We recently connected with Jaime & Steve Geffner and have shared our conversation below.
Jaime & Steve, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
There is a difference between being good at your craft and being a successful business owner. We learned that lesson the hard way. Like many other creative small business owners, we started our business because while working for other people, we realized that we were really good at something (in our case, producing, filming, and editing – we had both gotten our start in Hollywood, in the world of TV production), and we really enjoyed it, but we were working so hard, for little money or recognition, and we ultimately wanted more freedom and more control over how we spent our time and our life. We believed we had more to contribute and more important work to do than what we were allowed to do within the confines of our jobs as we were working for others. And we also believed, as many people do, that if we went off on our own that we could do things better and more effectively than how the people who we worked for were allowing us to do them.
So we started our business in 2008. Candidly, it took us a few years to figure out how to earn a living doing what we loved. In fact, the original idea we had for how we would “make money” was completely different than how we actually make money today. We originally thought we would be creating and producing TV show ideas and selling them to networks and production companies. And we actually got very close on 3 separate occasions, with 3 separate show ideas, and 3 different production companies, to selling our first original TV show idea. But the entertainment industry is a “hurry up and wait” game. And while we did hang in there and wait for many years, ultimately we only had so much time and so much money in the bank… once we got to a certain point, we knew we needed to figure out how to earn a regular income again, so we could pay the bills.
So at that point, we started looking at what was going on in the online world and brainstorming ways that we could get paid by others to use the producing, filming, and editing skills that we had gained from our TV production backgrounds. And we realized that there was a huge demand for online video. At the time, there were big companies like eHow.com, About.com, Howcast.com, and other large How-To websites that were paying people to produce video content for their sites. The way it worked is we would search their databases for the video titles they wanted produced (based on common search terms online) and then we would find experts who could speak to those topics and who would allow us to film with them. We’d approach the experts, let them know what we were doing and that we wanted to come to their place of business, and film a series of videos with them that would help them to promote their companies and services. The experts loved it because they didn’t have to pay for the video production services, and they could share the videos to bring more visibility to their brands. And the big companies loved it because they were paying peanuts to have these videos produced! We were way overqualified to do this work, but we desperately needed to start making money, so we started there.
After working with many experts who were business owners, we realized that these experts needed more videos to promote their brands like videos that tell the story of who they are and what makes them different, videos that help them to sell their specific products and services, videos that help them to put out regular content marketing to their audiences and grow their following on social media and on their websites and blogs. So we started creating different services – mainly different types of videos that we could produce, film, and edit for clients, where they could pay us for our services and we would give them the finished videos for them to use online in their marketing, sales, and hiring processes. And thus, our video production business, Geffner Productions was born.
But we soon realized that while we were great at the producing, filming, and editing part – the creative work that we loved, we didn’t know how to run a successful business. So we really needed to learn that part and develop our skills – not only as video producers, but as business owners. We had to learn how to market our services, sell to our clients, develop systems and processes, hire team members to help us grow, create great customer service to keep clients happy, and on and on the list goes. So for 15 years now, we’ve been continuing to build our business. What started out as just us and our TV production skills has turned into a much bigger operation where we can help a lot more people. Today we offer not only video production, but we also educate people and we provide strategy and consultation about how to use video to grow your brand. Ultimately, we have learned that it’s not enough just to do nice-looking videos; Your videos must be properly targeted and strategically planned out, so they can be effective and impactful for your business, and therefore a good use of your time and money.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We’re Jaime & Steve Geffner. We’re a married couple and partners in both business and life. We have been married for 20 years, since 2003. And we have 1 child – a 4-year-old son who we refer to as OMG – Oliver Milo Geffner, because that’s what we said when we found out we were pregnant after being together with a business, but no baby, for 18 years! Before we started our production company, we both got our start in the entertainment industry – we both worked in Hollywood, in TV production. Most notably, Jaime worked as a producer for the Dr. Phil Show for 5 years, and Steve went to film school at Northwestern University, got his degree in Radio/TV/Film, then moved to Los Angeles to start a career in TV production, starting out on the Emmy Award-Winning NBC Sitcom, Frasier.
After working in the entertainment industry and realizing that while we loved our jobs, we never got to see each other and we were working crazy long hours for very little pay and even less recognition, we decided to start our own production company. It took us a while to figure out how to take our creative skills and experience from the world of TV production and turn them into a successful business model. However, 15 years into our business venture now, our specialization is helping business owners leverage the power of targeted & effective video to improve their marketing, increase their sales, and grow their teams. Today, we offer high-end video production services where we produce, film, and edit video in person with our clients. We also offer completely virtual video production services, which allows us to produce, film, and edit high-quality videos with clients from anywhere in the world – a service that was born after the pandemic turned our world completely virtual, and how it’s the most popular service we offer! We also offer video strategy, coaching, and consultation, to make sure businesses understand how to use video and know how to do it on their own, if either they or their team members want to put out good quality video themselves that will be effective at producing results for their business.
We believe in doing GOOD VIDEO – the kind of video that makes an impact. We have seen too many businesses waste time and money doing ineffective, poorly targeted, and wasteful video that is not helping their brand, their reputation or their sales, and may actually be turning off their ideal clients and customers. So we’re on a mission to teach people how to do powerful and effective videos – whether you’re doing it on your own, or you want it done for you, either virtually or in-person. We believe in the power of video to completely change your business, when used properly and strategically. And we know that you can go from an unknown brand to an empire with the power of 1 great video – think of Poo-Pourri, Dollar Shave Club, and Squatty Potty to name a few… brands that were largely unknown until they each produced 1 viral video. It is possible and it doesn’t have to be super hard, or out of reach for a small business owner. We create powerful, targeted, on-brand highly strategic videos that help your company to be seen in a way that’s attractive to your ideal clients and customers, or your ideal employees and team members.
Have you ever had to pivot?
From the start of our business in 2008 until the pandemic of 2020, we only really worked on high-quality, private video production with businesses. All of the pre-production work was done remotely, but there was always an in-person day of filming where we had to show up on location with all of our equipment and our crew, in order to film with our clients.
When the pandemic happened and the world shut down in March of 2020, all of the upcoming client filming dates that we had scheduled for the near future had to be postponed – indefinitely. As you can imagine, we had a temporary moment of panic… wondering how we were going to make money and keep our business alive when we couldn’t film in-person with our clients for the foreseeable future.
After getting over the initial shock, and with our backs against the wall, we needed to come up with a new way to bring in revenue for our business. We knew that even though we couldn’t produce, film, and edit videos for our clients in person (as we had been doing exclusively for years), our clients still needed to be using video to connect with their customers. In fact, we knew that our customers needed to be using video NOW more than ever! Because during a global pandemic, when so many people were suffering and so many businesses were shutting down, customers needed to know that you were still there for them, still serving them, still trying to find ways to help them. And the most powerful and effective way to do that was via video.
So we started teaching people (business owners and their team members) how to do video on their own, so they could still communicate with their customers, let them know they were thinking about them and working on their behalf. We created a membership community called Video Attraction Lab where we provided education, resources, answered our clients’ questions about video production and strategy, and we gave them monthly assignments to practice producing videos for their businesses. We trained our VAL members on how to do all the different types of core videos that would help them most, and then we had them post their videos in our private Facebook group for feedback and support.
The club was a great success – our clients loved it – and from a financial perspective, this pivot ended up saving our business. In fact, we had our best financial year ever, and as a side benefit, we had also successfully created a new stream of recurring revenue, which we had been trying to find a way to do for years! So as a result of the pivot we needed to make in a desperate situation, we were able to help our clients in a new way and meet their needs during a very hard time, we added education and strategy as a more regular service that we offer to clients, and we diversified the way we do business, which will hopefully prevent us from ending up in another desperate situation in the future should another global crisis come about!
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Steve and Jaime first met in person on April 6th, 2001. At the time, Jaime was working as a casting director in the world of voiceover, for a voice casting company called Kalmenson & Kalmenson. Steve was working at a talent agency called CED, in the voiceover department. Jaime’s office used to call Steve’s office every day to request that their talented actors show up at a casting call at our Burbank studio, for one of our voiceover projects. There were 3 single guys in Steve’s office and 3 single girls in Jaime’s office. One day, after talking on the phone for about 4 months, we all decided to meet up in person for drinks and dinner, so we could put a face to the voices we had been talking to over the phone for months now (this was before the internet was popular, and before cell phones, FaceTime and Zoom). So we met at a quaint little restaurant and bar in Los Angeles called Carmine’s. And when Steve and Jaime met in person for the first time, it was very obvious to both of them that they had each found their match. It started out as a friendship but quickly turned into dating. That summer, as a group of young singles, we visited all the major attractions and theme parks in Los Angeles – like Disneyland, Magic Mountain, Sea World, etc. looking for creative and fun ways to spend time together. After a while, Steve and Jaime officially became a couple. But our friends could all see the connection we had from Day 1.
From the time we met, we both knew that eventually we wanted to find a way that we could work together, doing what we both loved and were most passionate about. We didn’t know what that would look like, or how long it would take us to make that dream a reality. 2 years later, in May of 2003, we got married and became The Geffners. And by 2008, about 7 years from the time we first met, we had created our company, Geffner Productions, and become business partners. Then we embarked on what is now a 15-year-long journey to create and grow our company, so we can help as many businesses as possible to do “good video” that makes a powerful impact on their businesses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://geffnerproductions.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/geffnerproductions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/geffnerproductions