BFC #002 - The Long Term Mindset you Need to make it as a Filmmaker with Matt Jepsen

You're listening to the Business for Creatives podcast, where each week we uncover the secrets to balancing creativity and business all in the one place. With your host, me, Dan Lenny.

Right, guys, welcome to this podcast. Today I am thrilled to have an old mate, Matthew Jepsen, who just happened to be in Sydney and pulled him in on. He's on a family vacation.

He ripped me away from the beach. I know.

And I just wanted. Good. Matt, you've been around for a long time. Let's say probably. Probably the first time we became aware of each other was probably 2009, 2010, the heydays of NAB. But for anyone who doesn't know who you are, tell us a bit about who you are, what you do now, and a bit about your background.

So I'm primarily a commercial DP now. I have a strong documentary DP background. I shoot a lot of commercials and corporates nowadays and branded content, whatever that means. Back in the day, when we met in kind of the NAB heyday, I was probably more of a gearhead. I ran a blog and did sort of the education thing to some extent, not to the level that you did, but certainly talked a lot about that stuff. It was of interest to me at the time and it's maybe less interesting now. Yeah, now I'm a little bit more interested in just being a dp.

Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, we were just. We were just sharing off camera before we got started. How really kind of when DSLRs, we'll just touch. I don't want to go back there too much, but dslrs changed the game.

Back to. Go back to adapters.

Yeah, go back to adapter. So back in the day when it was like small, small sensors and adapters, that's when the evolution of this all started. Everyone knows the story, so let's not go back there. And yes, we were both involved very much in gear talk back then.

The industry has shifted a massive amount in just 10 years. And, you know, for. For this podcast, which is really focusing on the business side of filmmaking, I'm curious, you know, how have you seen the landscape change as a dp? I mean, do you just do DP now? Do you just get hired by people or do you sort of run productions as well?

That's a great question. So I live in Arkansas, which is a small market for video production. We actually don't even have a proper rental house yet. So we have. There's two grip trucks in the area. Owner operators run them and Bob has C Stands and Zach has, you know, combos, and this guy's got an M18. So you. You kind of cobble everything together whenever you need, you know, gear. So as a result of that market, there's a lot of sort of DIY that you have to do. So. For me, most of my work tends to be travel commercial work. I work for a number of directors around the United States and occasionally internationally, and that's the large chunk of my time. And then I have some corporate clients there in Bentonville and Fayetteville, which is nearby me. And we do, you know, boring corporate meh, which is so profitable and regular and pays the bills. And I used to turn my nose up at it, and now I realize that it's a really important part of the market. So for those things, though, I produced them myself. I'm actually. I did a quote yesterday for a client where we're gonna do three or four days of shooting. We're gonna do an instructional video on a bookshelf.

Yeah. I mean, not sexy.

It's not sexy at all.

At all. Boring as fuck.

Oh. But you know what it allows me to do? I get to hire two of my best friends.

Yeah.

And we get to work on this tiny little shoot. And it's. We're paid to be freelancers and work in this community. It's just. I feel very lucky to be able to work on things like that, even when they're super boring. You get to employ your friends and do things that you enjoy. And then, you know, you find little joyful moments in lighting the bookcase. Yeah. That nobody else would care.

Yeah.

But it's fun for me.

Yeah. It's really interesting. You know, I just finished a project with a recruitment agency, and you have no idea. 190 day. 190 videos of excitement. We're talking about policies and procedures. We're talking about terminations. We're talking about.

Systems and processes. Not very sexy, but very profitable.

And it gives you freedom to do things like this.

Exactly.

Freedom to. For instance, we're right now in Bondi, My family.

I.

And we're there for 10 days. I don't have to be working this month.

No.

Have to. Because I worked my ass off last month.

Yeah.

And I've got stuff lined up for April. It gives you freedom to live your life in a different way. And so bring on the corporate jobs, man. Yeah. I love the sexy stuff, too. No question. And that's what you're gonna find on my reel for the most part. But I think by diversifying you have a lot more opportunity. And so for me it's, you know, a good chunk of it is freelancing for other people and then a few, a small amount of it is producing my own projects. But kind of, to answer your question, how we've seen it shift, I think there was a real concern when adapters came out and then particularly when DSLRs came out, that the bottom would just drop out of the industry, that all the budgets would go away, there'd be no more work for anyone. I think there has been a shift. I, I think that the gap, kind of the inequality gap almost has broadened a little bit. I think there's maybe less of a middle market, but there's still tons of high end work. And if you can show the skills and you can find those clients, you can still do really, really good high end work. You can also do what we call low end work. Probably was the middle of the market now or previously, but it's still there.

But also, I want to say it's gone away. When we say low end work, I think what we're referring to here is fairly boring, functional video production. Less creative, less creative, but often times far more profitable because you're able to set rates and project fees that are far higher than when you're working for an agency or a bigger company. Do you find they still kind of go, well, we know a DP rate is this much a day.

Yeah, absolutely. The producers that I work for on higher end work, that's maybe more torsional type work.

They take care of me and I've quoted lower rates and they've gotten me better rates before because no, no, we know the market here, you're gonna be fine with this. So I've been fortunate in that regard. I think when you're doing this sort of low end work, or let's just call it corporate.

I think that you have to protect your.

Company and your subs in a different way. I don't think that they're actively trying to screw you. I think that they don't know, often know what they want. So if you're handling post production, for instance, you better have clearly defined.

What those deliverables are going to be, how much time you're going to spend on those and when additional changes come, not if, when additional changes come, that there's a price tag attached and then you're protected because you can do revisions until the cows come home and you're being paid every time. And I think the danger is people, oh, that company screwed me no, your contract screwed you. You did not. You did not protect yourself and your subs properly when you bid this thing out.

That's a great segue because I don't know that filmmakers generally, I think they're scared of contracts. I think they're scared to present a client with an agreement. So talk me through how you handle that side of your business, because that's something that I think is absolutely critical if you actually explain what's been. Any conversation should be followed up by a document that explains what's been agreed, what the scope is, and what happens when, as you say, things go without that scope. So talk me through your process for, you know, contracting and how that looks.

So I'm probably not the best person to talk about this because I really do produce a small amount of projects. It's probably less than a dozen a year that I produce personally.

But.

We always start with a statement of work. And it describes sometimes in flowery terms, what we're going to make for them. And it could be a paragraph and it could be three paragraphs. If it's really in depth. You know, let's say it's a brand video, you know, some kind of anthem type brand video for a client. You could describe that in three or four sentences. Use some flowery language. And then below that, it's a length. Length is oftentimes your editing. I mean, in some cases, that kind of constrains your editing a little bit. It talks about how many days you're going to shoot. You kind of start to define the edges of what this covers. And that way when they come back and they say, well, we need another day of shooting. Oh, cool. Well, we're outside of the edge. And I've already defined that rate down here. Additional days are this, or as bid or whatever. So I think the statement of work is really important for us. In that statement of work, you kind of define all that stuff. The deliverables, you define your timelines and that. For me, that's like.

Draft one will be delivered on February 2nd. Client review due back to, you know, editor by February 5th. Draft two is five days after that. And you have to define really clearly when they need to respond so that when they go long, not if, but fucking when. Then you have it out when you miss the deadline because it wasn't your fault. So just define all those things, knowing that they're gonna screw up. They just always will. Don't try to screw them, they'll screw themselves up. Just have a path forward from there, whether it's More money, whether it's more time, whatever it is that you need to finish the product, ultimately they'll be happy. It's going to cost them more money probably. But just don't screw yourself and don't screw the people that you're working for and all of that. I think the statement of work for me is kind of that founding document that has everything in there that sort of defines all the edges. You should have a budget in there as well. And then anytime they make changes or whatever, you just kick out a change order, make sure it's on paper.

And cancellation policies, yes, if they cancel something. I've had a few of my, you know, inner circle members this month have an issue where one particular member had an issue where got canceled because of weather. And then someone else piped up and said, well, surely it's in your contract. He's like, I don't really have a contract. And, and it's, it's really what I want to do with this whole podcast series is just share best practices. Because I think what's happened is as the industry shifted, in order to survive, you have to be a bit more business. Like you have to be a bit more commercial. And that means being clear, having the right insurance for a start. But secondly, laying out clearly what happens when, what happens if. Have you had situations where clients cancelled last minute?

Oh, absolutely. And we were on a project earlier this year, actually last fall, I was in Salinas, California. We're shooting a, we're shooting a strawberry grower or the product that kind of tracks the freshness of the strawberry thing. And one of their, one of their grow pick days was pushed late because some other deadline. So we're there and they're, it's costing them thousands of dollars a day for me and my tiny little crew. And they were like, well, we need to shoot again tomorrow. And I was supposed to fly back. Well, we're talking about three flights more hotel, more rental car. That's just that stuff. We haven't even gotten the camera, lighting, anything else.

Day rates, the whole deal. So that little. We have to shoot this tomorrow because this truck was late, kicked off thousands of dollars of change orders. But because it was so clearly defined in the statement work, it was very easy for me to say, absolutely, you know, obviously that this is going to trigger these changes. But he knew that, I knew that and we moved forward, you know, so you just, you write up that change order, get a little signature, even if it's an email thing, like, you know, this is going to cost You. Yes, that's enough to start with.

So I've always found, you know, just. Just any conversation should be followed up with an email that summarizes what was agreed in the call with a request for a confirmation that that was what was agreed. And. And it's amazing how few filmmakers I meet actually do that. So where do you get one of the things. Sorry.

One of the things I see that happens often in corporate is they want to move really, really quickly. And it's always, oh, there's not enough time to get that po. Oh, there's not enough time to get that guy approved. You, you have to try to solve their problem because you want to be there. You want them to be your client. So, yes, you have to be a problem solver. But it's okay to demand that things be done in a certain order. It's okay to demand, no, we can't start until that 25% check or whatever clears. Yeah, I will not show up until that check is here. If they want to do it badly enough, they'll find a way, trust me. So you have to be proactive and see that stuff coming and do not get in a situation where you're carrying all the risk and you're not covered. Yeah.

And, you know, for example, you talk about these project descriptions. Where did you form that document? Was that something you just got a lawyer to do or is that something.

I was fucked for many years and I was like, oh, every time I got fucked, I would write in the document, hey, don't do that again.

Please don't fuck me again.

Okay, well, I got fucked there, so how about that? Oh, we're gonna take a deposit on this project, 50% of the front. Cool. So let's say the. The budget is 100 grand. I need.

One third payment to start work or on delivery of the first stage of work for pre production, we finish production, I have another third payment. Finish post production, I have another third payment. Yeah, that's a system that. And I use some variation of that, but that's a system that I came up with that I learned from other people, from being fucked. You know, from varying.

It's actually how most contracts come to be.

Yeah.

If someone gets fucked, so they put a line in the clause the next time. And that's experience. So the other thing I wanted to really ask you about because, you know, you've been doing it a while, you were established, but. But how important I know. Wow. You know, we're both going great.

But, you know, another thing that I, That I Hear a lot. Is a lot of filmmakers hiding behind the email or, you know, I've emailed the client, I haven't heard anything. And I'm constantly encouraging connection, contact, make contact, form a relationship. Don't be desperate. Be supportive, be helpful. If you can be of help, great. But why do you think it is so few filmmakers are comfortable calling someone up and saying, hey, how are you? You know, how do you know? How do you get conversations started with new clients? Because you get referred to a certain amount of. But I think for a lot of filmmakers starting out or in the junior stages, they're like, I'm just too shy to contact someone. And yet, you know, the relationship is everything.

Like, you have to. You have to.

It's no different in filmmaking than any other business. It's about face to face. It's about knowing people, and it's about those contacts. So I'll give you an example. I was filming with another production company locally. I do some work as a gaffer for another production company. Some friends of mine, they have a young DP on staff. He's super great. Like, he's got a great eye. Doesn't quite have the technical side down. So I work as a gaffer. He kind of learns underneath me. It's fun for me. Yeah, you know, it's really fun is you set the lights and then you sit there and watch the other guy operate the camera.

I know, it's awesome, but how cool is that? I mean, like, you know, there's no ego about that. I'll be a gaffer. I don't care.

It pays well and I enjoy it.

But.

So I'm on a shoot. We had just done a thing. They're operating a shot. I'm just kind of chilling, and some guy walks by, and it's the CEO of a company that I've done some work for in the past. I was like, oh, hey, how you doing? You know, good to see you again. The next day I get an email, hey, we got a project coming up. We need to. You have to be present in their mind. Remind them, hey, I'm still here. And that goes for, like, a freelance VP as well. Just remind the directors that you work for, remind the producers that you work for that you're here. Don't be. Don't be annoying, but take those coffee meetings when you call, when you. When you contacted me, I was like, yeah, I'm there. I want to. I want to have this contact, you know? Yeah, I don't know if this leads to. Yeah, but it Will lead to something.

It will lead to something.

100 always does. So take the meetings when you can, try to make time for people. And. And it just starts to kind of grow from there, and it's really hard for me to quantify. What does this meeting worth in terms of dollar amount? No idea.

Wow.

Maybe nothing.

We just made your.

Maybe millions.

Maybe we just made your trip tax deductible.

It's possible you are now working.

It is. It is recorded.

Even a percentage of it. Yeah, absolutely. But it's. But I mean. I mean that. Not even in jest, you know, but you're right. You know, we. We've had brief connections over the years, usually at a trade show, both working in a similar space, never really competing just around gear at the same kind of time. And it's fascinating being able to talk to you today because the industry has shifted, but it's just every industry shifts. I think as soon as you understand that in any business, in any industry, things never stay still. You can't rely on what you did last year for next year.

Yeah, that's fair.

It's always changing.

It does seem that.

I'm worried as I become older, as more gray, as a. More the gaffer versus the young dp. Sort of a weird shift that happens there. I worry that I'm gonna become set in my ways, and I don't want that to be the case. And I think as long as you're cognizant and you try to fight against that, I think you'll avoid it. But I do know some people, they just don't want to try new things. You know, they don't want to do the new technique. They want to do it the way they've always done it. And there's a balance there between. The way you've always done it is because it works. Yeah, that's. There's a valuable statement there. You know, like, people who have experience, they've tried all the things that don't work, so maybe you should go with what they have to say. But then there's also the same guy who gets it in their ways in the same way. So there's a balance to be had there.

Just going back to, you know, contracts and working with clients, you know, at some point, we've all had issues getting paid. Sure. What has your experience been like in working through some of those situations? And, you know, for the first part of the question is, you know, what's your experience been with that and what have you learned? And as a result, how do you Mitigate those risks, you know, going forward.

So I've been paid late, I've been not paid. I have a one invoice currently that's 17 months.

Yeah.

And it's just. I mean, it's not a huge amount, but it's enough worth chasing. I'm not gonna just write it off.

Yeah.

And that one, that one was maybe a different challenging situation. I think the thing that I. That I like to say about being paid, if you're. If you're paid late or you're not paid, it's because you didn't structure the. The relationship properly from the start. It's almost too late to fix it then.

Yeah.

So this shouldn't be a conversation about how do you chase down the money. Fuck that.

Yeah.

How do you structure it properly? To start with, you shouldn't have worked without having your costs covered. You shouldn't have finished production without having those costs covered. You shouldn't have finished post production and released the product to them without being paid. So that's where the fix is.

Yeah.

Pre production.

I love. I've always been 50 up front, 50 on completion. But I love. But I love the 30. 30. 30. Because it's 30 to get started. 30 once production is complete. So you get started, you can boot crew. You've got enough. You basically got enough to pay the production team and then the next day you get your profit at the back. And as long as you've got enough cash flow in the business, you're covered.

With pre production, you're covered with your costs post production, probably already covered with the. With the previous payment, then you just bank the rest yourself.

You know something I've. I've learned with. With positive cash flow, I think it's just a sign of being a bit more grown up. I'm 47 now. I've learned the hard way, but I have positive cash flow always. But what it means is when I do do productions, which I'm doing far less of these days, I will be able to negotiate a keener rate from a crew member on immediate payment.

Yeah, absolutely.

I can save 10 or 20% on a crew member's rate by paying them same day before I've been paid the full amount in some cases.

And they'll answer your telephone call.

Yes.

Like, you can get the best people and they will hold the dates. And when you say, hey, I have a job coming up in a month and a half, we don't have the dates quite set. It might still fall through. If you can just try to route stuff around this week as much as possible. Give me first right of refusal. They will work their ass off to hold those dates for you until you can get it in stone. And then you take care of them. Yeah, I think people really. I know that when people take care of me as a freelance DP and when people take care of me, I jump to take care of them. And I work with their budgets. I'll often cut my rate or find a way to work deals with my gear, whatever we can do to get their project done. Because I know they care for me.

Yeah.

And they've always. I'm not saying that from like a. Like a love standpoint, like they pay me on time and they take care of me and we're properly put up or properly fed. All those things that are important. Important when you're trying to make a lifestyle out of this. So I try to do the same when I do productions.

Don't.

Don't fuck people over, man. Be really nice.

Absolutely. I've got a question for you now, which is. Is.

You know, is it really all about the real nowadays? You know, I see a lot of filmmakers with a website and it's just got a real.

And certainly, you know, how important is that show reel today in getting. And it's probably more important than some of the commercial work you do, probably less important than the corporate. But I'd love to get your perspective on that, that notion that, you know, a reel is all you need.

It's interesting because I ran.

I was a freelance DP for about 4 years and I didn't cut a reel. What I had was a website that had nine squares or whatever, nine rectangles, and they would have the nine pieces that didn't make me look awful. Yeah.

Shitty of my work. And I'll reference people to that. And I was able to work all the time and it was because of relationships, is because I cared for people and I answered their call and they answered mine and we had know a relationship. And I think that's continued even in these days. As I have a reel, there's two or three jobs a year where a producer will email me and say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can you send me your reel? Yeah. And so I made it kind of for that reason. And I also made it because I'm personally working towards getting an agent right now, some representation. And that's very difficult to navigate because it's sort of this rarefied air. And how do I get into that world? It turns out it's really not that hard. You Just have to know the right people and they have to give a shit about your work. And a lot of people don't have agents and they deserve them, and maybe they don't need them. It's just weird kind of thing. But one of the things you need is a strong reel that has. That has a focus and that has a style that's yours. And the process of making a reel for me made me realize that I was a generalist. I was not focused. And so music to my ears. Process of making the reel was like, oh, you can do everything. You're not doing anything. Yeah. And that. That was like, oh, now I have to do five more years of focusing. You know what I mean? I thought it was here and I'm not. You know. So the last couple times, I kind of real. And I'm about a year and a half out on this last one.

It was about finding work that felt like. Was what was me was my point of view. And that's.

Humbling and hard and it's frustrating. I remember thinking, like, man, I need, like, three more pieces. Where are they? I did all this work. Where is it? And honestly, I didn't cut a reel this year because I haven't done enough things that would have added to it. It would be a lesser reel.

Yeah.

You know, why would you recut it? The last one is as focused as I can be right now.

Yeah.

So that's. That's been a really challenging thing. I think it's important to focus you. Is it as important to get work? Not necessarily. You probably need to show an agent at some point. And that's a valuable thing to have. Have it in your back pocket. You probably need it to show a producer or director that you just started a relationship with. It's good to have it on your business card. But work comes from relationships.

Yeah. And you just touched on something there, which is. I have been banging this drum for three and a half years. Niche, niche, niche. Specialized. Do what you're known for. Because they're just. I think one of the. One of the outcomes from the last 10 years is that everyone's a filmmaker.

Yeah.

And. And I don't believe there is room for anyone who does everything these days. I think you'll end up being hungry.

Sure.

So.

But there's a certain part of that that is, I think, important to your development. When I first started as a dp, Barely able to call myself that and didn't for a few years.

I didn't know what I was gonna be. I didn't know what I enjoyed. So I did everything. I did music videos, I did this kind of music video, did that kind of music video, did corporates, did commercials, did shot some weddings way back in the day. You know, like, we've all done it. What am I gonna do? And so unless you have just a really specific idea, I think there's a certain time period where you sort of explore, you know, and maybe film school, maybe that's the value of film school, that you kind of get that part out of your way. Yeah, that whole feeling out process out of your way because you're working on other people's projects, you're forced to do certain projects in different genres. Maybe that is the real value of film school versus coming up in the industry. Like, like I did. But I think there's a certain period of time when you should be given free reign to try a lot of different things. But you'll never do well long term without focusing.

Yeah. And that can, that could be a style, can't it? It can be a way of working. It could be just doing documentary. You know, certainly in the corporate sector, it could be working for a particular type of company.

Sure.

I mean, I talk to my clients about, you know, maybe we've got one client filmmaking duo who focus on legal and professional services. We've got another one who focuses on NGOs, we've got another one that focuses on art galleries, one that focuses on travel. It doesn't mean that you won't do other things. And that's the thing is the niching allows you to target your work from a marketing perspective to an audience.

Well, and there's also like, we have, you have all kinds of freedom too. You can focus yourself. So if you go look at my website and look at my reel, you'll see kind of a specific focus. I look very much like a commercial dp, but there are some people that I work for that know full well that I'm overqualified for that kind of work. But we have a great working relationship. I don't mind the work. I love working. I like money, you know, and I want to be busy. Yeah, I like working for them. We're doing kind of a very specific thing. It's probably not going to go on my reel. That's not a slight to them. Their industry is just as important as any other. But.

They, they are not trying to make me something different. I'm not trying to make their product any different.

Just put a different hat on. Plus, plus, you know, we, we're not Working just to put stuff on a reel. We're working because someone's paying us, because we have a skill and we can tell a story about their product service.

Otherwise, I have a family to support. I'm 30, I'm almost 38 years old. I want to do this for another 25 or 30 years. So how do you make that work long term? You know, you can't, you can't do that on staff picks. Like.

And, and, and they're, they're great. You know, it feels good to be validated, but that doesn't pay the bills.

No.

So I, I think it's important to try to, try to figure out how you're going to make this work long term.

Definitely.

And it's more on my mind now as I've gotten greater.

It's interesting. Why do you think, what's changed? When did that shift happen for you that you went from like, hey, I'm just happy working to. I mean, your son just turned 16. Is there something to do with like, your son's growing up, you, he's coming adulthood. You're like, oh, actually you've been doing this a while now. How do I, how do I go to the next phase of your development?

I think it's reps. I think it's like, it's like lifting weights. It's reps. You. I've been doing. I was full time since 2000, so I'm at 11 or 12 years now.

You try this for a little while. Oh, I got get to work with these cool people, put them on the website. I don't care about that anymore. Try this for a little while. That's fun. I don't care about that anymore. And you just try, try, try until you finally realize, oh, this is what I'm interested in. And man, I've got an ego too. I think we all got an ego. And there's a, there's a time period where you think you're hot shit and you're telling everybody who you work for and you're, you're, you know, trying to do this high profile stuff and I'm just less interested in that now. I'm more interested in making it viable long term. And so that's actually the last year and a half. Last year is kind of when I've been working as a gaffer for these other people. From time to time. If I've got nothing going on, I'll take that rate.

You know, it's so interesting.

Six hours of work, dude, it's 20 minutes down the Road.

We both, you know, for a large number of years were quoted by manufacturers, were involved. You were involved in pro video culture, fresh tv. We were both in brands that were review world.

Review world.

And, you know, I think we were. I think we were very fortunate. I mean, you know, the bigger brands, we'd call us up and they take our call or we'd approach us. I mean, I had Zeiss and Sony and Canon and big brands wanting some.

Really cool relationships, and they're still there.

I mean, I was. I did a lot of work for small only last year in Asia, just speaking. Flew around asia speaking at YouTube events. Awesome. But the landscape's changed because the way people are consuming content has changed. You know, these weren't around in the same way six, seven years ago. And, and, and I really enjoyed that period. But I love your comment about, you know, we do certain things for a little while and it's okay because you're finding your feet and then you kind of, for want of a better description, settle down and go, actually, this guy over here needs some video. This guy over here actually being high profile, I think actually detracts because, you know what? People would look at me and go, well, it's okay for you. You're Dan Lenny. No one gave a shit when I was trying to put, you know, trying to poach, trying to pitch a job to some corporate firm.

They don't care.

They don't care.

Yeah, so what, you have a blog.

Yeah, but you budget. But this is like. I mean, I did some work.

Does this solve our problem?

I did a DP to gig for Duran Duran in 2012. I toured with Robbie Williams in 2013.

I did some stuff with Cristiano Ronaldo the same year. Very, very high profile people. Next job I get in. Your quote's a bit high. Yeah, but I've heard this about BAFTA winners. People have won baftas or awards. They're like, so how did it go? He's like, yeah, life became harder because people are kind of like, well, you think, you think you're something now you got an award.

You know, it's interesting.

It's fascinating.

You get to a certain point, some people won't approach you for jobs because they think that it's below you. Yeah, like the conversation. The guy I was talking about before I do some work for, there was a time period when he, he wasn't asking me to do work for him because I think he thought I would turn my nose up at it. It's not about that, man. If the rate works and the timing works. You respect me and I respect you. Let's do it.

And we're a service industry.

Right.

So I'm just gonna wrap things up because this is a great conversation, but I'd love to know what you. What your view on success is, how you define success. It's a broad question, but I'd just love your perspective and also how you might encourage others who are coming up through the ranks for one of the better descriptions. Someone who's maybe running a small video production business just now.

And is struggling a bit. So first question is, you know, what does success mean to you?

I think previously at a slightly younger age, it probably would have been like an Oscar or an Emmy or at one point a telly. Yeah. The awards, you buy.

Recognition. I. I personally, I respond personally to words of affirmation and.

Appreciation. Yeah. And kind of gifts to some extent as well. So, like, I give people my time and want their time.

Yeah.

At Christmas, when Christmas comes around, and try to send scotch to all the people I care about.

Like. Yeah.

That sort of thing. So being affirmed for something that you've done is very important to me. And there was a time when that was all consuming.

Yeah.

So at the time, I would have said that was success. Now success is, can I work in this industry? Not in a day job, not in an office, not for someone else, not, you know, the man or whatever. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But can I do that for the next 20 to 30 years and not hate myself and not hate my job and have a little bit of flexibility? That to me would be success. So how do I get there? Is it doing Nike spots? Fuck yeah. I'd love to do Nike spots. Are you kidding me? Like, there's a focus for that sort of style of work in my reel right now. I'd love to do some of that, but that's not 25 years of work. Like, what is. What are you going to do for 25 years? So find a way to make it work long term and come out on the other side with your ego and your personality intact and not being an asshole. I think that would be success. That's awesome.

So I guess the final. And it's always a tricky one. So I want to, you know, feel free to say no to this question, but no. Giving advice. Thanks. Giving advice. So imagine, let's call him. Bob is 33 years old. He's running a small video production company and he's doing. He's doing 50, 60 grand a year, but he's Kind of like struggling a bit. What is the one thing you would say to someone in that position to help them overcome that horrible.

Oh, man. I mean, that's. I think it's very.

I think it would be maybe specific to. To them. Like every situation is a little bit different.

Okay, maybe phrases. Another way.

You kind of answer this, but I'd love to get it in a kind of a nice. A nice sort of concise moment, which is, you know, what. What was the shift from looking for adulation and see seeking approval to realizing that you would be a pro, people would approve you and see and give you adulation for just doing a great job on a corporate. And the corporate's paying for you to take your family to Australia for 10 days.

I think that was the shift. It was not real. It was realizing that.

The admiration doesn't pay my bills. I can get adulation for a job, but then I'm on a. Maybe on employed for a month, you know, so recognizing that the family paying the bills, being a breadwinner for my family or my wife works as well, but, you know, a partial breadwinner for my family and having that flexibility was more important than being patted on the back. And I think for someone that's working in corporates and maybe feels a little frustrated.

I think it's often. And this is maybe not specific to our industry. I think it's maybe, maybe humans in general. I think we limit our possibilities by our style of thinking. So maybe you're approaching people in your local area. Well, there are some clients of mine that are not based anywhere near Arkansas, and I found them through various means and maybe met some of them through Arkansas. But go approach somebody that you want to do work for. Yeah, so like there's. There's a company right now that I have one of their products in my house. Love the product. I'm like, I want to work for that company. So what I'm doing right now is I'm putting together. I'm gonna put together a little specific webpage for them. It's like a little pitch page. I'm gonna approach them. I'm gonna send them a physical packet. I'm gonna have a little pitch page with some ideas, say I want to work for you. And we're gonna try to find. I'm gonna try to find a way to do some video production work. I love for them to be one of my regular clients, case studies, whatever. That would be very interesting to me because I care about their product personally. So why. Why wouldn't you approach that. I love that they're not based anywhere near me, but why wouldn't you? I think previously part of it's maybe ego and sort of knowing, like, the experience, like, I can work for them.

It's not.

They just. You have to know the right people and have the right timing and show the right work. But we can do it. I think that you limit yourself artificially sometimes when you're. When you're young or you're unsure, go ahead and approach people that you want to work for and just say it.

I love that. I love that. It's being more entrepreneurial, actually reach out to people that you want to work for. Because people are. I am absolutely convinced are sitting in offices all over the world just now going, we should really do some video work. But where do we start? And they Google video production in their area. And all the websites look the same. It's so confusing.

And they're going to go, here's number three. They look interesting. Ring, ring, ring. So that person was dangling their. They're chumming the waters with their website and they got a random hit. Yeah, well, you can do that, and that's a viable way. And I've gotten clients from just having a website. It's important to have a website. It's important to chum those waters. It's important to take those phone calls. But sales is a choice. Like you.

It's a.

It's a muscle, it's a. It's a repetition. You row.

Yeah.

That's how you get sales. You have to approach people. You have to have, like, an idea of where you're headed and to actually do those reps. You can get a certain amount of work from cold leads off the website or whatever, but that's never gonna work long term. You have to go after people. And so that's the one. Actually, one of the things, my focus this year is to build a little bit more of the corporate side. Not more quantity, but more quality. I want to find companies that I want to work for, win them as clients and do regular work with them. Yeah. And have them in my back pocket for the next 20 years.

That's awesome, Matt. We could talk all day. This is. This is fascinating. And you know what's interesting is that we've never really spoken about this level of business. And you're in Arkansas and I'm in Sydney, but we have exactly the same focus, which is you have to reach out to clients. And why would you not choose to work this microphone here. Okay, I saw this microphone On a podcast recently. What is it? It's called an Aston.

Okay.

I googled it, couldn't find a thing about it. It's made by a small engineering company in Hitchin outside London. They are a boutique microphone manufacturer. This thing sounds unbelievable.

Are you sure that's not just you?

No, definitely not me. But this is a brand new product that I just discovered two, two weeks ago. Immediately bought it. Love the sound quality. You know they have no video on their website. I mean like there are so many companies that do not have video on their website that if you approach them in the right way and give them a value proposition and don't try and pitch what you want, you can win every day of the week.

Well, that's the thing with corporate is you need to find, we all want to be paid, we all want to get the best rates, we all want recurring work. You, you're not going to get recurring work unless you can find ROI for that company. So when a company comes to me and says, oh, we want to make a video, one of the first questions I ask is what are you going to do with that video? What is your plan to use this to promote? The video will not magically turn into sales. You'll just dump a bunch of money. And I try to have that conversation as candidly as possible early on so we can head off the shitty ideas and try to find an idea that actually might work for them. Because if this video doesn't fail, then I'll get the next job. Yeah, and you could take that money and run the first time, but that's not a long term client. No, and I think oftentimes people, and I don't know that I've even solved this, but I think oftentimes people want to make a video, don't know what to do with it and they just languish with 200 views on YouTube. You know what I mean? That's frustrating.

Provides no value. Matthew, where can people find out more about you? Are you at Twitter, are you Instagram, Facebook or just your website? Tell us about where people, if they want to learn more about what you do.

So if you want to learn random gear musings mixed with poor attempts at humor and occasional political outbursts, you can follow me on Twitter. It's Jepsen M J E P P S E N and my website is matjepsen.com mate.

It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm sure this will not be the last conversation we have. Thank you for joining us here. Thank you for being in Sydney and this has now just become a work trip. So congratulations.

Let's write that off.

Awesome, guys. We'll see you soon. You've been listening to the Business for Creatives podcast with your host, me, Dan Lenny. If you're a creative business owner who is struggling to get your business performing at the level you want, then head on over to businessforcreativespodcast.com to take a free business evaluation survey and discover where you can plug the holes in your business. You can also access a range of free training to help you build your business faster. Also, don't forget to rate the show over on itunes so we can get the message out there to more creatives who need to hear it. Thanks for listening.