How to ACTUALLY Grow Your Video Business in 2026

27:49If it is being run as ads or living on their website or emails or, you know, even in magazines or something, licensing comes into play there. More questions to ask. Well, you actually forgot about the most important. Oh, the number one most important one is what is your budget? OK, I can't tell you. OK, We coach creatives, right? We do that a few times a year. It's called the DCA, Dream Client Accelerator. It's actually getting ready to open up here in a few weeks. But the number one question that I ask people, they always are like, hey, what do I charge for this? Yes. The golden question we get.

28:20We get it a hundred times a session. We talk to our buddy, Caleb. Caleb, did it, dude? Caleb's like, what should I charge for this? What should I charge for this? What did they, how much money did they say that they have to spend? Okay. The tricky part about this is you're sitting there thinking, well, I genuinely don't know. And what you need to get in the habit of doing is breaking down jobs into line itemized bids and estimates. So you think about, okay, I'm going to go shoot this luxury hotel. Great. Well, I have my day rate. I'm going to have an assistant. I'm going to have a gaffer. I'm going to have a grip.

28:54You start to write out all these different little line items. We're going to have an equipment rental. Maybe we have to get a truck. Maybe you have to get new lights. Like you have to rent new lights because you don't have super high powerful lights that are in your kit. You're not renting out your stuff for that. Is the camera, can you use your own camera? Do you need to rent something like an Alexa mini or, you know, Alexa 35, whatever the heck the thing may be. Then you start to tack on all this stuff. You have your insurance 2.2 % and then you have your production fee anywhere from like 10 to 20%.

29:19So then you get to this magic number of, okay, instead of in my head, this was three grand or something. Now it's 10 grand or 15 or 30, whatever the heck that thing may be. and you can't just start free balling out of your ass like oh it's going to be 10 grand you have to have an idea as to what these projects cost because i've made this mistake before i've done jobs where i've set a number i've been like this is going to be 10 grand thinking wow that's so much money it goes so fast and it's not profit like whenever you're tossing out numbers in your head you're thinking like oh i'm gonna make 35 000 on this like you're not making 35 straight to the bank account you're gonna make you're gonna make seven or eight and then you start thinking about all this stuff that you do.

29:57We're going to buy that Ronin. We're going to buy the new, the new, uh, FX5 drip, new drip. We're going to go to a Kith. It, it just adds up really quickly. So you need to get in the habit of understanding to ask for examples as well, because the last thing you want to do, I think I've told this story like a really long time ago, but I was pitching a job for Coachella. They were doing like an event and it was for an NFT company, rip NFTs. And I had done this job for like 35 K like a month before. And so this client's telling me, well, we have five grand for this. And I was like, I don't really want to drive out to Coachella for that and stay over the weekend.

30:29It's just like not enough. And he's like, I want to show you the video that we did there, the example. This is how we want it to look. And I was like, that's hilarious. Cause I did that video and it was a lot more. And they were like, oh fuck. Okay. We're so sorry. Like, you know, we, we can't afford you guys and we didn't end up doing it, but it's really good to understand. Cause I just educated them. I was like, you shouldn't send this to people. Like you guys aren't gonna be able to pull that off for five grand. There's, you're gonna get a kid with a camera to show up a single shooter editor maybe two people at max and that's your job though to educate so if they have an example and they send you spielberg's real you're like i can't do this dude this was a hundred million dollars we're like you know that happens a lot where you'll see a video that gets sent to you and they're like oh we love this nike video it's like yeah i fucking bet you like the nike video because it was expensive and it's the sickest athlete known to mankind and they're on a cool set that was probably 50 70 500 grand to make this set.

31:22That's why it's cool. It's not just cool because the editor is good at what they do. It's all the little things together that makes the magic. What I want you guys to remember is that you're vetting the client just as much as they're vetting you. The reason why you need to ask all of these qualifying questions is because you need to know if, do they have enough budget to work with you? Is this something you actually want to take on? What's the timeline looking like? Is this something you can actually pull off? If you start to get a lot of like workaround questions or you'll sometimes ask a bunch of questions and some of the answers will be red flags that you get from these clients.

32:01Do you want me to give you a red flag? Yeah, hit me. Okay, good red flag that they'll say is, you know, we found someone cheaper that could potentially do this thing. They're like trying to shop around, trying to get you to come down. That's not fun. Yeah. You got to knock it right in the beginning though. You just got to, you will learn these two over time. you'll get the same sort of objections that keep happening. And then you'll have little things in your back pocket that you're going to say. And it makes it a lot easier because the first time this shit happens, you kind of freeze. Yeah. Because you've never heard it before.

32:30You're like, uh, I was like, yo, you're a little expensive. And you're like, fuck. Which goes back to why positioning and niching down is so important. Because if you are really good, if you are the specialist who can fix Ferraris, and if someone comes to you with a Ferrari problem and says, oh, well, you know, the general mechanic down the street actually charged me a fourth of the price. Be like, well, great. Take it down there, big dog. Go take it down there. See what happens. Spend the money with them. It's going to be a shit job. And then it's going to be more expensive when you come back to us.

33:00But I say all that to say, I know when you're starting out, because I know how I was, because you're feeling so desperate of like, I want to get this job, or I feel like I need, you want to prove yourself or you feel like, you know, we all got bills to pay. Like I need this money, right? You come at it as, okay, whatever it is, I'll take the job. But you really need to come at it from, I don't even know if this client is right for me to work with. I need to ask a bunch of questions to know exactly what they're looking for, how much budget they have to spend, and if it is the right project for me.

33:41It's very easy to come at these jobs and discovery calls from, I need to land this job. So whatever they say, I'm going to like bend over back and make it work. If you can come at it from, I don't need this. It would be great to have, but only if it is the right client for me, you'll have a lot more success and you'll be a lot more calm on the discovery call as well. I'm going to tell you a perfect example because this is real. It happened to us this last week. So we did this job like just under 10 K and it was fine. Like, like, obviously we want everything that we do to be above 10 K and preferably it's like above 50, like in that range upwards.

34:23So new client, I'm like, you know what? We're down. It was pretty cool. We ended up doing the job. They hit us back to do something else. And you know, they, they're pricing out what this thing is going to be and it's cheap. Like this isn't something that is going to go on a reel. it's not something that i'm going to share publicly it's not something i'm super fired up to do like i could really give a fuck about this job this is just a paycheck job and i'm sure you all have had those years this is a paycheck job i don't care about this right and then they want to knock the price and he's like i was hoping to spend half of that and so me and reef were talking about it yesterday this is yesterday and we're kind of like you know he's like well you know he's a nice guy and i'm like well but here's the thing if a partner that paid us a significant check that like actually did some damage on our bottom line if they asked me for a favor i'm so much more inclined to say yes yeah because you scratch my back i'm down to help you out when you come at me and you knock the price the first time but i'm like oh whatever like you're new i'm down to do it it's pretty cool and then you come back and you want to knock it again i'm like go fuck yourself so i'm like no you know he's like what do you think and i'm like well we're not working that day we don't have a job that day i'm like yes do we not have a job that day yes but the product's premium the product's expensive and like i'm not going to go into louis vuitton and tell them that i want for half off the first time they go into louis vuitton like that's just not going to work and i'm not saying we're fucking louis vuitton but you have to think of yourself like where you sit in the market we're more expensive so like you should go hire a kid and it's going to look like shit and then you'll understand what went into the video that we gifted you for just under 10k because it was a gift like it should not have been that cheap but it was like oh it's fun it's cool and that's just kind of part of owning a business and i'm like you got to like we're not rude but you can't just keep knocking the price and it's the same like i always convert it back to their industry because usually whatever it is that they want it matters that's why they want it documented it's like this thing is important to you right yes of course it's important okay great well if it's important to you like i'm not going to budge on this rate like that is going to be the rate for it and if you guys can't hit it i totally understand but we don't need the money yeah you know and i think that that is uh it's it's a tough thing to swallow because you come from a place of like no we like we should be working we should be doing this but like not and if you're not going to be able to share it publicly and really post about it yeah like i'd be willing to take a discount on something that i know i'm like oh this is a crazy job totally you know i'm going to be able to share this and get make more money off of this yeah and hopefully that message makes sense to people because you're going to have so many opportunities like that that come and people are going to try to like hack your price down and unless it's cool and you want to make a relationship or something then great but if you're like ah i don't know about this one there's probably a no and then you should move on but by all means if you need money then do the job do the damn job 100 but if you're in if you are in a position to be able to say no and turn jobs down.

37:23That's a really blessed place to be in. And if you do decide to turn down the job, utilize that time or that day that you would have been shooting productively. Do outreach. Like if you guys aren't shooting on that day, send some emails or make a piece of content, like utilize your time productively. Don't just say, oh, I don't have a shoot today. You know, feels like we're playing hooky from school. number seven is only charging for the shoot day so if you are starting a video agency and this is different right like let's say a production company is hiring you you are just charging for the shoot day in your equipment right you're not going to be i'm not going to be like oh my profit is 50 like it's a day rate right that's how that works if you are the company and you're going to a business you're not just going to charge them for what it is for you to show up because there's going to be a lot of work that happens beforehand you're going to be maybe writing scripts for them This all depends on the scope, right?

38:23But like you're going to be writing scripts for them. Maybe you have to rent equipment for this specific job. Maybe you need to rent a location. All of those things are going to factor in. It's not just going to be like, okay, my rate is$1 ,000 for the day or$750 for the day. And that's all it is, right? But if you're being hired as a contractor, yes, that is how that works. So if it's like BTS, you're not going to tell them, oh, well, it's this, this, this, this, and this. It's just like my day rate is$500. I come with my kit or it's$700 with my kit or whatever that thing may be. And again, going back to what I was saying earlier, it's all dependent on if you want to do the job and if you want to work with the person.

38:56I'll waive my kit fee all the time because I want the job and it has to hit a certain number. And I know it's like this isn't going to work unless we hit this number. And we also own all the stuff. So it's different. But if you're having to rent all the things, then that's a different story. It's like, well, to make this happen, we're going to need to X, Y, and Z. And it has a cost with it. If you're shooting social media content, let's say you have a retainer with a business and you're taking time out of your day or out of your week to essentially scroll on social media, plan out ideas, come to them with scripts like you said.

39:31That's your pre-pro. That's pre-production and you deserve to get paid for it. It's not just I'm going to show up, shoot, but I have all these ideas and it falls into the rate of what my day rate was to shoot. your day rate to shoot and to edit is exactly that if there is pre-production that comes into play where you are coming up with ideas and um scripting stuff out or pulling references you deserve to be paid for that and that deserves to be included in the budget number eight is not upselling more deliverables this is a good one this is how you get your rate a little bit higher So if they come to you for one thing, the great thing about owning a business, if you do, if you also, if you go buy anything, you're always being upsold something.

40:18When, okay. So I used to work in retail. I hated that they used to tell us to do this. What did you do? So I used to work at All Saints. I used to, my two retail jobs was J.Crew. J.Crew was my first job ever. I knew you worked at J.Crew. And then my second job was All Saints. Fun fact about the All Saints job. Okay. I was the worst. I was at the bottom of the list of sales. No. And then they had me work like consecutive weekends. And it was right before I was going to school or going back to school over the summer. Okay. And my friends were like planning a trip or something to do over the weekend.

40:59But I was, I had to work. So I just didn't even give them a two weeks. I just quit. I was like, hey, going back to school earlier than I thought. won't be coming in on Monday or Saturday or whatever it was. But anyways, they would tell you, you introduce yourself to the customer and say, oh, you looking for anything in particular? Whatever. Then they obviously have some clothes in their hands because they're picking out stuff. They're like, oh, do you want me to start you a room? So then you would take their clothes, start a fitting room for them, and then they would always tell you to pick out a few extra clothes and say, hey, I know you picked out this shirt.

41:35I don't know if you saw these pants, but they go really well with the shirt and i always hated that because i don't know what this person's style is like i don't know if they're gonna like it i like for me when i'm shopping i'm looking at the whole store i guarantee you buddy you did not see something that i missed so don't bring me some shit into the changing room because i don't want it but anyways you should sell you should upsell as a videographer as a creative service provider a really easy way though to do it is is like additional cut downs because a lot of these brands are obviously running ads with your stuff so if you have a minute or a 30 you can offer 15s or 6s or whatever the heck you know that's so maybe if they do youtube pre-rolls there's a multitude of things that you can like toss in you know if you have a photographer that you work with and that stills maybe wasn't on a thing, you can make additional money by having like stills there.

42:33Yeah. It becomes a little bit, you know, a little bit stressful with like talent and whatnot and sharing them with stills. But if they have the money for it, it's like you're killing two birds with one stone in the day. And then, you know, they have more assets and stuff. So that's something to definitely think about. But like you're always being up. So you go to the movie theater, you want the large popcorn for 75 cents extra. 99 % of people say yes. And they're already spending the money. so if you can get them a little bit more extra stuff a lot of the times brands are down like i would i would be down if i owned the brand but yeah we're already doing it like yes cut us five more things from it for you know and a lot of the times like they'll bundle it um and it won't be as expensive as like the main video because it's already being cut it's already done and like you're just making a little shorter variations of it not like individual pieces i don't know if the episode that we recorded with Reef has come out yet by the time we put this one out.

43:26But you guys talked about and shared about a client coming to you with a certain budget for a certain set of deliverables. And then you guys ended up actually getting double the amount of budget out of them because you pitched them the ideas or the idea of additional deliverables. And you might think that if a client or a brand or business comes to you and says, you know, we have$5 ,000 all in or$10 ,000 all in for this thing, it doesn't hurt to at least pitch the idea because they might actually have more money to spend. And the way I figured this out, when I was in school, we did this project for this water bottle company called Mir.

44:11And they're big now, but they weren't big when we did this. They're like a little baby compared to Hydro Flask. And they gave us all a million dollar budget. CEO and the founder came in and they like you basically pitch them live, right, with all your concepts and stuff. And everyone else was like way under a million, 600, 700, 800, maybe 900, whatever. We did one that was like 950 or something. And then one that was like 1.2 million. Like, oh, well, 950 is dope. But if we had 1.2, we could really go crazy. and the CEO was like I'm picking the 1.2 every single time like I'm a guy who wants to go above and beyond and like I really like the idea and everyone else was so far under budget and and like for those that don't know if you give a marketing director a half a million bucks and they don't spend it they're not getting the half a million next year they're gonna like all meet and be like yo why didn't you see you are two hundred thousand dollars off like why didn't you spend so we'll give you 300 this year and then their budget gets cut down so like they want to hit their number and like sometimes at the end of the year i mean we'll get hit up for random shit at the end of the year like hey can you guys just cut this one video for us for an obnoxious number because they need to hit this thing otherwise they lose their budget that's a real thing that happens with these brands so you know always remember that there is going to be people that no matter what and you and i are like this like i want the premium shit yeah i don't want the budget option like if i'm going oh i want my snowboard like i want the nicest shit i don't want to be like, I'm not here for the dollar general shit.

45:38Where's the Burton dude? Give me the nice jacket, the Gore-Tex shit. And there's just always going to be a buyer like that. There's also always going to be a buyer that's cheap, always a buyer in the middle. And there will be someone at the top. You want to sell it to people at the top. They'll make your bottom line bigger. Guys like me and Kostas. Oh shit. Oh my God. Oh, this is great. Number nine, dude, Dude, save their lives. What do you got for them? Failing to define revision limits. This will bite you in the ASS as a videographer. Yeah, dude. Yeah, I've given people. Dude, I've told you guys this if you're OG, but I did once a revision.

46:18It was that 10K project I told you guys about after school. I shit you not. We were on version 40 of each of the five videos. Like it was like 36, 38, 39. And it was just, I think we worked on it for six months. And my dumb ass finally at six months was just like, can we just be done? Can I just give you the footage and you guys go find someone else to cut this? Like, this is insane. I remember when I was terrible. I remember when I was shooting real estate with Ben Belak. Shout out. I didn't have, it was like my, one of my first ever retainer clients. Shout out to Ben. And I didn't have anything in the contract of revisions.

46:56And so we like oftentimes these videos would be on version, you know, six or seven. And it would take me quite a long time because I just didn't understand that concept. I thought it was just like until the video is exactly how they want it. Like I'm going to just keep cutting away. It forces them to like you're still making it how they want it. it's just forcing them to condense the feedback to like okay they watch it six times yeah and then they give it to you not just like oh once and then you go cut something and they're like ah you're actually you missed three things the first one as well and then it just delays the project and then it creates real estate in your brain because you're like damn i'm not done with that one thing from ben and then you get hit up by another person another person then you're like shit i still have that one video that's on version five what i will say doesn't i don't count this as a revision is if you or your editor makes a spelling mistake oh no it's not a revision that's not a revision yeah it's on you if you are making a revision please duplicate the sequence that's game duplicate the sequence every time you make a revision duplicate that sequence because sometimes a client will ask for a revision or ask if we can go back to like a previous revision and if you don't have it saved and you have to like re-edit it to be how it was at the beginning so duplicate the sequences and yeah when i was at the lakers i did that once and i kept editing on the thing right i don't remember they're like we want to go back to like version six or something and we're like version nine and i didn't have it and i just said fuck it dude i'm just gonna rip the export and just toss the export on there oh damn cut up the export was like game no one's gonna notice this we're talking about game yeah dude always export without closed captions oh my god i literally was like i and i remember it was like titles like it's got to go live i'm like you know what do i make an executive call if someone calls it out then i'll rebuild this from zero but this is going to take me a whole day to redo it something that okay a couple things mess that up another piece of game get before you even start editing get the music approved.

49:14So that's not even a question because we all know the thing that a client will say, can we just switch the song? It's like, no, no, you don't understand. I cut on beat. Okay. It's going to mess the whole thing up. So get the song approved beforehand, but also something you guys started doing, which I actually love and I'm going to steal is you guys are now sending a document of what good and bad feedback looks like. and you force the clients to read it and say, hey, this is how this thing is going to go. This is what is good feedback. This is what bad feedback looks like. I don't want you to give me any feedback on the bad stuff.

49:56And yeah, but sometimes they don't even read it. Yeah, most of the time they don't read it. But it's helpful because instead of them saying like, I don't like this, it's like, I don't like this. Could we change to another shot that's like this? or, you know, you just give examples of good and bad feedback. So at least there's something to base it off of. And when they give you shit feedback, you can say, can you please refer back to the client feedback doc? Like it'll make our lives so much easier in this process. And that is just part of part of growing. And I stole that from another production company.

50:26I saw they had that. I was like, this is fucking genius. Like, I don't know why I haven't done this. You just play this weird game of, you know, especially young brands that have never worked with creative partners before, they have no idea. It's not their fault. They just don't know. And a lot of times they're not creative with like video stuff. They're creative with the branding and with the product and all that stuff. So it's a different medium for them. So they don't know how to communicate with you. Like I'm not going to tell a designer what to do. I don't know. I have no idea how to talk their language.

50:53I could tell a video person what to do. I could tell a photo person what to do, an editor what to do. And so that's just kind of the same sort of situation. They've just never worked in your medium before. Number 10, not collecting a deposit when you're working with a client. Okay. If you're working with a production company, you don't get a deposit. You get paid net 30 because they're waiting net 30 for the client to pay them. Meaning if you were a contracted videographer. Yeah. If someone hires me to DP something, I'm not going to hit them with, I need 20 % down. I'm just going to send them my invoice the day we wrap.

51:23And then I'll be like, okay, 29 days later is typically when you get paid. But like if you're a company and you have like, you know, something going with a retainer or one-on project, you'll typically get like 30 % up front or 33 % up front, maybe even 50 % up front or some sort of 25 % up front. I personally like the 33 % because it gives you enough to rent the equipment and pay for any expendables. If you're buying props and stuff like that, and you're not coming out of your own bank account for that right off the bat, you know, and then you do have a little bit of pad. If you have enough left over, where you can pay people out and just be done with it.

51:57This also works even if you aren't a company. If you're just a freelance photographer or videographer. Yeah, you're doing a wedding or whatever. I had to send a deposit to the photographer that we hired or that I hired for my engagement. Yeah, and deposits are good because I was doing a wedding in college. Poor bastard and his girl broke up. And they then owed me$1 ,000. And he came asking for it. You kept that money, baby. Brother, that money is long gone. Dude, this is this new lens, brother. Yeah. Yeah, this is a new lens. Well, deposit in Latin, it actually means I'm keeping that shit. No, it's not.

52:31I'm kidding.

52:36Send him back the Urban Dictionary. No, yeah, that's the whole point of a deposit. Yeah. You're cooked and it's unfortunate. It also - But you're booking their day. Exactly. You tell other people, six other people, hey, I can't do that day. And then it comes out to be, oh, I can do that day. You can't go get that back. they've probably went with someone else yeah it allows sorry unbelievable before we keep going i want to share something kind of funny with you okay so monarch got a new app i don't know if you've downloaded it no it's called basis okay but it keeps giving me these notifications that says like last call for coffee which was 16 minutes ago it's 12 22 pm which is hilarious because I'm drinking caffeine at like 4 or 5 p.m.

53:27My second espresso of the day later on. So I'm apparently fucking up my quality of sleep. Your sleep. But have you seen the eight sleep? I have not. What's that? Dude, apparently it's this pad and this isn't even an ad. Apparently it's an ad that goes, it's like a mattress topper. But you can control the temperature. I've seen this. I'm getting okay I'm getting everyone is telling your girl your girl and you could be on a different that's pretty nice what do you keep your apartment at I think the perfect temperature is like 68 69 okay what do you keep yours at 65 at night yeah I that's insane I want an arctic in there you know it's also psychotic I close the vents to everywhere but my room so like the office the living room I'm like, they don't get a vent, bro.

54:19I'm just like, let me get cold. But I honestly, I really like it freezing. You know, that's why the Swedish, man, they sleep better. And Chloe's down for a cold apartment. Chloe likes it cold. But she also, it's funny because she does use a heating pad. Like, I don't use a heating pad. I feel great. Like, I'm. She uses a heating pad on her bed? No, no. Like, on her side, she has a little tiny heating pad that goes over her stomach or something. Yeah, she likes the heating pad. It's interesting. You know, they say. But I don't need to be like, I like it freezing cold. I've liked this since I was a kid like that.

54:54I think one of the most important, and this might be like top three most important attributes or things in a relationship is thermostat compatibility. Agreed. No, I agree. If she's a 71 girl and you're a 68, can't do it. Cannot do it. You got to break up. Yeah. It's never going to work. No, it's never going to work. Be real with yourself right now. You know that you're in pain. Exactly. You know that you're miserable at night and you're afraid to tell her. Yeah, dude. Or you've told her and she's not budging. You got to try to meet in the middle. You got to be within one to two degrees. Or if she likes a fan and you don't like a fan.

55:30Okay, so this is something that me and Sarah Catherine have had to work through is she likes to fall asleep with like the TV on. I can't do the TV on. And white noise. And I'm like, make it pitch black and fucking silent. Yeah, I can't do the TV. It totally throws me out. I can watch a show leading up to bed and it's like, we need to close the show. Cause I can't, you know, it's funny though. I can totally deal with a fan, even though I don't love, I don't love that. I'm not like, I need a fan to sleep, but like I could, you can throw it on loud. I'm not fazed by TV though. I cannot do the TV.

56:02It just like, it messes my circadian dude. That's what it is. We were telling about not collecting a deposit, but you know what number 11 is? Not building relationships with the decision makers at agencies and producers. That's a big one. OK, because a lot of the time the brands that you know and love, right, you're not going to go work with Nike. You're going to work with Wyden Kennedy. You'll work with their ad agency. They will hire you out. Or, you know, Nike is so big. Nike has a bazillion agencies. You might work with one of them, but you're likely not going to just go zero to Nike. That's not going to happen.

56:36So really good rule of thumb is to identify who these decision makers are at the companies that are the AOR agency of record. just giving out game today and then go attack those folks that's the way to go after the bigger jobs it also makes sense if you're a one-man band freelancer getting work it's not super easy like it can be it can be pretty difficult but if you can connect with you know directors or producers who already have the relationships with these brands that you want to work with and you're of the caliber that they can hire you like to come onto these jobs, it is, it's going to allow you to be way more booked and busy than if you're solely relying on your network or your outreach strategy.

57:32Um, so yeah, if you can, if you can connect with a lot more agencies and producers, and this is something that I wish I did, uh, you know, a lot more when I was first starting out because I, again, I thought the only way to do it was just for me as a quote unquote freelance photographer or videographer to be directly connected to the brand itself. Without a doubt. Number 12 is to save money for taxes. Oh, bring us home. I didn't do this when I first started out and I didn't, I just didn't understand, like, not that obviously I knew you had to pay taxes. I didn't understand the percentage to save.

58:10Didn't understand how write-offs work. Didn't understand how to separate. Well, everything is a write-off. Everything. I didn't understand how to separate a bank account. So like I was operating out of the business account, which is not ideal. Like you want to keep it clean. So when an accountant goes in there, he or she's not so confused. It's like, why did you pay for CVS pharmacy on the business account? It's a write-off. It's a write-off. The pills are right off. Everything should be clean and organized, right? So what I recommend doing is like, let's say you have your little LLC, right? You pay yourself a salary that or like, or you can pay yourself monthly, whatever the heck that thing, you know, looks like for you.

58:47And then, you know, keep track of your expenses. But every job, you know, if you have a business bank account, this makes it easier because you know, okay, well, I just paid myself a salary. What is left in there is like operating capital. And when my taxes do hit, like I'm going to take from this. Some people do this. I don't personally do this, but let's say they get a job and it's 10 grand. They'll put two grand immediately into this other account. It's like your tax account. Some people like doing that. I don't think it's super necessary because if you have all your operating capital in the account, you know that when you do get your tax bill, that it's going from that account.

59:21The other thing is to pay quarterly taxes. You start making good money, pay quarterly. So at the end of the year, the IRS isn't like, hey, you owe$75 ,000. You'll just know that, okay, I've already paid my quarterlies up to this point. And it's a lot lighter of a blow to your to your bank account and it makes your life a lot easier but yeah do death taxes and what the fuck's the other one the three things that are guaranteed in life the other one is death taxes and then you i think you just make up a third i think um i don't remember what the third one is what is it i gotta look it up it's gonna drive me nuts what's the saying okay Death, taxes, and sincere calling multiple girls beloved.

1:00:08It's guaranteed.

1:00:12In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. That was by Benjamin Franklin. He didn't have a third. Maybe Google Gemini is lying to me. I don't know. Anyways, man, this was a fun episode. And if you've been an OG 505 listener, you know that this one was really going back to the core roots. The grassroots, dude. If you are still here, we're getting ready to launch round number five of our dream client accelerator, the DCA. We're also hosting an awesome live workshop on August 3rd. Right? August 3rd? August 3rd. So the link for that will be down below. It's super fun.

1:01:02It's going to be two hours of us basically spitting even more game than this. Did you like this? Imagine this on steroids. Yeah, imagine this on steroids with a sick PowerPoint presentation. Q &A. And an open Q &A where we will stay on and answer your guys' questions live. So if you guys are looking to level up your career as a videographer or photographer. for come hang with the rocks come hang with the rocks we're going to show you exactly how to make more money charge more for your work land bigger and better clients top link in the description yeah i'm looking forward to seeing you guys there what else have we been doing dude are you going to buy this fx5 do you think this is actually going to be a cool camera or they're just throwing some bullshit at us i think eventually i would probably get it um i think i think i will end up buying it as well because i like the fact that if that open gate thing is true it will be nice to not have to shoot vertical and horizontal like i was just in i was in new york um filming some stuff for carhartt and we'd shoot a horizontal and then we'd switch to vertical and then i just flipped the fx6 flip my monitor big pain in the ass it would be so nice to just be like now i have the lines like yeah we're set i can film wide and i don't have to worry about it I think that would be that would be really really nice yeah I think it'll be interesting to play with at Sony Kando I'm just gonna have to tell you about it because you won't be there unfortunately yeah but um it's all good dude it's all good but seriously I think I think it'll be I think it'll be interesting I'm curious to see how big of a difference OpenGate actually makes because I've never actually played around with it.

1:02:49But I was also thinking I'm more inclined because I think the FX3 is so good. I don't really feel like I need to like upgrade from the FX3 to an FX5. No, I agree. It would probably be to get another body. Supplemental. What I'm actually, I think, more inclined to do instead of get something like that, I think I'm more inclined to sell my A1 mark one and get either the a1 mark two or like the a7 five um that one just come out i think so bro they're releasing too many cameras because i can't even keep up so when i'm shooting like when i went to cabo to shoot for chileno bay one it's like it's very difficult to shoot photo and video and switch back and forth but it's also really difficult so you want the one body dual threat because i'm not shooting photos on the fx3 so let's say like most of the stuff that i'm shooting is with like my 24 to 70 i see if it's on the road if i'm doing both photo video i have to take the lens off i have to like switch lenses basically and so it could be kind of nice to just have for certain situations if it's just social because I know the A1 makes a very beautiful image.

1:04:13Like if I am doing something where I am shooting both photo and video, maybe it makes more sense for me to have either the A75 or the A1 Mark II. I want the flip out screen. I don't like that it doesn't have a flip out screen. We need to get rid of that camera for you, man. I know. The flip out screen is the whole deal breaker. But it'll be interesting to see the camera. I'm still hoping that eventually we get the FX3 Mark II. Cause that'll be sick. Like we were saying though, dude, like these cameras are beasts. And like we have, you know, I have an FX six for blue stripe stuff and we use it for the pod, but the FX six is great.

1:04:49It's a great camera. It is seriously, it's a really solid camera. I will say for like run and gun stuff where you're really moving around a lot. I prefer the FX three cause it has image stabilization and the FX six body does not. Oh, interesting. So like it does, you know, it does really not. I mean, it's so much more smooth on the FX3. Obviously, it all depends on what you're going for. And these really big cinema cameras don't have IBIS. They're, you know, but you're also, they're 40 pounds. So it smooths it out naturally. Like it's just huge. So it's a lot more stable. Smooths it out naturally.

1:05:24And you got to assume that if you're using that extensive of a camera and you want gimbal-esque shots, you're going to be hiring a steady cam up. I will say, you know, for like, if you're doing YouTube shit, run and gun stuff, social ads, like the FX3 built out a little bit is like the best camera I think you can buy. And I prefer the smoothness for shit like that. Like I like the little help I've noticed and like it's really solid. It's totally like that. So other DPs would be like, I don't like the smoothness, blah, blah, blah. But when you're moving around a lot and you're holding that shit all day, I think it helps.

1:06:00update for you on the World Cup and this will give away when we're actually recording this Spain is up 1-0 against France I'm kind of bummed we're not watching that because that's like a sick game holy shit Laminya Mall and Mbappe going after each other I don't know who scored but dude the World Cup has been so oh Michael Ollar Zabel okay on a penalty uh on a PK yeah the World Cup has been so fun to watch and I don't know if I was talking to you about this but I was wondering why I'm more into it you were talking to us about it why I'm more into it this year the World Cup is always fun to watch but for whatever reason I'm like more into it this year and I think it's because some of the games or a lot of the games are being played in the U.S.

1:06:50and so the games are at normal times because when they're in other countries you're dealing with the time change and sometimes the games are at like 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. I'm like, I don't care enough about soccer to wake up that early. But it's been electric. It's a bummer that the U.S. lost. They made a little bit of a run, which was cool, but it's been super fun. I went to Penmar to watch one game and then I went to Santa Monica Brew Works to watch another. So it's been cool to keep up with. Who you got taking it? dude i don't know maybe maybe spain i've been really i started getting hit with lamina mall highlights when we still live together with reef and this dude is like 19 he was like 17 or 18 at the time he's correct he's so good so it's cool to watch that um they're winning against france but i don't know we'll see i feel like the winner of this game will probably win the whole thing um and i'm trying to think of something else was gonna potentially move by the time this comes out we might actually have landed a new apartment me and sarah katherine are looking at new apartments because for whatever reason right now rent in la has like gone down a pretty good amount and i've always been someone who's super into like super modern like i want the newest nicest like we were talking earlier i want the nice as shit but she has convinced me and i think i've turned a new leaf to where i actually do enjoy and appreciate there are certain apartments in la that have this charm about them because they were built in the 1920s so they have the the fireplace and the the built-ins and like yes the appliances are kind of older but it has it has some charm and i've always i thought we were going to move back to the west side but what you can get on the west side it's just like a lot more expensive the apartments aren't as big and i think i would like to save a little bit of money on rent get an even bigger spot and if i gotta drive to the west side we'll drive to the west side shebang trying to think of what else i think that's pretty much it yeah i'm just i'm really excited about this new round of the DCA.

1:09:15God, I'm fired up. This is going to be super fun. Thanks for tuning in with us, hanging out with us. This has been an epic episode of the 505 Pot. If you feel like, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, leave us a like, let us know if you're liking these episodes and we'll see you guys all next week. Peace.