The #1 Thing You Need to Know About Switching from Events to Corporate Work

Today on the blog post I’m going to give you a smidgen of a taste of what I plan to discuss this afternoon at 4 pm EST on the In[Focus] livestream event. These weekly events are designed to provide an educational, inspirational and interactive experience for filmmakers looking to grow their business. There’s a new person every week leading up to the In[Focus] Video Conference in January.

Today I take the deck to talk about the top 5 things you need to know about making the switch from event work to corporate work. The #1 thing you need to know about making the switch is this: price your work based on the number roles per job, not the number of people.

Most of you who do event video work are used to working alone, or at most with one other person (usually a spouse or business partner). As a small business owner you wear a lot of hats. You’re the DP, director, producer, sound guy/gal, editor, colorist, DVD designer, grip, and PA all rolled into one. Chances are, you base your rates to your wedding and events clients on some arbitrary number you decided upon based on what other wedding and event filmmakers in your area are charging. Even if your rates are on the high end, I would guess that they are still based generally on some scale in line with other colleagues.

When you make the switch to commercial work, you need to change your whole paradigm of how you price your services. All those “hats” I mentioned before are worth something to your client. Even if you’re the one doing them all. Therefore, you need to make a bid to your prospective client that takes into account all the roles that will go into the project. If you feel guilty about charging so much more for the same work you do for weddings, get over it. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. It’s real value and worthy to be charged. In truth, you should price your weddings the same way, but many of you would have to charge $100,000 for what you do in your weddings, and I know that is not a realistic price range in this economic environment. Heck, I’m not sure that’s ever a realistic price range for weddings, which is why some of you should make the switch to corporate work. 😉

But Wait, There’s More…

This is just a taste of what I’ll be talking about this afternoon at 4 pm EST. Not only will I have at least four more things about making the switch, I’ll have more to say about this pricing topic too (e.g. what do you show a client, do you have prices on your site, how do you determine those rates, etc.)

Another thing I plan to do is give away a free hour of coaching. Here’s how you can win. Tweet this… Looking forward to watching @rondawson on the @INFOCUSevent livestream today at 4 pm EST. #ronstop5. I’ll randomly pick a winner from those tweets to win the coaching. You must be present on the livestream to win though. I’ll announce the winner then you just reply in the chat box that you’re there.

So, hope to see you there, 4 pm EST today at http://www.infocusvideoevent.com/live-chat.