Vipul Bindra: 0:13

Welcome, Alex, to the podcast. I can't. I'm so excited to have you. I hope the guests heard that when we started live streaming this, so I really appreciate you again the taking the time and, funny enough, before we even sat down on the chairs, you showed up and we just started talking business that's what it always happens and and you know this I've been saying for years we will need to hear these conversations because you know it doesn't matter.

Vipul Bindra: 0:38

I've been doing this 15 years as a freelancer and then last almost six and a half of it as a production company and there's still so much for me to learn, and you were helping me level up just a few minutes ago, and I feel like these conversations need to be recorded and shared with people so we can all help each other level up kind of just you know, be real. Hear from real people who are in the money in the video business, not in the course selling business. You know what I mean.

Alex Minor: 1:05

Um so I get it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:06

I don't think uh landing this all for free. So you know, people don't have to go spend a dollar to learn this info. So how have you been? First of all, I know you were.

Alex Minor: 1:14

We were supposed to have you a couple of weeks, few weeks back, and uh, you were stuck in a snowstorm or whatever yeah, I went back to maryland to visit family and, like the first time I was up there during the holidays in years and we get snow, which is what my kids were praying well, my son was praying for um and he was like thank god, it's new because he, they, you know, florida kids they've never seen snow before that's crazy yeah, so they got.

Vipul Bindra: 1:42

I mean my kids do the same thing, you know. They're just like I want snow and I'm like I don't know if I want snow, but OK, so that's great. At least you know the kids were happy and I'm so glad you made it back and now we have a chance to actually talk. How was your 2024?

Alex Minor: 1:59

I mean honestly, and I'm'm gonna just be totally transparent for people at home my 2024 business wise was probably the worst year I've had uh, worst year I've had probably since 2014, which is crazy and that's also crazy that you've been doing this long.

Vipul Bindra: 2:18

What year did you start roughly?

Alex Minor: 2:20

I mean, I've been in some form of media and entertainment all my adult life. Where it became my main source of income was back in 2011. I haven't had a job since 2010.

Vipul Bindra: 2:35

That's crazy to think about, was it?

Alex Minor: 2:36

2010? It's been so long now.

Alex Minor: 2:40

But yeah, I haven't had a job since 2011. April 2011 was the last time I walked out the doors of a corporate job and I got full-time into doing video production full-time, main source of income. In 2020 because I had no choice, like it wasn't something that I was planning on. I was still in, like, the corporate events world, mainly that's. What I went into in 2011 was the corporate events world, and I still do some of that work. But in 2020, when everything shut down, corporate events went away, I had my video production company on the side and I sat at home and quietly lost my mind for about three months when the AV industry shut down and then I said OK.

Alex Minor: 3:28

When the last check came in the mail I was like, ok, I've got to figure something out and we got to work.

Vipul Bindra: 3:35

And the rest is history. Funny enough, I think it was like a rematch on a Facebook group. So I was, I was in Orlando from 2010. And then, you know, later in the years I kind of left for a few years for Alabama. That's where I started my company and obviously I was trying to just climb my way back to Orlando. I had one goal. I was like I want to make this company successful. Oh, maybe two goals. And the second was somehow get back to Orlando, and as soon as you know, I use the pandemic as the the way out. Like most people, I was like, oh, I gotta leave. So I think I remember it was like almost like um, first end of 2020 or whatever.

Vipul Bindra: 4:11

I came back and, uh, so at that, during that time I was, I started my company in middle of nowhere, alabama. There was barely any resources. I've talked about it on this podcast. One company that didn't respond back. So I had to learn everything on my own and the only other resource I had was these facebook groups, you know, to see what other people are doing and what they're charging, what the deliverables look like. You know what I mean. I want to be because I was never worried about my craft. I had done this long enough. I was more worried about what to charge, what the business side of it was, and obviously you were one of the more active ones in that group yeah and then, as soon as I came back, uh, and I knew you were local, I hit you up.

Vipul Bindra: 4:48

Do you remember anything about that?

Alex Minor: 4:50

um, we met at austin's coffee and we just chopped it up for a good. I mean that I think we were supposed to meet for like 30 minutes and we ended up being there for like two hours just yeah you know just having a good old time and I think I remember hiring you also for a gig.

Vipul Bindra: 5:04

So gig popped up which was like green screen or something that was our first project yeah uh, having never worked together. But, like I said, I knew your skills, I'd seen your work. I was like hey, alex, I would, I would really like a dp, you know, uh.

Alex Minor: 5:18

And then that's how you introduced me to the project come out anyway I have no idea.

Vipul Bindra: 5:22

Oh, okay, let me say that here's why. And, funny enough, I was back in the day, so a lot of things changed since then. So that was my day when I was like, oh, we are only a production company, right, we had a base raid that came with four crew members, including me. You know, I didn't do individual dp work at all then. So, anyway, they called me and I was like, oh yeah, that's our base rate for crew members or whatever. Plus, you're going to need a producer slash script supervisor, because it was scripted and they wanted us to shoot on green screen and 20 by 20. So I had to go rent a 20 by 20 green screen.

Vipul Bindra: 5:53

Who has that? I mean, most I have is, you know, 12 by 12 or whatever. Anyway, no, the project, you know, I think we shot incredible. We shot at c log 2 you know c70s or whatever. I think that their post production was not the type of money they spent on it. No, no, so that's. That was one of my first few ones where I was like, okay, as long as you hire my crew. Normally I would be like, oh, we have to do post, but that came from an agency so with agency.

Vipul Bindra: 6:22

You know they do their post, so it was an agency that was hired by the client and then I was subbing for that agency, essentially. So, um, when we showed up, uh, we were never gonna do post, and I was always worried, because when you do green screen, I mean sure, nowadays we have ai matting and all that, but not not a few years ago. I think it was at 20, beginning of 2021, yeah anyway. So, yeah, when I looked the first time up you know I don't normally care about stuff that we're not editing, but I wanted to look I looked it up back, like I said, three years ago or whatever, four years ago, and I was like, uh, I don't want to be associated with this post we can show those jobs.

Vipul Bindra: 6:58

Yeah, I was like I will show the pre one and not saying like I don't know what budget they had, what timeline they had. So I don't want to say anything against the agency, but yeah.

Alex Minor: 7:08

Sometimes when you got to head off the footage you don't want to, you don't want anybody to know. Yeah, when I looked.

Vipul Bindra: 7:13

I was like this is supposed to look like the Matrix. This does not look. I mean, maybe the extra green is Matrix, but no, so that was one of those where I was like, okay, I'm never gonna show the edited of this, it'll be the unedited of it, but but it was incredible to hang out with you. I think that's where I met quentin. Yep, um, we had to fire a guy on set. I don't know if you remember that julie was there. I think we had a good.

Vipul Bindra: 7:37

Uh, you know it was a good day, yeah, people together, uh, and very eventful, very fun. Um, do you remember anything? I don't know if that shoot or, in general, working with me the first time I mean it was just a good experience.

Alex Minor: 7:50

I mean, uh, and, and it was fun to be on somebody else's set. Uh, I'm just so used to doing my own thing, which I think a lot of us are and and doing smaller jobs that you know, being on a bigger production, a bigger production, a bigger set, not having to be the one who's worrying about all the details and is like, hey, work the camera, it's like I can do that, yeah, and it was so good and that's what I love is having talented DP when I'm directing, because you know, like you said, you're worrying about it so much and, like I said, including firing a guy, that was so crazy to me.

Vipul Bindra: 8:26

but the back then, you know, even a little cough people would get uh, uh, and it was a client's request. There's somebody so in our team was it was coughing a little bit and they confirmed to us before production started that they didn't have covet or anything. But the client was like, as soon as I heard a cough they were like, uh, we don't feel comfortable having that person said and that's okay, you know you have to respect the client's wishes.

Vipul Bindra: 8:47

I was like, okay, but that also meant my production budget, and this is what I'm saying and I would love to talk later about money more. But like lessons learned, because I build total, like already I built the client but now we went over, so now I gotta pay you guys you have to a work extra, you and quentin who have to stay back, and that means I had to pay you guys extra. But the production company didn't get to pay me extra, so they had me uh, I said production, the agency, they had me, fired the guy but we had to not pick up his job. So I did not only have you guys stay late and work extra, and I lost money on all that overtime. So, uh, maybe sometimes I'm like ah, you know, I like the one amount. Right, hey, here's your total. But then it can have backfire when circumstances like that happen because I can't go back to the client and rebuild them, because you know, Well, you actually can if that's in your terms, yeah.

Alex Minor: 9:43

Because it just depends on how you set the terms of the billing, because a lot of people, whether you give them a flat rate, whether you give them a day rate with the stipulation that, hey, we charge, if we go over this amount of time, then we're going to bill you hourly for overtime. There's all sorts of different ways that you can structure the billing so that you don't get screwed over on that there's even ways that you can.

Alex Minor: 10:19

Well, in that situation where you're having to let somebody go because of the client's request, I wouldn't do this. But there's also ways that you can structure it to show extra concern for the client and benefit the client where it's like, hey, you can structure it so that, hey, if the job doesn't take this amount of hours, we bill you less because we weren't there as long. I know a lot of people don't like that, but you can do that. Or you can do it where, hey, if we got to bring on an extra person, it's gonna be because you know, what was originally stated.

Alex Minor: 10:46

It goes beyond that scope, then it's going to be this price. There's all sorts of ways that you can set up your pricing structure so that you don't get screwed. Yeah and then you can also have contingencies in your contract where it's like, hey, if you make this decision, it's going to cost you x.

Vipul Bindra: 11:00

If you make, if we make that decision, it's going to cost us x, or you're going to be protected against being billed extra, like there's all sorts of ways that you can do it and uh, that's very good point you bring up, and for me it's like all that is in the contract, because my contract's been the same, like you know, then, and they had signed it. Obviously my thing was those was, you know and again I completely agree with you, could have charged them extra, but uh, it was covid times and it was a covid related situation, not that again the guy had covid, it was just again, I don't know, I don't want to speak on his medical history. He said he didn't, he tested it, you know, but we didn't know until that morning. You know how she told us up front, you know. But the other thing being is the client was not comfortable and I'm like this is covid times, so you know it wasn't normally yeah.

Vipul Bindra: 11:48

So I'm like, uh, if, if we have to let him go, we have to let him go, you know, and I still paid him full rate and all that. You know, of course I'm not gonna dock his pay, even though we suffered, um, so it was kind of like, and do I want to bring up a covid thing? You know, like, hey, due to covid, we had to let this guy go. And I'm like, then I don't know who takes the liability, because at the end day the guy didn't tell me that he was gonna call, like he was already feeling that in the before he showed up. It's not, it didn't have it did.

Alex Minor: 12:13

It happened on set, it was, it was, it happened yeah, he was already in that circumstance, specifically because of the time that you were in.

Vipul Bindra: 12:22

I feel like it was the right decision to you know, swallow it, yeah, but um, normally no, you're right.

Alex Minor: 12:29

But normally, yeah, you would, that, you would. The clients got to pay for that because it was their decision. Um, but like, because of the time, because of the circumstance, the context of the situation, it was probably the right decision.

Vipul Bindra: 12:41

Yes, and and yeah, exactly, and I and I would hope that, uh, that wouldn't fly today, but also people wouldn't be that freaked out over a few coughs I mean, I mean, I still don't yeah I don't still recommend anyone showing up on set like sick anyway, like just if you. If you know it, it's one thing that happens on set, but if you already know it, just let the production know they. I would rather be planning for an out or change or something than doing it later.

Alex Minor: 13:08

But right because that's because that's not fair to the other people on the crew. Like if you show up and you know you're sick and you're working and then other people get sick, that affects their ability.

Vipul Bindra: 13:17

Because even if it's not, covid, we could still get other cough or whatever, or common cold, whatever you have. We don't want that and because you know we're working professionals, we don't want to lose working days because we don't need.

Vipul Bindra: 13:28

We don't need these sets being like elementary school germ factories yeah, so, uh, now, um, I completely understand, like you know you need the project or whatever, but trust me, I uh, you know you it's yeah, like I didn't have to get that guy again, you know. So it's kind of like that it wasn't worth something showing up yeah, I'd rather you've been up front like hey, this I'm feeling, um, blah, blah.

Vipul Bindra: 13:51

You know how, what do you think? Leave it on the production, because I would have normally been like, hey, yeah, you know, why don't you stay home, let me, let me call alex or somebody else on the crew and see if they have somebody else that can come. And i'm'm sure we would have figured it out, because I was also new.

Vipul Bindra: 14:04

I didn't have a network back then back here, so anything else you remember from that shoot, it was pretty fun. It's been a while, so I get it, but all I remember is us just having so much fun on set.

Alex Minor: 14:15

Yeah, it was fun. I liked working with you, being able to, you know, get some money in my homie's pocket, Quentin, by hooking you up with him. And so that's what it's about to me is being able to make money and help other people get money in their pocket.

Vipul Bindra: 14:34

Yeah, and then Quentin and I became friends. It's so crazy, like I said, we would have never met if it wasn't. And he told the story, how he met you on this podcast. So but, like I said, I mean that's how you build your network right. You meet with different people, you know you be on different sets and what's crazy is and I've told that story, so I won't go into that but like how I ended up pigeonholing for a while Quentin into being the audio guy Because he was just helping us do audio, I didn't know that. I was like I need an local audio guy. You know, I didn't. I didn't have that big of a network. Like I said, I just come back and um and uh obviously quentin came out.

Alex Minor: 15:14

He did great.

Vipul Bindra: 15:14

So I'm like, oh good, audio guy, so a few days after that I hired him as an audio guy and he did fine. So I'd never even once like and we never. We weren't friends at the beginning, we were just working. So I'm like, I don't. I'm like, oh good, audio guy. Then I come to find out he's like oh, I'm a camera guy, I'm the audio, just doing audio as you know. Side thing, because he knows about, you know, with live streaming guys yeah we learn everything.

Vipul Bindra: 15:33

So, anyway, and I was like, oh really, I pigeonholed you, I would have never known. So I was like, okay, let me bring you now as a camera guy or whatever, right. And then I learned the whole thing about AV and I'm like, come on, we have way more common interests than we talk about. And same thing with you. Initially we met doing DP and this type of work, but then, when I find out, going back to it for a decade, you were doing AV work which, like I said, was part of what kept me going through the pandemic was tons and tons of live streaming. It was part of what kept me going through the pandemic was tons and tons of live streaming. So how did you get into AV work and obviously clearly paid the bills for a long time.

Alex Minor: 16:10

I got into AV work by accident, sort of. So I went to Full Sail A lot of you probably know about Full Sail and when I came out I wanted to get into the news, because I went to Full Sail for audio, ironically enough, um and. But what I didn't know is that like full-time sound positions in the news industry have had been dying off. Luckily I was able to get a job at channel 13, which is a local cable news station in orlando, and I was doing audio there. But I was at the point where I hated my life because the environment just sucked. And finding out that audio was kind of a dying thing in the industry it kind of like also soured me and I was looking for another full-time job.

Alex Minor: 16:59

I ended up applying to an AV company for a full-time job, not really knowing what it was.

Alex Minor: 17:04

I just saw that they had audio as a position and I'm like okay, and they didn't hire me full-time but they hired me as a part-timer, which is what they call their freelancers, and that was my introduction to AV.

Alex Minor: 17:16

The first job they sent me out on was setting up for some conference late at night, had to go out, set up screens and run wires and all that stuff. That was my first exposure to AV and when I saw what it was and I started talking to other people who were working there and started finding out what the money was like and what you could possibly make, and you know, I started trying to get on with more companies and and luckily you know somebody when I was asking questions, a guy just took me aside. It was like here, take out a piece of paper, write down these names. He's like here, write down these names, phone numbers, hit these companies up. And that was the start of me freelancing in av was a guy, was just, you know, generous enough to like give me a list of names and be like call these companies, try to get on and shout out to that guy off to the races, yeah because that's the type of people we need in the industry, not the gatekeeper.

Alex Minor: 18:16

Yeah, a lot of people have that, that scarcity mindset, where they think, oh, if I give this guy a leg up, he's gonna take my clients. I'm like the only way somebody is gonna take your clients is if you f up.

Vipul Bindra: 18:28

Yeah, you know, if you don't, if you don't give the service you're supposed to, and if you're that easily replaced, then you know you need to work on yourself.

Alex Minor: 18:35

Exactly, yeah so so it's like so that's always been my attitude. If I lose a client, if I get replaced, it's because I did something wrong, not because somebody. I mean, now there is politics, there is, you know, people like I've had people try to ruin my career, um, so there there is somebody who doesn't like you, what? Not everybody's a good judge of character wow that's new one.

Vipul Bindra: 18:59

I've never met anyone who had anything bad so far I mean in the three, four years I've known you, anyone who said anything bad about, because I'm generally a nice guy but but, like I, I fully recognize that I have my quirks.

Alex Minor: 19:11

And there are people who either were you know, like me and you we meet and we're instantly gonna gel, or there's people who are gonna be like I don't know about that guy and and I'm okay with that because you know, that means the people who are around me are usually people that I can trust.

Vipul Bindra: 19:27

And no, I completely agree with you. There are always going to be people. You know we're humans raised under different circumstances. At the end of the day, we're the same but we're different, and you never know who you're going to gel with, who you're going to like, who's going to, and, at the end of the day, you also want to find people who motivate you. My who's going to and, at the end of the day, you also want to find people who motivate you. My biggest thing is, I could have done this long, long time ago. I didn't have the guidance, the mentorship around me to tell me Vipple, why aren't you starting a production company? Why aren't you making this bigger than yourself? Right, I was just so like.

Vipul Bindra: 19:55

I just want to be on set you know and I would take whatever just to be on set, and then that's why it had to happen the way, and I mean I'm not going to change the other side of the point is not everybody's built to to start a production company.

Alex Minor: 20:12

Um, some people are perfectly happy being freelancers and that's okay, and you can have a long, productive, active career, uh, just being a freelancer. You don't have to start a company because, and I mean, you can start a one-person company and also be fine, yeah, and operate as a production company, get bigger clients. I mean, for, to be honest, but that's most of what you do is you you're mostly a one-man operation, but you've grown to have a significant amount of revenue and in a significant level of clients.

Vipul Bindra: 20:46

Yes, you're absolutely right, I do realize the company is mostly me, but I don't want to take away from all the people, like we just met, julie, who keep me, you know, sane and who keep, like, my workflow separate. So I do have, you know, post-production handled by her, and then the other freelancers that we've hired, uh, but they're almost get full-time work, and then an animation department. But now, yes, I do, you know, work with a lot of freelancers on the shooting side. But, you're right, yes, I am, the company is just basically me, uh, but I don't take away from all the people that help me.

Alex Minor: 21:21

Thank you guys, thank you yes yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that yeah I mean, and I think I think more guys who are freelancers but looking for ways to level up and scale their careers need to be open to the idea of hiring help. A lot of guys are stuck in the mindset of I have to do everything myself, and that can be a fast recipe for burnout, depending on what you're doing.

Vipul Bindra: 21:46

No, you're absolutely right. As long as you do what you like and you're passionate about it and you don't give up, you'll find success. And if that is that, hey, I just want to be a DP or a freelancer or whatever you want to be absolutely go for it. Because, like you said, I completely agree. This production owner, company owner life is not for everyone. It's long days, long nights, very little sleep, sometimes weeks away from family. You know it's not for everyone.

Vipul Bindra: 22:14

But if you again give it your 100%, just like anything, there's a lot of potential for revenue and success. So it's kind of like, you know, as long as you're willing to put in, you can find. You know it'll give you the outcome if that's what you desire. And at the end day, you know, I've had people here who are just single one person, people, you know, maybe with an awesome pocket, making six figures too. So if that's the route you want to go with, then that's the route you go with and that's what I love is, uh, just conversations with people who are trying to make a living doing video, but completely different paths, right yeah and and still finding success.

Vipul Bindra: 22:51

Uh, because it doesn't have to be a linear path like, hey, do this I don't think success is ever a linear path now, but I am happy to like share at least everything I learned and I did, if somebody wants. I don't know if it'll work if you 100% copy me, but I'm happy if you want to. I'm happy to share because I don't have that scarcity mindset. I don't care if you copy me and that's how.

Alex Minor: 23:11

I am with people, I'm an open book, Working with Quentin, working with Ben. Over the years, I've always tried to put them on game, show them things that I've learned, tell them things that I've learned. Tell them things that I learned. I mean, even if they want to look at the invoices and see how I'm charging, like I don't, care, Like because you know, either either you're going to want to work with me or you're not going to want to work with me.

Vipul Bindra: 23:40

And and and you know, like I said, if I lose a client, it's it's because I messed up. Yeah, just sharing information doesn't make you lose a client, rather than make they like you. I was just hanging out with a client of client, technically, uh, but as soon as I told them of the podcast, they were so excited. They're like why we want to watch it and stuff like that, because they get intrigued and they want to know. So what I'm saying is uh, you know it's the relationship that you build and you go do a shoot and then you hang out and have dinners after, or you know, those are the good clients, so they're not going to replace you.

Alex Minor: 24:08

And again, if you're that easily replace, see, I need to learn that level of relationship building because I don't think I've, I don't think I've ever like just hung out with a really dude.

Vipul Bindra: 24:19

I gotta show you footage. Then, when I recorded the client, I guess client's employee would be the right way, but my client I guess the whole company is my client. But like our clients, clients to share, um, but funny enough, he was literally had sparklers in a restaurant going. Yeah, they went nuts, but that's the fun about it. That's what I'm saying. Like, people need to, you know, just have fun and be chill and build relationships. And now, not all clients do that, let me be real. Uh, but sometimes that can be the backfired. I've been uninvited, that's what I was telling them. They were like oh, do you? I hope you don't mind coming. I was like no, you guys are great. I love coming out to dinners with you. I've been stuck in situations where a ceo will invite you and then now you're in a freaking dinner with these c-suite people and it's so boring. It's like what am I doing here?

Alex Minor: 25:06

like I'd rather just not eat sometimes but one thing that av has taught me is that sometimes you just need to show up. Yeah, like because. Because one big mistake that I made early on in av is that I never tried to hang out with people. I never like when people would, uh, after this, you know, after a show day, would want to go out to dinner or to go to the bar, hang out like. I would never do that.

Alex Minor: 25:32

Um yeah, and that's, and that's and that, and it's not that that was bad, but it just that's where a lot of people build relationships and bonds, where, like, they will recommend you to other companies if somebody says to them, hey, I need this person, for I need a person for such and such, or you're already booked for a show, and they say, hey, we also need somebody who does this. Do you know anybody? The people that they hung out with at the bar or that they had a good time with on the last show, those are the people there they're thinking about and because I didn't do that, like, I really stayed to myself a lot, um, I'm not the person that they're thinking of to get those calls no, and I completely get that.

Vipul Bindra: 26:09

That's why I like to, you know, hire people who are more extroverts, because so, and plus, these are the type of people that I would be more comfortable with. So I can, I don't mind hanging out because, same thing, I'm an introvert, I especially if it's not video people. I don't want to hang out with them and plus, I don't drink. So I tend to. Uh, here's my technique if somebody was to copy see, I don't want to drink, I don't like drinking, I don't like hanging out and just doing random. No, I'll get one, I'll, so I'll take whatever. So I wait what they order. They're like give me a heineken, whatever. Whatever they order, I'm like just give me one of those and then I'll just sip that throughout the whole time while they have had six. I'm still on that first one.

Vipul Bindra: 26:49

That was you know, I'm not really drinking, but I'm not also the outcast because you also don't want to be to me. If, like, I'm there and I'm like, oh, I'm not going to drink, then they're not going to hang out with you a lot of time. It's like hey, do you want to grab a drink? So I don't want to go there and personally be ordering, like a water or whatever. So what I do is just give me one of whatever they get and then I'm just going to slow it down. I'm just not going to drink it like normally. I'm just take a sip every 10 minutes or whatever.

Vipul Bindra: 27:15

So that was. It's like I'm not actually not drinking, but I'm also not really drinking, yeah, and I think it ends up um, working well because, again, you're in that conversation, they're in their zone, they feel comfortable and you're absolutely right, that's how you build some of the better relationships, especially with people that are on par meaning. It may not always be like the owner or whatever. It may be the other people, but that makes it easier to work there, eh.

Vipul Bindra: 27:43

Because, you know you have a good relationship, you like each other. Why wouldn't you want to do that same mindset? But then also, uh, like you said, that when they need someone or they need to recommend someone, who are they going to recommend you? Right, so not, it's a, it's a win-win for everyone and it's a good time like. Otherwise I would have been in my room miserable, you know whatever, watching some other freaking video content about equipment that I don't need to watch, you know. So, I don't know, to me that's the technique that it's always worked for me and that's kind of what I stick to. Just, you know, drink whatever they're drinking, just drink it very, very, very slow. So that was. You know you're not like an outcast, or you're not.

Alex Minor: 28:21

Just, I don't know like an outcast or you're not just I don't know. Yeah, I mean, and it's the same thing in the music industry too, because I have history in the music industry and I have friends who are like signed to record labels and stuff and they told me like sometimes just the way you get the opportunity is just being there, like sometimes it's just because you were there, and if you weren't there then you missed the chance yeah, and it's the same what we teach, like talk.

Vipul Bindra: 28:45

When we work direct with clients, we tell them the same thing, right, like when we're trying to help them with their video strategy. It's like, hey, people buy from people they know, like and trust. Same thing with video people. If you're just trying to get hired by, you know, your friend or whoever, or get a recommendation, they're going to recommend. Guess what If somebody calls me and says, hey, ripple, do you want to come do this shoot? And I'm like, nah, I'm not available. Who am I going to recommend? I'm going to recommend the people I trust because my name goes with it. Right, I'm not going to go recommend somebody I just met because I don't know their skill, I don't know their results. I know Alex. I'm like, okay, I know Alex can do a good job. I'm going to recommend you and a few other people that I work with where I'm like, okay, I know what they bring, not some random person or somebody I barely met, like, let's say, a couple of times. That's just the truth.

Vipul Bindra: 29:33

So the only way you can be in that zone with people is by being in that zone. So just make an effort, right, just talk. It doesn't hurt and plus it's fun. Talk, uh, it doesn't hurt and plus it's fun. Usually you're like-minded in the video industry. That should be easy for somebody who's trying to do this. Right should be, yeah, should be. I mean. Otherwise, you need to find better, better people that you connect with, and if you're not connecting with anyone, then again, then that's where, to me, is a mirror moment right. You need to go reflect in the mirror and see why are people in the industry not liking me, or why they not want to be friends with me, or what a lot of people aren't self-aware enough to do that reflection well, that's why this is.

Vipul Bindra: 30:09

This is here. Maybe they're listening to this and going look, if my thing is, networking is easy, just call, tell me this. If somebody hooked, uh, reached out to you from the group chat and just said hey, alex would love to grab a coffee, what would your response be? If you're free, okay, there you go. That's what I'm saying. So what I'm saying is reach out. Not everyone will say yes, but a lot of good people will. And there's your network. If most people are saying no, that's when you go in the mirror and you see what's happening. Why is everyone saying no to me? Because at that point it's a self-reflecting thing and see, am I bringing some bad energy or whatever? I don't know. Uh, there has to be a reason, is what?

Vipul Bindra: 30:48

I'm saying why if everyone's telling you no and the, then then yeah, that's different.

Alex Minor: 30:52

One person no, not much yeah, but I still think a lot of people, you know, just don't have that level of self-awareness or that level of maturity to to be able to say I think we can do that because we've been through some things yeah I mean even like going back to av, like there was, there were, I. I had to learn some hard lessons, like there was. Sometimes there was like a time I got kicked off a show and and things like that.

Vipul Bindra: 31:16

I want to know that story I'm still not sure.

Alex Minor: 31:19

I'm still not 100 sure like you have some idea.

Alex Minor: 31:22

Well, the project manager on that show. I had worked with him on a previous show, like a year or something before, and we had bumped heads because I was the video engineer and I was trying to problem solve an issue with the LED wall and he was insistent that the signal run to the LED wall one way. When there was the way that I had wanted to do it from the beginning, I knew we wouldn't have had that problem. And so I'm going, I'm jumping through hoops to do it the way that he wants and finally I got to a point where I was so frustrated because he kept coming to me and being like, why isn't this fixed, why is this? And? And like, because I knew that the way that I wanted to do it would work without the issue, I finally lost it. It was like if we had just done it the way that I wanted to from the beginning, this wouldn't have happened.

Vipul Bindra: 32:15

Oh yeah.

Alex Minor: 32:15

And we finally ended up having to go with my way, but he was. But he was so insistent that you know I won't. And he was, he had a British accent which made it even worse, he's like. I want to do it the proper way. Your proper way doesn't work, bro. Yeah, or it's, it's it. The signal gets there, but we're getting errors in the signal. And it's because you're being insistent on this way, when this alternative method of getting the signal there doesn't have these issues.

Vipul Bindra: 32:43

Yeah, dinosaurs, basically who alternative method of getting the signal there doesn't have these issues. Yeah, dinosaurs, basically, who don't want to adapt.

Alex Minor: 32:49

Well, he was a young dude, but he was just. Yeah, but he was like I heard I don't know for sure I heard he was like one of the big wigs in the company's sons and which is probably why he was a project manager at so young.

Alex Minor: 33:01

Um, but saying like I want to do it the proper way is it's like there's no, like there isn't one way, bro, like there was multiple ways to get signal to that wall, but the one that you chose sucked yeah, and it didn't work because we kept getting we kept getting like little distortions in the signal and he and like I, I did everything I could to stick with the signal chain that he wanted and it just wasn't working and and finally we ended up going with my way because we just needed to get it done and not have these errors. But I think that left a bad taste in his mouth and it was just like no, I get that.

Alex Minor: 33:37

I tried to tell him, but he was, but he ended up being the project manager on this really big show for Google that I was on, which manager on this really big show for google that I was on, which I had been on the year before, nothing had gone wrong, like everything had gone right, um, and and this one, like I still don't.

Alex Minor: 33:58

I I think just I don't know whether the tension was really high or something but it was like there were multiple crews doing multiple things and like I kind of bumped heads with with one of the other crews that were on the on the show about, um, how, how a certain piece of equipment that was in the room that I was taking was set up, because they were coming around setting this one piece of equipment and then I'm running like everything else. But I had to connect to and and oversee this other piece of gear during the show and and like I told him, like yo, can y'all, like I've got it working with everything else, can y'all not change this one setting in here when you come in? And they kept doing it. So like every time they came in the room I would lose control of the device remotely, because I wanted to have remote control of the device just in case something happened during the show. I wanted to be able to not have to come out from backstage, to be able to fix it.

Alex Minor: 34:51

Um, and every time that they and and I don't remember whether I went to them or I went to a supervisor, I was like yo can you please tell these guys to stop changing this one thing? Like I know they're doing their thing, but but like every time they come in I lose control of this device. I have everything else working. Can you please just like tell them not and?

Vipul Bindra: 35:10

they and they just.

Alex Minor: 35:13

And but then another dude like there was an another switcher that I had just finished setting up and this one guy who was going around. And this was another guy who I'd worked with previously and I thought that we we had jived okay on the previous job I had been on with this dude. Um, I had just finished setting up this switcher, hooking everything up, which was a pain because of where it was positioned, and and like I just crawled out from beyond, from under the table, just finished getting his set, he walks in. He's like, hey, they want to, they want us to do this thing this way with the switcher now. And I'm like, oh well, that's a pain.

Vipul Bindra: 35:48

And he just flipped out on me and just from that, he probably may have heard the other conversation, because that doesn't make sense otherwise. Well, it wasn't the British dude, it was somebody else.

Alex Minor: 36:02

But he just started going off on me and I'm like dude, I didn't say I wouldn't do it, I just said it was annoying to have to change it when I just finished hooking this thing up and he stomps out and I had an assistant this was out in Cali, this show was and I had a local assistant from the local union was there being my helper, and I turned to him and I go do you understand what just happened there? Yeah and he's like no, what was that about?

Vipul Bindra: 36:32

and and I'm just like, and the next thing I know, like an hour or two later I'm kicked off the show well, yeah, so I think it was just all of it together, maybe, maybe because, uh, like you said, he he had a bad experience from the last one, even though it's his own fault, uh, and maybe people talked, or whatever.

Vipul Bindra: 36:55

I mean yeah, I guess, so I mean we're just making assumptions at this point. But that's I'm so glad you tell this story, because people can then hear what happens. There is a lot of politics, politics on set, and here's the thing, what I've learned. It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. If you're you're the only one. That that's even though, like I said, you were probably right. But if everyone's like, oh, Alex is just telling us we're wrong, they were probably dead and oh.

Vipul Bindra: 37:23

Alex is just telling us we're wrong. Then it's like, oh, here's a common thread.

Alex Minor: 37:26

Then, as a leader, they would have probably eliminated the common thread, not realizing that what you were trying to say was just helping the production, but because everyone had the one name on their mind, which is Alex and plus you know, and that's when I adopted the policy of just give them what they want, and because I used to want to do things the best way and I would go out and advocate for doing things the best way, and after that I just stopped Because it's like people don't want to do things the best way or they don't want to spend the money, they want to cut corners. And my policy now is like I will tell you once that what we are, that what you are telling me to do, is either a bad idea or that there's a better way to do it, and after that I'm done.

Alex Minor: 38:24

Yeah, like after that, I will do it I will do it the way that you told me to do it, like I will. I will say it the one time to cover my ass, so that, so that it's on record or somebody hears that I said, hey, this isn't a good idea because of xyz. Like, I will do it, but it's not a good idea, or okay, I can do it this way, but there's a better way to do it. This is what the better way is. Which one do you want me to do? And then? And then I'll do it whichever way that they insist on doing it. But, like, after I say it once, I'm quiet yeah, because at the end day it's their production.

Vipul Bindra: 39:00

No, and that's what I don't want anyone to get turned away from av industry. Quentin was here too, who has also worked just like you on the AV side, and we talked about, I think, how incredible AV can be for somebody who's new, who doesn't have gear. With zero investment you can go in and start making good day rates. Obviously, you have to learn what you're doing. Hopefully somebody can take you under the wing and show you.

Alex Minor: 39:28

But you can be a stage hand, you can be a camera operator slowly. You know, quentin was a special case because he already had a skill set that let him walk in the door making good money exactly, and I and I hooked him up well, of course, that's what I'm saying.

Vipul Bindra: 39:38

You need somebody to hook you up and then you need uh, and then that's networking. But you can make money tomorrow you know what I mean without any investment. You don't have to go buy those cameras, you don't have to go buy those cables. The company will bring it. But here's the other side of it, which is why I'm like I get all those instances, as somebody who does a lot of conferences and a lot of uh, you know live streaming.

Vipul Bindra: 40:01

I have to deal with av companies which tend to be I say that, only a few, most of them, you know live streaming. I have to deal with AV companies which tend to be I say that only a few. Most of them, you know, are monopolies pretty much. But the AV companies, either way, that I deal with, it's a pain. Like I've been on conference the most recent one three days.

Vipul Bindra: 40:17

Literally every morning we had the same technical issue. So I'm coming out resolving the same technical issue with audio. I'm like I don't understand. And the last day they just had two XLR cables there. I'm like I don't which one is it? And they're like, oh, it's the same signal. No, it's not. Then why? Why do I have two cables. So here I am again, technical troubleshooting. I'm like guys, this is a day three, last day, we should have figured this out by now. Client is paying you to send the signal to me, right, like, get this right anyway. But dealing with av companies can be a pain because I get it day one issues, but like, why are we having the exact same issue every morning and day two?

Vipul Bindra: 40:53

and some companies are just like yeah and and so at that point you know, you just go like I could, like I said, go butt heads with them. I'm just like, no, I'm working. And then the other thing was I needed I a decimator, I need an extra decimator or some kind of converter, hd, hdmi, whatever and they didn't have one. I'm like what kind of AV company are you that you cannot like? You don't even have even a cheaper one. I get it. Like you don't want to give me the good stuff, I get it. And I was like I didn't think I would need two, because, you know, change Obviously things change.

Vipul Bindra: 41:24

That's okay and you know it's not like I'm home. I could go back or go back to the van and grab one. I'm out in freaking California so I can't really change things Anyway, like you said. So having to deal with AV companies all the time it's not a best experience. At least he made it look like he was doing an effort, the boss. He literally was like oh yeah, I'm gonna go to this room, I'm gonna go to this room.

Alex Minor: 41:48

let's say he went around this 1800 person conference and could not find one decimator or converter or something and I was like it doesn't make sense converters, unfortunately, are one of the things that sometimes you get shortchanged on um just yeah, but you know that's just one of those things like I used to as a video engineer, I used to carry around a bunch of converters in my case, because that's kind of like what I was taught, and a lot of video engineers still do that. But I got sick of saving shows yeah like, but because, because of what I brought in my box, I got sick of bringing extra watches.

Alex Minor: 42:23

They should have extras, yeah, Like just carrying stuff through the airport and having to check an extra bag. It just got tiring and so now I don't, I bring a backpack and that's it.

Alex Minor: 42:34

I don't bring a work case which a lot of people still do and like more power to you and I mean it's worth the investment if you're full time in AV, you're full time as an audio engineer, video engineer. You develop your, your own little workflows and tricks and and just habits of what you'd like to be able to have on hand to use and you start bringing the work box just so you have the stuff that you want. But I got. I got sick of saving shows, I got sick of the extra weight and I was just yeah, no, I completely get it.

Vipul Bindra: 43:06

Like I said, it's a good avenue. So I don't want to discount it. But having somebody like I said on my side, like I said, I'm not an AV guy you and Quinton would be my go-tos if somebody came for AV. My experience is just dealing with them as a production company, which is not the greatest. People individually are nice. Let me be real. People, which is not the greatest people individually are nice. Let me be real. People individually are very nice. It's overall as an industry. They're very hard to work with. They're very dated. Their, their techniques are very dated. It's just. It is just what it is it's.

Alex Minor: 43:35

It's a, it's an industry where there's a lot of well, this is how we've always done it, and so it's a struggle to get them to, to change their ways or to become more modern. Unless that's been like, unless that's been like their mo from the beginning, of always wanting to be on the cutting edge, of always wanting to have the latest and greatest, otherwise it's oh, that still works, let's rent it out, even though that's the, even though that's something that nobody should be using anymore, and that's just what it is right.

Vipul Bindra: 44:08

So, coming back to it, the you, obviously you did that. You did great. You made a great living from doing av stuff. Uh, but pandemic hits, obviously. We all know a conference industry, av industry is pretty much dead in the water at that point. So so you obviously lean to your production, which you already had it set up. What did you do? How did you get clients?

Alex Minor: 44:32

Honestly, it was just. One client called me one day and it seemed that just started the ball rolling. It was a client that I worked with before, a wonderful man by the name of Simon T Bailey, and he wanted some more videos. And the funny thing about Simon, and one of the reasons I am grateful to God for Simon T Bailey he is a blessing, because the first time that I met Simon was when I was shooting a podcast for a friend of mine for free, lorena Acosta. And she turns to him and she's like Simon, don't you do videos? And he's like yeah, he's like you need to work with Alex. And so he called me up. He hired me to shoot some videos for him. I think the first job that I did for him I charged him $500. I thought that was the only time I was ever going to see him yeah I made more than 50 grand doing stuff for simon t bailey.

Alex Minor: 45:27

Look at that look at that.

Vipul Bindra: 45:28

You never know, a little shout out can lead to 50 grand.

Alex Minor: 45:32

That's crazy yeah, and I mean that was over the course of several years like I've done stuff with simon as as recently as last year. Uh, was it last year? Yeah, it was. It was last year because that was during the summer that we did that. Yeah, so as recently as last year I've done work with Simon.

Vipul Bindra: 45:51

And look at that. It's all about, you know, building those relationships and keeping the clients over the years. The revenue keeps coming in and you know 50, obviously over the years, but times, you know, I don't know, 20. And that could become, you know, really good.

Alex Minor: 46:05

Well, there was one year where there was one great year where it was like 30 grand off assignment because he had a. He had licensed the TV show to a cable network and we were his go to solution to get the show done.

Vipul Bindra: 46:18

Look at that. So did you. Did you do anything else outreach or any other way to find clients or were they just coming in because you've been doing this so long?

Alex Minor: 46:29

That is a great question and I wish I had a great answer for you. I know it's been a little. It's been a little bit of different things. So some word of mouth, some networking'm like literally going out to networking events, like I think my very first video client that I landed on my own was from going out to networking events. Actually, the first few was from going like the in-person networking events, um, and then and then word of mouth referrals, like Lorena with Simon doing social media. Linkedin, instagram has gotten me some. Maybe even Facebook has gotten me a little bit. I hate Facebook so I don't like being on the platform. It's gotten so messy. I just don't like being on the platform. It's gotten so messy, like, I just don't like being on the platform, um, but I think I've even gotten some clients through Facebook, um, but uh, what's, what's the, what's the website?

Vipul Bindra: 47:40

Um, yeah, not next door up work or not up work?

Alex Minor: 47:45

thumbtack, thumbtack. Uh, I actually made a good amount of money through thumbtack one year um, and I actually want to get back on thumbtack because I made such a good amount of money through thumbtack, but they the thing that I don't like about thumbtack is that they make you pay just for lead um and, and that's why I had terrible leads right and, and so when you're setting up your profile, that could be something else we get into.

Alex Minor: 48:10

Like you got to be super specific about what you do, because you, because, because you pay for every lead that comes in, and if you and if people are, you know, hitting you up for stuff that you just don't do, like that's wasted money, um, but I was, I was spending, and this is and this is another tangent we could go on, um with thumbtack. It was costing me about 300 per month in leads, but my average job was like three thousand dollars.

Vipul Bindra: 48:42

So yeah, so it's worth it.

Alex Minor: 48:43

Yeah, so if I got, if I got one job a month, it was, it was fine. Or even if I got one job every couple of months, it was fine, because I was still, I was still winning, I was still making, you know, like twelve hundred dollars profit, you know, on each one yeah, that's actually a pretty good idea I've had.

Vipul Bindra: 49:01

You know, like I said I'm I'm hearing about these small websites. I did make a tomdak profile two, six, seven years ago. Didn't get any luck. You know of the type of leads I wanted to get from it. So I've tried all these avenues a little bit. So it's always great to hear from people who did find success on it. Um, I like said um doron, who was talking about like upwork, and I'm like what you're finding paid clients on upwork that are paying decent money? Because you know Upwork is like cheap international people is what I find at least Most people use it for. So anyway, people, yeah, you've been able to find work off platforms where people wouldn't typically consider to be able to get like a 3K job right. That's just so crazy to think about that you went on Thumbtack, paid 300 bucks for leads and sold a 300 3k project. That's, that's crazy what type of?

Alex Minor: 49:51

is it a typical corporate stuff? Um, talking, some of it was talking head b-roll. The the most interesting project was a gym in south florida. They were looking for, uh like a sales video.

Alex Minor: 50:03

Um, they were in some coaching program and like they had a specific script that they were trying to do and and I mean we did a great video for them and they were happy. They were super happy with the project they even gave us. We even got a testimonial from them. Um, and we weren't the only company that they considered off of thumbtack, but they said we were the most professional in the approach, like in and how to them what, how we laid out the plan and all that stuff, and so that's what made the difference in them hiring us, even though they said we were the most expensive option.

Vipul Bindra: 50:32

Yeah, you never have to be the cheapest, or? Or? You know what I'm saying is your price doesn't matter, you can be the most expensive. Obviously, I wouldn't try to just be expensive just to be expensive. But I think, as long as you price a project right, just be expensive just to be expensive, but I think as long as you price a project right, um, and you're sure about your pricing strategy, most times people you know tend to go with the best and they don't really look at it, even though they'll say, oh, we want the cheapest option. That's not true. They want the best option, and they will. They're usually willing to pay, um, you know it depends on the it depends on the caliber of client.

Alex Minor: 51:04

Um, because there are a lot of people out there looking for the cheapest option. I just think you want to position yourself so that you're not willing to be the cheapest option uh, you should be at least in the middle of the pack, price wise, or you should be to the middle, to the high end of the price range is where you should aim to be because the clients at the bottom and tell me if you've had this experience.

Alex Minor: 51:25

I find the less you charge, the clients are more difficult, they're horrible the cheapest clients are always the most horrible because they they're nickel and diming you. They're the ones that, like, think that they know how to do your job.

Vipul Bindra: 51:39

Um and at the end they get the bad, bad product. Because here's what happens I find the best work I do is on that mid to higher tier level and it's not because we're doing something special. I give my 100 to all my clients. But what happens is these clients give you freedom, they give you obviously parameters, obviously they're not just it caters, my money, do whatever, but they get.

Vipul Bindra: 51:58

But that's it like they're more willing to trust your expertise, yeah, which is why they brought you on and, like you said, most likely you weren't the cheapest option. They, they didn't pick you because they wanted cheap, they wanted good and same. You know you bring same level of expertise and you want to help a small business because, let's be real, we can make a huge impact for small businesses. Uh, but then they, they don't bring you in as an expert, they bring you as a, as a tool, I guess, or?

Vipul Bindra: 52:22

I don't know uh, and it's not the same usually. I'm not saying all small businesses are bad, but most of them uh, then they want you to do something specific and you're like no, I am the expert, let me do my thing. And then it's just a battle. A lot of times, uh, you know, because they're going by their experience, which is not that best, not that experience, and they're not letting you give them the best, and at the end everyone loses. You have horrible client experience. They get a product that's not going to work for them. And then they tell people oh, video doesn't work. And it's like no, you brought in an expert and then you didn't let them be an expert. You know what I mean? Now, it's one thing now I've obviously heard stories of somebody hiring like a recent full-time grad or whatever, like new full-sale graduate or whatever, and like a recent full-time grad or whatever, uh, like new full-sale graduate or whatever, and then then trusting them and then obviously didn't go well, because the person was green and they didn't know what they were doing.

Vipul Bindra: 53:11

So it could go both ways, but that's also them usually not betting, that is well, not, not just not vetting them, it's usually them trying to get the cheapest price true, that too, but also I'm saying there's a lot of people who are new, who are green, who will present themselves as an expert too.

Vipul Bindra: 53:27

That is a thing around here, at least in Orlando, because you know, what happens, at least what I've noticed and again, I'm not saying this is against everyone, we're just taking takes of. You know what we notice? A lot of people come in. The first thing they do is, oh, I got to start a website. They'll lot of people come in. The first thing they do is, oh, I gotta start a website. They'll start a dp or a production company website and, uh, again, these are the smart ones. I'm saying the hustlers, right, and then the, and then they'll go find the, the people that they want to be copy paste. So it's like to an average small business owner who's doing five minutes of research, you're like, oh, that's pretty good, there you go.

Vipul Bindra: 54:02

And then next thing you know, when they show up on set, you know like, oh, what did I sign up for, right? So so kind of like that. I'm saying there's both sides of it. Either way, everyone loses, uh, because, even whether you presented yourself as an expert or whether you weren't presenting, you were just the cheapest option. Either way, the result isn't going to match, uh, what the client was looking for and at the end everyone's going to have a bad experience.

Vipul Bindra: 54:28

They're not going to tell their friends about you and if you don't have repeat clients and retainers and you know all that shebang, you're not going to last for too long in the industry. Because I've said this before and you tell me it's unrealistic to say every month you're going to find all new clients over and over again every month after month is the way.

Alex Minor: 54:46

Like you need repeat business, you, um, I mean well it. And again, it depends on what kind of lane you're in now. If you're in real estate, you might be getting new clients every month because yeah, new houses come on and yeah, or if you're, if you're a wedding videographer, I mean, yeah, I think it would be bad if you had repeat clientele.

Vipul Bindra: 55:10

You're telling me repeat clients is not good for wedding videographers. I mean, that's good, it'd be funny. You'd be like, hey, I have.

Alex Minor: 55:18

AI tools. You might be the bad luck charm.

Vipul Bindra: 55:20

It'd be so funny. I can't wait for the day when you're like hey, I have AI tools, we don. It'd be so funny. I can't wait for the day when you're like hey, I have AI tools.

Alex Minor: 55:26

You know, we don't even need to come out anymore. We'll just replace your husband. Just send me a picture of your new boo. Yeah, we'll just plug it in, it's all right.

Vipul Bindra: 55:32

That'd be hilarious, but no, I get it. Yeah, no, of course not. This doesn't apply to wedding or any of these videographers. Yeah, but typically for what we're doing, corporate commercial work. I don't think that much new business exists. There's tons of work for everyone, but you have to keep your clients. I don't think that many newer clients exist that you can every time, all the time, just find new clients.

Alex Minor: 55:56

And any business will tell you that it's cheaper to book repeat work than it is to book new work, absolutely than it is to book new work.

Vipul Bindra: 56:03

Absolutely, and so you're better off just giving them the best service, taking care of them, and not worrying about where your money's coming from. Again, it's best for everyone and it's good for them because they get consistent work, consistent results. Because, at the end of the day, they don't want to be in the video business Otherwise they'd already be in the video business they want to be in whatever product or service they're in.

Alex Minor: 56:25

They just want to sell more of that, and that's why you're just a vendor that can come in and help them do that well, I mean, you don't really want to be a vendor, you want to be a partner, you want to be, you want to be, you know, somebody who can help their business get to that next level. Um now, like we're saying, if you just want to be a DP, if you just want to be a sound guy, if you just want to be an editor like, there's no problem with being a hired gun and there's plenty of work for hired guns out there. But if you're looking to go the production company route, be more independent, find your own work, not have to worry about getting on other people's productions or other people's projects, then it behooves you to be more than just a vendor.

Vipul Bindra: 57:09

Absolutely Preach my friend, listen to him what he's just said and uh, so you've been doing this for, uh, obviously a long, long time. You found success. Like you said, you've had to go out and get a job, so you're doing really well. What happened in 2024 that you'd say was an exception or whatever?

Alex Minor: 57:27

Well it's 2024 and 2023 and it's personal issues. Like I said, I don't believe in hiding or not being transparent. I'm going through a divorce and that has affected me mentally. That has affected me emotionally. That has affected me mentally. That has affected me emotionally. It's been difficult to have the same level of passion and motivation for the business because I'm worried about my kids and and life in general and you know I had to go set up a whole new household, uh, burn through a bunch of savings and and all that type of stuff. So it was like, whereas before it was easy to really focus a large portion of my mind on the business and, you know, whatever success strategies, I might've been employing and things like that.

Alex Minor: 58:20

Like now it's not, and so I'm still working on my mental health. I'm still working on my mental health. I'm still working on my physical health. Uh, like, I used to weigh 100 pounds more than I use, than I do right now. Um, because I didn't, because I was so focused on doing everything for everybody else, I didn't have the time to focus on myself and that's so great and I love the transformation.

Vipul Bindra: 58:40

By the way, um, I'm so glad you're focusing on yourself and working on your mental health, because that's very important. I can't imagine, uh, you know, uh, doing a video gig when you have your kids to take care of and, um, you know we've talked about this before. Um, you know, a lot of these gigs happen on days. You know, like you're gonna go from this day to this day and you're gonna fly here and it's like, oh, but three days you gotta keep your kids out of that.

Alex Minor: 59:04

You can't you miss out on the whole week of pay because there's been a lot of that, yeah because you know that's just that unfortunate life and I don't even know how much money I've turned down in the last two years because because you know my kids schedule and and stuff like that, or not being able to to work the the you know kids schedule out with the ex-wife and things like that, like I've turned down a lot of money.

Vipul Bindra: 59:29

So what's your strategy now in 2025? Clearly, and you know, like I said, we've talked about this, so I've seen that. So you have the skills, you have the talent, you have the business know-how and it doesn't mean you didn't do work, by the way, people like you've been doing work.

Alex Minor: 59:46

Yeah, I still work.

Vipul Bindra: 59:47

You've been doing that much work that you were used to or can do because of all this. So, because, what's your strategy this year? What are you going to change, or what are you at least thinking about to, you know, to bring about a change? Are you still working on it? Maybe?

Alex Minor: 1:00:13

I'm still. I'm still like trying to develop a plan, honestly, um, but one, a couple of things that I know that I need to do is um, I kind of need to, I need to figure out well, there's yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that I need to do better. Um, but one I really need I need to get back to doing networking like I did back in the day, which I've done more of in the last year, but not to the level that I used to do it, and so I want to get back to doing more in-person networking, because I do want local work, and getting out there and being seen and letting people know you exist is important. So that's one thing I want to do networking in person, which is a form of marketing. If you weren't aware, that is marketing. Um, I also need to redo my website. Um, I need to get better at making, like, clear, concrete offers, which is which is always something that I've like.

Alex Minor: 1:01:01

All coming up with offers has always been something I've been bad at and and like now to the point where I'm like there's no reason that you can't copy other people's offers yes and and no, it's tweaked them to fit yourself, cause it's like why do I, why do I feel like I need to reinvent the wheel, like if I know somebody with a video production company in another state is killing it and they've got these three offers that they're doing, why can't I offer those?

Vipul Bindra: 1:01:28

and and, and the truth is you're absolutely right having clear, defined offers, plus, if you already know the ones that work, that'd be. That is exactly what you need now as somebody who likes to be, because, like I said, here's what I'm. I I'm a filmmaker first, who has to be business owner and entrepreneurial, because, you know, I just want to be in cool big sets, and those didn't exist, at least in 2018, when I started the company. You know, corporate video was a nightmare and when it was, it was terrible quality. You know, we didn't even have the level of gear we have now. Point is, I just wanted to be in big sets and I didn't want to do movies or music videos. That left me with having to reinvent essentially the wheel, which is crazy Buying high-end equipment and using it on sets, because that's what I wanted to do. And now here we are.

Vipul Bindra: 1:02:16

I like to be a boutique agency offering custom solutions, but let's be real, that technically hurts you, because now you're like well, come me first, let me present, let me talk to you, and I'm not saying that's wrong. That's a good approach, like, as we talked about, it's a partnership approach, but a lot of times, when you're doing online marketing. That approach doesn't work, or translate that well. Because you're like oh, let me talk to you, let me figure out your solution versus here. You're like here's my direct offer. I want to talk to people in altamont springs who are making this much money, who do this specific thing.

Vipul Bindra: 1:02:50

Are you a service based? But you know what I mean. Like right it is. It hits right to their brain either they are your client with that offer or they're not. And if they are, then they immediately go oh, that's me. And they want to reach out. Right ben was here, you know. He explained this whole freaking process of doing that, like making an offer, what the offer is and how to run them through the meeting and uh, and it was incredible to hear because that's not what- I need to see that episode, yes, you do need to, because he laid it down exactly the offer, exactly how he runs it and then how he runs the meeting when he meets them.

Vipul Bindra: 1:03:22

So it's like the whole shebang from beginning to the end.

Alex Minor: 1:03:24

email me that recording after this. And you know, what's really amazing about ben is when I met ben several years I don't even remember what year I met ben now, but he was trying, he was just trying to get out of doing music videos for local artists and like he felt like when, when we started working, he felt like I was the big dog and now like Ben's doing his own thing and like you know, he's breaking all this stuff down for you Like.

Alex Minor: 1:03:56

Just seeing the transformation is amazing, and that's, that's what I'm talking about.

Vipul Bindra: 1:04:00

That's what I love is, you know, helping each other. And now he was here and I was so happy that he was transparent, because I went in detail with him because I don't do that and I was like, hey, I want to learn genuinely. Maybe I'll try that, I don't know yet. Uh, because you know, my approach kind of still works. So I'm like, do I want to break it? Maybe I'll just try it as an as an addition. But then the other thing was uh, people who want to try that, because there's nothing wrong with doing clear, concise offers to Instagram, because he's been able to close eight grand deals off Instagram and I just find it so crazy to believe that people are on Instagram, they're looking at these offers, going through a meeting with you, maybe a qualifying call, but that's what it is.

Vipul Bindra: 1:04:41

It's a very simple process. He's not doing this whole fill out a form thing. But that's what it's a very simple process. He's not doing this whole fill out a form thing and then um, to be able to close an eight grand deal for social media content is incredible. But he had a very good point. He's showing people what they want, because his literal thing is it worked for you, right.

Alex Minor: 1:05:00

Like you showed up right, I'm gonna do the same thing for you he's like the reason we're having this meeting is because what I'm trying to sell you works.

Vipul Bindra: 1:05:07

Yeah, exactly. And now it's like let's do that for you. So I'm like oh, that's a very good strategy, you know.

Alex Minor: 1:05:15

And I mean, and, like I said, I've gotten deals off of Instagram, linkedin, know social media in general, and it's because, like, people want that stuff and it's like well, my content got you here, didn't it exactly? And so it proved that proved.

Vipul Bindra: 1:05:34

The fact that they even show up or give you the call proves that it works yeah, and, and at the end, I'm not a fan of this topic, but you know, and and I would love to talk to David about, or other people about this more on this is, nowadays you have to be essentially a micro-influencer in a way, if not a bigger influencer, because, at the end of the day again, I don't think it should.

Alex Minor: 1:05:55

Well, here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand, or it's a truth that many people, especially in our industry, do not want to accept, especially when you start going into the. I want to be a production company or like one man company or a small team company building this out. You are not a videographer, you are not a video producer. You are in sales. Every single one of us is in sales, but the majority of us are not willing to accept that. You know you are in sales and you just happen to be selling video services, but you are in sales exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:06:44

And guess what, if you weren't in sales, you'd be out of business exactly and so the fact that in and with doing sales also comes marketing.

Alex Minor: 1:06:55

None of us got into this to be salesmen and marketers none of us. But if you want to stay alive, if you want to stay alive, if you want to be able to make money on your own without depending on somebody else to like, bring you the checks and bring you the opportunities you have to become a salesman and a marketer.

Vipul Bindra: 1:07:17

And one of the better ways to do that is become an influencer in a way in your industry, which is where the whole thing comes in. You can have a clear offer. Then it's like, hey, even if they don't buy from you, they follow you because they they believe you know you're the expert or whatever. You're building an audience because they may not buy today, they may buy in a year or two. But that's the unfortunate thing. And again, I don't even think it's unfortunate because in life you're always selling, because even if you want to be a dp, you better still be a good salesperson. Because why should I pick you over 500 other?

Alex Minor: 1:07:48

dps, because everybody got a good looking reel exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:07:50

Not everybody, yeah, but most people I don't even look. There's a lot of people with good looking reels and funny thing is and as a production company, I'll tell you this crazy thing I haven't even bothered to update my since my first reel. Because here's the truth I found I don't have a reel. Yeah, I have videos. I have finished projects.

Alex Minor: 1:08:07

I don't have a reel. I don't bother, I I haven't.

Vipul Bindra: 1:08:09

Now there's one of my, there's one of my mentors who would tell me I'm dumb for not having for not having a reel, um but this but I'm telling you, don't need a reel, because here's what I'll tell you. Here's my experience with reels.

Alex Minor: 1:08:23

Uh, but his his real philosophy is different, though it's not really a reel, so much as it is like a brand video, a type of brand, yeah, very specific, psychologically driven brand video that he creates, not just a montage of a bunch of pretty images, yeah, but but here's the thing I did create it still on my website, anyone can go watch it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:08:43

But here's what happened with me. I don't know if I've told that story. I've told about the client. So I've told the story about the university client that we did testimonials for or whatever. But you know, I had this meeting. So the good thing with me is, you know, again, use your resources. People around me already were pushing me to do this, right? So before I registered the company before I'm like I'm a video company I already had like leads and stuff that I wasn't following or whatever. So I already had a couple of leads like, hey, you need to go talk to this professor, he needs a testimonial video, or whatever. And I was like, whatever, whatever, right, anyway, I'm not into that, I'm just a freelancer. Blah, blah, blah, anyway. So point is, and I was like, okay, well, before I start the company, I need to go get this reel done, or whatever. And it's so funny because that's what you think you know because that's what everybody tells you.

Vipul Bindra: 1:09:29

So anyway, I went in and I made this reel and I want people to know and it's okay to you know read your failures. So I spent all this effort before launching the company to build this reel so I can have a reel and dude and from other projects. I didn't go shoot everything, but I did shoot something because I wanted it to have variety, like I wanted to have real estate and you know talking hand, all that, but anyway.

Vipul Bindra: 1:09:50

So I took some of my projects, some new stuff, I made a reel and guess what happens? I go to the shoot, we sit down. They're like, yeah, we, this is what we want. They're very clear in what they wanted. They had no doubt because, again, it's who you come from and the lead came from my buddy, uh, who the the professor knew very well, so essentially he was already sold on me like, but again, at that time remember, I don't know this is my second meeting ever day.

Vipul Bindra: 1:10:15

One of the production company, right, uh, so, um, anyway. So I show up in the meeting. So I they're like we want a testimonial. This is the budget for this other company, this is the budget budget we have. Can you do it? I'm like absolutely, let me show you my look.

Vipul Bindra: 1:10:27

So I sit there, I have this fancy iPad, I hit play. They sit through a minute of my reel, they watch it. And then the first thing the professor says is what is this? And you should have seen the soul inside me die. And I was like well, this is a real, so you can see the quality of content. I mean, he's like, okay, good, but like you could clearly tell he didn't give a shit, he was already sold on working with me.

Vipul Bindra: 1:10:50

And here I'm trying to use a real, and the point I'm trying to make with all this is you don't need a real. All I needed to do was genuinely and I've talked about how the conversation went it was like, hey, they charge. I don't know the price is real or not. They could have been bluffing me, but the conversation was so easy like look, we want to make a testimonial. We have another company, and this was only one in town that was I would call a legit company and they were like they said they want 5k, our budget is 3k, can you do it? I was like, look, I don't, can't do it for 3k. That would be, you know, to the level of quality I want to. Can you do 4k? You know what I mean, because I'm gonna meet them in the middle. So, okay, give us some time.

Vipul Bindra: 1:11:28

I walked out before I went like not even a half a mile, you know, like not far at all. And they had already called me. I was like, yeah, let's do it. That was the entire sales process. But what I'm saying is here me contriving they need to see my reel, they need to pick me on quality, or blah, blah, blah, blah.

Vipul Bindra: 1:11:43

And the truth is, the warm lead mattered more than anything. And then obviously I had to obviously present them with a project that they liked and they loved, and all that blah, blah, blah, all that extra stuff that comes with it. But the point I'm trying to make is you don't need a reel and from that day onward, I never showed a client a reel once. So remember, at least now they could have gone to my website, they could have looked at it. But I have never live on websites, yeah, but I have never. Yeah, but I'm saying I have never had a client once mentioned my reel or looked at my reel or talked about my reel since that day and I've had no trouble closing and also clients.

Vipul Bindra: 1:12:18

Don't talk about cameras they don't talk about none of the image quality they like.

Alex Minor: 1:12:23

The only times I've ever had a client or potential client ask me about what camera I use or what quality we shoot in, or a format or anything technical.

Vipul Bindra: 1:12:34

Is agencies? Probably Is.

Alex Minor: 1:12:35

if it was, if it was another production company that needed me to subcontract for them, or if it was an agency that was looking for somebody to match what they already had.

Vipul Bindra: 1:12:43

Yeah, direct clients don't care and I'm glad, like I said, I learned that within my second meeting. But what I'm trying to tell people is don't need a reel and what you need is obviously skill. But clients can see through that and you want warm leads because when you get there, they're already sold on it. You just want to kill it. So they will now recommend you Because if I hadn't done those testimonials the quality that they wanted right then they wouldn't have gone and recommended me to other departments, which is what we ended up doing, right.

Vipul Bindra: 1:13:10

We closed the whole freaking university with one project. But the thing was that, like I said but the first lead came from a friend you have to go out and network, get that lead Real doesn't matter. Then just go kill it. Either kill it yourself by doing a great job or bring in people that you know who can kill it. Don't worry about profit the first few gigs, because you want to just do good quality content. So people want to keep working with you and also create a good experience. To me it's like having fun on set, just being nice to work with, um, just just. You know all that matters as much as the final product, because if you go in, you're miserable or you're just not easy to work with. Nobody wants to then also recommend you either.

Vipul Bindra: 1:13:52

So it's like both of those are important. The first interview is the meeting, second interview is the shoot and then the final interview is the result. And as long as you do good all three times, you're going to have no trouble, at least in my opinion. Finding work Cause, like I said, I've never talked about it and I've never had anyone come to me and be like you're real is amazing. I obviously we do way way better content than I. That real. I haven't even used those cameras since like this first or second shoot. So none of that matters. Your head you go. That's what I need and I haven't ever bothered to update it because nobody's cared to even mention it. If somebody does mention it, I will happily update it. But I'm like, why spend cost when nobody cares? Because most of my leads are warm leads and even when they're new, all they say is oh, yeah, we looked at your content, it was great. I'm like, oh, if it's great, then it's great. I don't know what you looked at it, but it's, you know. And let's move on to the real thing. Let's have a money conversation or the project.

Vipul Bindra: 1:14:48

Now, the only time I show my projects to client is when you get those who have no idea, right, they go. Okay, we want to do a brand video. How much does it cost? And you know that that's a can of worms, because we can do a brand video for 3K, 5k, 50k, right, and all those are valid price points, but the video is different. So I have to ask them. You know the qualifying questions and if I'm still not getting anywhere, I will genuinely just pull out the iPad and I love iPad, for, by the way, if we're doing this because the screen quality is great, it's easy to pull up videos I'll go.

Vipul Bindra: 1:15:19

Okay, let me show you a few. So here's one we did for 5k. Here's one we did for 5k. Here's one we did for 15k. Here's one we did for 50k. Now you tell me which one you want to do and then you know they go. Oh, it makes it so easy to you know, do that good, better, best, but like with actual video, right, because then they can see what I mean by. You know, it's the details, it's the effort that went into the lighting and all that, and if they perceive it, they perceive it generally. You know they'll go with the middle option. That's just how people's brains work and that's good for us too, because that's decent quality, without you know too low. But if some people will go, no, I'll just take the cheapest and that's what it is. You know, either way, just that's the only time I ever show videos.

Alex Minor: 1:16:06

Outside of that, I don't, I don't think any of my clients yeah, I never cared about. Well, what I do is is I include video examples in my proposals so so that they can same thing.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:12

They can get an idea, yeah, so they can get in like and like.

Alex Minor: 1:16:17

I also do something different with my proposal because, because I think you a lot of times you just give like the flat number. Yeah, I do pricing breakdowns and and people are different minds about some people like pricing breakdowns, some people don't, some clients like them, some clients don't need them.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:31

Uh, you, know tony right level corporate level media he mentioned you.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:35

I think you two are doing. I saw his proposal, so here's what happened. So people that watch that podcast. He came in, he mentioned that too and he was like, oh yeah, how he got it from alex and, uh, from you. And then you guys are the same mentor or whatever program that you join. And I was so curious because I don't do that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:52

Uh, now I have learned from you and so so, for people who don't know um, and this is why you have these conversations, I think it was a few years ago we met for some kind of rental or something, either way, and I was talking about it and I immediately went in and you know I'm kind of very much about like either flat pricing, based on the conversation we had, or good, better, best option.

Vipul Bindra: 1:17:12

Um, if you know, we're still wearing on options.

Vipul Bindra: 1:17:17

But then you mentioned like having these options, and you know, and got my ball rolling and immediately I went in and I've added hair and makeup and sound, a couple of people that I want on set, but the first ones to get deleted because the budget um are hair and makeup and sound, and we both know sound and hair makeup make our work look so much better. Uh, so I've just added on my flat all my proposals now because it's part of the template. It just stays there and you would be amazed how many people have just checked it and I don't think it's that much profit. We obviously take a cut but it's not like the like so much because you know people know the rates. Like, I'm not adding that much to it. Either way, it's added slightly revenue in the company, but every time I bring a dedicated sound guy or a dedicated hair and makeup it makes my work better and the clients are always happier because they feel better on set. So that came from you and having that conversation. So I know some of the option things work.

Alex Minor: 1:18:12

But you guys take it to another level with, like essentially a lot of options to build out the proposal right, I don't put as many options as I used to when I first like, because my my mentor is an advocate of having like everything under the sun.

Vipul Bindra: 1:18:28

So that's what tony's doing, dude I was like this is a rate which I saw the benefit. Let me let me say first say pro before I say I will never do that. Uh, like I said, tony spoke about that, but I saw the whole thing. I was like I like the how easy it would be to make a proposal. You can just just check everything. You get a total. There is no confusion about what I should charge for the project. Great. But dude, after 10 pages I'm like this is a lot yeah.

Alex Minor: 1:18:54

And that's what I, and that's why I started. I cut out like everything that was non-essential because, like I felt like the proposal was just too long and people wouldn't want to.

Vipul Bindra: 1:19:03

And decision fatigue would get there.

Alex Minor: 1:19:06

And so now my proposal it's I put everything that I think should be in there. I don't really include a lot of extra options for them to check. I just I just say like, hey, if you want extra days, or if, or if you want you know this out of third, you can adjust the amounts and you'll see it reflected in the price.

Vipul Bindra: 1:19:26

And that makes it easy for them. Look, this is why I want to have these conversations, because I want people to be able to pick their path. My advice is don't do that. My advice is I like flat either good, better, best or flat pricing, and a couple of options which I learned from you and it's worked great for me and that's how I recommend it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:19:47

But I don't want people to just follow what I'm saying, because clearly your strategies worked for you, because I know you've told me how you've been able to upsell without having to even upsell, because they can themselves, like I said, pick extra days or whatever. And then Tony, on the other hand, has said how he's able to, has been able to sell. You know expensive projects because they can go in, they can be like oh, I want to add this. Add this because you know it's a whole rate menu card and you don't know what they're going to pick if you don't offer them. So there's three different strategies. Well, I would say two strategies, and yours isn't. You found yourself the best middle ground and I want people to be able to pick their strategy. I I would love to have a definitive answer on this, but I don't well, it's, it's whatever works for you yeah, like when it comes to pricing and and how to sell projects.

Alex Minor: 1:20:33

um, there, there is no one absolutely right way like they.

Alex Minor: 1:20:39

There's many ways that work and you got to find a way that you're comfortable with, where that helps you feel confident in your pricing, because that's another part.

Alex Minor: 1:20:47

Like you got to be confident in your pricing, um, and so the, the way that I've developed to do it and like the whole structure-based pricing and everything, it just helped me be more confident in saying what the prices were. Because back when I used to do more like what you do and you just give them a flat number or you know, which a lot of people call like value-based pricing, I was always undervaluing myself. But now when I go in and I just because I have certain pieces of it that are just set, and I just go in and it's like, well, the project should take this many days with this many hours and, oh, they're going to need this. They're well, the project should take this many days with this many hours and, oh, they're going to need this, they're going to need that, they want this many pieces of content. When I get to that number, it makes sense to me and I'm confident in saying it because it's like, yeah, these are all the pieces that add up.

Alex Minor: 1:21:40

And so that's what it should be. And I even think, even at where my prices are at right now, I honestly think they should probably be higher, but I haven't nailed down yet how to reliably get those clients that are comfortable with those prices. And that's another part is like whatever price point you have, there's a client out there that can pay that and will pay that, and it's no problem for them to pay that. But you've got to figure out who those clients are and you've got to figure out how to get in front of those clients and and and when you can do that. When you've figured out those two things, then you can get the money you want with the amount of work that you want, and you're good. But if, but if you can't figure out how to get in front of the clients that are comfortable with with the amount of work that you want, and you're good.

Vipul Bindra: 1:22:25

But if, but if you can't figure out how to get in front of the clients that are comfortable with those prices, well then you got a problem Exactly, and, like you said earlier, I think the best thing is we're all salespeople, whether we want to be, you know, or we don't want to be like me, because I'd rather be on set, but at the same time do I want to be on set. You know, we all have a minimum that we're happy with, and my whole thing is I'm not going to be on set if I'm not going to give it my 100 percent, and I'm not going to give it my 100 percent if I'm not making this minimum Simple as that, so I just don't even want to take it because my clients don't deserve me and anything but my 100%.

Vipul Bindra: 1:23:05

And now that brings a good topic and I want to talk about it. Here's my opinion. I would love to hear yours after that. But how to price? Because I think a lot of people go with like how to come up with the day rate. They hear somebody else's day rate and say, okay, well, that must be the right day rate and that's not true. Like don't again look for other people for advice. But I don't again look for other people for advice.

Vipul Bindra: 1:23:24

But I don't think anyone should just copy other person 100% because you don't know their skill level, their kit, what they're bringing. What you should do is pick a number that you're happy, like, hey, here's my bare minimum that makes me happy to leave home. I'm going to give it my 100% or whatever. I'm going to do it, my hundred percent or whatever. I'm going to do good job on set. And then, once you believe it right because you chose the number right, you should believe it otherwise. Keep working on the number. Then say it confidently this is my rate and most people will either then hire you or not. And if you're getting 58 to 80. Yes, then you're good if you're getting 100 yes.

Alex Minor: 1:24:05

If you're getting 50 80 yes, you might need to take your rate higher though that's what I'm saying.

Vipul Bindra: 1:24:10

If you're getting a 50 to 80 percent, yeah, oh well, let's say okay. If you're getting most people to say yes, up your rate please, and if you're getting nobody, or very little people to say yes, then lower your rate. And I think market dictates at the end of the day. Yeah, you gotta you gotta do some research.

Alex Minor: 1:24:27

Um, now, you shouldn't all, you shouldn't wholesale base what you charge on what other people charge, because, like you said, people have different equipment, they've got different experience, they they've got different areas of specialty, uh all those things. But you should be somewhere in the middle yeah, yeah, especially start.

Vipul Bindra: 1:24:45

Well, I think it gives you a reference point to start.

Alex Minor: 1:24:53

If you're just starting out so this is to my people who are just starting out do not try to charge the highest day rate that you've heard of in your vicinity, because you do not deserve it. You don't have the body of work to back it up, you don't have the clientele, like you don't have the history. Don't go out and try to swing for the stars your first day trying to get on set like it you're setting yourself because the thing is, with certain levels of money become come certain levels of expectation. So if you're out here, um, you know, charging a 1500 day rate, that comes with500 day rate. That comes with $1,500 day rate expectations. If you're out here charging $250, the expectations are a lot less.

Alex Minor: 1:25:31

Now also your quality of client may be a lot less, because I think, if they're trying to hire a videographer or anybody in the production world for $250, world for 250, it unless you're just like, unless you're just like an assistant or um what's, what's the pa?

Vipul Bindra: 1:25:56

yeah, just like a pa like for a pa. Maybe 250 for a day is okay. Yeah, you're a grip, but anybody who's like a specialist.

Alex Minor: 1:26:02

if they're trying to hire you for 250, you might not have the best experience with that client Exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:26:10

But if that's where you are at, then that's okay too, but if you're first starting out, you may.

Alex Minor: 1:26:15

And the other thing is, if you're just starting out and they know you're just starting out you may have to charge some 250, 350 jobs just to get a job. But then you knock those jobs out of the park, you do the best job that you can so that you've got great looking material to show to to future clients, future potential clients, so that you can start charging 500, 750, a thousand, whatever it is, and remember you're getting more value out of it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:26:42

a lot of people think that the value is just the client. So client paid you $250, $350. You made them a silly or whatever the video they wanted. Right, clearly not the best work, but you're improving your skills because, remember, the value you're getting is experience for yourself, because when you go to that $1,500 day-to-day job, you know the expectations need to be matched. And where are you going to get them? Either by either being on other people's set or by doing better work for yourself and learning through either YouTube, university or wherever. But the other thing I want people to know is just know that your rate when you get hired by direct clients and by production companies not the same thing.

Alex Minor: 1:27:22

And you have to be willing to understand that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:27:24

I've had so many people go oh yeah, my rate is $1,500. And I'm like that's great, nothing wrong with your rate, but like what's your rate for me? Because I have to go bill my client $1,500. Now what am I, you know? So what I'm saying is when you're working with a producer, we have costs to do payroll or to do taxes and to do credit card fees and other payment processes.

Alex Minor: 1:27:46

Client acquisition.

Vipul Bindra: 1:27:47

Client acquisition fees. Because when you're working with someone like we have meetings and other stuff point is, when I work for myself, I work a lot more but I charge more. When Alex says, bipple, I want to hire you, then all I'm doing is showing up with maybe the gear or without the gear, and then you know, I do the job and I go home and I get paid. I don't have to worry about when the payment is coming through, what the issues are. So you have to understand Alex is going to make a cut off whatever he pays me. So whatever he can charge the client he's going to give me. Again, everyone has their own rates, but I typically go 80% or something like that. Other person may do different rate. Point is. Point is just know that you have to cut your rates a little bit because the other person has other costs that they need to be able to, uh, to make up, and that's okay.

Alex Minor: 1:28:30

Like you should do the same thing when you bring other people in right because, like one thing that you should do when you're bringing other people in, especially when you're starting out, tell them what you can pay them like don't, don't ask people, what's their rate, say, hey, I need somebody to do this, this is what I can pay, because then you don't have to waste time with that, that whole back and forth of, oh well, I charged a thousand bucks. Okay, what's your price for me, like?

Alex Minor: 1:28:55

no, it's like hey, I need an assistant on this. I could pay 500 bucks for the day. Do you want to do it?

Vipul Bindra: 1:29:01

exactly makes it very easy. That's very smart, alex. Uh just cut through the whole chase and uh, but I'm saying, be willing. I've had people go. Same thing now. Let me tell one experience I had, uh. So I had somebody that I hired, you know, 250, 350, 450, those type of ranges, uh for the day. And then I go a couple months not hiring them, which I'm great they're learning and then they go, oh, my rate is 1500 now. Because I called them back and I was like, hey, you want to come help out and be an assistant, just like you did on, or be a second cam out, whatever, and they go, oh, my rate is 1500. Now I'm like, okay, I understand upping your rate, but your rate didn't go from 400 to 1500 in two months. I know your skill level didn't jump that high, so also be reasonable with your jumps. I'm like, if clients will pay you, absolutely Again your clients who are paying you.

Vipul Bindra: 1:29:49

That's fine, but I know your skill level because I worked with you many, many times. Your skill level just didn't up a thousand bucks in two months. So what I'm also saying is be reasonable, don't break bridges. Which is fine. I was like, hey, if you're getting work, perfect, hang up, call the next person on my network, because you know I hire people all the time, even at $2,500 a day rates, but the jobs have to, you know what I'm saying is yeah, exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:30:17

And then I hire grips and PAs at $2,250 a day. So you know there's going to be, and everything in between. And so the job dependent and the experience dependent. So when I'm hiring people at local, that low level, I've asked them I'm like, what are you good at? Oh, I know how to set up a C-stand, but I don't know how to set up light. Great, I know that. Now and I'll work within that limitation because you're at that low rate, I'm okay, you're not knowing everything as I know up front. Then I'm going to put somebody who knows how to set up the light with somebody who knows how to set up the stand, for example. You guys are good, you got your thing. I'm happy because you know that's the expectation for the job. Um, or you're brand new and I like your vibe. I'm like, okay, well, there's unpaid but you can come do bts or whatever, right, so I'm getting something out of it. But I'm not like taking advantage of you by putting you to work so everyone gains and you learn by being on the set.

Vipul Bindra: 1:31:04

So, with what the job is, now I've had, obviously we're filming, a commercial high-end client. Hey, you're coming with your alexa package. Obviously here's 2500 bucks. You know that's your rate and I'm happy to pay it. I say what's your rate? 2500? There you go to me. It was worth it because, considering thinking about the lens and the rent, the camera package rental, I'm end up paying 25, 1500 anyway because I'm counting thousand as a rental and I like that's a very good rate, right. So I'm saying there's also context. Plus I'm like oh, you've been on bigger sets, you know it's a great fit, so you know what I mean. Like you have to balance it out. What do you think right?

Alex Minor: 1:31:49

Yeah, I think you're perfectly right've always went out with the telling people what I can pay, and sometimes there's some pushback in it, or not pushback, I'll say. But they'll say, oh well, I usually work for this, and it's like you have to think OK well, how much do I really want this specific person? Am I willing to pay that extra? You know, like I don't hire a ton of different people. Usually my go to's are, you know, I, I don't hire a ton of different people. Um, usually my go-to's are, you know, ben quentin, um, and then, like I'll hit people in the group to see if I could find somebody, uh, but even adam has come work for you.

Vipul Bindra: 1:32:25

Look at that adam, adam, because because I needed a.

Alex Minor: 1:32:28

I needed a drone guy and adam had drone skills and had a good drone. And I mean, like I don't want to say what, I hired Adam for because he would probably be mad at me, but he did me a favor. I fully know that Adam did me a favor, that day. I think he just wasn't busy.

Vipul Bindra: 1:32:43

No, it's the same thing. Like I've done that for him too, I want people to know and that's where the relationship comes in, as long you know, if you need help or if, like, for example, there's a project that adam needed help with um and he needed like um, like a gaffer. I would call it the. We don't have defined roles and you know corporate work, but um, essentially, and I was free that day and I was like you know, buddy, like this isn't my rate, obviously, but I'm happy to just hang out with you, so let's just do it. And then you know, same thing he did, and it's not one way.

Vipul Bindra: 1:33:15

Then I needed a project. I was stuck in some airport, some other city doing a project, and then I was like, hey, I need help, this isn't your rate, but here's what I need. I need you to bring a tripod and you know whatever I needed and I will have this much of my gear there and this many people. Can you come in and help? Plus, I'd like you to lead, because I know you can run a team, and he was happy to do it. Obviously not remotely close to you know what I mean. Right, same thing. It's just like we trust. And then I had you lead last year I think it was that live streaming event thing, but it was like, look, I'm not going to be there um day one, I need you to.

Vipul Bindra: 1:33:47

You know, you're going to have your cam up and you it's a small team I mean I had like 11 or whatever people there but your team because you were imag uh, it was you in a cam op and I was like, look, you know here's equipment, go do it. And plus, you had your cameras. I was like, so you're gonna need to bring your cameras here, your equipment, and go run it. And I trust you you ran it. Life is good, clients happy. You know what I mean. Like can't complain, I didn't even have to be there and obviously, um, that takes some trust building yeah and you're doing me a favor.

Vipul Bindra: 1:34:15

Plus, I'm also giving you so much of my gear. It's my trust that you know you're not gonna break my gear. And then, uh, you have trust that you know you're willing to um work at a rate that's probably lower than what you would charge if you were doing it for yourself. You know that's how it is.

Alex Minor: 1:34:28

We have right, but it's the thing. I just had to show up and do the thing. I didn't have to go to meetings, I didn't have to try to chase a client. I didn't have to do none of that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:34:36

All the planning, yeah, you just handle it. But that's what I'm saying. But what I'm trying to get to is building this network and helping each other out. I think is what makes all of us elevate our brands and levels and quality and charge more. But we can only do that when we have friends who understand the business.

Vipul Bindra: 1:34:54

See, for me it's easier to hire people like you Adam, emmanuel, all the people I've had on the podcast to be real Ben, because Ben was there too. I think yeah, because I'm like, these people get it, like they understand the business side of it. They understand what I'm charging the client, what I can pay, and, plus, you're happy because you know, like I said, some people I asked I think you were one of the people where I asked what you could do it for. But with ben I was like, look, I don't even want to know what your rate is. This is what I can pay. You know, can you come?

Vipul Bindra: 1:35:21

Because you know his job was just interviewing people, right? He and I was like, look, I mean, you know, I have somebody like alex running the imac. I need somebody running this side of the team. Can you come? You're not really touching the camera. You can do some b-roll for me, and he did. But I was like rest is just run the interview set right and that's your set. But like, come on, like you don't have to actually do much other than ask questions and if you think about it. But either way, I just presented it like what I needed him to do. Here's the rate and he was happy to take it because you know, it's like you said, it's pretty decent money for, if you think about it, uh, for not bringing any equipment showing up asking a bunch of questions at a good event. But at the end I'm saying the event went great because I had people I trust there, you know, at rates where they were happy.

Alex Minor: 1:36:05

But then I was happy because I'm making a cut on everyone, right, and so I'm making good money, and that's another thing like don't think that you shouldn't make a cut on everyone yeah, and you have to, you're if you're a puppet, mastering the thing and being the brain behind it, and you're you've got the client, you're planning it all out like you deserve that money yeah, you deserve that money and I think that's another thing.

Alex Minor: 1:36:26

That that's why a lot of people stay small. They don't hire crews is because they're not comfortable with that or they think that they don't even think that they can hire or that they don't even think that they can take a cut off of. They just pay the person the day rate and that's exactly what they charge to the client. They're not putting anything on top of that. It's like no, you should be making a cut off everything you provide.

Vipul Bindra: 1:36:47

Exactly and because at the end of the day, look, I had like 30, 35 grand in line that day. I can't risk it with strangers. I can only risk it with friends, people I trust, people I know and I am not going to plus, I'm not there physically, I cannot fix anything. Biggest thing we do is problem solve. I don't know what you're going to run into, what issues with, I think audio. You guys had issue with the people doing audio that day. There's something. Who knows what the issues are going to be, what the problems are going to be? But at the end this is a higher level gig, you know, because they're paying 30, 35 grand for total, for all the services, because it wasn't just one thing like we're doing interviews, we're doing, uh, the imag, we're also doing recap video.

Vipul Bindra: 1:37:29

We're doing a bunch of things. Point is, if they're paying that level of pricing, they expect premium right, and then on our side I expect things to go without hiccup. I don't want my team to be like they're they had that audio issue, you know uh to to have any issues in in the um, in the work. Point is, uh, and I only trust, uh, you know people that I know who'll do a good job and, like I said, if they're happy to come help out, make a good, you know day rate um.

Alex Minor: 1:37:56

And then I'm happy that I executed it without even being there at a level where the client was happy, and that is such a good feeling like you, you guys, a lot of you don't know the feeling of having a project happen without you being there, like that, is one of the best feelings and that's, and, honestly, that's when you are truly starting to build a business, when you can execute projects without you being there. That is when you are starting to build a business that can and here's the cherry on the- cake.

Vipul Bindra: 1:38:26

I was at a different gig making money, so you know what I mean like you're like double dipping, you're making good, like I'm like, oh, I'm making money here and I'm making money there. I'm not even there and to me the best feeling is that, like what you mentioned, just projects happen without you. But then here's what I love. I'm obsessive. So, believe it or not, I had this chart where I planned out where everyone was going to sit, what everyone's going to do, where the interview was going to be. So, before, because you know I had to do site visits and everything I had like the whole thing planned out. But remember, I'm sending people essentially blind because you guys don't show up until day one. And then to look at footage, because I sent a producer in, I sent Julie as the producer and I trust her and I was like OK, so you're my eyes, you know. You know I need to see footage and then to see exactly being executed, how I planned out. Is this such a I don't know a fulfilling feeling?

Vipul Bindra: 1:39:18

right because at the end of the day, I didn't just call you and ben and I just said go do this right. I gave you the tools, I gave ben the tools that you guys needed to execute, like you said. You had to just show up, set it up, get it running right, um so to to plan it and then to for it to happen in real life without you being there is just such a good feeling. And when you see the bigger picture I'm seeing this wide shots from a phone, right Cell phone footage and everyone's where they need to be the interview set looks like that. The IMAX looks like how it needs to look. The B-roll for the for the recap video is going exactly how I wanted the presence to be of the camera operators. I'm like this is incredible because and while I'm filming, remember I'm doing- my thing yeah, I'm already filming and then I'm looking at these and I'm like, okay, this is perfect execution.

Vipul Bindra: 1:40:07

Great, I had no feedback. I think I like got one call or whatever that day, like to put about some question, but you guys everyone I'm saying executed perfectly. And that's just one of the gigs. We did that multiple times last year and I was like this is the best feeling in the world and, uh, I wouldn't trade it for anything. But now it's not for everyone because, like I say, you have to put your trust in, you have to hire the right people and it's also a skill set that you got to develop.

Alex Minor: 1:40:30

Um, that's another thing that I had to learn over the over the years and and like I, I haven't been hiring people and putting people on gigs and stuff forever. It's only been the last few years. It was like I got a really big client in 2021. I want to say, um, they hired me to do a recruiting video for their company and and they and they and they also hired me to do some other stuff, but basically it was like a three month contract $30,000.

Alex Minor: 1:41:00

And when I got that, I was like okay, I got to start hiring help, like because I knew that it was big enough that, like I couldn't do everything myself, or that it would be way too much work for me to try to do everything myself, and so I was just like, okay, I got to get used to this. You have to get used to hiring people, because for some folks who aren't used to it it's going to feel weird, it may even feel like bad, it might be anxiety inducing, to start handing that money to other people. But now it's to the point where, like I don't care about paying somebody else, like I want to be able to pay somebody else, I want it to be built into the budget of the project that I can pay other people to do the shit, so I don't have to exactly, and that's how you level up.

Vipul Bindra: 1:41:43

Because the truth is look, you have 24 hours, seven days a week. What? 52 weeks in a year? That's all the time you have. Can you go out, get projects, shoot, edit, market, do everything, client meetings yourself, but then you have a ceiling right and that ceiling can never be crossed. You can never become a real business because you're doing everything. The only way you can grow is to look at the bigger picture. Realize what you're good at right is to look at the bigger picture. Realize what you're good at right, do what you're good at and then delegate or hire people to do stuff you're not good at. I don't know how to do accounting or taxes. You know you hire the people to do that right.

Alex Minor: 1:42:24

And then, because you can spend hours and hours on TurboTax and figure it out, but that hours and hours could be better spent on sales or video Right, and there's probably a bunch of nuanced stuff that you'll miss and you'll end up paying the government more money than you should or not being able to keep as much money as you should.

Vipul Bindra: 1:42:41

And you'd rather just hire an expert and let them deal with it, and saves you time to actually work on things that you're good at.

Alex Minor: 1:42:47

And I think that's the biggest lesson to, if anyone wants to go from individual making a limit of whatever the ceiling is for you and, like once again, it's not for everybody but I'll tell you, like the the, the most, the the least amount of stress I had on a project last year was this project where, um, this company hired me on a tight timeline. It was a nonprofit. They needed a video to introduce their CEO at their annual conference. But they wanted to interview shareholders in multiple cities and they needed it done. And basically from the first meeting I had a month to get it done and they were like, yeah, we're just not sure like how it's gonna work with like flying you out to, to interviews, and I'm like we don't gotta do that yeah and and so I got, I used some of my connections, I used the internet, I hired crews in the different cities where they needed to get the interviews done, because it was just to, it was just to interview with each of these people.

Alex Minor: 1:43:55

I didn't need no B roll, I didn't need anything else, and so, like I figured out what's a price that I think I can get this done at in each of these cities you know how many cities is it? Blah, blah, blah. And even though you would think, with that month time cause that was a month to shoot it, edit it and turn it in and you would think that would be really stressful because, like the first couple of weeks was just like the plannings and logistics of everything, it was the least stressful project that I had that year because all I had, all I had to do, was be on those meetings. Then I, because I had to do was be on those meetings, then I, because I hired you know I did a really good job of vetting people that I hired um, I showed up on zoom to interview those people.

Vipul Bindra: 1:44:46

They sent me the footage and and I had them like input the camera signal into zoom so I could verify it was yeah, remote producer essentially. You were the remote producer essentially.

Alex Minor: 1:44:55

And then I hired a good editor, who I handed because I knew the type of video it was.

Alex Minor: 1:45:00

It's the type of video that I overthink when it comes to editing and I'm like, if I have to edit this, I'm going to hold up the process. And so I hired a good editor. I handed him all the footage. I probably over communicated what it was supposed to be Like. I had a whole info board that I wrote out and, you know, gave him stock footage that they provided plus, gave him access to my stock footage and then all that type of stuff, and it was just like, like dude, he had the first edit turned around in like three days or four days or something, which would not have been the case if I did it.

Alex Minor: 1:45:37

That's so incredible and he did such a good job, like, and it was just like, and it was just like at the end of it I felt I almost felt like I didn't do anything. Yeah, and it was, it was like a 10 grand project or 11 grand project and like I felt like I almost didn't do it. I did do work, yeah, and I I even went to one of the interviews because I have family out in dc, which was one of the cities where they needed interviews. So I so like I actually used funds from the project to go visit family look at that, hey, why not?

Alex Minor: 1:46:05

because I justified it by like well, a ticket's not that much to dc from orlando, and like I'll actually show up boots on the ground for this one shoot which allowed me to meet, uh, the lady who hired me from the company because she was the marketing director. So I actually got to meet and make nice with the marketing director, so on that front it was worth it yeah, um.

Vipul Bindra: 1:46:25

No, that's incredible. I remember talking to you about that gig and I was like that's exactly where you level, like not, you're already level, but people level up because here's the truth you make the most amount of money and your best work when you're the puppet master. That's just how it is, or you are completely the other way. You can make good work, maybe not. The best money is when you are, uh, just a dp, so you can be, or whatever certain one task, but then you can do it if you're super specialized yeah, then you can focus on that one task.

Vipul Bindra: 1:46:52

But in general me and Adam talked about this too he was able to level up his production company because he was able to bring in other people like me and David and other people to be able to then be that puppet master. Not that he always wants to do that, but that's just how you can take more projects.

Alex Minor: 1:47:11

That's how you get bigger projects. You can take more projects. That's how you get bigger projects. Or even it may not be that the project is bigger but that you can justify having a higher price to people who otherwise might not understand. Or you hire a company and one person rolls in to take care of your project, or three people roll in, or four people roll in, or five or ten people, like when multiple people have to roll in to do Because when you're the client and somebody wants to charge you ten grand to do one video, but one guy walks in the door, you might be sitting there like is this really supposed to cost 10 grand? And it could be 10 grand worth of work?

Alex Minor: 1:47:58

Exactly, but if one guy shows up to do the work, you're kind of like, did we really should we have paid this much money? But when a team rolls in the door, then it's like, oh, okay. And the team rolls in with all the equipment that a team can bring and set up quickly and get to work, then it's like, oh okay, I understand why this is $10,000.

Vipul Bindra: 1:48:19

Exactly there you go, and that's man. You couldn't have said it better. Now I want to go back, because we've already been talking for quite some time, but I want to talk that specific gig, because that's the type of gigs people want to get.

Alex Minor: 1:48:39

So first tell me, how did you find that gig? Uh, the gig found me. It was an old client of mine who had been hired by this non-profit as their like director of operations. She heard they wanted to do this video. She recommended me because I had produced her podcast. I'd helped her with the brand video for her podcast and we we had a great relationship. We had been. We like she's not doing her project, her podcast anymore because she got busy with family and stuff like that. So it got.

Alex Minor: 1:49:00

It got to be where she couldn't handle the workload of doing the podcast, even though I was doing all the technical stuff um, but either way, she had already worked with you she had a good, great experience with me. She pretty much pre-sold them on me. She was like I know him, I've worked with him for years. He's great.

Vipul Bindra: 1:49:15

You should talk best clients, because now you don't have to sell anything but figure out the solution. So, uh, how did you do a virtual meeting, I'm guessing. So how did that go? And how did you price come to the price that you did, and what was the price?

Alex Minor: 1:49:28

you can give us rough numbers uh, original price was supposed to be 15 grand. It came down to like 10 or 11 grand because they cut some of the interviews out.

Vipul Bindra: 1:49:37

Okay, and how many interviews did it end up being?

Alex Minor: 1:49:40

it ended up being. I want to say it was four interviews that my crew shot. There was supposed to be a fifth interview that they shot, but that person ended up saying, hey, my schedule is too tight, I'll just have the people the video people that work at my company shoot it and we'll send it to you, okay.

Vipul Bindra: 1:49:57

So you, you shot four and one came from them and you just had to cut the five into a video, right with stock footage and stuff. Okay, perfect, to price it out when you're in the meeting, did you already give the price, or you said no, I'll send you a quote after I had to send them a quote after I had to figure it out.

Vipul Bindra: 1:50:13

So and then for you to figure it out, did you use your pricing sheet or you first had to go on production up and find these crews first? How did you do the number first?

Alex Minor: 1:50:21

so I came up, so I came up with the. The price, basically how I did it was there was pre-production fees, um, there was media storage fees, there was fees for the editing and then there was a price per shoot, um, because they were having me do multiple shoots and each sit in these different cities.

Alex Minor: 1:50:47

And so, when it came to the price per shoot, I first looked at it is if I was actually going to do this, if I was actually going to shoot this in orlando, what would I charge somebody to shoot this in orlando? Um, and I came up with that number and because I and? And then I said, all right, since I'm actually not going to, be there I'm going to tack on a virtual producer fee because, I'm because I'm, because I'm uh dialing in, I'm conducting the interview for them, making sure it all goes smoothly, um.

Alex Minor: 1:51:20

And then I said, okay, out of what I would want to charge for this shoot, what can I? What do? What can I pay somebody for this one hour shoot, because it's pretty much, or?

Alex Minor: 1:51:30

it, it was like two hours, like an hour to set up, half hour to do the interview, half hour to break down. What can I pay somebody for this two hours of work that they're not going to feel insulted, and I can get somebody who's decent. And so then I decided on that number so that I could see what I would actually make off of the project. Oh, and I had to price out what I was going to pay an editor. Okay, so I had to get the number. I had to know what I was willing to pay per shoot, what I was willing to pay an editor, and then how much money I could make off all these things. And then so that's pretty good.

Vipul Bindra: 1:52:05

You did some calculation. Came out with 11 K. You sent the proposal.

Alex Minor: 1:52:08

It was it was 15k because I was supposed to.

Alex Minor: 1:52:15

Originally I was supposed to do seven interviews, okay. Three of those went away, okay, and then, and so when I had, when we had agreed on it, when they had seen the proposal, they were like they knew that that some of the interviews because they still had to book everybody for the interviews, and that was another thing, that was another stipulation I had to make. It's like y'all have to book these things, y'all have to, y'all have to book the, the people. You have to arrange the place. Yeah, I just. So all I have to do is tell my crews when to show up. Yeah, like because if I have to do all that extra work, if I, if I have to contact them and do all this stuff because I don't know none of these people, one, they're not going to take me as serious because they're not you, yeah, and two, that's a whole lot of extra work on my plate. I only got a month. I can't do that yeah, exactly, and so.

Alex Minor: 1:52:52

So those were stipulations that I had to make um which they were fine with.

Vipul Bindra: 1:52:56

So once they made the changes, it was 11k they signed. Did you take 50 deposit or all of it up front?

Alex Minor: 1:53:02

uh, 50, 50. I usually what's your and what's your other 50?

Vipul Bindra: 1:53:06

when do they pay that? When they get the delivery? When they approve the deliverable okay, so they have to prove it. Then they get the file yeah okay, perfect, so time contract sign. You got the thing you I'm guessing you. Where do you find these people? Production hub and your network, some of them.

Alex Minor: 1:53:21

One was in my network, like I went to my network first because I knew that I was most likely to get people who would agree to the price that I wanted, because I got some. I got some good deal, I got some not nice emails from people on Production Hub telling me that my rate that I was offering was way too low.

Vipul Bindra: 1:53:37

Oh, you were the other side of it. It's so funny here we're telling people to charge more, but you're offering low money. Well, because?

Alex Minor: 1:53:45

like we said, I knew it wasn't going to be more than two hours of work and all they had to do was show up and shoot it and send me the file. So that's why.

Vipul Bindra: 1:53:57

And that's okay. You know right, look, when you become a producer, there's gonna be somebody there's gonna be somebody who will agree to it at that price.

Alex Minor: 1:54:05

Um, because even though I had a couple of not nice emails from you, know old, grizzled veterans telling me that you're ruining the market and this is what I would charge to do this. Yeah, that's what you would charge if you were going to wreck the client.

Alex Minor: 1:54:18

I'm not the end client yeah, you have to make your profit, so I get that um but I got so many emails from people willing to do it, even when I said it at a price where I was like I don't know if somebody's going to be willing to take it at this price and I got really good people at that price, like I got people that I thought stop undercharging people like stop it.

Alex Minor: 1:54:40

I got, I got people who who's. When I saw their work I couldn't believe that they were agreeing to do my job for the price that I was paying because they don't have the business skills.

Vipul Bindra: 1:54:52

They're probably lacking work because they're talented, Like a lot of people in this industry. You know, I'm guessing again, but most likely the people I come across who are like that yeah, they're very talented, but they don't have the business skills to know what to charge, which is good for you when you're a producer, but not good, you know, when you're like a mentor or a friend, Right?

Alex Minor: 1:55:13

And it may just have been. It may have been a bender case where it's like, oh, we don't got nothing to do that day. Let me make an extra, however many dollars.

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:20

Okay, and which is what?

Alex Minor: 1:55:21

I kind of think I got. I think, because it was so, because, like and I specified it in the job I'm like this job will take you two hours and I think that was why, like if it was going to be a half day or a full day like definitely wouldn't have got these people at that price exactly, but because it was like, yeah, it's going to take you two hours.

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:39

It's one interview, there's no b-roll what type of cameras did they use?

Alex Minor: 1:55:43

um, most of them were shooting with sony's. Okay, one person shot with one person shot with reds, which I was like why do you want to do this job with reds?

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:53

I guess it's just what he has. Yeah, exactly, most likely.

Alex Minor: 1:55:56

Yeah, that's yeah like like because when and that was the guy in dc did a fantastic job like he, even he even color graded the footage for me.

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:05

Um, what did you pay him? Come on, we can, we can know 750 look at that 750 showed up in the reds and color graded the footage, which is why I'm telling you don't invest in I didn't.

Alex Minor: 1:56:17

It's not worth it. I didn't even ask him to. He offered to yeah, um, and I'm glad he did because, like I, because he sent me the raw footage himself and I tried to color grade it and it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:26

Yeah, red footage is not the easiest. I mean, it's really good because you can manipulate it, but if you don't know what you're doing, it's just time consuming and I've used red footage before and gotten good results but, that time, for some reason, I just I was not on point that day, like because I tried to color grade it no, no, that's and that's okay, which camera?

Alex Minor: 1:56:43

which red was it uh?

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:45

older or newer? Was it dsmc3 or?

Alex Minor: 1:56:47

I think it was one of the newer joints, the little komodos.

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:51

Yeah, which is pretty good, I mean camera yeah, so like yeah, but what?

Alex Minor: 1:56:57

yeah, it did not go well when I tried to color grade it and I was like so he, he's, you know, did the whole rec 709 on it and I was like.

Vipul Bindra: 1:57:05

Thank you yeah, no, and that's what I'm saying. That's great, obviously good for you to get people at 750, because I know, uh, that that's lower than what rate people would think. But hey, at the end day those people were happy.

Alex Minor: 1:57:17

But you gotta think 750 for two hours of work.

Vipul Bindra: 1:57:20

Yeah, it's not pretty good yeah, especially when all they're doing single camera. I'm guessing over there two cameras it was two camera interview and they come, set up the interview film, give you the file they leave. Basically is the is the premise and you know. So you did four of those At $750, it popped to what $3,000?. Then what's your editing expense on that $500. $500. So you spent $3,500. So your profit?

Alex Minor: 1:57:46

is what I spent a little bit more. One guy got a little bit extra because they moved the location of the interview on him and I was like hey bro, I'll like. Okay, it was like I know you got to travel to do this. Like I know you got to travel farther than you originally thought to do this, I'll pay you a little extra so, but you made still sixty five hundred seven thousand dollars, something like that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:58:06

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Alex Minor: 1:58:08

I mean, come on, people, eleven grand project, four editing, and you were able to pull a 6,500 to 7 grand project and the thing is because of the way that I priced it where it was like and where I was willing to, because I had priced it like per shoot per city, because that gave them. I think the reason I was able to land the project, or part of the reason I was able to land the project, is because when we discussed the proposal, they were like, well, if we don't shoot all the interviews, will the price come down? And I was like, yeah, the price will like the price will adjust.

Vipul Bindra: 1:58:46

They were clearly price sensitive. But at the end of the day, look, I think it comes down to execution, because you could have done that two different ways, right. You could have done that two different ways, right. You could have flown to all these cities. You could have filmed them yourself. He's sure you save money on the the money that you paid, but now you have travel like I made it clear to them that they were saving money.

Alex Minor: 1:59:02

It was like I was like, yeah, if, if you try to fly me to these cities, one we're not gonna like I'm gonna be out of pocket for a day every time that I fly, um, where you're not gonna be able to contact me, you're not, you're not gonna know what's going on, and then, like it's gonna cost you it like if they had tried to fly, it would have been 20 grand plus yeah, because you have to pay travel day, you have to pay production.

Vipul Bindra: 1:59:23

Well, whether you charge them or not, indirectly, you know you are charging them yeah so travel day, then production day, uh, maybe even another travel. Well, probably not, because two hours shoot, you could fly back the same day. But then also, um, you have, um, you save on the production cost, but now you may need an assistant or whatever to bring with you locally again. You're still doing that work anyway for this project it's oh yeah, I hired an assistant.

Alex Minor: 1:59:45

Yeah, so so there's something, so you end up doing the same it probably would have been like 22 to 25 grand if they had tried to fly me out exactly now. The advantage to client now some would be like, yes, if the client could afford it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:59:52

It would have been like 22 to 25 grand if they had tried to fly me out Exactly Now. The advantage to client. Now some would be like, yes, if the client could afford it, it would have been better, because the video would have been fully consistent with you know cause you, it's your footage, it's everything controlled by you. But if their budget is 11 grand, then your method is better because clients get something in their budget and it still looks great, cause you know, redfoot.

Alex Minor: 2:00:14

They were super happy. They gave me great feedback.

Vipul Bindra: 2:00:16

And that's incredible, right, and that's what I want people to know, because that's the type of gigs we all want to be doing Because you know just a breakdown of what you can do, what you can charge, what you can get away with Before we go. I can't believe it's been two hours, man. We could talk for another too easily.

Alex Minor: 2:00:30

Hey, you know how me and you get yeah.

Vipul Bindra: 2:00:31

I know we also say we've had multiples of these podcasts indirectly, you know of the conversations we get. No, I had to like force you to get in there. We're like we already started talking before we even sat down.

Vipul Bindra: 2:00:43

And it was like already, you know, game on. And that's why I love talking to you, because I think we both care about our craft but at the same time we also care about the business side of it. And it's just so great to have these conversations because, like I said, you know you learn from each other. I would have never added I'm telling it here publicly that makeup artists, the checkboxes, because you know, to me that was not right. But until I talked to you and I had to hear that other perspective, I'm like, yeah, it makes sense for the client, it makes sense for me because there's zero effort, I just have to do it, and it's not taking away from the client experience, like I initially thought. And, um, you know, it's things like that.

Vipul Bindra: 2:01:20

I'm just saying having conversations is how you level up. So before we go, I wanted to ask you one, uh, one other question. Like how are, what are your currently? And I know you have a formula, obviously, uh, of charging, but I want people to understand how do you come up with your rate? So if somebody calls you, whether it's local or whatever, yeah, so basically my prices, so my production.

Alex Minor: 2:01:40

Production is where I make the bulk of my money when I'm doing a project for somebody, um, and so to come up with the production rate, I base it off of a day rate, but it's I don't charge day rates, so it's a, like you said, it's a formula, um, so if I was going to be charging just a straight day rate to somebody, I'd want at least 12 50 a day, I believe. Actually it's 2025, it should probably go up to 1500, um, because it, because and it's gone.

Vipul Bindra: 2:02:08

It's gone up over the years. Yeah, I'll be right, um, but anyway, yeah, so, but I want to know that unique structure. I really liked it the way and you explained it again. I don't do it this way, but I want people to hear the other way you start with your day rate.

Alex Minor: 2:02:20

Whatever your day rate is, just for just for ease's sake, we'll say the day rate is a thousand dollars. So what I charge people to come out and shoot is I charge them a base price which will will be like 40% of the day rate. So that means if it's a thousand dollars, that means I'm not leaving the house for less than $400. And that's just for the first hour of service Plus my equipment, my basic set of equipment, not extras, not bells and whistles, like the basic set of equipment that I would bring out to minimally be able to do a video.

Alex Minor: 2:02:52

That'll be whatever it is for you, whatever that is for you Like. For me that's my, my two cameras, that's a three-point lighting kit and basic audio. So that's what they get for $400 for one hour. Then the rest of that thousand dollar day rate gets divided by seven and that's the hourly rate that you charge for the rest of the hours in a day like I base it on an eight hour day. I know a lot of film productions they base on a 12 hour day or if you're an av, they base things on a 10 hour day.

Alex Minor: 2:03:24

I just want to do a regular work day, so we gonna we gonna do eight hours, um, and then depending on how you want to charge you, if you go past eight hours on a shoot day, you can charge time and a half if you want, or you can just charge the straight hourly. Just for simplicity's sake I don't do time and a half. I know that's probably a mistake, but I'm lazy.

Vipul Bindra: 2:03:47

But that's okay, it works.

Alex Minor: 2:03:48

I'm just being honest, and so that'll be like the bulk of the production cost. The way that I have um been added on to that is I started adding pre-production fees, which is like your meetings, logistics, planning, all those other, all those tasks that you have to do in planning the shoot, which a lot of us forget to charge for, especially when you're first starting out. Most of us are not charging pre-production. You need to charge for pre for, especially when you're first starting out. Most of us are not charging pre-production. You need to charge for pre-production, especially when you're getting these projects that require multiple meetings and back and forth and lots of planning, like you need to be charging for pre-production and you need to put a limit on it as well.

Alex Minor: 2:04:27

So, like usually, my minimum pre-production fee is $500 and that's for, like, a light project, a project that doesn't really require me to do a whole lot of planning, charge $500. That's including my client meetings, back and forth calls, emails and stuff, and I say there's a limit of five hours that I'm gonna put into this. Then I also usually charge a media and storage fee, because if you're like me or you're like bendra or you're like anybody smart, you hardly ever delete anything, and so I tell clients your data is money but I tell clients this fee is for the memory cards, it's for the hard drives and it guarantees that I will keep your content for at least six months.

Alex Minor: 2:05:11

I don't guarantee anything past that. I still have stuff from five years ago but I don't guarantee it I don't guarantee that.

Vipul Bindra: 2:05:18

I said like if somebody pay a premium, if they want to guarantee right if somebody calls me up, I probably still have it.

Alex Minor: 2:05:24

Um, and I'm not perfect, there are a couple of hard drives that have gone missing in the last.

Vipul Bindra: 2:05:28

Follow the three, two, one backup rule. Look up up if somebody doesn't know. I would highly recommend doing that.

Alex Minor: 2:05:36

But I'm not perfect. I don't have a fancy NAS like Bindra and some folks do, so there's a couple of hard drives that I've had.

Vipul Bindra: 2:05:43

We've got to level you up on that Like, hey, somewhere I can help you If I can get the revenue to get it.

Alex Minor: 2:05:47

I will get it. I've wanted one, let's do it 2025 is the year. There have been in the last four or five years. There are a couple hard drives that have gone missing, one hard drive crashed. That was a sad day, but most of the stuff I've still got it's your company. You can charge whatever you want, as long as you can get them to pay.

Vipul Bindra: 2:06:13

Here's the perspective I wanted to quickly give people. Look in my way. I do, like I said, pricing either here's a price, you know, boutique price, whatever, once I figure out the offer and the solution, or I give if still unknowns, I'll give them a good, better, best option. You know people are going to pick better. That's just typically how it works. But I love your strategy because how you explained it to me.

Vipul Bindra: 2:06:40

Once you now start to add, I love how you break down, once you start to add these numbers, you'll realize that you're rarely charging people 400 bucks. That's just and again, that was just an example anyway. But the idea is your base rate is low, but nobody's usually hiring you for one hour, and then the advantage is you can then take shoots where you are just out for an hour or two if you want to. But then typically, when you add a half a day or more, you end up actually making more money than you would have had you just made a half to a full day rate, because now, once you add up the formula, it ends up being higher.

Alex Minor: 2:07:13

Your half day rate and the way that you really start leveling up the the price is by adding crew members. Because so I said my base, my base rate, or my my day rate that I'm basing everything off of, is 1250. Or or, for the example, we said a thousand dollars, so your second crew member, now you add another 90 of a rate. So instead of so, so instead of a thousand dollars for two crew members, the bay, you're basing it off of 1900. You can do the math whatever 40 of 1900 is and it starts to add up pretty quick that's your base rate.

Alex Minor: 2:07:55

So, and then the third person you're getting. You're giving them the third person for 80. You're giving them the fourth person for 70. I don't go past. I don't go past that, like some people, when they use the formula, they, as they add people, they keep going down by 10 until they get to 50. I'm like I'm stopping at 70 I'm comfortable there.

Vipul Bindra: 2:08:12

Let's do that. No, that's, uh, that's definitely great. So look at both options, calculate it and see which one works out better for you. Um, alex, I would love to bring you back in season two, continue this conversation, but this has been incredible. Before we go, if you want to tell people anything else, or just share your instagram or whatever, they can come, follow you yeah, if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's the Alex minor t-h-e-a-l-e-x-m-i-n-o-r.

Alex Minor: 2:08:38

Also, there's my company. I am media e-y-e-a-m-m-e-d-i-a. And then I'm also on LinkedIn, although not very much these days. I got to give like that's one of the things I got to get back on this year is my social media game, because I've got I've got so much bts footage, cell phone footage, things that I could use to make content, and I'm just not. And that's one of the things that I gotta get.

Vipul Bindra: 2:09:03

I gotta get my content game back right well, you need to go and tell alex on his all the things he told and post comments, post more. You know, maybe we need to encourage you. I mean, they need to encourage me because I'm bad at it too, so but I get it.

Alex Minor: 2:09:16

But yet, yeah, I'm trying to build a pretty nice business for yourself, so that's another thing you. You don't necessarily need to do all the social media things to to build a thriving business, but it can help yes, and that's my goal for this year.

Vipul Bindra: 2:09:31

I'm working on it. I want to post more, be more active. So, uh, just because you know, like you said it, it helps, and I have ignored that because it it was just not the market that I was uh tapping into before. But why not, right? So, yeah, please, uh encourage both of us to post more and uh, hopefully you'll have more stuff, more stuff to see from us. But otherwise, this has been a pleasure, sir. It's always a pleasure talking to you.

Vipul Bindra: 2:09:54

Thank, you for coming and, like I said, until next time hey, come back anytime.