I was recently fortunately enough to be blessed with a new account that was well worth its weight in gold. It was a situation where the previous vendor hadn’t delivered and the client was just too tired of not getting their product right, and on time.
So when I was presented with the opportunity, I was told a little bit about the previous guys, and how they were making promises that weren’t fulfilled. Then I also found out that they weren’t necessarily using the money received to actually get the job done, more than just getting as much as they could get.
It’s one thing to maximize profit, but it’s another thing to try and take as much money as you can without getting the job done.
I remember one time I recorded a hair show competition event, and the company sponsoring the event had put a budget together for production and prize money, and the promoter they chose to be the host ended up keeping some of the production money and prize money for himself. The whole thing got ugly right on stage as the $5,000 prize was announced…but the company had set aside $10,000 for the grand prize. You can imagine the look on their faces through my camera lens.
This was one of those situations.
I had heard that the previous production company had been spending a lot of their budget trying to buy and learn how to use the equipment to do the job, instead of actually just contracting out professionals who could have had the job done without the headache of a learning curve.
The last thing you want to do is hire someone to do a job, and find out later you just financed their crash course in learning what you needed them to do. You can assure the quality of the product will not be top notch.
When I got the call for this job, I was a bit surprised, but from my other dealings with this client, I knew they respected our work and knew we had a good business relationship already. If I was going to take on this job, it was going to have to be executed flawlessly.
So I called in help. I reached out to two other production companies whose specialties were in areas mine weren’t, and we came together and produced a great end product. With that teamwork, my client was so satisfied we booked 9 more gigs just like it for next year.
I was told once by a good friend of mine that "teamwork makes the dreamwork". And this couldn’t have been more truer.
In the end I realized that I got the job because I could get it done, not necessarily because I could do it myself. I was glad to have built relationships with two other businesses (both minority owned), who were serious about their business, and whom I didn’t mind working with.
Sometimes you gotta call in for some help. My main concered was getting my client’s project done. Not trying to take him for as much as I could. As long as I could meet my financial expectations and pay the other two companies their price, that’s al that mattered. Unfortunately I know a few of us that are black in business that don’t think of building relationships and working together for future endeavors more than just trying to get it right here right now. That hustler’s mentality.
That sort of thinking has to change if you plan on staying in business long.
