Hi Reader,

Earlier this week, a client booked us to fly to San Francisco to produce a project for them in August.

We're based in Denver, and San Francisco is full of very talented crews. Hiring one of them would cost this client a good bit less than flying my team out, putting us up in hotels, and paying our travel days.

But they didn't hesitate. They'd rather pay more to bring us. Why?

I mentioned the booking to a colleague and asked him why a client would pay to travel a crew to a city filled with plenty of good local ones.

He answered with one word: "Trust."

I'd never really given this a name, but he's absolutely right.

Let's look at it from the client's point of view.

They have a project on the line, their name attached to it, and a budget to spend. They have two main options.

Option one: search for a local crew, comb through reels, check references, and hope the team that shows up delivers, all while explaining their company, their story, and their expectations from scratch.

Option two: pay a little more to fly in the team that just wrapped a project they loved, already knows their brand, and has proven they'll deliver.

That's not a hard decision. The travel costs are real, but they're small next to the risk of a project that misses. They're not buying flights and hotel rooms. They're buying a team they already trust to deliver.

I contend that trust is the most valuable asset you own as a freelance business owner. More than your camera. More than your lenses. More than your whole kit.
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Cameras come and go, but trust is the core of your brand.

So how do you build it? Here are five rinse-and-repeat ways we've built trust with our clients over the years. Some may seem obvious, but that's kind of the point. Most of us do this stuff instinctively. The trick is to name it, and lean into it even more. Every time, on every production.

1. Deliver what you promise. If your client is editing the footage themselves, hand them beautifully-lit interviews and engaging B-roll that help tell their story and make the edit easy. If you're delivering a finished piece, make it shine. And yes, that includes the boring, unglamorous stuff: delivering on the day you said, showing up when you said. That's base level, but it's rarer than you'd think.
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2. Give them an excellent client experience, full of communication and collaboration from the very first email. I love a good call or meeting early on to go over the details and really get a handle on what they're looking for and how we can serve that need. That builds mutual trust from the get-go.
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3. Start with the need, not the gear. Make sure the gear and the crew size match what the client and the production actually require. Nobody trusts a crew that shows up with a solution looking for a problem.
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4. Make the people on camera feel taken care of. Your client is watching how you treat their CEO, their employees, their customers. Every subject who leaves the chair saying "that was easy" reflects on the person who hired you.
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5. Push back when needed. They're coming to you for your expertise. If they want to set up an interview in a tiny room next to a noisy kitchen, you need to tell them that won't work, and show them what will. That's not being difficult. That's being the expert they hired.

Notice none of these cost a dime. No rental house carries them.

The gear matters. I'm not pretending it doesn't. But two crews with identical equipment can have completely different careers, and the difference is almost always this.

Build the trust. It travels better than any Pelican case!

That's a wrap for this week's Freelancers Friday. I'll see you back here next week with more real-world lighting breakdowns, freelance business tips, and behind-the-scenes fun.

To those of you in the States, happy Fourth of July. Enjoy the long weekend!

Cheers,

Tom Miller Freelancers Film School​

P.S. Want to revisit past issues? The whole Freelancers Friday Collection lives here: https://freelancers-film-school.kit.com/​