Cleaned up the studio and put on a freshly laundered shirt so I could do a FaceTime conference with a law firm.

This particular post is aimed at freelance photographers and videographers.

I think it has some universal applications for business owners of all stripes.

I came in from a "hilly" run covered with sweat and breathing hard. Took a shower and put on a pressed, dress shirt (and pants) and sat down in front of my computer to have a FaceTime conference call with one of my clients at a law firm. Seems all their competitors have been doing videos for the web, and television commercials, and the competing firms are getting better name recognition and more market share. I guess, since law firms are considered essential businesses, that the clock doesn't stop. Potential work is out there, in quantity, but we creative folks have to wait for the all clear signal to be sounded for those of us in non-essential enterprises to get back to work. Sounds kind of pejorative to be called, non-essential.

But what this morning's small event tells me is that there is demand. Cash flow might suck for us in the short run but in the medium and longer run there is demand for the kinds of work we do. Our products are one of the many cogs in the figurative machine of commerce and while the machine may run for a little while with some parts missing it will eventually break down; or at least underperform, until those missing parts are replaced or repaired. The down side is that the recovery might take more time than anyone who runs a business like ours would like. 

I know that a lot of freelancers see this whole downturn as something over which they have no control and no way to take action but that's hardly true. If we had 50 good, recurring clients before the shit hit the fan we'll probably still have 36-38 good clients left when the vaccine comes around or a fool proof treatment drug is mass produced. I'm assuming a business failure rate among existing clients at around 25% which seems to me to be just about right for bigger corporations in dire times. If you were specializing in restaurant or event work your numbers will look worse. But here's the deal: those 37.5 clients still working when the lights click back on are yours to lose right now. 

It's a good idea to stay in touch. To remind the clients of the relationship you both enjoyed and both profited from. You can stay in touch by sharing some personal work, by writing an essay on something relevant to both your industries and sharing it on LinkedIn. By sending e-mails outlining how you'll handle personal safety when we all get back to work. Talk about your continuing education in your field and how it will benefit your clients. The important thing is to use your time wisely to stay in touch with people who've proven in the past that they can and will write you checks instead of considering this a time to binge watch Tiger King on Netflix.

Now is a great time to experiment with video if it's a service you aren't already offering. Set up the gear, play with audio. Watch a video by Curtis Judd on recording better audio for location videos. Watch Sean Tucker talk about the way he edits Youtube programming. But more important, try each thing you learn from videos on Youtube with your own hands and your own gear. It moves your education from theoretical to actual and informs you about where your current skills are sub-optimal and can improve. Then it's back to learn > try > and master, again. 

The end result of our call today was a request for me to do some creative concepting around their unique selling propositions. What they do better. How they produce better results. Why working with them makes sense. I'll go back with some broad concepts (which I will bill for) and we'll try to align those concepts with their firm's brand and identity. Once we have some good fits I'll sit here in the safety of my office and write scripts for both web programming and television commercials. We'll have another call to approve or change scripts and then I'll generate storyboards and find a motion graphics pro to produce an introductory logo treatment to put at the front end of every video. All of this is background work that's important, and billable, and can be done remotely. 

The lawyers won't like it but I'll have to let them know that we can't shoot actual, principal video until we get the go-ahead to go back to work from the local health authorities, and even then we'll have to conference about how to ensure everyone's safety on set. (I can tell you one thing, this will benefit solo video artists a great deal as being a crew of one definitely reduces the staff footprint as low as it can go!).  We'll limit the number of people from the client side to just two on set at a time: one on camera and the other from marketing for content approval. When people are not on camera we'll enforce a "face mask on set" rule.  It might slow production down a bit but that's okay if it means we can go back to work and stay safe.

The takeaway here, at least for me, is that we will get back to work. And we'll get back to work more quickly and profitably if we nurture the relationships we enjoyed before everything collapsed. 

A fringe benefit to maintaining good, personal relationships with clients? All bills for work done this year have been paid by my clients on time. Some a bit earlier than usual. Keep your powder dry and be smart about focusing on the future. Don't waste time.

Ah. Take out. Now a significant treat in our house. 

But only once or twice a month...we're cheap.