How to avoid running around like a headless freelancer!

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (0s):
Hey guys, Den here. Welcome to this episode of the how to scale video business podcast. Today’s guest is Tim Arch the founder of Arch Creative in Melbourne Australia. Tim and I been working together for a buck 20 months. He has been one of my coaching clients from the very outset of the video business accelerator. And Tim has seen an incredible journey as he’s progressed from freelancer to business owner. And more importantly is spending more time with his family whilst his business grows with his team around them too.

Den Lennie (31s):
I wanted to do was get Tim on the show and share his journey and hopefully help you understand, and perhaps resonate with you. A few someone’s sitting there and being very much in a freelance capacity wanting to scale your business, or perhaps you’ve just in a business that, you know, you’re probably doing too many things. And so please do enjoy this episode. We’ll good day Tim, it’s been a longtime coming this podcast. So I think you might have asked you to six or seven times, but you’re a busy guy because one of the reasons I wanted to get you on the show is that you’ve been through an incredible journey.

Den Lennie (1m 5s):
We were reading the motivation was spending more time with your family and your children while still growing you a video business. So welcome to the shore. Tell me about that. Tell me about that, that, that shift that happened maybe almost two years ago, where you decided to kind of adjust your business in a way that would allow you to spend more time with your kids.

Tim Arch (1m 25s):
Well, firstly, thanks. Den good to finally make it here. Yeah, well its, that’s been a pretty important part of our family, my wife and I doing as much as we can to share the care of the kids. So we’ve got, got a five year old in a two and half year old and, and another little run on the way. Umm, so it was a, it has always been pretty families always been a pretty important to me and it’s been very fraying to be able to keep the business running as opposed to running around like a headless freelancer, having to do everything, anything and everything.

Tim Arch (2m 9s):
And yeah, being able to cut back to four days a week, three days a week at times, in fact two and a half days or two to two and a half days a week during this current, the last six months, there was some of that anyway, when we lost a access to childcare, thanks to carve it down in Melbourne. But yeah, it’s a certainly wouldn’t have been enough to do it with you. I’ll help them, but that’s for sure.

Den Lennie (2m 35s):
So take me back to, to two years ago. And, and what, what was life like for you in the family prior to making these changes?

Tim Arch (2m 45s):
Yeah, or two years ago? I Pro, I’m pretty sure it’s three years ago that I was doing for days a week. Although not agenda, my wife would of been off on mat leave. So I probably would probably be squeezing in five days a week and then work on the weekends when necessary. I’m still very much in that I need to do everything. I don’t think, I don’t think I’ve tried. I haven’t been outsourcing anything where like came first came to you, Heather.

Den Lennie (3m 14s):
I don’t think so. No. I think, I think you’re just been on a holiday. I think you had a really good couple of months towards the end of 2018 to 20 minutes.

Tim Arch (3m 23s):
Yep. Took a look about a six week break. Yeah took advantage of, of, of my life being on a mat leave and we have a lovely holiday in, in Tazzie a driving ground, camping fan times with two little kids, but it was not, it was lovely, but put the business on hold effectively and came back to no work. And I, some is usually a quiet time for me anyway. So I thought I could just ignore the business and a come back to a business as usual, but I’m, that was kind of a real eyeopener to me that the, I can’t just rely on things to carry along as they wear.

Tim Arch (4m 1s):
And, and I think that was part of the impetus for a seeking out your help in,

Den Lennie (4m 8s):
And that was supposed to, you know, at the time you were very much, you are identified as a freelance that didn’t, you, you are, you are someone who, who take work to do the work and spend the money, you know, and, and that’s great. Tell me about what cause then I think a lot of people are listening to the show are probably can, can identify with that. And it’s quite an a, is quite a daunting period because you can have you used to doing everything yourself and keeping all the money and it’s quite, it’s cool. It’s quite a big step. Isn’t it to start thinking in terms of building a business, how did that evolve for you?

Tim Arch (4m 43s):
Well, I think definitely coming back to not enough work in the pipeline, that was an eye opener too. Like yeah, I wanted to do more than just rely on the word of mouth of that had going, there are certainly a lot more could be doing, but when you are doing everything, all the production stuff yourself, you are shooting, you’re editing, you know, you really didn’t have a lot of the time for everything else who should be doing to run the business like Yeah as a freelance.

Tim Arch (5m 13s):
So your, you waiting for the foreign calls. I made a video shoot over here. OK. I’ll go to do that for you. And then you would drop everything else that you’re doing and all of your own. No

Den Lennie (5m 25s):
what and what, what started to change, you know, you started working with us, like I think it was in February, 2019. And when now in Torah by 2020. And what, what were some of the things that, that you implement a straight away they started having quite a, an immediate effect?

Tim Arch (5m 44s):
No, I think that the biggest thing was the encouragement to let go of the Creative the editing side, the things I always thought at that. Now I need to do that because that’s where I pulled the piece together are quite, was quite proud of the, the fact that would go out and take a lecture or an hour long interview and distill that down to 10 minutes that I’m realizing that I’m not the only one that can do that. And it’s, it’s still, I know it is absolutely a collaborative process. Umm, and just the freedom of being able to hand over that editing the editing side of things, coz yeah, I like a day of shooting will result in more than in, in two or three days of editing.

Tim Arch (6m 29s):
It just frees you up so much to a time wise too. Yeah. Focus more on the business side of things like the doing is the easy part. That’s the, the, the running of the business that is a bit, none of us have actually learned properly before thing. Yeah, we can do this.

Den Lennie (6m 45s):
Its interesting because I think, you know, and I experienced this just like we really enjoy being in production, but I think reach a point where as you have family expands, you start to go well, I mean, because, because production is so labor intensive and so if you are going to do everything yourself, you’re pretty much committing to just being a filmmaker full time. Cause there’s, if your not, if you’re not shooting, you’re editing, if you’re not editing, you’re producing, you’re not producing you’re chasing invoices or paying bills. And then most, most freelancers aren’t doing any kind of marketing.

Den Lennie (7m 16s):
I mean I speak to hundreds, you asked the question is that are word of mouth networking. And I think the last six months have really changed the environment because there are so there is no networking. So can you talk a bit about some of the obstacles you have to overcome in terms of, you know, letting go and what you’re first mover? I think you are hired an editor, can they pretty much full time as a contractor and how did that start to impact other time available for you and them and how did that then pan out from there?

Tim Arch (7m 46s):
Well, yeah, I, like I said, it’s the majority of their job is, is its post production in terms of the amount of time spent. So it just meant that I, yeah, I had a couple of days a week spare now to a, to focus on things like marketing M coming up with the plan, like not going at it. I’m like coming around planning for a year of a five year plan. And even rather than just kinda treading water going along as normal, it, it really allowed me to, to grow the business, which has been fantastic.

Tim Arch (8m 24s):
Like S when the, when our second child came along and drops back down to just a single income, rather than a income plus a plus the part time and looked at the numbers, I’m like, Oh, you need the pay rise to him. And that was easy to do it. It didn’t really have to think about it rather than when it was previously. The A like revenue who have just been a pretty much a steady, a constant kinda build it a certain point.

Tim Arch (8m 56s):
And then yeah, without doing any extra work outside of doing the, doing the production side of things, well, I was kinda stuck on a, like, it kind of plateaued.

Den Lennie (9m 10s):
I think one of the things that’s interesting about working with you and is that I’ve seen a real shift, two going from that freelance, a curse of feast and famine doing everything, yourself, keeping all the money and thinking you’re doing all Ken and, and by all intents and purposes, it’s doing pretty well, but it’s not scalable to shifting to more of a business owner, a model and a business owner mindset. What are some of the challenges that you had to overcome in doing that and how did you actually overcome them?

Tim Arch (9m 40s):
Well, not just that shift in mindset itself, that was a huge kind of aha moment for me, excuse me, to me rambling. It’s a lunchtime when we recorded this. Ah, yeah, that absolutely that shift that first a not quite employee, but ah, the first, the first step towards bringing on some extra help ’em and realizing that that meant that it’s possible to do two, three, four days of filming different jobs.

Tim Arch (10m 14s):
And then as things got busier, like I had a really busy period end of last year where I would have, I’d have two or three freelancers shooting for me as well. So when you, yeah, just when you realize that there’s more than just, just going out and shooting everything yourself, the, the, the possibilities of Scale, Now quite exciting.

Den Lennie (10m 42s):
And, and, you know, I talked to a few people from the video business accelerator on this podcast, and Andrew has been on, Ryan’s been on, Simon’s been off. Kayla has been M and a and Pat, and they all talk about the fact that when they started, they were kind of quite stubborn about wanting to hang on for production, but actually know that there have been in it for a while. They are starting to see the creativity in running a business and the reward that comes from creating something.

Den Lennie (11m 12s):
Can, can you talk a bit to that? W what’s your experience has been that sort of stepping back from production and how have you, how have you replaced that fix if you will, or from like being on shoots and doing edits? How, what, what, what, what, what can I, what gets your juices going? No, no, no.

Tim Arch (11m 28s):
Yeah. It’s been, it’s been really fascinating watching everyone going pretty much everyone going through exactly the same. They’re like, Oh yeah, I remember those days that, yeah. In terms of like creative outlets now its, its that having that time to think about, well, what can we, what can we start doing better? Like I’m at the point now where I’m looking at, what, what can we do to enhance, to improve our offering, to, to start kinda yet we’re doing well with that. Our bread and butter are kind of clients.

Tim Arch (12m 1s):
What, what sort of the V avenues can we explore two to step up their production values, like start moving towards the like the original dream has to be a DEP and a kind of going back to those freelance stays. I was freelance camera system and absolutely have no time to do anything else. Other than you are working 10 hour days at minimum, a time tight, you are starting all hours of a day, like Mmm. From one day to nail it to the next and pretty much got time to do your watching and your grocery shopping on the weekend.

Tim Arch (12m 34s):
Then that’s a, that’s a part of why a part of why. I’m how I ended up where I am now is I didn’t want that enough to be that my, my whole entire life. And I had softer the guys that do it. I know there there’s a few, a few out there that I’ve mentioned to do that and, and have a family and everything. But that, that wasn’t a journey for me. Yeah.

Den Lennie (12m 56s):
I remember early on and our conversations, one thing that you were quite transfixed on was you really wanted to buy a studio space and have a studio. And I know in a creative space, has that, has that changed? How has your view on that changed? I’m from 22 months ago,

Tim Arch (13m 15s):
A change in that now to actually know why I want that space and I’m not, absolutely not jumping at, I’m not going to jump into anything tomorrow, but been, been thinking about my, my 12th, our current 12 month plan. And the end of that looks like that will be, it depends on how this 12 months ago that would be, yeah, we needed a studio space rather than I wanted to stay at your space for no apparent reason and thinking, yep, it will be good to have.

Tim Arch (13m 48s):
And if we have it, then we can do all this stuff. But rather again, approaching it with a complete business focus saying, okay, well, why do we need a business? Why do we need the studio space? What let’s get to the point where we’re using one more often than not. Umm, and if we enjoyed doing that, then yeah, let’s do that. And it makes financial sense. Lets go and do that.

Den Lennie (14m 12s):
I love it. I love the journey, but watching your journey has been phenomenal. And a, and we, we talk a lot and we actually have become great friends when we spend a lot of time off when talking about bikes and stuff. But I love the, that you’re so aware of the shifts that you’ve had because life before he was a lot more chaotic and a, and the fact that you are having a lot of child and you spent so much time with my kids.

Den Lennie (14m 42s):
And I know that that that’s challenging. I know, especially in the last point, all parent challenging is one word for it. You know, if, if someone is listening to, in that freelance mind. So I mean, I’ve been digging a lot of outreach recently on LinkedIn and a number of people come back and go, Oh, I’m not looking for any paid coaching. I’m not looking to do any of that. But you know, any free stuff, Sennett my way in and ask me the question about, you know, what, what are the biggest challenges? And they are like, they always want more clients. And, and this seems to be This, I’m kind of gaps between the filmmaker of seeing the one that this result all this outcome, but they don’t necessarily want to pay for it or they don’t want to invest the time.

Den Lennie (15m 23s):
And I don’t think it has got nothing to do with money. I think it was more to do with time and commitment. Is that something that you could relate too from a couple of years ago? Like how, what would you say to someone who might be sitting there thinking, well, this all sounds great, but you know, it wouldn’t work for me. You are, I’m just not sure what, what could you share that might help them recognize why getting help from me or anyone really? And from a coaching perspective is such a, an important investment and one that ultimately it doesn’t actually cost you anything.

Den Lennie (15m 56s):
They’re all I think,

Tim Arch (15m 57s):
Well, I can use it as many free resources is you like, but there can be a lot of them or going to be generic are a lot of them are going to be, well, I didn’t pay for it. So if we don’t do it, it doesn’t really matter. I find that it’s yeah, there’s the stats on this. That’s out there on completion rates of online courses, even the ones that you pay for where you just kind of left on your own devices and they are not brilliant. It’s it’s like, I think in single digits. Yeah. Single data sets.

Tim Arch (16m 27s):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s having the, and it’s a scary for someone who hasn’t done marketing before it, so it’s a, that’s kind of a scary proposition, your paying potentially paying to put yourself out there and yeah, it’s not like you go out and buy a camera, you’ve got a physical piece of gear to see you go out and spend money on advertising. And it just disappears. It’s a lot harder to see a tangible results. If you don’t know what you’re doing.

Tim Arch (16m 59s):
Think having that, having someone like Dan and in your corner, like, like looking over your shoulder that are holding her hand the whole time, a just absolute confidence builder too, go out and ah, and get it right the first time and to help you continue, you continuously improve it too.

Den Lennie (17m 17s):
And what about that? The community aspect, how important is the, we have weekly calls and how important is that community in the Facebook group and the calls to helping you achieve your goals?

Tim Arch (17m 33s):
Pets. Yeah. Let’s that kind of comradeship. I think that you were, we were all in this together. I’m at various stages of, of, of each other’s journey. It’s really encouraging to see people asking questions that, you know, the answer too. And you can, likewise, you asked the question and you will get three or four different approaches back it’s that’s and yeah. It just bouncing off of each other’s ideas that it’s, it’s absolutely, I’m a part of that, that I’ve missed over the past few months.

Tim Arch (18m 8s):
Not, not being able to make the, a, the time slot a and, but listening back to the A listening back to the recordings, if that’s been really nice to hear everyone’s voice and ah, and discover there, what kind of problems they are trying to solve.

Den Lennie (18m 22s):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You’re right where you say, you know, when they see, when you are learning, you know that you, you can consume it via audio or video or, or through text and you absorb, and then when you implement it, you learn a bit more about the process. But when you start to share what you’ve learned with other people who are maybe a few steps farther behind than you, that’s when you really start to recognize how much you’ve achieved and I’ve, and I’ve, I’ve noticed that with you, you, you, you’ve kind of, you have reached a point where are you you’ve grown in a certain point in your business where you were actually way further down the road than then someone like, who would of been in your position too years ago is no.

Den Lennie (19m 3s):
And I think that’s a phenomenon is so exciting to watch her. So what, what are you, what, what are you working on it in a minute? What, what are you, what do you focusing on your Business? I mean, they’re has been a very unusual period of time because your in Melbourne, Victoria, where are you went into a very, very strict stage four, a lot of them for the second time. And that’s really put a lot of pressure on you guys yet. You’ve continued to be a part, the program you’ve continued to kind of build your business.

Den Lennie (19m 33s):
That’s a, that’s an interesting mindset. When I see others saying, Oh, I’ve not worked for seven months. Everything is a nightmare. What is it about what you’re doing? That’s different to what I see a lot of people out there sort of, you know, I guess adopting a, a, a kind of more of a broad, general public view, which is like, Oh, it’s a nightmare. Nothing’s happening? What does that you are doing differently to them? Because, because you’re still pushing forward.

Tim Arch (20m 3s):
Well, I think I’ve been lucky in some parts, but you can work out what the definition of luckily this, but the, in that my client or a large part in my client base has government’s. So they are, they still had money to spend and messaging to get out, but it certainly, certainly hasn’t been seen at the levels that I would have expected without this pandemic. Mmm. And so my initial thought like everyone else was okay, I’m going to use this time for some self-improvement I’ll, I’ll smash through some of the, the coursework that hasn’t quite a venture related because I’ve had enough work coming into keep, like they are having to cut down my workers to two days a week, so we can share the care of the kids with that having access to childcare or kinda a, yeah, it has meant that the day to day has kept me busy enough, got a bit more free time.

Tim Arch (21m 5s):
Now, a, now that can be a daycare and Kendra, or have gone back up, back up to my full capacity. So right now I’m doing all I can to get some solid marketing and place so that we can pick up where we left. They got, let me pick up where we left off in Cape, on Cape, on this a kind of continued with a year on year improvement. That a,

Den Lennie (21m 30s):
That was the thing that talks nicely to you. You’ve focused very, very much on government and an end coms and sports specifically. And a lot of, a lot of funny or companies get fixated on doing everything for everyone at any time, factually for any price. And that’s not something that we typically promote inside of the video business accelerate. We have, it’s a slightly different approach.

Den Lennie (22m 1s):
Hey, how’s that? Does that something that was easier for you to do it where you kind of more of a general videographer before hand or how, how has sort of specializing and focusing on becoming an expert in government and sport and how, how does that, how does that help you?

Tim Arch (22m 19s):
Yeah, well, again, for listening to others’ journeys, as they go through this, ah, other members of the group has made me realize that actually yeah, my own, I was, I was a same deal. I thought that was the generalist doing everything, but we actually look back like one of the first things that you get asked to do is that I’m the client, or is it a look at who, where, yeah. Where all the money is coming from, who were our biggest, biggest contributor to the bottom line. And yeah, it made me realize that, well, yeah, most of my client’s that government eye I get on well with them, I know how they work a can of Coke.

Tim Arch (22m 53s):
I can service them. I’m pretty easily a and I think that’s an aspect of what we do is, is appreciated by them. A we make it easier for them. And so, yeah, it absolutely made sense to double down on that. And they, it rather than, you know, rather than trying to appeal to them, to everyone, funnily enough, I’m a part of the reason the federal government clients is a project going out on my own freelancing in between, in between being a fan of that camera assistant.

Tim Arch (23m 27s):
And then, then the freelance video producer, I was working in the car, working, it comes to apartments for a couple of different government departments. And it was always frustrating when the messaging was, we need, we need who’s the target audience. I’d always ask our, our, our internal clients. And the answer was always well, everyone, and that’s not an effective way to communicate

Den Lennie (23m 53s):
Exactly. Right. And, and you Your, I mean, how much would you say, what percentage of your, what would you say has government? Yeah.

Tim Arch (24m 2s):
I’d say at least 80 to 90. Yeah.

Den Lennie (24m 6s):
Do you think of a government? Yeah. There are a pretty safe bet, but I think what’s, what’s, what’s, what’s interesting was pausing here and commenting on, is that the reason that I’m such an advocate of specializing and becoming a master and really serving at a particular section of the market is that you start to learn their language. You start to learn how they communicate, how the talk about things. And I guess you coming from that government background, it gives you an edge. How important do you think that is in, in, in the new business that you acquired through a government?

Den Lennie (24m 39s):
The fact that you’ve already done a lot of government work,

Tim Arch (24m 42s):
It certainly put some minds at ease it, and it’s easy to come with a recommendation, which always helps, but yeah, like straightaway, they can see our clients can see that we totally understand when they need to shift dates at the drop of a hat or they’re can be really eager up front to get this something happening. And then it sits on the shelf with three months because the, in, in the large part that are driven by what’s going on in politics, they are not, they’re not always running on their own time.

Tim Arch (25m 17s):
Like they’ve got their own ideal timelines to work to, but yeah, the political game can sometimes get in the way of getting things done. Are there other remember or a, quite from a reporter, I was reading a book after the black Saturday Bush fires, and this came out of a roundabout at the same time. There were some pretty devastating fires in California. And I remember writing a report talking about the public communications around emergency’s and the, the lion was we could no longer afford it to work at a speed of government.

Tim Arch (25m 51s):
And yeah. And, and that’s kind of a really stuck with me. The, yeah, the government works out a completely different spirit from the rest of us. It’s it’s not like the commercial world where they, they tried to rush things to market. They a little get things done when they get things done. So,

Den Lennie (26m 10s):
Yeah. And I guess you have this unique intimate insight too, that, and so I guess when the government department is looking to find a supplier and they’ve got a supplier over here, who’s talking about awards and all these projects that are done versus someone who’s a specialist in government, I’m pretty sure they’re going to be more likely to come to you. And then that’s typically what you find, isn’t it?

Tim Arch (26m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I got some feedback the other day about I’m from a, from a client asking them, why, why, why did they hire us? And they say, the big thing was you show the genuine passion and interest in what we’re trying to do. And that really came through in, in, in the proposal. And that was, so that was a big, big tick for a year going with us. Yeah.

Den Lennie (26m 58s):
Nice. Nice. So what’s next for your turning? You got, you got another baby on the way. So are you gonna be up to two to three times of the business and obviously Melbourne’s and a slightly unique petitions? You don’t just know it sort of opening? No one’s quite sure. What, what are the next three or four months with late for you? Yeah,

Tim Arch (27m 16s):
I’m trying to have as busy as summer as possible. We a, yeah, I have some I’ve found out particularly typically December is pretty busy, mad rush up to Christmas, and everyone wants to get everything done before taking, taking your summer break in January. Some of you is January has been, most of it is January it’s been pretty quiet, but a recently it’s been, has been a fair bit on, so between now and then doing all I can to, to fill up that, uhh, that pipeline now, so I can kick off 2021, then just completely forget about 2020.

Den Lennie (27m 59s):
Yeah. I think that for me, it would be a good thing for everyone. And thank you so much for sharing your story. I know that I’ve just loved working with you, you know, and we have become great friends that I always think that was the great sign of great business. When you start a business relationship with someone and you become great friends, in fact, let a little side story, the A7s launch fin. We were going to do that. We just did recently. Tim and I actually, where are working together and the NDA three or four months ago on a whole concept involving mountain biking down in Victoria and you land up so much of it.

Den Lennie (28m 36s):
And then the lockdown happened to, we have to spend everything on its head. So it was a real sham. We couldn’t do that because that was very much looking for a while,

Tim Arch (28m 45s):
Tried to save it with, but I was shooting in camera as the solution, but then the Yeah I wasn’t allowed out to the state. You weren’t allowed to, you are allowed in But you weren’t allowed out again then. Yeah. But yeah,

Den Lennie (28m 55s):
Exactly. We’ll get to you at some point and I’m sure I’ll throw out on the street. That video. Yeah. I have A7s three is arriving next week. So that’s one nice one. Thank you so much. Where can people find out more about you,

Tim Arch (29m 11s):
We’re at archcreative.com.au. Other than that, I’m pretty, I’m more of a consumer on Instagram as a photographer, as well as it should be a little more active on there, I know, but well, we’ll work that out. If that falls into the marketing pipeline are not otherwise connect with me. Timothy Arch on LinkedIn. Yeah.

Den Lennie (29m 31s):
Yeah. Well, we will link to that below on the blog. So guys, thanks so much and will see you next week. Hey guys, thanks for watching. I hope you got a huge amount of value from that episode.

Den Lennie (29m 42s):
If you are looking for additional support or resources to support your business journey, then head over to denlennie.com, where you can get a whole heap of other resources, free downloads, and access all the other episodes in the series. Be sure to subscribe and I’ll see you next time.