How Listening To Your Clients Will Save You Time & Money w/ Paul & Kelly Gilster
The times we grow the most are often the times when we push our boundaries and get into new situations where we don’t completely know what we’re doing. There’s a real value in this. It’s what gets us, our craft, and our business to reach new and greater heights. My guests today, have taken this leap and are still reaping the rewards.
Paul and Kelley Gilster are a husband and wife cinematography team and owners of 618 Studios based in Southern California. They've grown their company to serve the high-end wedding market over the past nine years. In 2018, they began to move into the corporate world and now serve both wedding and corporate clients where they’ve seen their profits skyrocket.
Today Paul and Kelly describe their story of building their business strictly around making wedding videos and how they transitioned into the world of corporate promotions. When branching out, they learned some valuable lessons around creating work for free which they share for us here.
Paul and Kelly have really nailed their process of client communication. It certainly varies significantly between wedding clients and corporate clients. They talk about the different languages for speaking with various types of clients and how this saves them time and money.
Do you serve multiple kinds of clients? How do you talk to each one differently? Share it with me in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode
- When it pays to do work for free and when it doesn’t
- Some of the surprising things that come up when moving to corporate work from shooting weddings
- The importance of recognizing which clients care about how stuff looks and which clients care about how stuff feels
- How actually hearing what your clients have to say will save you time and make you more money
Quotes
“It took us eight years to book our first five-figure wedding package. Within nine months of pursuing corporate work we booked our first five-figure corporate gig.” [12:14]
“You have to learn to pull out what your clients are looking for and certain aspects of what they need.” [29:45]
“When you’re in those moments when you’re pulled out of your comfort zone, it’s where you want to be because you’re only growing from there.” [35:00]
“It’s just listening. Through the listening, you know what kind of follow-up questions to ask to get to the mutual understanding of what to create.” [44:42]
Links
Follow 618 Studios on Instagram | Facebook | Vimeo
Learn about the next Studio Sherpas workshop
Additional Links:
Check out the full show notes page
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