Bill Cammack » expensive

Save Your Pennies, Then Hire Professionals

Bill Cammack — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:23:06 +0000

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. He’s a photographer, and I’m a video editor, so we kind of do the same thing, but not really.

He was talking about how, as technology increases, more and more people are calling themselves photographers because they own cameras.

Yes.. People have been owning cameras since cameras were invented, however, none of these people promoted themselves as professionals. They were hobbyists, at best. Mostly, they were civilians that happened to have spent some of their money on a camera.

At this point, people own cameras that take pictures on a level of quality that can be used in actors’ portfolios, wedding albums, or even as stills in television productions.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean that any of them are GOOD at what they do.

It doesn’t mean they know about lighting. It doesn’t mean they know about framing. It doesn’t mean they know how to use computer programs to maximize the impact or quality of the pictures they take for you.

Meanwhile.. If you go to your favorite “Hire A Random Person To Work For You” website, you’ll see these civilian hobbyists listed side-by-side with verified professionals. This gives a skewed impression of what a photographer actually is.

Video Editors

This becomes an issue when you get to the video editor. I have the same phenomenon in my field. There are lots of people who own the same equipment that I own. In fact, there are people that have gone to classes to receive some bullshit certificate that says that they’re “certified” to use the same software that I’ve been using to put video on local and national television for over 10 years.. and they STILL suck at using it.

Of course they suck. The sat in a classroom and passed a couple of tests. They have ZERO real-world experience. Hiring them to edit videos for you is the same thing as hiring me to be your personal bodyguard because I’m a champion at first-person-shooter video games like H.A.L.O., SOCOM, Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty.

I’ve never shot anybody in my entire life, so don’t expect me to whip out the Desert Eagle .50 Cal and wax six dudes with AK-47s like I can on my XBOX or PS3.

Similar to the photography field, these Herbs are grouped together with me as “Editors”. In fact, they’re button-pushers. They’re not bringing anything to the table other than the equipment they own and the fact that they know how to use that equipment… SLOWLY.

This is another thing that people don’t get about post-production (the process of blending the elements you provided into the final product). If my rates are 3x as high as a button-pusher, but he or she takes THREE DAYS to do what I can do in one day, guess what? :D HAHAHA You just paid the same amount of money for inferior work that you received two days later than you could have.

If my rates are higher, and I’m better at working with you and your clients because I have advertising agency experience and have edited commercials that ran on television for years, you. will. lose. if you hire the el-cheapo editor and they cause your client not to give you any more business. You. Will. Lose. if the service your client receives was juuuuust that little bit worse than the treatment they received working with another studio, and they give THEM that next large contract instead of you.

99 1/2 Won’t Do

You may have noticed that you never see “most” of a show on television. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. The show cuts to black for a split second and then the next show starts. This is because there are regulations and television stations expect and DEMAND that you create your videos properly and completely, or else they will kick them back to you. They will tell you directly that until you do this, this, and that to comply with their broadcasting standards, your show will not air on their network.

There is no such thing as 99 1/2% of a video.

You have 100% of a video, or you have nothing.

You have 100% of a video BEFORE YOUR DEADLINE, or you have nothing.

Similar to baseball, I am the closer. I never fail. Never. I can’t afford to fail, because it’s not “Oh well! \o/”. If I fail to achieve what my client asked me for and I assured them I would deliver, there is NO SHOW.

If there’s no show, my client is accountable to the people that paid him or her to produce the show. My client’s reputation’s on the line. It’s not *MY* reputation, because as a freelancer, my name doesn’t go on myriad productions that I do for production companies that hire me. I’m filling in. I’m doing vacation relief or handling overflow or a certain type of video that their staffers aren’t well-versed in and I excel at.

If my client’s reputation is tarnished because *I* failed, they lose business, they can’t pay their staff, people get laid off or fired, businesses close…

I’m not trying to be dramatic about this. :D I’m saying that it’s like being an airline pilot. Pilots can’t afford to fail, because they won’t be the only ones that suffer the consequences. o_O

There’s no such thing as “Almost landed the plane.”

If you insist on hiring a low-cost pilot instead of a more expensive one that definitely knows what he or she’s doing.. Good Luck with that.

Budget vs Reputation

So if your company’s reputation isn’t important to you, go ahead and hire button-pushers. Save yourself the money, assuming they work just as quickly as the more expensive professional. Good Luck that they do it right the first time, too. If you have to go through several rounds of changes because of errors they made or because they didn’t fully understand what you wanted after you told them to their faces what you wanted, keep counting up the hours and watching your bill increase.

If you have work that isn’t important, hire button-pushers. If you have internal corporate videos that nobody’s going to see, except your workers, who cares if they’re garbage? :D Everybody knows that you’re a Senior Vice President and not an Executive Producer, so why should they expect your videos to be any good, right? :D

On the other hand.. If you’re expecting your media (pictures, video, audio…) to represent your company and get you more respect and business in your industry, do some research, figure out who’s who, and plan your budget so you can hire professionals with proven track records to work with your team and complete your project for you in a quality fashion and BEFORE your deadline.

Some people like to utilize a hybrid style where they hire button-pushers to do all the grunt-work and then bring in a pro to tighten up their work. Sometimes, this works well, and sometimes, it doesn’t.

One of the main problems with working this way is that video production is “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. The process begins with making selections from the raw footage (video that came directly from the camera without being edited). If you send interns who don’t know anything about building a show to make your ‘selects’, they’re going to leave out a lot of things that they don’t realize would work well in your video and they’re going to select a bunch of things that don’t work well. Same thing if you do it yourself.

The upside of producing this way is that you save a lot of money, and the professional editor you hire will still make the best video possible from the footage you make available to them. The downside is that your production could have been a lot better if you understood enough about the process to get everyone to play their positions well.

Quality > Quantity

Mind you.. I’m not knocking button-pushers. :D They occupy a valuable space in the field. They’re inexpensive, and you probably don’t know enough to understand that the work you’re receiving is shoddy and your company would be better off if you never showed the video you paid for.

Button-Pushers are legitimate businesspeople and deserve to be hired. I started out as a button-pusher, of course. Everybody has to. What I’m saying is that if you’re a hobbyist, doing an online video show, or something you’re just going to show your family or keep for yourself, it doesn’t matter who you hire or if you hire anybody at all. Do it yourself! :D Use iMovie or Windows Media Maker, which came FREE on your computer’s operating system and go enjoy yourself. Take a month to do a video that could have been finished in one day. Spend hours that you could have been billing a client or hooking up with your SO working on creating an inferior product instead of hiring someone that knows what they’re doing, so you can enjoy your life while they’re working or make back the money you’re going to have to pay them anyway.

However….. If you expect people to watch your video and give you business, get it done properly. Go Big or Go Home. Period.

If you do a low-quality video and it goes viral, that’s not success. That’s 6 Million People that know that YOU SUCK! :D

Instead, if you do a high-quality video and not-so-many people see it, that’s way better, IMO, because the FEW people that watch it are going to say “That person knows what he or she is doing, and I want to hire them to bring the same quality to my productions that they brought to theirs”.

Of course, the best situation is a GOOD video that DOES go viral! haha I’m just saying that you need to consider that the money you’re saving, hiring button-pushers instead of professional editors or hobbyists instead of professional photographers could very well end up working AGAINST your company’s reputation, which will ultimately negatively affect your bottom line.
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“Hard To Get” vs “Expensive To Buy”

Bill Cammack — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:23:03 +0000

Let’s talk about women that like to play “Hard to get”. :D

While I was reading the comments on a blog post the other day, I came across an interesting passage:

Lucretia: There’s an old adage that says a man walks up to a woman and says “would you sleep with me?” and she looks offended and says “no!” and he says “okay, would you sleep with me for $1,000,000?” and she says “well, of course!” and he replies with “now that we’ve established what kind of woman you are, let’s talk price.”

Not only is this hilarious, but it illustrates EXACTLY the process that guys go through when they’re dealing with women they want to have sex with. Obviously, they’re not going to offer $1,000,000, because a) this isn’t the film “Indecent Proposal” and b) our boy “Client-9″ has already established for us that you can buy chicks AND import them from out of state for a mere $4,000. :D

Nevertheless, ladies, the fact remains that regardless of what your price is, YOU DO NOT want guys to get the idea that you’re selling ass.

The reason I bring this up is that a lot of women are confused about what “playing hard to get” means. “Hard to get” is a state of mind… it’s a way of being, or a lifestyle. It means that you apply your own personal power and intelligence to CHOOSE whom you have sex with. It means that he’s going to have to be an extraordinary person for you to consider having sex with this guy…. You want to make sure that at the end of the day, you had sex for the right reasons, your self-esteem remains intact and his respect for you remains intact. “Hard to get” has to do with YOUR MIND. It has NOTHING to do with MONEY.

See, this is why it’s called PLAYING “Hard to get”. You’re not ACTUALLY hard to get… You just want to convince other people (or perhaps yourself) that you are. The style women often play that they THINK is “Hard to get” is actually “Expensive to buy”.

“Expensive to buy” leaves you in the position of having as much personal power as a plasma television. Similar to Lucretia’s example (though, at much lower rates), the guy’s job was twofold… a) figuring out what your price is, and b) deciding whether he’s willing to pay that much to have you. See… Basically, you’re like layaway:

“Layaway, also referred to as lay-by in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Great Britain, is a way to purchase an item without paying the entire cost at once. However, rather than taking the item home and then repaying the debt on a regular schedule, as in most installment plans or hire purchases, the layaway customer does not receive the item until it is completely paid for.”

Notice how that leaves your personality and mentality out of the equation, entirely? This is why you want to AVOID the perception of being a woman who sells ass, and make sure that guys understand that you’re going to do what YOU want to do WHEN you want to do it and that what they do for you can gain them FAVOR, but ultimately, if they get on AT ALL, it’ll be because you decided from your own discretion and personal power that you feel like giving this guy some.

Here’s how you can tell if you’re not ACTUALLY playing “Hard to get”…. If you have criteria in your mind for “giving it up” that the guy you’re thinking about can effortlessly fulfill, you’re playing “Expensive to buy”. Actually, in a lot of cases, you’re even playing “Cheap to buy”, depending on his current cash flow.

As a side note, I used to work for the government, which means that you get to rub elbows with people from all social classes, from the branch director all the way down to the secretaries and security guards. On payday, my lower-class friends would cash their checks… meaning they would go to a bank, hand them the check and receive cash which represented the last two weeks that they worked. So now, these guys, whose pockets were normally perfectly flat and empty had a literal WAD of cash in their pockets. An actual BANKROLL. Along with this bankroll came an extra pep in their step and Cheshire Cat grins a mile wide, because they knew damn well that they were about to get laid. This is the elation that fuels songs like Johnny Kemp’s “Just Got Paid (Friday Night)”. Now, this is great for the fellaz, but disastrous for the ladies, because it’s clear to these guys that some women are for sale. Not in the Client-9 fashion, but TODAY they can afford to provide whatever it is you require to lay down with them.

Here are some examples (by definition of “effortless fulfillment”) of when you THOUGHT you were playing “Hard to get”, but you weren’t. :D If you refused to hook up with him because you liked him and thought he was sexy and wanted to share a good time with him, but you gave it up after he:

Took you shopping ($200)
Told you he loved you (Free)
Took you to dinner ($60)
Waited three weeks (Free, except for whatever cash he spent “dating” you until you finally came around)
Bought you a drink ($7)
Told you he wasn’t dating anyone else (Free)

See what I mean? The difference between you giving it up and “NOT” was something he gave you or did for you, not *your* state of mind. Unfortunately for you, while you consider stuff like this “I made him do what I wanted”, he sees it as “I paid her what she requested”. This is why it’s better to either hook up with him when you FEEL LIKE IT (which might be immediately), because you WANT TO, or even to accept the dates and drinks and clothes and trips and NOT give him some, so you don’t come off as being bought. Believe You Me… There are LOTS of guys that would drop $200 on a chick in a split second if they knew they were going to get on after that. I’ve seen guys drop $600 in a single night in a strip club, so if you think he considers you a holdout or “not easy” because you didn’t give him any until he took you to Miami for the weekend, think again. That money he’s dropping is all in the game… He’s just waiting until he hits your price. :D

As I noted in the list, instead of money, your price might be verbal/emotional. If every time your so-called boyfriend wants to hook up with you, your response is to block him with “Do you love me?”, sooner or later, he’s going to LIE and say that he does, which will result in your panties automatically removing themselves from your person. Same thing goes for meeting your parents or your closest girlfriends. Same thing goes for walking your dog or cuddling with your cat on the couch. Ultimately, the ends justify the means and whatever barriers you think you’re stacking in front of him, he’s gonna climb over them to get to The Promised Land. Once again, you’re better off giving him some from a position of your own personal power than having him think that he FINALLY tricked you into dropping your drawers.

Speaking of drawer-dropping… If you can’t hold your liquor, either don’t bother playing “Hard to get” AT ALL, or make sure you never become extremely inebriated around guys that you’re physically attracted to. As soon as a guy figures out you’re “good to go” after a certain amount of drinks, all other rapping tactics cease and desist. No more shopping sprees, No more late night creeps, No more VIP, No more dough… :D Scottie will divert all of the ship’s dilithium crystals and funds towards getting you drunk. Avoid these situations by either not drinking at all or getting the bartender to add water to your drink while he’s watching the thong contest.

Another good thing you could do to not come off as purchasable is “Go Dutch” or pay for dates yourself. That whole “Guys pay for dates” thing is based on back in the day, when women couldn’t have jobs or own land, so they were dependent upon their suitors to “make them an honest woman” so they didn’t become Old Maids. That’s from back in the day when the cavemen had to go hunt for the food and you had to sit in the cave, hoping you didn’t starve to death. Those days are over. Sistahs are doing it for themselves, YA HEARD? :D Reach for that wallet and pay for half of the dinner or the drink tab or the trip or whatever you just did. That way, when YOU DECIDE to do the right thing and get with the program, he doesn’t get to feel like he’s finally getting what you owed him from all the money he shelled out. He has to recognize that you chose to get with him from your own personal power, and nothing he could have done would have bought you. That’s actually better than playing “Hard to get”… that’s BEING a discerning and powerful woman.

~Bill

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