X-Lawrence
Imported Account
Jan 20, 2002, 12:10 PM
Post #3 of 3
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Re: losing corporate clients????
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I think the focus of any video business should be "what do the
clients want"? That's what you're there for. You're in business
for the client...the clients aren't they're for you. If Grandma
is burning cds, then she doesn't need your services. If somebody
is lowballing, then price is the issue. We in the video industry
are learning what still photograpers learned a long time ago,
that anybody can buy a camera and take a picture.
How did they survive? They knew how to shoot,light and sell. You
have the awards so no doubt you're highly skilled, but I think
your focus is too much hardware and not enough selling.
You need to market your service, experience, and that your videos
get the results the clients want. What good is a cheap video if
doesn't teach anything, improve their sales or move them to so
something? That's what you sell. Not cool covers.
I think hardware is no longer an issue for video production.
What the client wants is the issue.
Like the old saying "Find a need and fill it".
: I'd like to hear other's experiences. After several incidents last year we decided to and have embarked upon taking our video production services in a different direction. Our focus had been corporates/industrials of which we have won several national awards...so our work is good. We're located in a major market and our pricing places us near the middle of the curve so we're very competitive. That being said, we lost about 10% of our client base last year all do to price. Here's how. 1)New start-ups that greatly lowball their prices to get in the door. Sometimes they're successful. We lost a major corporate client to a new guy who undercut our price by about 2/3. The greatly reduced price was to much for the client to resist and we couldn't/wouldn't come close enough to save the account (BTW, i later learned from an inside contact that they were quite upset with the quality of his work). 2) A couple of clients that we shot for before brought us footage they shot themselves on mini dv camcorders for us to edit. This is okay to some extent but really, editing footage shot by amateurs can be quite a headache not to mention the reduced revenue of not producing the whole package ourselves. 3) A client called for a quote With smaller clients one of the edges has been our use of glossy boxes by Neato. Clients love the professional appearance that they give. However, in this case the client said he could get those glossy boxes and print them himself. As it turned out, about a week later I walk in to a local office supply store and there they were, Neato's glossy video sleeves for anyone to buy. That edge evaporated right there, on the spot and actually it was that neato experience that made the decision to go an entirely different direction. BTW my grandmother is burning her own dvds on the mac she got for Christmas...need I say more.
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