As you look to retain and expand your in-house creative team, you need to understand that people are much more valuable than any technology.
All the technology doesn't matter if you don't have the right people. Once you find them, don't let them go if at all possible.
Full Transcript. Apologies for any typos.
0:00 In another chapter I said, you should always start with two in your creative world. As you're building the team, you need to understand that people are much more valuable than any technology.
0:12 There seems to be an infatuation with technology in the creative field and what cameras are you using, what software, what computers, what lights, what microphone. All of that almost doesn't matter if you don't have the right people. In fact, it doesn't matter if you don't have the right people. You can have best equipment in the world but lousy people in front of it, you're going to get lousy stories. You get really good artists just about anything. They'll figure out a way to tell a really good story with whatever it is they have.
0:39 So when you're building your creative understand that if you want the best stories, you want the best designs. It's all about the people. And it's not just I need to find a rockstar videographer. I need to find a rockstar designer. It's I need to find the right combination of people to tell the best stories.
0:59 It's not always having all rock stars do we have all rock stars, you might have all egos. And now there's a lot of tension and bouncing off each other and they don't want to work with each other. And now, you've got the best talent money can buy, but you're getting lower output you're getting, you know, not so great stories because nobody wants to work together.
1:19 So one of the best things you can do in the creative field, when you hire, how are these people going to fit together? That doesn't always mean hiring, the person that has the most experience that has the best portfolio. It's just does this person feel like they can work with this person? Can they work with these 30 other people and all come together and lift each other up, push each other make each other better?
1:46 I always find a good combination of veterans and newbies is always great because the newbies have all these wonderful ideas. And they're coming I think from another perspective, and the veterans. Well, they've been around a while so they know how to make sure that you deliver on budget on time, but wow, what a really cool idea so like, let's take that really cool idea, take my experience and then bring that together.
2:08 When you have people who have been established for a while, they know your clients, they know your workflows. So they have a jump on a project when you bring it to them, if you just throw people away, because look, I can get anybody to just sit here and run this computer for me and do my video editing. It takes a while to get back up to speed on what are your clients like? What are the storylines? Like, what kind of footage do I already have? How do we deliver this?
2:34 Your creative teams are naturally going to rotate, you're naturally going to get fresh blood because creatives usually want to go off and explore new things after they've done something for say five or 10 years so they're naturally going to rotate. But if you go into the mindset, Look, my creative team is expendable. If I if I just want to get rid of Bob and bring in Jane or I want to get rid of Janet, and bring in Joe I'm just going to drop them in and it's just going to be the best thing ever. It may not work out that way. So if you've got a good creative team hold on to them for dear life. If you want to expand your creative team, understand that the blending and the mesh of the people is far more important than any technology that you have. And hiring the right person for your needs may not necessarily be the best person on paper. It'll be the best person who fits into your team and elevates everybody.