Transcripts
1. Introduction: Finding clients and
navigating all of the challenges that come along
with that, it's not easy. Once I got to the
point where I felt confident in managing
client relationships, it allowed me to feel
more empowered in my creativity and
the quality of work that I was able to deliver
on those projects. My name is Ryan Kao. I'm a freelance video
editor and cinematographer. You may have seen some
of my work on YouTube, where I have a channel
and community talking all about my journey as a freelancer
in the video industry. You may have also seen some of my stuff on social media where I'm sharing behind the scenes and some of my client projects. As more recently, I've been stepping into
the narrative space, doing some short films and even feature length
documentary work. In today's class, we're
going to learn all about how to book clients and navigate
those relationships, from finding clients to
managing their expectations, dealing with notes and feedback, and most importantly,
getting repeat clients. I'm going to take you on a quick dive behind the scenes on one of my past client projects
for a pretty big brand, and look over some
of the notes and communications that I dealt with in order to get that
project to the finish line. If you're somebody who has never worked with
a client before, or you've been doing
it for 10 years now, no matter if you're an
editor or if you're in the video production
industry at all, there's going to be something
for you here today that will help you navigate your
journey as a freelancer. By the end of this class, what I hope you're
able to walk away with is an understanding of
the client dynamic, and realizing that it's a
lot simpler than it seems. I couldn't be more excited to share this class with you today, it's information that I think would have
easily kickstarted my career in the very beginning had I had it. Let's dive in.
2. Finding Clients and Winning the Bid: Finding clients in the video
editing industry is often a pretty random process and can come from sources you
would least expect. Word of mouth, probably even more than you
would realize. I'd be lying to you if
I said that there was a simple rinse and repeat process for
finding those clients. But here's a few
ways that you can more consistently win
the bid once you do. Finding clients as
a video editor, it's a challenging process. More often than not,
the hard truth is that the perfect client
doesn't really exist. I believe that the moment
you truly accept this, you stand to gain a
valuable perspective that a lot of editors
never realize. Every editing project is
fundamentally like a puzzle, and it's up to you as
the editor to determine the most creative and efficient
way to solve that puzzle. In a lot of cases, the person who provided that project to you doesn't even know what that completed piece looks like. How can we show
them that we have the skill set to be able
to take on the project? How well can you take a batch of poorly captured or
disorganized footage and turn it into something
that actually tells a story? On some occasions, you
might have a client who absolutely knows what that
completed edit looks like. Does this mean that
they're a perfect client? Well, no. This does remove one step out of the creative
process for us as an editor, but it doesn't necessarily
make our jobs any easier. How can we begin to find those ideal clients
for our video editing? Well, it can start at
the root, our portfolio. A great way to
maximize the amount of client style or
culture fits for your own particular work is to make sure that
you're regularly keeping your
portfolio up to date with the work that you
want to be getting. Let's say you have two music
videos in your portfolio, but you're not really
interested in doing that work for your future or
potential client projects. Then that's definitely not a great start to finding
your ideal client. Just in the same way that
a client needs you to edit their videos to represent
them to their audience, you need to edit your
portfolio for your audience. Therefore, your
potential clients. Expanding and optimizing
your portfolio in this way is such
a powerful tool, and we covered a lot about
this in another class. If you're interested, maybe
go check that one out. The next step to
think about here is that crafting a winning proposal and knowing how
to communicate is a huge step to
winning those bids. In freelance and
contract relationships, more often than not, you're
going to be reaching out to clients via email or remote. Sometimes you'll get
the opportunity to get on phone calls
or video chats. But being able to properly communicate and explain
your creative process, to be able to listen actively and hear
the client's needs, and articulate those in a
way that makes them feel confident that you're able to deliver in the
project expectations. Whether it's being
able to break down your workflow stages and
being able to accurately estimate time windows
or being able to show and share
references from your work, or even viewing references
that the client sends you and providing
your impressions. Simply just being confident
and being able to be transparent about your rates and your pricing on a project. Clients love flexibility. You certainly shouldn't
undervalue yourself, but it doesn't go unrecognized to be somebody
who is going above and beyond and providing maybe
a little bit more than what some of the other
freelancers they're in contact with are offering. It really does make
a big difference to be confident about
how much you want to be paid for certain projects in your experience level
and in your type of work. Seven years ago, some of my first paid editing jobs were making logs for
other YouTubers. I think I was maybe
making $100 for a 10 minute video that took
me multiple days to edit. Fast forward to now
where I'm at in my career and I'm working on brand campaigns that are airing globally for well
over five figures. Using your understanding and your best judgment when you're working with
new clients in proposing or crafting a bid or a response and really
understanding that, hey, not everybody is going
to have the most budget. Some might have more, so maybe you can push your
rate a little bit better. Some might not have
much money at all, but you really do
value the brand and want to get that piece of
work in your portfolio. Either way, knowing how to communicate effectively
and confidently, it's going to go a long way for you as a freelance editor. Take time to understand
the client's needs. Ask the right questions. If thing seems a little
bit confusing to you, more questions are certainly going to be better than less. But make sure that
those questions are insightful and show that you're committed
to understanding the project and the
client's needs. Lastly, be responsive and timely with your communication
throughout the entire process. Now that we understand
a little bit more on how to find clients
and how to win that bid, let's move into how to actually manage their expectations
once you're in a project.
3. Managing Client Expectations: Learning how to
manage expectations with clients and
especially how to deal with managing
the difficult ones is such an important step in building a successful
freelance career. Even though we've already
talked a lot about it already, communication really
is the first key here. It is the cornerstone to any
successful freelance career, no matter the industry. Not every client will have as much technical understanding
as you'd hope for. Being able to correctly
articulate your words to match their experience level
can go such a long way. Set realistic and
clear expectations and ask more
questions than less. It never hurts to over clarify a certain
component of a project that might be a little bit confusing to understand
for both parties. Providing consistent
updates throughout your post production process
is not only a good courtesy, but can help to
inspire confidence in your client with the project you're working to deliver on. If you run into any roadblocks, communicating those and
asking those questions and just simply avoiding any procrastination
on communication, whether it's good or bad. This punctuality does not go unrecognized
in this industry. A good starting place if
you're trying to refine these communication skills
is develop a clear roadmap. What does your post
production process look like? Can you clearly explain all of the steps in your post
production process? Being able to do this and communicate it to a
client at the start of a project can not only help save so much time in the back
and forth as you get going, but can also help convey a certain sense of
professionalism to them. Also, it just acts as a nice
checklist for yourself to keep your brain in
order and maybe have a little bit less stress and
anxiety as you get going. Consider, what is your first step in
your editing process? Maybe it's finding music. You're a very musically
driven person. If so, that should be one
of the first things you communicate to your client
as you start a new project. Whatever that is for you,
identify that roadmap, and keep your process clean,
trackable, and repeatable. Of course, we're not always going to have those
perfect interactions, and knowing how to understand
how to deal with managing difficult client expectations is equally as important here. A few things that you could
do in a scenario like this is to make sure at
the start of the project, the scope of work that either
they provide you or you provide them thoroughly outlines without
any discrepancies, expectations on
timing, the rate, how many revisions they'll
be receiving and just clearly what is and isn't
included in your services. Maybe you have a client that's super picky with communication, and they're pinging
you for updates multiple times
throughout the day. Clearly having that roadmap available to them
to reference in your original email or proposal can help to alleviate
those scenarios. It may seem obvious, but
making sure to clearly explain that if we go above the
amount of expected revisions, that there will be a fee associated with
those extra edits. Not every client is going
to be fun to work with, some will probably be far from ideal and may even try to
push you around a little bit. Setting boundaries early on and clearly sticking
to your integrity in your process is something
that you will absolutely need to adopt if you want to build a successful
freelance career. Maybe consider what are some
of your client caveats or project requirements
or even boundaries when approaching a new project? If you have some,
maybe share them in the project gallery
for others to see. If you're somebody who hasn't
really developed them yet, hopefully these can
give you some ideas. Now that we've learned a
bit more about managing client expectations and how to deal with some of
those tough ones. Next up, let's talk about getting notes and
addressing feedback.
4. Getting Notes and Addressing Feedback: Getting feedback in revisions is an unavoidable part of a
freelance video editing process. It's this weird thing
that we have as humans, even if a project is perfect, if it's something that
somebody is paying you for or something that
they're hiring you to do, they always are going
to want to find some way to make it just
a little bit better. Getting comfortable with hearing this feedback and not
taking it personally, and figuring out
ways that you can efficiently incorporate
those revisions into your workflow
will help you to build a sustainable
freelance career. Revisions will probably look different for most
projects you work on, but a process that I've adopted and have began
trying to standardize across all of my client projects is three total rounds of
revisions are included. To break this down a bit, the first version that
I send to the client, the V1, is as close as I think I can get it to the
original creative brief. From there, the notes and
feedback that the client can give on this version can be
a total overhaul if needed. But I always ask to make sure
that they're as thorough as possible so that when we begin editing on
the second version, by that delivery, will be pretty close
to the home stretch. At that point, the third
version of the edit is usually pretty much
locked in and final. Anything beyond that
third version of this edit may need to be
discussed as extra editing cost. As we've discussed
in previous lessons, clearly laying out your
number of revisions in the original scope of the project not only help to
save you a ton of headache, but can also possibly get
you a little more money if you go beyond those revisions because the client's
unsure of what they want. It's so important to
be open and ready to receive these
notes and feedback. But remember, you are the
hired professional here, so you need to be honest with yourself about how you
choose to respond to them. Clients are often
passionate about the vision that they'll be
hiring you to bring to life, and some requests you'll be given won't even be realistic. Hey, that's totally normal. It's your job as the expert to hear their feedback
and hear their goals, and be able to explain
what is realistic given the resources and the scope of work that was
originally set forth. In those situations, provide alternative solutions
that will help bring that project across the finish line without
breaking deadlines or budget. If the client is persistent, you really do just need to be honest and communicate
exactly what it is you would need as the editor in order to achieve what
they're looking to do. I want to take you guys behind
the scenes really quick on a cool project
that I got to work on for Adidas about a year ago. This was a really interesting
web series talk show in celebration of the
Adidas Samba shoe. For this project, I was
the cinematographer and also handled the
post production. Adidas wanted to bring together
three unique voices in the fashion in
creative space to talk about some of their journeys
in their creative careers. Kind of all focusing around
the Adidas Samba sneaker. It was a super interesting
and fun concept. There was a host
interviewing each of these characters in front of a live audience,
multiple cameras going. Definitely one of my
favorite projects I've got to work on. What I want to show
you guys here is a look into some of
the revisions in communications I had with the director and the client in this post production process. These notes that I received
from the director were for a version 2 of this edit, and some of them are very
thorough with timestamps, things bolded to take note of, but also some were pretty vague and I definitely needed to
ask some further questions. Right at the top
here, he calls out to cut the fake super
eight millimeter film. I did a film emulation overlay for a couple of the B-roll
shots throughout the edit. Stylistically, I thought they were pretty cool, but of course, the client's needs and
perspectives are more important than our
own personal tastes. He also calls out logos need to be better, titles animated. These were a few specifics
in the creative brief, but I actually did have
a response to this, which I'll show you in a moment. As we dive further into
the body of this email, we have a lot of very
detailed story elements and changes to some
of the interviews. This brief, looking at it from an outsider's perspective,
looks like a lot, but this client was
very thorough in how he communicated some of these changes that
needed to happen. A lot of them were
pretty realistic and not too difficult
for me to manage. But there were a few, in particular, that I definitely wasn't
able to deliver on. In my follow up email to this, in delivering the third version, I left a few editor's notes
just to clarify some of the changes that I made and also addressing some of the things
I wasn't able to handle. One high level note for
feedback that he gave me, I took care of by adding a bit more spacing between
each talents, responses as the host is asking the questions
for the interview. We also added a few
more story elements to help better illustrate one of the character's
narrative things that they were
trying to explain. But there was one note that I was definitely not
able to handle, so I clearly explained that, unable to more clearly conclude Miso's authentic self story, due to the early parts of her interview being a bit
timid and disjointed. On the surface, this
might not make sense, but in the previous
communication and understanding that I've given to the
director and the client, and everything that
we've outlined, this was an effective
way for me to say, hey, I wasn't able
to change this. Finally, I let him know that the talent titles and intros
are still placeholders, because we were still waiting
for the VFX to come back. That was initially discussed
in the creative brief. The whole point in the
takeaway that I hope you get from this is to simply make sure that you're thorough in interpreting the
client's feedback, making sure you're
asking questions if something doesn't make sense
or it's not realistic, and clearly relaying
the changes that you made to make sure
that they understand, you heard and received
those notes and if they have further notes
to clarify on that, they might need to
add extra revisions. An easy way to take some of the stress out of the
revisions process as a video editor is to use tools like Frame.io,
for instance, that offer you a way
to send versions of your project to
a client that can provide them with a way to
time-code their comments on that video rather than having to condense everything
into a big email. You may not realize it, but a lot of the cloud
storage platforms that we've all been utilizing offer these video
reviewing features. Great. Now, hopefully you guys are a bit more
comfortable and more confident in understanding the feedback and revisions
process with your projects. Next up, let's talk about how to start getting repeat clients.
5. Getting Repeat Clients: In a freelancing workflow, you're going to come across situations where
you're working with new clients and on occasion you'll be able to work
with repeat clients. This is something I absolutely think we should be
really taking into consideration when developing a sustainable freelance career. For me personally, I
would say on average, 2-3 of my projects on any given
month are repeat clients. In terms of new clients reaching
out to me for projects, that happens maybe once a month or even every other month. On the surface, that may
seem a little discouraging, but a way I like
to think about it is you don't need a
lot of clients if you're able to deliver
such a good result that they want to
continuously work with you. In this lesson, I
want to take you guys through a few tips and
some principles that can help you to possibly get a few repeat clients
in your rotation. The first tip, and I
think that this one is an even bigger priority than creating the perfect
edit for the client. Deliver on time or
early every time. I know that sounds simple, don't show up to class late. But seriously, this
is a quality of a freelancer that clients
will fall in love with. When you're able to
turn around work when you say it will be
done or before, not only is this just going
to keep the client happy, but it will help
you stand out as a reliable business person that they can trust
to work with. Going above and beyond will
definitely get you noticed. Another way that we can
implement this into our workflow and strategy is
at the end of the project, maybe just delivering
a couple of extra aspect ratios of the edit. Nowadays, clients are always wanting to post social content, so maybe exporting
that horizontal video in vertical 9 by 16 is just one way you can
make them appreciate your work a little bit more and maybe get that next
project with them. The next tip here, focus on building long term relationships
with your clients. When it's appropriate,
feel free to reach back out with clients
from older projects. Check in with them,
and see what type of videos or content
they're working on now. Maybe even share some of your recent work that you think they might
find interest in. If you get the conversation
up and going again, there may be an opportunity
for you to offer some maintenance contract
or even a retainer. When you complete a
project with a client, if things went good, keep them in your circle. There's no reason you shouldn't maybe just touch
base with them and ask them how was the
experience working with you? What are some things
that you could potentially improve
on in the future? Finally, if the
conversation leads there, and it feels appropriate, you could ask for a testimonial. At the very least, you
could use this as a guide for your own growth in improving
your business practices. But you might even get something
that you would want to promote on your website or
a LinkedIn of some sort. In the video production
industry, there's a saying, you've probably heard it before, your network is your net worth. The fact of the matter is, you're not necessarily
going to land every project that a
client reaches out to you, or you reach out
to a client for. The simple fact is that
you just may not have been the right fit for
their current needs. But how you choose to respond to this and carry yourself as a professional in this
rejection process could determine whether or
not they'll reach back out to you for
their future needs. This entire process of
finding new clients for our video editing is definitely one that
has its ups and downs. But the simple and positive
way to look at this, though, is you may only
need to find that one client to
sustain your career. If you have a
client project that you were really excited about or something about that workflow surprised you in the process, share it in the project gallery. Maybe let us know a bit
about what happened in that client project and how it transformed your
workflow in some way.
6. Final Thoughts: This was an exciting one. It's definitely something I wish I had a little bit more of an understanding in
the early phases of my freelance career; how to find those clients, how to win those
bids and proposals, how to manage those
expectations, dealing with notes and feedback; it's kind of intimidating, and probably the most important, how to get those
clients coming back to you so you can generate
a stable career. I'd love to hear if you've had a good client project
and experience, and maybe a deliverable
that you were really satisfied
with the end result. Share them in the
project gallery. Myself and I think some
other students would be very curious to see what people are creating for their
client projects. But I hope you guys
learned something about managing clients and finding repeat clients in this class. I hope to see in the next one.