Putting Your Eggs In One Basket

Remember how I was recently pontificating about the need to not have too much of your revenue tied up in one client? Well there's a dust-up going on right now, involving a company who was doing a large percentage of their work with Walmart. Check out the story here.

Lots of ethical dilemmas here. Technically, the production company owns the footage they shot for Walmart, and can do whatever they want with it, including selling it to the highest bidder. But I can't imagine anyone ever hiring them again, not without a specific ownership clause in their contract. But who know...maybe the owners of the production company are looking for multimillion dollar buyout from Walmart, and then planning on shutting down and heading to an island somewhere and living the good life.

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Blog 'til You Drop

Remember how just a few days ago I concerned about the long hours my pals are putting in, and how it strikes me as being unsustainable? Turns out, according to the New York Times, it's affecting the blogging world, too.

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Who Wouldn't You Work With?

Back before we started Pixel Workshop (and before she was my wife), Ilana worked as an assistant editor for several different post production houses in Washington DC. One of them had an ongoing professional relationship with one of the largest tobacco companies in the world, doing training and P.R. video for them. They were a huge and important client for the post house, responsible for a large percentage of their annual revenue. (And remember what we said about having too many eggs in one basket!)

The funny thing about the relationship was that this client specified that they be allowed to smoke in the edit suites. (This was in the early 90s, before there were so many workplace smoking restrictions.) And they let it be known in no uncertain terms that if they weren't allowed to smoke in the edit suites, they would take their business elsewhere. So the post house went along with it. Again, times were different , even fifteen years ago, but still - quite a bargain to make. The deal drove the engineers nuts, because they were constantly having to tear down the equipment in the "smoking" suite to remove the layers of gunk left by the smoke. Other clients refused to use the room because it reeked of stale smoke.

Worth it? Well, for the post house, clearly it was. They went on like this for years, hiring editors who smoked, so they wouldn't mind the situation.

I can tell you that we never would have taken them on as a client, and certainly would never have allowed smoking anywhere inside the facility. Still, in our company history, we've done a handful of jobs for clients we didn't exactly agree with. We've done political ads (always get paid in advance with politicals...always...), we did an ad for an international "Day of Peace" which, unbeknownst to us, was actually a mass wedding ceremony for the Moonies. Oops.

And one time I did an online finishing job for a gent who, when booking the edit suite, said to me, "You don't have a problem with nudity, do you?" (For the record, that's like asking Popeye if he has a problem with spinach...) Turns out his indie film was a low-budget lesbian vampire slasher flick. And I had no problem with that.

But seriously, it's a good mental exercise. Who, if they knocked on your door, clutching fistfuls of money, would you refuse to work for? Politicals that were against your sensibilities? Porn? Religious content? Is it even our job to pass judgment on the products our clients are producing, as long as they're legal?

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Be So Good They Can't Ignore You

Recommended reading - Born Standing Up - A Comic's Life 

I recently finished this Steve Martin autobiography, and I highly recommend it, especially for those of us in the creative fields. The book focuses on Martin's rise to fame as a standup comedian in the 70s, how he built his act and why he ultimately chose to walk away from it. Even if you're not a huge Steve Martin fan you'll find there's plenty of insight into the creative process, the development of craft, and the choices one makes throughout life. It's a good, quick read, worth your time.

An interesting point Martin makes is to "be so good they can't ignore you." In other words, if you're the best at what you do people will seek you out, which is much easier on you than having to go door to door selling your wares. Most of us land somewhere in the middle, of course, but it's an interesting philosophical point. Do you want to be known as "the best in town," or "the cheapest in town," or perhaps "the best value in town?" Each option has ups and downs, for immediate and long term growth. When you're starting out it's easiest to be cheap, especially when you don't have much to show. But having a reputation as "the cheap shop" is very tough to shake off in the long run. Food for thought.

Also worth checking out is this interview from The Charlie Rose show. Jerry Seinfeld is first, followed by Martin. 

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You're Fired!

It's very exciting when you hire a new employee, full of promise and enthusiasm, ready to help take your company to great heights and set the world on fire. Of course, sometimes it doesn't work out, and you've got to fire them. Which is one of the least-fun things about being a boss, in my humble opinion, but it's something you've got to be able to do. Over the years I've learned a thing or two about letting people go.

First of all, chances are you're going to know pretty quickly if someone is right for your organization. You'll likely get a good feel in the first couple of weeks (or days, or hours, or minutes...) and you'll know if it's going to work out. Set clear goals for the worker, and address them if they don't meet them. If they just can't seem to hit their goals after a reasonable amount of time, don't fool yourself into trying to work things out. If you have a strong feeling in your gut that the person isn't right for your company, better to get rid of them quickly and get moving on to the next person. Especially as a small business, you simply don't have the time or resources to hold someone's hand or hope for the best while they continue to flounder.

One of the first employees we every hired (when we were young and stupid) came in with a lot of bravado, telling us how he was going to help us build our business, we were all going to rich - RICH I TELL YOU!!! Well, nine months later we'd heard every excuse in the book from him, and none of us were rich. Quite the opposite, in fact, because we'd been burning through cash paying this joker. After we let him go, it was crystal clear to us that we should have let him go six months earlier. But we were caught up in the emotions of it, trying to work it out, giving him every chance, and, in part, refusing to admit to ourselves that we had hired the wrong guy.

And we had indeed hired the wrong guy, for which we were completely to blame. In our inexperience we simply didn't know how to go about attracting a qualified employee.

We learned a lot from that costly mistake, and today we are much more clinical when it comes to hiring and firing. That's not to say we completely ignore the human element, of course, because there is certainly something to be said for working with people you get along with, especially in a creative, collaborative environment like the one we have at Pixel Workshop. But this is, ultimately, a business. If you can't perform, well, good luck to you, we'll find someone who can. (Fortunately this business is heavy on freelancing, so it's usually easy to give someone a trial run before actually offering them a staff position.)

How about you? Got any interesting hiring/firing stories? Total train wrecks? Ever been stuck in a toxic workplace where you just couldn't wait to escape?

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