Scaling video production is no easy feat. On one hand, you have a large amount of overhead in equipment and labor, regardless of whether you own or rent equipment or if you outsource or have full-time employees. On the other hand, video production takes time and requires a lot of feedback from stakeholders before it’s ready for publishing.
All of this means you might have a long way to go before you start seeing serious scale growth in a small video production company. As time goes on, you will continue to see improvements in efficiency as you find a core team of people, equipment, and processes. But at a certain point, even that can lead to a wall where progress and improvement seems difficult.
This is where it’s time to “Automate the Administrative.” So much of the time of a video production business is taken up by administrative work. Time tracking, meetings, feedback loops, call sheet development, and task assignments are just some of the long list of tasks that need to be trafficked by someone. Why not make that “someone” a video project management tool?
Let’s break down some of the tactics you can use to be more efficient at video production, and maybe even get to 2X productivity:
- Set realistic goals. By setting the right goals and knowing which type of video works best for which objective, you can get right to work on a video that will perform the best for your customer. Not only that, but having a solid understanding of your clients’ goals will oftentimes lead to a shorter feedback period – which means you get your projects done faster and you can move on to the next one.
- Maintain ongoing communication. At the beginning of a project, this means truly understanding those aforementioned goals and agreeing on the style and script of the video. As the video is being produced, this means making sure the customer is easily able to make suggestions, edits, etc. In order to facilitate this, it helps to have a tool that allows you to make comments/suggestions directly on the video at specific time markers.
- Develop project management templates. This is where project management tools really help you create a repeatable process. Templatized video production projects in your PM tool will allow you to clone and reassign future projects using the same process that worked last time. Instead of building everything from the ground up for every single client, you can save yourself a ton of time by reusing what works.
Of course, it helps to have a dependable team backing you up and a customer with achievable goals, but regardless, setting realistic goals, maintaining communication, and developing repeatable processes with PM tools can help you get to 2X productivity. If you’d like to learn how project management can help you make it to 2X productivity with your video production business, read our full guide: The Complete Guide to Project Management for Video Production.