I’ve been blogging a lot lately about when DIY videos are okay. My theory is if you’re a tiny business with zero marketing budget, by all means produce your own videos.

On the other hand, if you’re a more established company, it’s better to turn to a professional storyteller.

I think the subject has been on my mind a lot because I’m basically putting my money where my mouth is. No, I’m not turning to someone else to produce a video on T60. That’s crazy talk. I’m talking about web design.

When I started T60 eight years ago, I sat down at iWeb (does Apple even make that anymore!?) and created the company website. Honestly, I think I did pretty darn well for a novice, but creating it and updating it over the years meant me learning a lot about web design and stumbling my way through it.

Thankfully, T60 has come of age, and in the next couple weeks we’ll be going live with a new website… one produced by pros.

Julie at We Cre8 Design and Brian at Net Elevation have done an incredible job. They’re the reason I’ve been thinking so much about DIY lately. They created something I never would have been able to do on my own. They’re the pros, and I’m glad I turned to them.

I’ll take expert help over ineptitude any day.

–Tony Gnau

I’m not supposed to like Jim Harbaugh, but I do. I’m a Trojan after all. I won’t go into the details because they’re irrelevant here, but suffice to say Harbaugh has few USC admirers after his tenure as Stanford’s head coach.

The reason I’m a Jim Harbaugh fan and was disappointed to see the 49ers Super Bowl comeback fall short is because of what he taught me as a teenager. It’s stuff I carry with me to this day and makes a difference in my business.

Jim taught me to compete

I was a good athlete growing-up, but I wasn’t the best. I supplemented my football training at a place that held classes focused on balance. We performed all sorts of exercises while balancing on beams and balance boards. Among the athletes taking the classes were a few of the Chicago Bears… including a backup quarterback named Jim Harbaugh.

I was the only high school kid in the group. Everyone was else was either a pro athlete or a college athlete looking to go pro. Needless to say, I felt like somewhat of an outsider.

Everyone was nice, but I always felt like they were going easy on me. Everyone accept one guy. You guessed it… Jim Harbaugh.

Jim was always competing, and it didn’t matter if it was against one of his teammates, or Tony Gnau from Lake Park High School.

He also pushed me just as hard as he pushed everyone else. While my balance may have been good, these guys were bigger, stronger and faster in every other respect… and I took a beating.

Jim never let me back down. Whenever he saw my spirits faltering, he was right there in my face encouraging me to keep going. I’ve never forgotten those lessons.

life lesson pays off

Looking back, moments like those helped propel me into Division I college football. On the surface, I wasn’t talented enough to play at USC, yet I played all four years.

Eight years ago I left TV news to start my own business. I had zero business experience. Yet, here I stand today, making a living doing what I love on my own terms.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I don’t owe it all to Jim Harbaugh. There were plenty of people along the way who helped shape my character, most importantly my mom and dad, but he was one of those people.

Believe in yourself and work your butt off. That’s a recipe for success.

–Tony Gnau

I got a great lesson last week in managing expectations. In this case, the client thought we would deliver one thing, we thought we were delivering something else.

I know… not an unusual circumstance. It’s the type of thing that can happen in any industry, but it was a good business experience for me.

The problem came up because we didn’t layout for the client in advance how we’d achieve what they needed us to do. They asked us, can you deliver this type of service? We said yes, but we didn’t give them a detailed account of what we would do.

If we had, we would have learned they were actually asking for expertise in an area of video where we’re not experts. Sorry I can’t get into details, but I want to protect this client’s anonymity.

Anyway, the point is communication is a wonderful thing. If we had used a little more of it in this situation, we could have saved  the client and ourselves a headache. The good news is everything is okay and the project will go off without a hitch.

Any good ways you help manage expectations?

–Tony Gnau

Have you ever experienced technical difficulties?

Ridiculous question, right? We all have. We live in a world of technical difficulties. Video production is riddled with them. The equipment we work with everyday could fail at anytime. The trick is how you deal with it.

Hello, this is tech support

I’m trying to work some through issues right now. I’m serious. As I write this, I’m on hold with technical support for a product to broadcast a meeting live to satellite locations.

We did a dry run this morning. Checked out the meeting space… got a feel for the needed equipment. Tested the video stream… worked fine. Audio… not so much.

Freak-out time

Time to freak-out? Nope. That’s why we did a dry run. If this were the day of the meeting, it would be freak-out time. Today, it’s merely an inconvenience. Now I have a full week to solve the problem.

You can’t always do a practice or dry run before a shoot, but when you can it often helps make technical difficulties easier to deal with.

–Tony Gnau

Have you ever had food poisoning? If not, I don’t recommend it. If you have, you know what I’ve been going through the last couple of days.

No gory details, instead, something that caught my attention over the weekend, and something I stewed over the during two days on the couch. Interview locations really don’t matter.

This is something I’ve blogged about in the past, but it was driven home to me while watching the ESPN documentary, The Marinovich Project.

The good, the bad, and the storytelling

The movie was a contrast in interview shots. Some “good”… Marinovich out on the beach. Some “bad”… NFL Hall of Famer Howie Long in a nondescript hotel room.

And you know what? It didn’t matter.

Why? Because the storytelling was so good. See, a good story is far more important than simple visuals like an interview location. It’s not to say you shouldn’t look for the best location possible, but it’s not something to freak out about either.

A good videographer/storyteller will make it work one way or another.

–Tony Gnau

No post today… sorry. Food poisoning. ‘Nough said. Ugg.

18-month-old teething + 5:30 a.m. shoot = no blog post today.

Back with more tomorrow!

–Tony Gnau

I was talking with a prospect the other day about how we would shoot interviews with his people when he asked if we have studio space. I said, “No.” He was confused and wanted to know where we would shoot the interviews, and I told him at his offices.

Not what he wanted to hear. In his mind, his offices wouldn’t look good, but I assured him we were capable of making almost any space suitable for an interview.

This is a common concern for a lot of business people… the interview location. Which is funny to me because when you’re a production pro and know how to light and shoot an interview, you can do it pretty much anywhere.

You have to be kidding

Here’s my favorite example. One of our first clients is California-based Sovereign Healthcare (watch their video). During our first shoot with them, we had a tough time scheduling the CEO for his interview… CEO’s tend to be pretty busy… so we agreed to meet him at his home one night.

It was a beautiful house, plenty of options for the interview location, only there was one problem. High ceilings and hard tile floors meant lots of echos. We did some audio testing and it was a mess, so we moved to the backyard. It was backed up to a road, so we heard cars going by.

Finally, we walked around to the driveway out front and it was silent. I picked a spot and started setting up. The CEO came out for the interview and was shocked. He said, “You have to be kidding.” I told him to trust us, and to his credit he did.

Take a look at the photo above. That wall behind him is a privacy wall for his garbage cans. Not only did he love the end result, he had a great story to tell people about the making of the video. Sovereign remains with us to this day.

I’m telling you… production pros can make just about anything work.

–Tony Gnau

Another terrific Chicago-AMA event in the books. Wednesday morning we got to hear from Mark Achler, Senior Vice President of New Business Strategy and Innovation at movie rental giant Redbox.

As usual, T60 provided the preview video for Chicago-AMA. That means I got to pick Mark’s brain a few weeks before the event, and the thing I took away from our interview and video shoot is the same thing I got out of Wednesday’s presentation.

Simplicity

The simpler the customer experience you provide, the easier it is to earn and keep customers. Makes sense for a company renting movies, but when you think about it that theory rings true for most businesses no matter what they do.

In our case, we tell corporate stories. One of the biggest concerns for most of our new clients is that they’re going to have to sit down and create a script for us to follow. When I tell them that’s our job, it’s often followed by an instant sigh of relief.

How we keep it simple

We make the video production process easy on clients. We talk with them ahead of time to figure out what they’re trying to communicate. We conduct interviews to support that message, then we create a story that’s going to connect with their audience.

Simple.

I had never thought of it that way before meeting and talking with Mark, but now I see how simplicity is a big part of our service. It’s something I now feel like I need to highlight even more.

Is providing a simple customer experience a cornerstone of your business?

–Tony Gnau

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I’ll be out the rest of the week, so have a terrific holiday.

Back on Monday!

–Tony Gnau