Make The Most Of The Opportunity

Clients ask me about business profiles all the time. I've done them for Yelp via SmartShoot and I've done them for friends who have businesses. The process is simple. I show up and film the business for a couple hours and then we shoot an interview.
The best business profiles are always for clients who make an effort to make the best of their opportunity to collaborate with me. I tell clients, much like you might practice for your piano lessons, you have to prepare for your video shoot!

So I have a list of tips for clients.

1) Know what you want to say in a video. This doesn't mean you should prepare a speech and rehearse it.  Honestly, I'd rather you didn't.  One of my favorite client interviews was for Jade Bistro near Tampa. The speaker is the owner's son and I love his interview because he knows exactly what he loves about his mother's cooking. When he says "my Mom makes it, so I know its awesome" I just want to hug him. Best story, ever.

2) Know what you want to show me. Don't just tell me about your business, show it to me. For McMahon and Absolute Home Comfort of Boston, that was pretty easy. I had the guys pretend to work on projects around their own homes. Check out the videos. I'm happy with the results.

3) Break free from the office. Here is a video I shot with Brody Willis. Its okay but not spectacular. Watch the video. Did you notice how the speaker is talking about driving in a car and looking for a gas station or coffee shop? And yet the visuals are stuck at the office, staring at the guy's phone. That's a problem. It might take a little more effort to jump in the car and scout out some locations but that's the difference between an okay video and a great video. Always be prepared to go the extra mile.

4) Get your friends and family involved. For the Image Care Electrolysis video, I asked the practitioners to bring in their friends and family.  One of the "clients" is actually a practitioner.  This option saves you money because you don't have to hire actors. And it avoids awkward client confidentiality issues.

Generally the last thing I tell clients before wrapping up the consultation is my philosophy for compensation. Basically, I don't want to shoot a video unless I know its going to turn out great. I tell them if I'm not proud enough to post the video to my website or show it to potential clients, I'm wasting my time. And I think they appreciate that because it tells them that their business is my business.