We were lucky to catch up with Josh Emerick recently and have shared our conversation below.

Josh, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

As creative, I think we all wrestle with but quietly suffer through this question. I imagine most business owners in general too. Still, I find the creative industry struggles because there are sort of two identities and lots of unhealthy narratives for artists and making money. From the starving artist to the passion-driven sin to charge for creativity ideas and lack of conversations around the topic, I think we’re all left a bit in the dark.

On the flip side, you’re seeing non-practicing salespeople pushing programs, courses, and gimmicky get-rich-quick schemes. The most significant pain point for me to realize was who I am, whom that serves, and aligning my passion to a mission that could be a business model.

For me, my journey started with chasing creative greatness and telling myself that I would be able to charge one day. The issue is that this is habit-forming, and the more money you make, the more you spend. I started solving this by separating my creative abilities from my operational skills. We had pricing problems, alignment issues, and budgeting was more wishful thinking than strategic. Facing these problems gave me clarity on some solutions and the fact that we needed more clarity to attract healthy leads and projects we wanted while communicating our messaging to support this.

In short, knowing yourself lets you answer many questions and turn them into better solutions.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I’m a video producer these days, solving problems through video campaigns for brands, bands, and agencies. I put a considerable emphasis on being organized, systemizing and repeating processes that produce less stress so we can make films more creative and enjoyable. I have a big passion for leadership and value building teams with chemistry.

There’s much falling in line with standards within the video industry, and truthfully much of it’s outdated and more of a checklist than of actual value. I started as an outsider, feeling left out and overlooked. Still, my questioning and skill-building have helped us stand out as different in the right ways, solving many logistic challenges with ease and using efficiency as a superpower to produce high volume work.

From the outside, we work with musicians who need more of a marketing focus, translating art to content that connects and help brands get clear on messaging so we can design long terms video packages vs. a single video approach. Again, this aligns with our sustainable financial model and supports growing businesses and musicians.

What gives me the most satisfaction in my work is taking our client through our discovery and pre-production process, as this creates confidence that usually translates into better performances and clarity to how what we are making gets used. This collaborative approach drives me because I love deepening personal relationships and channeling what’s incredible about others into a visual medium. It feels like I have the best job in the world.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

As someone who felt left on the outside, I strive to bring a different creative team to my industry. This industry felt standoffish and riddled with gatekeepers ten years ago. I’m grateful that’s changing a bit, but many of our freelancers and partners are people who haven’t had the chance to be on set and make creative arts.

Filmmaking can be very intimidating when you start. So much focus is put on technical know-how or gear, and we’ve been attitude first, emphasizing helping to develop our freelancers’ skills. So much of my freelance and agency experience has been with producers or directors who buy problems away vs. sharing information and creating a healthy team dynamic. That hierarchy was always pretty frustrating, feeling like I couldn’t fully help solve issues and felt used. This also created a lot of friction in my personal life, causing marriage hurdles and never being able to plan a personal life.

As a producer, I try to be transparent, honest, and open with my team so they can make choices and know it won’t be held against them or our relationship. I’ve worked very hard to have a healthier work-life balance, and I want the same for me people and my industry. I know it won’t happen overnight, but I hope to make small changes to expectations within this line of work. A lot of my thought process revolves around information is power. The better I can share that transparently, the smoother we operate, the better our creative output, and we live happier lives.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I know everyone says it, but I care a lot. At times this has done as much harm as good, so it’s been learning to balance my caring nature with boundaries and expectations.

Early on, I was a chronic over-promiser and under-deliverer. That starts to erode relationships, trust, and momentum. It wasn’t out of malice, but more out of my lack of analyzing process, sharing info, and not fully visualizing our problems.

I tell every creative to spend as much time on data collection as the creative craft, but unfortunately, we often subscribe to gear envy or skills and skip over the importance of having healthy conversations with our clients and team.

What helped this was getting bold and upfront about topics. I try to simplify our processes so I can easily verbalize them. This approach allows us to earn the trust of new and existing clients and our crew. When you can earn trust and reduce buyer’s remorse while meeting deadlines and goals, it starts creating momentum, and the more you can focus on your experience and the transformation you make, the faster this all picks up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jecp.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jmemerick/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO6Co_Lvwj6c7m9FuOUmTJw

Image Credits
William Wurzelbacher William Fairbanks Vince Lundi