Q It Up: How has the worldwide economic crisis affected your business (if you’re an independent) or your job (if employed)? And what steps have you taken to adjust and prepare for the challenging year ahead? Please add any other thoughts you have on the subject including any advice you might have for fellow producers around the world.
Cooper Fox [This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.] Magic 104, Conway, New Hampshire: Since we live in a tourist town, we have been lucky. While they may not vacation as often, or extravagantly, most people will still vacation even when the economy is rough. We have taken precautions, though. We take extra time on even the most basic spots. And, to give our salespeople a fighting chance, they nearly always take an unsolicited spec spot with them.
Steve Cook [This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.] www.audioadrenalineinc.com: All our car clients have hibernated, of course. Fortunately, they aren’t as large a part of our client base as they once were, but it still hurts us badly. While I do believe that revenue will return by the second half of ‘09, we’re trying to diversify as much as possible by creating more “goods” while continuing to offer the same “services.” The internet has revolutionized the audio publishing industry and we’re going to take advantage of that as much as possible in 2009.
Andrew Frame [This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.] BAFSoundWorks, Lehigh Acres, Florida: Automotive advertising is down, and that’s a fair amount of work. Our agency clients handle dealerships for most all brands, domestic and import, so that funding pipeline is down to a trickle. On the flip, our call for video narration work was probably at an all time high in 2008 - golf resorts, hospitals and the like.
2009 is going to be all about sales. Cold-calls, cold-calls, and more cold-calls. I have a lot of “rollover minutes” on my phone and plan on using every one of them!
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