Advice for filmmakers looking to hire with Matt Smolen.

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (0s):
G’day guys! It’s Den Lennie here with the How to scale Video Business podcast, both video and audio. This week, we are talking to Matt Smolen from Balloon Tree Productions. Now, Matt’s been on the show before he was back there at episode 50. And we’re talking today about how his team has changed off the back of COVID. And for various other reasons, his team basically all left all very amicable for different creative reasons, but he’s built a new team and the systems that he created originally really supported the new team in growing again, but also the importance of culture and how Matt has been able to instill a sense of ownership in the team.

Den Lennie (46s):
And that’s now allowing him to focus on being a leader and on business development. So Matt’s very articulate, very successful filmmakers, been doing it 11 12 years now at Balloon Tree. Love working with Matt, he’s in the VBA Elite with us, but also he just has so much wisdom to share and I’m certain you’re gonna find this to be a very beneficial episode. Matt, I just mentioned in the intro that it’s been a couple of years since you’ve been on the podcast, you actually did episode 50, which was how to scale from a freelancer to a team of four. And so I thought we’d start by welcoming you back.

Den Lennie (1m 29s):
You still have a team of four, but it’s a very different team. Take us, take us through that journey.

Matt Smolen (1m 37s):
Well, firstly, it’s lovely to be back. It’s like a nice fitting glove. It’s always nice to slip into something comfortable. Yeah. I mean, look, it’s it’s for everybody over the last couple of years, things have changed pretty dramatically on a personal front. I now have a family. So a little boy, Tom who’s, who’s almost two at the time recording and number two on the way later on this year. And that, I mean, you know, does wonders to put everything into perspective and force you to be put your priorities in order, but obviously yeah, through, through COVID and we’re in Melbourne. So the most lockdown city in the world, it really affected business. Right? And it, it’s not all smooth sailing and what we saw happen was a really big kind of when we were open and able to do stuff, we were flat stick.

Matt Smolen (2m 23s):
And then we were back to very little in the quiet lockdown periods where we’d sort of be ticking away with little remote recordings and stuff like that. So what ended up happening was the team just through circumstance and, and, you know, needs and desires and all very amicable, I should say, but the team had to go separate ways. So producer of ours, Hailey moved on to a really good opportunity, but she was with balloon tree for probably four or five years. Our other editor was, you know, essentially putting on hold, going to the UK to do a master’s degree at Cambridge. And that got delayed. And then finally the opportunity presented itself, she moved on a few other people kind of moved away.

Matt Smolen (3m 3s):
So it really forced my hand in a lot of ways. Well maybe initially I ended up getting back on the tools and doing a lot of stuff myself, which immediately I was like, this is not sustainable. I’m doing things to kind of keep things ticking along. But realistically I knew that was not a means to an end. It was just, it was gonna burn me out. So building the team back up again was a real focus of mind to make sure that when we came back out into quote unquote, the normal world, we could hit the ground running and we had the capacity to do it. But also it meant, you know, starting from scratch in a lot of ways with team that hadn’t been around for a long time.

Matt Smolen (3m 43s):
And so what’s ended up happening is it’s kind of shifted my perspective to one of a real leadership mentality and, and a real mindset on empowering the team to grow and develop and, and give them as much opportunity to explore what they want to do and, and develop in their own areas. So we’ve got three full-timers at the moment, we’ve got a, a full-time editor, full-time production manager and a full-time shooter. And the shooter of which is the first time we’ve ever hired somebody on staff to essentially run production. And what have found is we’ve got really strong pillars or really strong sort of silos where we all support each other, but it’s very clear, like who can do what in, in the business and by having those kind of really clearly defined roles and, and responsibilities the ability to say, Hey, what do you wanna do with this role?

Matt Smolen (4m 33s):
Hey, what do you wanna do with this corner of the business? And, and how can you see it growing and developing and changing has been one of real kind of excitement for me because I can, I can give them all the tools to, to go, Hey, here’s how I want to see you succeed. And, and the big picture for where the business is going, but ultimately can step back and go, what do you wanna do with that? And then give them the space to explore that. So that’s kind of in a nutshell, how things have changed the last couple of years,

Den Lennie (5m 0s):
You know, money is a very poor motivator for most good team. Yeah. They need enough money to pay their living costs and enough spare to save a little, to have fun a little and to not feel like they need anything. But I think the other thing that really motivates great team is being part of something, being part of a journey, being part of something that’s bigger than them. And I think what you’ve done very successfully at balloon tree is embraced the idea that the team and the sum of the parts is balloon tree.

Den Lennie (5m 40s):
And yet you’ve got, you’ve got amazing systems that would’ve probably, I would imagine to help transition the new team, but, but I think what what’s become very clear is you’ve really focused on the culture. And I think that’s a real next level in terms of building a very sustainable business, but also a business that’s gonna attract great team. Tell me, first of all, you know, you, we worked together previously two or three years ago, you spent a lot of time in the Hailey on systems. How did they help you when the team basically went to zero again, and then you built the team back up, did those systems help make that process smoother or did it hinder you?

Matt Smolen (6m 23s):
They’re absolutely crucial to having the team succeed as quickly as they did what it does is it gives you a really good baseline to work from and a real consistency that can be set across the board. And it’s, there’s complete transparency on how things are done, but also complete, I guess, control over how things are done. So there’s always that quality control there to make sure that the way balloon tree does stuff, the way we deliver work, the way we talk to clients, all of that, there’s a, there’s an element of that is always, you know, measured and the way we should do it, but I’ve never been one to, so rigidly enforce a way of doing things that doesn’t allow for personality or, or, you know, self expression through that.

Matt Smolen (7m 5s):
So yeah, you touched on building the culture here. Like it’s a, it’s a real key focus of mine to make sure that everybody feels like it’s a safe space to offer anything. And whether that’s an idea, whether that’s a suggestion, whether that’s a, a criticism or a challenge, the team knows that whatever that is, they can bring that to the table and it will be heard and listened to. And then, you know, considered in a really reasonable way. You know, I’m the first to admit, I don’t have all the answers. I’ve been doing this for a really long time. And so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what things could do or should be done the way they should be done.

Matt Smolen (7m 45s):
But at the same time, if somebody points me in a different direction and says, Hey, here’s a different way of doing things. I’d be silly to not at least explore that and see how that works. And I think, you know, having freelanced for a couple of years then started growing a business, bringing in team and now crucially rely on them day to day. If I was closed off to that, then the business wouldn’t be as successful as it is today. But I think also having just that and having everybody come and throw ideas out without any sort of structure or, or kind of rigid way of actually getting through the work and achieving things or the checks and balances to make sure that nothing’s missed throughout the process, all of it becomes a bit too wishy washy.

Matt Smolen (8m 25s):
So yeah, the really strong, robust systems were just great, cuz you bring everybody in there’s that same base level of, of understanding and processes. But then from that, people can tweak it and adjust it and make it their own. And then you get all of the strengths of everybody contributing to the engine room of, of what is balloon tree.

Den Lennie (8m 43s):
Well, the systems are like the, the framework, the wire frame, if you like, you know, website type the wire frame for here’s how things are done round here, but you bring the team in, who’ve all got their own set of skills to add, enhance, improve, and, and you’ve got a pretty robust sort of daily workflow. Haven’t you within the business? Do you tell us about that?

Matt Smolen (9m 6s):
Yeah, so I’ve made no hidden agenda about this. I love a pun. And so balloon tree, we have, what’s called a climb in the morning, a tree climb where we climb to the top of the tree. We look out at whatever’s going on in the world and then we all climb back down to the work area and we do what we need to do. And as part of that, it’s kind of, yeah, essentially it’s a daily whip where we, we touch base on all of the projects where they’re at, what needs to happen that day, any feedback that’s come in overnight or whatever it is. And it’s a really good opportunity just to all touch base realign and then go back to do our separate things. Filmmaking, you know, video production is hugely collaborative.

Matt Smolen (9m 46s):
And I think that there’s an element of that is, is productive. And we can talk about what’s going on, what’s happening, but it’s also just a really great opportunity to touch base on a personal level. You know, everybody’s got various things on, somebody might have had a family dinner the night before. And so there’s like a really nice personal touch point with that too. And we can all kind of go here’s, here’s where we’re all at from a, a personal and business sense. And now off we go to do things and it’s, it’s just a really clear alignment from that. You know, the day typically falls into like kind of more admin prep for work in the morning between myself and chase our production manager, obviously edits and shoots are happening as they, as they sort of come through the afternoons, typically delivery with a bit of feedback, client meetings.

Matt Smolen (10m 31s):
And then it’s sort of, you reset that for the next day and it kind of you in some repeat and do it. But again, the flexibility in that means that we, we all know our project management system where all the information is who’s assigned to what that if say I’m out on a meeting, bends out on a shoot and whatever’s going on, there’s always that central point of information where no matter if anybody has a question or needs to check in with something, it’s all there as well. So if the climb doesn’t happen, it can all come filter back to that, that central point of information. So nobody’s ever wondering where to go or what to do or coming to me to ask a question because the system is there to say, Hey, this is where you should go to find the answers you need.

Matt Smolen (11m 12s):
And if it’s not there, then we can have a conversation about it. But also we can then use that as a way of going all right. Well, there’s clearly a hole in the system here. How do we tighten this up? So that’s not lost the next time. So yeah, it’s great. Again, it’s, it’s flexible and, and, and comfortable enough that people can kind of give their own spin to it, but it’s, it’s structured enough that we can fall back on it when we’re in a really busy time. And we often refer to it as good, busy too. You know, sometimes there’s like multiple projects on the go, but because you can look at everything on a really, you know, high level basis and go get a top down view of what’s going on, it’s then good, busy, cuz you can see the timelines of everything and what needs to be achieved by when.

Matt Smolen (11m 52s):
And you’re not, not just go, oh, oh my God, I gotta finish this off. I gotta do this. It’s like, here’s the order, here’s the structure. And here’s how we approach it in a really methodical way. And it just means that nothing gets missed.

Den Lennie (12m 4s):
You mentioned project management there and you were kind enough at our gold coast VBA elite event to actually share your workflow and know the guys in the room were fascinated, cuz I think Caleb and Bailey had shared their Asana workflow. Then you shared your base camp workflow. So a lot of times I’ll hear people discuss, you know, oh, I’m getting really busy. I just need a project management tool. And I think what’s interesting between you guys and Herron is, you know, not dissimilar in kind number of people in the business they use, they use different pieces of software, but the principles are the same when it comes to project management. What advice would you share with a business is perhaps at a point where like one of the guys this morning and the Uplevel program is like, Den I’ve got this problem.

Den Lennie (12m 52s):
Basically I’ve got so much work coming in that I’ve got four projects to deliver and it’s just me and I’m, I’m kinda getting overwhelmed and he’s like, I need to go and check out a project management software. And I said, well actually before that you, you work out your process. The tool is kind of secondary. But tell me about the journey you guys went through when it came to, you know, building a project management tool or working with one, what was important to you? What did you consider and what do you think are the most important things for a videographer sitting, either watching or listening to this who’s going, oh, I’m in that position where I’ve got a bit too much work on. I kind of don’t know where things are. What, what kind of process would you recommend they go through to, to start working on that?

Matt Smolen (13m 35s):
Yeah, the first place to start is not the project management software or system at all. It’s the client flow or the process that you go through with any job and really building out what that looks like as the ideal version of that. So, you know, you can break it down into the pretty typical pre-production production post-production, but as we’ve kind of grown and developed, it there’s other elements like the onboarding or the discovery call and that sort of initial briefing section. We do a lot of follow up and, and nurture afterwards and, and really kind of maintaining or, or building or strengthening the client relations. We do have cuz the, the returning clients are the best ones cuz we get to know each other really well and it’s, it works out.

Matt Smolen (14m 20s):
So that’s built in as part of our system. So there’s no point kind of jumping into any project management software without a really clear idea of what that looks like for, for you. And, and if you’ve got a team, the team as well, but the, the biggest thing to look at once, you’ve sort of got that in place, the software itself, you need to, it needs to fit your purpose. So we moved through probably two or three different ones before we landed on base camp. We used, I think it was pro workflow, which was really like kind of detailed text, heavy. Like it, it was pretty gross to work through. Then we moved to Asana and we’ve since settled on base camp. And for us, it’s just feels like a really nice place to work. Like you are in it every day.

Matt Smolen (15m 1s):
You’re looking at stuff you’re moving around, you’re posting there, commenting, talking about stuff and you need to want to use it cuz otherwise it just sits there as an extra piece of software that you getting billed for every month. So finding one that works for you and trying some out like it, it can be really tedious, but you have to commit to using it, to know if you’re gonna use it or not. I know some people swear by click up. Some people swear by Monday and, and I tried all of them for about a week and I was like, this doesn’t really fit what we do. Whereas base camp, you know, we’re, we are hugely collaborative where we do a lot more kind of creative, goofy sort of comedy stuff as well. So there’s often a lot of brainstorming and, and conversations around that stuff.

Matt Smolen (15m 41s):
So what really appealed about base camp was that it kind of combined all the best things from slack as in terms of like the kind of chat channels and things like that. But it kept it linked to that one project. So you could open any project on there and we’d have sort of autopopulated messages with like client details. So if you needed to contact the client, the phone number, email name, where they are, whatever call sheet details from when we had the initial conversation all the way through to the creative brief and all of that sort of stuff, then there’s the files themselves a to-do checklist that we can assign to, to staff here. Or even if we bring contractors in, we can bring them into projects as well.

Matt Smolen (16m 20s):
But then what they call a campfire, which is essentially like a slack channel that’s attached to that project. So as the things developing or we’re having conversations or phone calls or meetings, we can drop it all in there that there’s complete transparency for the whole team to be like, where’s, where’s this project at we’re doing with Den and we can go in and go, oh, Matt had a conversation with Den the other day and Den said, oh, we’re pushing it back a week cuz talent’s unavailable. It’s all there for everybody to see. It’s not living in my head or living in somebody else’s head. And I have to remember to tell somebody our process and system is to say, everything goes in a base camp. It’s the, it’s the Bible. It’s the absolute golden child of the business that as soon as anything happens, it gets accounted for in there and everybody can see it and knows about it.

Matt Smolen (17m 3s):
Yeah. And it just, it works like we all really like using it and without that sort of passion for it, I don’t think it would be nearly as useful for us. So finding the one that, that you and your team go, this is awesome. And we really like using this is an enjoyable experience to go in and tick stuff off or keep track of things. That’s a big part of making a project management system work for you.

Den Lennie (17m 26s):
Yeah. One of the questions that I come across a lot and I talk to a lot of different film me cause different points in the business growth when, when filmmakers are moving from that, you know, one man band to hiring the first employee, there can be an enormous amount of fear. And, and I, I remember what it was, was like myself you’re literally panicking that. Can you afford to keep this person employed? It’s a chunk of change every month. And, and there’s definitely a kind of barrier that I recall, which was well it’s okay now I’ve got the work now, but what about in three months time? Talk to me about again, from your perspective, what it’s like to hire people and, and what you’ve found to be the best method.

Den Lennie (18m 15s):
Because I think one of the fears that comes up from hiring is what if I get it wrong? And I think the truth is you are gonna get it wrong. At some point you will get it wrong. And there’s no way to avoid that. But, but what was your process and how would you recommend people approach hiring?

Matt Smolen (18m 33s):
Yeah. I’ve always been a real people person. So I think there’s, there’s plenty of things you can teach, but the stuff that you can’t teach is the, you know, the attitude, the approach to work, the tenacity, the curiosity, all of that sort of stuff is, is often it’s that kind of unicorn aspect that you go, man, this person’s got some, some X factor about them that there’ll be a real asset to any business wherever they work. And then the detail, like, again, we’ve got systems that we can teach people. So bringing them into our ecosystems. Great. But what they bring is their own special icing on the cake is the stuff that I, I really look out for. So I use example chase who’s our production manager.

Matt Smolen (19m 15s):
She was at deacon. I studied at deacon many years ago and went back virtually during COVID to do a talk to the second year students, basically just about how I’d sort of left uni and started a business and things like that. And once that presentation finished, chase reached out and was like, Hey, I really enjoyed the chat. Can we just connect on LinkedIn? I’d love to keep in touch. I was like, bingo, I’ve earmarked you instantly. Cuz you’ve reached out. You’ve took, taken the initiative to be like, I’m keen to kind of keep in touch and learn more. Let’s just see what happens. And then sure enough, end of that year, she reached out against saying, Hey, I’ve gotta do an internship for my uni degree next year. Would you be interested?

Matt Smolen (19m 55s):
Of course you’ve got the passion and the interest there that conversation turned into. Alright, there’s the internship as part of your course, but what does this look like if we keep doing a day, a week from here on and then over time you go, this person’s got a really good just ability to want to learn. She’s an absolute sponge and an absolute gun, but if you weren’t open to that as a possibility because oh, maybe they’re a student or maybe whatever that opportunity to be closed off. So I’ve always been on the lookout for, for just good people. And the same, I think happens in any role too, like Ben now our shooter. And again, I’m sure he doesn’t mind me saying he worked with us as a contractor for years and then was looking for more job security.

Matt Smolen (20m 40s):
So took a full-time job, working for another company. All the power turned good on him. Like that was great. And what I kept in touch, cuz I was like, there’s no ill will here. Like it’s, you’ve gotta do what you gotta do. And then as we were getting busy, I was like, I think we need to hire a shooter because we’ve got so much work coming in. We need somewhere we can trust. And, and we can rely on that once that full-time work, that doesn’t wanna live the freelance life. And so I reached out to Ben and over a couple of conversations was just like, this is what I’ve got to offer from, from a wage point of view, but also the actual role and the opportunity to kind of put your stamp on it and make it your own. What do you think? And you know, credit to, he turned around and said, yep, I’ll do it. Let’s go. And again, it’s, it’s keeping, it sounds a bit gross, but keeping tabs on people, keeping an eye on people and, and you know, and ear to the ground.

Matt Smolen (21m 25s):
So to speak for the, the up and comers, whether they’re they’re young students or, or sort of people looking to break into the industry, the, the stuff you can’t teach, but the sort of inherent way people go about things is the stuff that I really look out for. But also, you know, as I’ve grown as a business owner, one of the big things is constant check-ins and sort of, you can call ’em performance reviews. You can call ’em whatever you want, but really prioritizing them and making sure that they know you have their best interests at heart. So we’ll do a three month and a 12 month review. And then every six months off the back of that, and basically it’s to be like, what have you been really proud of?

Matt Smolen (22m 6s):
What are some things you think you could have improved on what’s your job satisfaction. What’s some stuff you want to grow and develop. And then we’ll use that as a basis to kind of review what they’ve done, not in a really critical way, but as a way of saying like, I want this to this role to grow with you as well. So if you are an editor, but you actually wanna do a bit more on set experience, if we didn’t stop and have that conversation and kind of gauge where that was at that opportunity might be missed to them. And to us, it also means that, you know, there’s, there’s loyalty there because you are showing a commitment to them and their growth and development that why wouldn’t they want to stick around if they know somebody’s got their best interests at heart too. So yeah, looking out for good people, but also looking out for the people you do have, and really prioritizing their development.

Matt Smolen (22m 49s):
There are two things that I think you can’t, can’t go wrong with when hiring.

Den Lennie (22m 55s):
Well people, all people. And I think we’ve spoken about this offline, you know, the work we put into our personal private relationships is very valuable when working with a team because human beings just want to be seen heard and understood. Yeah. And in a work environment, it’s very important because they’re, they’re spending more time in your environment than they are with their own partner or spouse. Yeah. And so that idea of communicating and asking I think is very important. Matt, I think this is a really interesting conversation. We’re gonna run outta time cause I’d love to ask you about, since you’ve brought the team on what are you now doing with your time.

Den Lennie (23m 42s):
So maybe we’ll pick this up and do another episode and, and swing that out next week because I’m conscious of your time. But thank you so much, that’s been really insightful.

Matt Smolen (23m 53s):
My absolute pleasure.