The Freelance Playbook

Getting Clients On Retainer [Ep190]

• Ariel Martinez

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Getting clients on retainer is a "best-cast-scenario" for most freelancers. We're discussing our retainer clients and how you can approach a client to get on retainer with you.

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Ariel Martinez

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 Ariel Martinez (00:00): When you see those opportunities come in, retainer is the only best option for them. If they don't want to keep paying on a per project basis, the full rate, right. Retainer is a great option. But I think that laying that out for your client is really where a lot of people are just not very experienced or just don't have the confidence to do that. Welcome back to another episode of the ifilmmaker podcast. My name's Ariel Martinez, big Mike in the studio with us. Mike Hernandez (00:27): Ready for today. Ariel Martinez (00:28): Ready Mike Hernandez (00:29): For today? Yeah. I changed my shirt. Ariel Martinez (00:30): I changed my shirt too. Yeah, Mike Hernandez (00:32): I see you popping the collar back there. Ariel Martinez (00:34): Oh no. Got me looking Mike Hernandez (00:36): Good, man. I Ariel Martinez (00:36): Missed it. I was rushing. How you being, man? I'm doing good kind of stuff. Have you been doing lately Mike Hernandez (00:43): Work? Ariel Martinez (00:43): What was your last job? Mike Hernandez (00:45): My last job. Ariel Martinez (00:46): Not when, what was Mike Hernandez (00:47): It? What was it? What Ariel Martinez (00:50): Was it? Well, that tells me it was a long time ago. Mike Hernandez (00:53): No, it just doesn't say much. Cause I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Ariel Martinez (00:56): Oh, okay. Mike Hernandez (00:58): No, it was for, um, it was a, a, a training certification course. Okay. That was the last thing I did. And it was nighttime. It was like from, from seven to 12 at night. It isn't fun. Ooh. Yeah, but we have to schedules. Ariel Martinez (01:13): So my LA my last job was the Juneteenth. We did a concert that was put up by the city of Miami gardens. It was interesting. It was cool. Uh, the interesting one, uh, thing about that one is that the client only wanted the final like program recording, meaning somebody was switching. Like we, our, our cameras were on screens on the big screens for the audience to see. Um, and then they had overlays, they had titles, they had, you know, sponsor, you know, ads and stuff like that, but they just wanted that program recording. They didn't want raw footage, Mike Hernandez (01:49): Like the final output Ariel Martinez (01:50): For, and it had to be highly compressed, something that was shareable, you know? So it was like, right. Not a problem. And that's all they got. And, um, as a backup, we recorded everything internal on our cameras just because we could, and it was the option, you know, uh, in case we have to do any cleanup of like, we missed something or whatever it is. Uh, but didn't end up being the case. I didn't even back anything up into my server, just cuz that's a lot of footage. They got the program file. I recorded the output to my Adamus and they got that file and they're super happy with it. Nice. But that was our, Mike Hernandez (02:25): So there wasn't any, uh, like, like, like rampage, like last time you did a concert. Oh Ariel Martinez (02:29): My God. No, there was no rampage there. Everybody was very respectful. It was a Juneteenth concert. So it was very, uh, I, I don't wanna say spiritual. It was very heartfelt. Yeah. It was very heartfelt, uh, concert. They had poets out there cause Juneteenth is a very special day. Uh, so, uh, and so for the black community, it's, it's a, it's a big thing, you know, it's a very big thing. It should, it Mike Hernandez (02:53): Should be. So it was like soulful. Ariel Martinez (02:55): It was very soulful. There you go. That's that's what I was looking for. So it was very soulful and it's unfortunate though, because it was funny because a lot of people at the beginning it was a lot of poets and a lot of like just, I, I guess they put, they saved the best for last, right. But the, the first, you know, the first, uh, presenters apparently to the audience was boring. Mm. This was a free event that was put together by the city of Miami gardens by, by halfway through the concert, half, the people are already left, Which sucks because the last couple performances were really, really good. Like I enjoyed it. I was like, wow, this, these guys have, Mike Hernandez (03:34): They didn't have a bunch of new people come in during the time. No. Ariel Martinez (03:36): Oh, wow. No. And this was the first annual, the first annual Juneteenth concert that the city puts together. So they had a lot of Congress, people come a lot of like people that approve this mayor. Yeah. The mayor was there and all that. Uh, but it's unfortunate that, you know, I guess they're learning, they're still learning. And um, but yeah, it, it was unfortunate by the, there were like maybe 60, 70 people there by the last two events, last two presentations, which were awesome, which were really awesome. So I'm sure they'll learn from that, but, Mike Hernandez (04:07): But it sounds like a cool project. Yeah. Ariel Martinez (04:08): Yeah. It was a cool project, which we can get into a whole nother thing on how, like, you know, we set up for that pre pre, you know, we have to run like a 300 foot SGI cable and all that. And I can get into a whole nother episode, but today I want to talk about getting clients on retainer, right? Ooh, retainer. This is a very juicy subject, I think for Mike Hernandez (04:29): A lot of people, income for an insecure income world. Ariel Martinez (04:34): So many times we talk about how, you know, the differences between freelancers and, and sort of people that work nine to five. This is like a happy medium, right? It's ideal where you have that security of knowing where your paycheck is coming from. But at the same time, you have a lot of flexibility that you can miss work if you need to et cetera, et cetera. Yes. So this is like the ideal scenario for most of us, you know? Uh, but you know, people have different, uh, perspectives in of like how they want to proceed with this. And some people are just like, we'll take anything. Right. Even if it means that they're slaves now to the, to the company in which you're signing up with. And, um, I think we could talk about both. Have you ever had a client on retainer? And if so, what? Mike Hernandez (05:16): I'm really excited about this topic because I actually wanna learn from you, but I've currently have about, about five grand a month in retainers right now, total. Ariel Martinez (05:24): That's Mike Hernandez (05:24): Good having two projects. Great. That's pretty good, but it's not, um, they're not long term contracts and one of 'em short. And so I don't know what happened after that and all that kinda stuff. So that's for me like that's man, if that could be always, that'd be great. Ariel Martinez (05:36): Um, uh, before you continue, when did these start? Mike Hernandez (05:40): So the, uh, three grand started about three months ago Ariel Martinez (05:45): And okay. So it's fairly recent Mike Hernandez (05:47): And then the other two, about eight months ago. Okay. And that one is long lasting. Ariel Martinez (05:51): Both of 'em are within the year. Yeah. So you haven't always been relying on this. Okay, cool. Mike Hernandez (05:56): So it's nice to have, um, but they both have come to me. So I'm excited to hear how you have gotten that yourself. Yeah. Um, but yeah, they both came to me. Um, they don't require much time. Sure. So I like that. Um, and I'm, I'm not in for the whole grab whatever you want, whatever you can and then sacrifice where I'm not available to do my, you know, real work, which is freelancing per job. Um, but uh, I Ariel Martinez (06:20): Mean, it goes, it's nice. Cause it's, it starts to feel more and more like a full-time job. It does. It starts to feel more like, Mike Hernandez (06:27): So one of them, if it were to continue, um, past the, the timeframe that it's already set for, I, I can already start to feel the build of animosity, but it's like a, the burden of it, the, the serendipity of the, like the, Ariel Martinez (06:43): You know, what I call that. And I mentioned this before routine, Mike Hernandez (06:47): The routine, and in this world, we don't do good with Ariel Martinez (06:49): Routines. If you have to do the same thing over and over and over again, it starts to get, it takes away the creative of it, Laura, you know what you're doing? Yeah. You already, it does not, you know, you, you you're expected and it's like, there's no excitement anymore. It's Mike Hernandez (07:05): Like a conveyor belt. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and so I'm fine with it because it's a short term. Um, but of course the security of the income portion of it is great. You know, it helps with the family, you know, of course, A, a year, almost four year old wife and, you know, house and all that good stuff. Right. So it's nice to have that. Um, but, uh, yes, it's one of 'em is starting to feel like when I come in, it's like, all right. You know? Yeah. Um, but it's a blessing at the same time. Ariel Martinez (07:33): A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Mike Hernandez (07:34): How about Ariel Martinez (07:34): Yourself? Yeah. It's always a blessing to do that. Um, and so when you say they came to you, what do you Mike Hernandez (07:40): Mean by that? I was approached asking if I could, um, if I'd be willing to take this on. Sure. So of question all the questions were okay. What's it gonna require? Um, I, I'm not a big money guy first. Um, sure, sure. I kind of wanna know what Ariel Martinez (07:52): The client explain, explain that. Mike Hernandez (07:53): So I'm not all about, okay then my time is that it's worth this much and this is what you get, but, but I kind of wanna, what do you need as a client? Sure. How can I help fulfill that? How can I help you be happy at the end of the day? And then this is what it would cost or what I'm willing to do it for, or my team it's sometimes I have things that come in that are not me. Yeah. Yeah. That are my team. And so sure. So yeah, that, I guess, like, that's what I mean by like, not money first. Oh, this is my time. This I'm not Bighead in that, in that way. I wanna know how it can help the client. Right. So then I evaluate that I may not be the guy for you, you know? So for example, if it was gonna cost me a ton of time and the pay is not that great, I'm probably just not the guy for you. Let me see if I can help you find someone. That's kind of how I deal with that. And I've done that before. Um, but yeah, no, so it's, I mean, it's a blessing and, and, um, how happy to have it right now, Ariel Martinez (08:41): But if you, if you don't do it correctly and that's air quotes correctly, cause it's very relative what correct is. Yeah. Um, you know, you could find yourself in a pickle, you know, sign signing with a company and sort of regretting it later. Mike Hernandez (08:55): So I had, um, with the one that's shorter, pays a little bit more. It, um, was blessed that they actually came in saying, listen, we're gonna ask of you to be flexible with us and our schedules to do this, to get this job done, but we'll also be willing to be flexible with you. So I've had a few shoot days where we were scheduled for it and I had something come in and I be basically say, Hey, listen, I need to take this. This is fine. Yeah. No problem. And they'll work around it. We just gotta make it up somewhere else, some other. Right. And, um, so, so that works out really good. Yeah. Um, but that's how I've kind of been approached for those things. And it's been a blessing I've been approached. Um, I would love to have a few more things that are within my timeframe. Sure, sure. Just for that security blanket, my wife really likes security. Yeah. So, you know, most, most Ariel Martinez (09:38): I'm sure they do most Mike Hernandez (09:38): Ladies do, you know? And, um, and, and it's nice to be able to have that, you know, like I had mentioned in a previous podcast, you know, my dad looks at what I, what I do and he's like, you're crazy to not know what you're gonna be doing next month and what you're gonna be earning. Um, but it's nice to have a little bit of cushion in this very unpredictable world. Ariel Martinez (09:56): Yeah. No, that's, that's definitely true for all of us really to, to have that. If I could get all my clients on retainer, it's easy, you know, but just like anything, we, they don't know when they're gonna need what they need or, you know, the importance that they've put in video. Right. So for one of my, uh, bigger clients, um, they put a lot of emphasis in doing video content for them. It made sense to put me on retainer. Right. And the way I, I evaluate that is how often are we doing work? Right. So how often are we doing work? What do you need? How often do you need this? And sometimes I would put, probably get paid less, but you have the security of a contract, right. That, that they have to pay you regardless. And it's still helpful to me. So one way that I evaluate it now, not before it of, you know, how much to get paid and what not is the man hours. Ariel Martinez (10:54): Right. And again, I, I get out of the mindset of, I have to do this myself. So I, I do a lot of outsourcing, but I cannot outsource more than what they're paying me, you know? And at the same time I have to still make a little bit of profit. Um, but it always makes sense. And I think business wise for any company to know that if you're gonna need this much work, then it's better to do it on a month to month basis. Sometimes they don't even consider that. So it's up to you to remind them, open that up. So when you see that opportunity comes where they're asking a lot of you Ariel Martinez (11:27): Just approach 'em and Hey, have you ever thought about, you know, just putting me on a retainer. And the first thing I always say is, it'll save you a lot of money. You know, cuz you you're paying me now, 2,500 bucks. Every time I have to do a video, this one video for you is maybe a 20, 32nd video, but you're paying me money to do this. Why not just pay me on a month to month? And you, the, the cool thing about this is that you can make it so creative, right? You could be very creative with how you structure it. So let's say 2,500 bucks now, per video, where we're doing like three or four, five of them every month, why don't you just put me on a retainer, put whatever 6,000 bucks, it will save them a lot of money. It will save them a lot of money. Ariel Martinez (12:07): But now let's say that one of their first concerns that I think that they might be thinking is, well, what if there's a month that we only do three? That's not, well, no, let, so let's structure it in a way where it now rolls over. Right? So now instead of it costing you 25, it's cost you what? 1500 bucks per video, but that can roll over that's okay. You know, what do you mean by roll over? If you do three a month and next month you do 10 or whatever. At the end of the year, you have a certain amount say one of the stipulations in the contract is that you have to use it by the end of the year. Right? Cause it's not gonna roll over by year, but it will roll over by month. You get what I'm saying? So you can get so creative with how you structure it depending on your client's needs. Ariel Martinez (12:46): So again, put a dollar sign to the final product if you need to. Or if it's just by production, cuz they have in-house editors, whatever it is, you could put a dollar sign to it and you could sort of get creative with how you structure it. This is where you could get, like you could have fun with it too. You know, there's so many options that you can do. If what you need is somebody to come in and handle a live stream for you because you want to get together and do a podcast for your company. So I'll come out there. The shoot should take the no longer than four hours. If you decide one month or one week or two weeks that you don't wanna do an episode, whatever you still have that if you wanna do something else or just let it roll over if you want to do two in another month, but make sure all that stuff is stated in the contract and the stipulations and all that stuff. Ariel Martinez (13:30): Uh, but it won't roll over at the end of the year. You have to use it by the end. You, you get what I'm saying like, so you have to sort of structure this thing where now you're giving them options, giving them ideas. They can listen saving money. Remember what we talked about in our last episode, profit maximization is the goal of every business. So you want to make sure that they're seeing the value in what you're offering them when you can provide that for them. Then they're more likely to sort of get on the word with that. Right? So, and then if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense if they're, you know, I think I was offering a, but it was a buddy of mine. Um, but he has a, a nonprofit organization. I think, um, what they needed was not really productions. Ariel Martinez (14:10): What they needed was content video. Even if it's like stock photos and words put on top of it and make it all into like a slides show with text and whatever, they just needed constant stuff. Uh, so we were trying to work something out where, you know, it is gonna be your con, like we get the, you, you license, the stock photos, you license, the music, you license, everything, um, are you're paying for is the man hours that it just takes to, to just create this little thing. That's probably gonna take us maybe an hour to do every time we have to do it. Um, and you know, we're trying to put together some, uh, uh, a pricing quote, something that makes sense. Cuz when you're running a business, it's not only my work. So now, uh, I ha I have a full-time editor. Uh, but also I have a, a remote editor as well between the two of them. Ariel Martinez (14:53): I just put a dollar sign in the man hours. So if I know that, uh, just an example, I'm paying them, let's say 25 bucks an hour. I have to charge my client maybe 50 bucks an hour. Right. So I have to make that make sense so that you make some sort of profit out of it. Yeah. So anyways, so that, that that's a whole nother episode, but you know, you, you just wanna make sure that you're not devaluing yourself. That's how you devalue yourself. Right. But now it's different in business. It's not about yourself. It costs a lot more. If I have to do it myself, right. That's sort of like you go through those stages, but that's sort of how I present it to my client. And the more you do it, the uh, creative you get with it, the more ideas you get out of it, you know? And, but every client is different in what they need and what they value. And Mike Hernandez (15:38): It saves 'em money too. In the sense of what's the alternative hire a full-time employee. Ariel Martinez (15:42): Right. So benefits. Right. All different things. Yeah. So that's another thing that you have to, you can point out to them, you know? So again, in the whole sales pitch, you point that out to them like we did in the last episode, listen, you're gonna hire a full, you can, you can hire somebody internal and do all this stuff. Right. But in order to hire somebody, and this is where the confidence factor comes in to give you the quality of work that I've been giving you, it's gonna cost you a pretty penny, you know, to like you try to hire me full time. I, I would love it. Right. If you could, if you could pay what I would like to get paid to out what you would like to get paid, let's do it. Listen, everything has a, has a value, right? Yeah. If, if you want to pay me to throw everything I've built away and, and get me full time in your office, Hey, let's do it. You know, Speaker 3 (16:25): You might end up being miserable, Mike Hernandez (16:27): But Ariel Martinez (16:28): I might end up being, Hey, Hey, my wife will be Mike Hernandez (16:31): Outsource. It just outsource it. Ariel Martinez (16:32): Just outsource it, get outsource it. Uh, but anyways, uh, but again, there's not that many companies that are probably gonna hire us, you know, for what we would need to get paid. So anyways, um, when you see those opportunities come in retainers, the only best option for them, they don't want to keep paying on a per project basis. The full rate, right. Retainer is a great, but I think that laying that out for your client is really where a lot of people are just not very experienced or just don't have the confidence to do that. Right. So I, it's not something that I would normally initially think of when I was first starting, you know, but oh, you could easily spot that today. Right? Where you're getting hired a lot and lot by a company where people would normally just continue to go with the flow and continue to go with the flow. But at some point I would encourage people, may man maybe bring it up to them saying, Hey, um, because you don't know when that's gonna stop, that can stop whenever and not, not don't go, uh, don't go too aggressive. Don't go, they're too aggressive and saying, Hey, why don't you just put me on a retainer? Right. You say, start asking them questions. Hey, do you plan on making a lot of these videos? You know? Yeah. Do you see yourself growing and making maybe more later, like start show them Mike Hernandez (17:46): The benefits Ariel Martinez (17:46): On their end, right. Start, start feeling them out to see what direction they're heading in and see, and, and then bring it up to them as an idea, like, have you considered, like, why don't you just at that point, then you can ask them like, you know, you could save a lot of money. Just putting me on retainer. It's not gonna cost you as much as all these videos on a per unit basis. Mike Hernandez (18:07): Now, have you forgotten to the point where it's not actually you, oh, the actual work Ariel Martinez (18:12): Where it's your house force or your team. Yeah. So I just, so I just signed here. So here's the next thing I was gonna share with you. I just signed a, another retainer. Um, and I haven't done anything, but I was very open with my client. Like things are going very well on the freelance side of things where we're just ins insanely busy. Right. And you would think, I can't take on a retainer right now, but you have to start thinking as a business person and not think as an individual freelancer. Yes, yes. This is where the growth. Mike Hernandez (18:38): Yeah. The cap, you have to break that ceiling. Ariel Martinez (18:41): And that's where I'm like, I, there's no way that I can do it. It's not possible. But one of the benefits of starting your business is that you have to learn to grow. You can scale. Right. Which it's, it seems very far fetched. And a few years ago, I I'll admit, I never thought about it like that. You know, I'm not a freelancer anymore. I'm a production company. Now I'm a production agency and I have to learn how to grow. So what this, what? And so I took this retainer on an experimental basis. Right. And I was so open with my client on this that's because I've been working with this client for years. Uh, I've been working for many years and they've never offered me this sort of position before, but I've known other people that have taken that position. Um, you know, they say they're demanding and whatnot. Ariel Martinez (19:30): Like, all right, whatever it is, they're a typical client. I get it. Uh, they still wanted it to work with me. I said, great, not a problem. What do you need? We, well, we need mostly editing. Just most of everything that we need is editing, but it'll come a time where they're gonna need a couple of productions. Right. I'm like, okay, I'm willing to, you know, throw that in there for you. Here was the deal. There was this person that I was already considering to hire full time in my studio. And I found this as an opportunity to hire them. Right. So their retainer was 4,000 a month. Right. And I'm like, great. Now that's not a problem. 4,000. I'm not doing this work myself though. So I leveraged that 4,000 and turned into 3000 and offered that to my editor, right. To the other editor. And I told them here, Hey, but this here's the deal. I want you to do it. And this is somebody that I've been working with for a long time. Um, they've been, they've done work for me all the time, but I'm paying them a lot of money every time on a per project basis. But you can't hire somebody full time, especially somebody that good. Mm. Ariel Martinez (20:29): Unless, you know, you know, that work is and in. So I made a deal with him is that he could work remote. He doesn't have to work out the studio, but I need you to do all my editing work. You know, like anything I throw at him. And he, you know, his situation also was that he has a full-time job, but he's trying to step into this freelance world. So it kind of worked out as well. Yeah. Uh, so I said, look, I got, I got this work for you. Then do all you're gonna handle he's he's essentially my liaison for that client. And I told my client this too. Mike Hernandez (20:55): I was gonna say, so they're cool with Ariel Martinez (20:57): That. They're fully cool with that. Great. Great. And I told I'm, I'm gonna bring this guy on board. I didn't tell him that I'm leveraging the money. Right. So, oh, well I told him, look, my guy's gonna handle all your stuff. Right. And whatever. And they keep me in copied in every single email, every single text, everything I'm in it, I'm not talking too much at all. It's only them going back and forth. My client's talking to my editor, editors talking to the client and their hand he's and he's good. He's real. The reason why I liked him is because every time he edit for me and did all my jobs, I barely give him any notes, like any, so I'm like, man, do just do EV do it all for me. Right. Mike Hernandez (21:30): Unicorn editor. Ariel Martinez (21:31): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he's really, really good. Mike Hernandez (21:33): That's one thing. The language that I've, I've been changing over the last few years with my clients is my team, my team, and my team. And they've, they've gotten out of the fact that I'm, I'm a freelancer and they go, oh, okay. It we'll be dealing with him and his team that helps. Ariel Martinez (21:48): Yeah. And the way I made it even more attractive to my client. And here's sort of, again, you get creative with how you lay this out. Right. And this helped also I spoke to several pastors of mine that are also mentors that are also business owners too. So they give me spiritual advice. They give me, and they give me logical advices, business ice. Uh, they said, you know, make sure that that editor is logging all his hours. Everything, because my plan is this and my client doesn't know this. I told my client, I only wanna do this for six months. I don't wanna go past that because here's the thing I don't wanna get myself. Like I mentioned in a, in a predicament where now we're biting off more than we can shoot. And they're getting all this work work done, and we're not getting properly compensated for it. Right. So even though he's on a retainer, he's on salary. He's gonna see the value of that pretty soon, where if we dry him out, he's not gonna wanna work with me again. Or that client again, or I'm not gonna work, whatever it is. So I don't wanna overwhelm him. And I'm constantly making sure that he's not being overwhelmed Mike Hernandez (22:47): To reevaluate. After six months, Ariel Martinez (22:49): We, I told my client, we will reevaluate after six months. I only wanted this to be six month period. Um, so that I can see how this is gonna go again, experimental for me. So I'm not doing any of the work. I'm just, Mike Hernandez (23:01): And it goes both both ways because it's great for them as well. Cause they can reevaluate on their end Ariel Martinez (23:05): And they, they loved it. They agreed on it. No problem. Not a problem. My plan though is like I'm having him log all his hours, everything they ask him to do. Oh, and by the way, that's not only them. That's my work too. So when he is not busy with them, he could do my work as well. So I'm getting more cuz otherwise it doesn't make sense for me to just profit a thousand bucks just for, you know, uh, I should be making more than that. Cuz when he can't do something I'm gonna have to step in and sort of do something myself just to sort of at the slack. But it shouldn't be so overwhelming that he can't do it. Essentially. What my plan is to, to log your hours at the end of the six months, I wanna know at how many hours, how many dollars an hour are we getting for the work that they're demanding? Ariel Martinez (23:45): Cuz I'm gonna tell 'em we're gonna, we might have to bump this up later, you know, but I didn't, you know, obviously we'll see how the six months goes. I want to be able to justify what am I, what I'm going to ask for afterwards so that they can see it. So my plan is to go to them at the end of the six months and say, listen, we've been doing all this work for this much dollars an hour to make this even remotely sustainable for us. We're gonna have to bump this up to this much an hour, which is gonna result in six, $7,000 a month, according to the work that you're giving us. Right. And that's only to maintain what you're asking of us. You're not allowed to continue to overwhelm, you know, to give us much more work cuz that changes the whole algorithm. Right. So it's Mike Hernandez (24:29): Great. Cause it's all based off of current Ariel Martinez (24:31): History. Exactly. It's all based on what you're asking, which I don't, I, I don't expect them to need to have to bump anything up, but if they feel that they need to ask from a more work, that's a different story. That's not gonna fly, but you know, to maintain this rhythm, we're gonna have to be getting paid this much a month. Mike Hernandez (24:48): I like the six month, uh, contract idea. Exactly. So when you, you had mentioned earlier a contract, so when it comes to actual signing paperwork, where do you, where do you go for legal documents? Ariel Martinez (24:58): So I honestly, I, I, I sort of write it myself and my, my, my senior pastor at my church is actually a lawyer. So I just of 'em review it. But it honestly, I don't make anything like crazy. Uh, you know, it is usually two pages at most. It should be black and white type of deal. You know, there's different sections and you write off, you write a, a bunch of, um, a, a short paragraph of what this means and we're gonna deliver for them. So for example, if, uh, we're gonna be providing post production work, right, right now we don't have a limit as to how much they can ask from us. Right. Cause again, we don't know, but my plan is, you know, after the six months we'll provide a certain amount of hours of post postproduction, maybe every other hour after that on a per month basis, we we'll leave it at, you know, 30 bucks an hour, whatever it is, uh, after the, the, whatever it is, hundred hour mark on any month, Ariel Martinez (26:04): Any hour after that is 30 bucks an hour, you know what I mean? Like you can get creative, you can get creative with what you, but make it clear, cut, make it black and white. There's no reason for this, that contract to be 10 pages long, you know, um, at least, you know, not for me for what I'm doing, it's very clear cut. Everything's included the from shoot, not shooting from, um, from, you know, syncing audio to, uh, finding music, to color, correcting color grade, all that stuff is included in post production. So, uh, I, I just make it very simple and you know what, for the most part, I've never had any issues, you know, and nice, you know, we'll, if they need one, uh, extra thing that's outside of our contracts, like, Hey, can you, yeah, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. Ariel Martinez (26:47): Like at the end of the day, their client, this is just to protect you in case things just go radically sideways, you know, but you know, that's my experimental phase. That's sort of, uh, sort of how I'm handling that, but, you know, and you know, it's like that getting clients on retainer, it it's, it's tricky, but it's fun, you know, like get creative with it, uh, know your value and have confidence in what you're offering your clients. There's a reason why they have, if, if they're considering putting you on retainer or if you're considering asking them to put you on retainer, it's because you've been doing a lot of work for them. Right. And if you take my advice and do it after you've done a lot of work and seeing what they're, you know, uh, then again, you've done a lot of work for them. Ariel Martinez (27:32): So take that approach and, you know, bringing that up to them, you know, I've had clients ask me for, you know, send me a proposal, send the proposal, you know, see like I'm one only to do all these videos that you've been asking me to do and throwing some stuff in there that just kind of sweetens up the deal, you know, things like. So what I do is, uh, I already pay for licenses, music licensing, and stock footage licensing. I already pay for that. So throw that in there free, you know, free music licenses, which is Mike Hernandez (28:02): A big deal. Ariel Martinez (28:03): That's a big deal. Um, one of, Mike Hernandez (28:04): One of the ones I did was, uh, I offered them free headshots Ariel Martinez (28:07): For their, oh, there you go. Oh, that's another thing. Yeah. Throw in. If you do photography, whatever, I'll go in and do head shots for your whole company. Take pictures whenever you need. Like, things like that, sweeten up the deal doesn't cost. You much doesn't cost you any of anything, but the more line items you can include in that. But I Mike Hernandez (28:23): Proposal of the music, cuz you're gonna mean if you're serious, Ariel Martinez (28:25): You're gonna pay it for that. Mike Hernandez (28:27): Wouldn't be paying for that Ariel Martinez (28:27): Anyway. So yeah, you, you have a subscription with it. You know, you're paying for the subscription, you're paying for the, the stock photos, the, the stock, uh, music. I have two that I use and um, yeah, it's uh, three actually and it's, it's all included. So throw things in there to sweeten up that deal. Sh show them that they're getting a big value for their money and show them how they're gonna save money. Every company, again, profit, maximization, they wanna save as much money as possible. So anything like that always sounds intriguing to them, but if you don't sell them on that, you know, you have to be able to sort of show them the value. They don't care about how good your work is. They care about the value and how much it makes them the bottom line. That's the bottom line at the end of the day. So they see the value in video in general. So you wanna show them the value of how to obtain that video that they've been getting at a cheaper price, right? So there's value. And at the end of the day, you get security for your wife Mike Hernandez (29:24): And for my dad to be proud for your Ariel Martinez (29:26): Dad to be. So you got the, both, both best of both worlds security and, and, uh, free. Mike Hernandez (29:33): I love the thought of leveraging though, as well. Ariel Martinez (29:34): That's great. Yeah. Leverage, leverage that stuff like don't, you know, get out of the mindset of, I gotta do this. I gotta do this, everything. This money's for me is key. No, it's okay. Use money to build your and scale your business. Mike Hernandez (29:47): I have, um, a really wealthy friend of mine, um, very wealthy. And one of the tips he gave me was, uh, try to be able to sell something that's small priced, but is multiplied and you'll be rich. And I was like, wow. And he had found a way to do that in, in his business. And it was something that was, you know, what does Ariel Martinez (30:06): He do? Mike Hernandez (30:07): He, um, has a, uh, rim shop. So wheels, he sells wheels and he found a way to do something that I was like, oh, that's pretty creative. Are you sure you wanna get into the headache of that? And he goes, when this many people are paying this much. Yeah. It's worth it. I was like, and it took him to another level of income thought. That was really cool. Ariel Martinez (30:28): Say, say that part again with this many people. Cause no, no people are so only hearing our hearing us not seeing us. And you said this many people are paying this much. Mike Hernandez (30:35): Forget, see cameras everywhere. Yeah. So, you know, when, when, uh, a lot of people are paying a small price at the end of the day, a that to you, who's receiving that for that. The trade of service is a large number. Yeah. So if you get 5,000 people, monthly paying $10 fellow, you know? Yeah. And so that's what he, he was able to find that opportunity in his shop was to do something that does that. And I was like, man, that's great. And he was telling me, man, that's just secret to, to success is just find a way to sell something that you can multiply in, in affordable numbers. Sure. That, um, you know, obviously doesn't cost you too much time and stuff like that. But, um, I thought that was great. And uh, that reminds me of this leverage. Ariel Martinez (31:17): Yeah. Yeah. Um, it, it just gets tricky when it's creative work, right. When you have the key, a certain standard of quality and um, all that goes into that. So you have to find people that you can, Mike Hernandez (31:29): But if you can build a team like, you're imagine you've had 10 of those kind of clients and 10 trustworthy Ariel Martinez (31:34): Editors dedicated. Yeah. So again, it's, this is an experimental phase, but you know, my idea is to grow in that same manner. So I want to be able to offer for this to other clients and whatnot. So, um, you know, we can, we can sort of continue to scale that way, but, uh, that's great. Yeah. And I don't have everything figured out. I'm just learning all this stuff. So this is sort of how I I'm seeing the, the dice role and that's sort of what I'm going through. But again, I'm, you know, I'm going through with this with, uh, you know, mentors and getting advice from people that have been there before. So that's sort of, um, sort of approaching this whole thing. Mike Hernandez (32:11): That's great. Ariel Martinez (32:13): Good episode. Mike Hernandez (32:17): I got some stuff outta it. Ariel Martinez (32:20): All right. So thank you guys for watching this episode. I think we gotta this one up. Uh, again, you can find all of our contact down below in the descriptions, big Mike here with us. Yeah. You could reach us all on Instagram or Facebook. We'll be there. Let us know what you think about this episode. Uh, I believe over at eye filmmaker, podcast.com, there's a little microphone link that you can click on and send us a recorded message. Let us know what you think of the show. You could also write us on Instagram and Facebook until next time. We'll see you on the next episode of the iPhone maker podcast. 

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