindra: So obviously they've approached you and before you send this right, there's a gap in between.
• 1:56:27
  Vipul Bindra: So they've approached you and you've sent them this rate list type of proposal which is and, like you said, they're loving it because you and you customize it, you built it to your their.
• 1:56:36
  Vipul Bindra: So there's a big thing in between.
• 1:56:40
  Vipul Bindra: That you're doing is either call or in person.
• 1:56:41
  Vipul Bindra: Which one would you prefer?
• 1:56:42
  Tony Smith: so me, I love in person, because telling somebody no in person is a lot harder than on the phone when you sit next next to somebody and you're actually having a conversation about money, you know if that person's not a you know, not an asshole or whatever.
• 1:56:54
  Tony Smith: They don't care about your feelings, but but.
• 1:56:56
  Tony Smith: But somebody with feelings will understand like, okay, I can't, I can't, let me talk to him later off the phone, tell him no, but for me I prefer face to face just because it's more personable.
• 1:57:06
  Tony Smith: I can actually look in your eyes and you can see my eyes and know that I'm telling the truth and I'm and I'm and I'm loyal and I'm, and you know, and I know what I mean and I'll say what I say.
• 1:57:14
  Tony Smith: Um, so I definitely love you know face to face.
• 1:57:18
  Tony Smith: So that's why, even even online, I'll do a zoom versus, you know, just on a phone call, because anybody can be on the phone yeah you know, I love to see your face while I'm talking to you.
• 1:57:27
  Tony Smith: I love to see what you're doing, because if you're not engaged with what I'm doing, then how we work together, you know how we're going to work, you know.
• 1:57:32
  Tony Smith: I wanted to be a truthful conversation, you know, and I want you to actually meet.
• 1:57:36
  Tony Smith: I want you to actually want me to work on your videos and not just pick a random person because anybody can work on your videos.
• 1:57:42
  Tony Smith: But I want to be because I want to build a relationship.
• 1:57:44
  Tony Smith: I want to.
• 1:57:45
  Tony Smith: I wanted to make it be personable because I consider I don't I don't go that far as saying as friends, but you know, at least, at least to where we can, you know, be cordial and where I can call you and say happy birthday or something.
• 1:57:56
  Tony Smith: You know, not just be a random number, like OK, that's just a video guy, don't worry about who that is.
• 1:58:01
  Tony Smith: You know, I want to be able to, you know, call you personally, like, hey, congratulations on your daughter, or invite you to my daughter's birthday party.
• 1:58:08
  Tony Smith: That's just me personally.
• 1:58:10
  Tony Smith: I mean, that's just me personally as far as how I like to run my business, as far as my customers.
• 1:58:16
  Tony Smith: I like to be on a personal level, because I just feel like personal will bring in more money, because now they can talk to other people about you on a personal level.
• 1:58:25
  Tony Smith: You know, I know him as a person versus just a company and you know, even though the company does great work, the person behind the company is an amazing person as well.
• 1:58:35
  Vipul Bindra: Exactly, that's awesome, man.
• 1:58:37
  Vipul Bindra: You're building relationships.
• 1:58:38
  Vipul Bindra: So how do you tackle these?
• 1:58:40
  Vipul Bindra: Call these either Zoom or in-person meetings.
• 1:58:43
  Vipul Bindra: How do you approach them?
• 1:58:44
  Vipul Bindra: Do you have a structure or like, how do you uh, especially on a get to like, how do you tell them how this proposal is going to come, what to do on it, or whatever?
• 1:58:53
  Vipul Bindra: How are you handling that conversation?
• 1:58:55
  Tony Smith: Uh, so first I'll come through with um I use what was it?
• 1:58:59
  Tony Smith: Um Miller notes.
• 1:59:00
  Tony Smith: So I'll come in with a basically like a PowerPoint, basically just a structure, a front, to tell it what, what we're capable to do.
• 1:59:08
  Tony Smith: You know what my concepts were when you first approached me.
• 1:59:11
  Tony Smith: Put my thoughts down there and show them my thoughts, and show them what I think would be best, and then we can break it down from there.
• 1:59:17
  Tony Smith: Me, I approach every business different.
• 1:59:20
  Tony Smith: I don't have a structure.
• 1:59:20
  Tony Smith: I just kind of just flow with.
• 1:59:22
  Tony Smith: You know what they give me, what's the energy they give me, and we go from there because I already have my.
• 1:59:26
  Tony Smith: You know, I already have my bullet points set up.
• 1:59:28
  Tony Smith: Yeah, I already have what you're looking for, so I can go off of that and put in my thoughts and then we can talk about that and then break it down from there okay.
• 1:59:36
  Vipul Bindra: So and then now you've come up with the proposal.
• 1:59:38
  Vipul Bindra: You are well, you know what they want to do.
• 1:59:39
  Vipul Bindra: You've come up with a proposal.
• 1:59:40
  Vipul Bindra: Well, you know what they want to do.
• 1:59:41
  Vipul Bindra: You've come up with the right solution.
• 1:59:42
  Vipul Bindra: Do you write there and then tell them the price, or do you say I'm going to send you a proposal?
• 1:59:46
  Tony Smith: I say I send a proposal, I don't tell them price at all.
• 1:59:50
  Tony Smith: I send a proposal and let them see the price right in the mail.
• 1:59:54
  Vipul Bindra: So you send the proposal after the meeting.
• 1:59:56
  Vipul Bindra: Yeah, Okay.
• 1:59:57
  Vipul Bindra: And they have never seen the price, never seen the price.
• 2:00:04
  Tony Smith: Do you explain to them, like, how the software works, or you just let them figure it out?
• 2:00:07
  Tony Smith: So I send it to them?
• 2:00:07
  Tony Smith: Yeah, so, so so I send it to them and I let them look at it, because as soon as they open it up, I get an email saying saying you know, saying they're opening it up With their software Proposify, you can actually see where they spend the most time at.
• 2:00:16
  Tony Smith: So you can actually see that they spent the most time on the pricing or or the most time on the videos that's in there.
• 2:00:21
  Tony Smith: And so now when I follow up with you, I'm like, hey, I seem to spend a lot of time on a pricing and I understand that it's a lot.
• 2:00:27
  Tony Smith: But let me you know, let me reassure you, why is this?
• 2:00:30
  Tony Smith: Okay, let me tell you why is this.
• 2:00:32
  Tony Smith: You're using the analytics you can see where they spend how much time they spend what they do.
• 2:00:47
  Vipul Bindra: That's incredible.
• 2:00:48
  Vipul Bindra: You know to be able to figure out, you know where they're at or what's maybe causing the hiccup Cause for me.
• 2:00:50
  Vipul Bindra: Uh, I'm not even sending them the proposal until I'm sure they're there, Right?
• 2:00:55
  Tony Smith: Otherwise it's even different.
• 2:00:56
  Tony Smith: Yeah, so what's?
• 2:00:57
  Vipul Bindra: the point of sending a proposal, wasting my time, Because at the end, if I'm sending a proposal, they should already be ready to buy.
• 2:01:03
  Vipul Bindra: But no, that's incredible man.
• 2:01:06
  Vipul Bindra: This has been amazing, so awesome.
• 2:01:09
  Vipul Bindra: Thanks for coming.
• 2:01:10
  Vipul Bindra: It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
• 2:01:12
  Vipul Bindra: Before we go, though, is there anything else you want to say or talk or ask about, or I don't know?
• 2:01:16
  Vipul Bindra: Shout out I don't know.
• 2:01:18
  Vipul Bindra: Tell people your Instagram.
• 2:01:19
  Tony Smith: I don't know oh yeah, we gotta do this again.
• 2:01:21
  Tony Smith: You know, this has been fun.
• 2:01:22
  Tony Smith: You're welcome.
• 2:01:23
  Vipul Bindra: Hey, we're just trying this.
• 2:01:23
  Vipul Bindra: Like I said, I just wanted to do this and I'm already like look, we just talked for two hours and I feel like there was so much to learn.
• 2:01:28
  Tony Smith: Yeah, we ain't even scratched the surface, and I've been doing this for 15 years and I learned so much.
• 2:01:36
  Tony Smith: Entertainment man long plane rides long drives, I mean there's no, I guess we're two hours and we can talk for another six hours but now you know again, my name is tony, owner of corporate level media.
• 2:01:49
  Tony Smith: Um, that's corporate level everywhere.
• 2:01:51
  Tony Smith: Um.
• 2:01:51
  Tony Smith: Instagram, corporate level, facebook, youtube, corporate level.
• 2:01:55
  Tony Smith: Um.
• 2:01:56
  Tony Smith: You also follow my personal instagram, which which is ToneDeaf Tone underscore Deaf 314.
• 2:02:01
  Tony Smith: It's T-O-N-E underscore D-E-F 314.
• 2:02:05
  Tony Smith: It's my personal.
• 2:02:07
  Tony Smith: Again.
• 2:02:08
  Tony Smith: There ain't much on there because you know, I focus more on clients and that's actually one of my goals for this year is to get more, you know, social presence out there.
• 2:02:16
  Tony Smith: Same thing with me, man.
• 2:02:17
  Vipul Bindra: I've been so, so busy working.
• 2:02:20
  Vipul Bindra: Like I said, even this took two years to make it happen, while I was saying over and over I gotta record these conversations that I keep having with people uh, but no, I, that's my goal too this year.
• 2:02:28
  Vipul Bindra: We gotta be more active on social media, um, and share more so people can uh follow.
• 2:02:33
  Vipul Bindra: But no, go follow tony and uh, man, thanks again for coming.
• 2:02:37
  Vipul Bindra: You're welcome back anytime.
• 2:02:38
  Vipul Bindra: Let's try how the season one goes and, if incredible, we'd love to have you back in season two and continue this conversation.
• 2:02:44
  Vipul Bindra: I'm pretty sure we'll learn even more.
• 2:02:46
  Tony Smith: And, like I said, maybe we should bring the proposal.
• 2:02:48
  Vipul Bindra: I would love to find a way, you know, but the eighth time to put it up and let people explore, as long as you don't mind, because I'm all about like sharing knowledge, because Only brings more money than takes anything away.
• 2:02:59
  Vipul Bindra: So I really appreciate you.
• 2:03:01
  Vipul Bindra: Again, man, thank you for coming.
• 2:03:02
  Tony Smith: Appreciate it, thank you.