Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Harris. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Michael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?

I have two “most” important lessons that I learned in previous jobs. Both had a huge impact on me as a small business owner. The first was a management interview question that change my perspective on how to treat people. The situation is you are a restaurant manager in a very busy and crowded restaurant and a well dressed businessman walks to the bar and has a 8-10 year old child with him. As the parent sits at the bar and starts to have a drink, he loosens his tie and stares off into the mirror while he kids proceeds to run around the bar area, yelling and making a scene. As a manager how do you approach the adult to get the child under control and what do you say? At this point, you give an answer and then the interviewer tells you the backstory that the man just buried his wife and is trying to work-up the courage to tell their child. Does this change your approach and why? That question stuck with me because we never know what people are going through in their life because we see the world through our eyes. Learning to “see” the world through other’s eyes has been a big help in understanding what customers want from me and why. The second lesson involved my manager handing me a “perfect” process and asking me to find a way to make improvements. It taught me that there is always room to improve even when you think what you do is great.

Michael, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have always been the “historian” of my family and friends. I seemed to always have a camera or video camera on me and was recording what we did WAY before the cellphone cameras we have today. This hobby followed me through all stages of life from a 27-year corporate life to raising two girls and 32 years of marriage. There was no time in my life that I was not honing my craft of capturing life’s special moments and keeping them in a relevant format. As technology moved from analog to digital, I transitioned as well. So, for the better part of 40 years I have been capturing images (still and video) and keeping them current (upgrading to digital) to preserve and share those memories. It wasn’t until my mid-50’s, after years of friends and family telling me I should do this as a career, that I had an opportunity to turn my lifelong hobby into a career. What I didn’t realize when I made this move was that I was moving from a fast paced corporate structured environment into a small business, personal structure that I controlled evert aspect and every decision. We are a locally owned professional video studio that specializes in helping people preserve their precious memories through media content transfer, restoration, post production creation and more. In our business, we find that most people want a connection to their past but are unsure what to do with all those captured events. We can help guide them to solutions that work best for their situation. The hardest part is getting started before it’s too late.

At Home Video Studio we specialize in:
Transfers to USB, DVD and/or Cloud from
Video tape- VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, miniDV, PAL and BETA
Photos, Slides, Memory cards and Negatives
Film- 8mm, Super8, 16mm
Video editing for Vacations, Memorials, Student/Athlete Highlights, etc
CD & DVD duplication
Photo restoration and general media repair
And much more, just ask!
Whether you need a video from your phone transferred or help in producing a company or organizational video, we can help.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Video Services like analog to digital capture and short video productions sit in a demographic between those who remember the first TV’s and telephones stuck to the wall with long cords and the demographics where they can’t remember NOT having an iPhone. So, growing a clientele is a challenge because we have to spread our message on numerous platforms to reach all of our potential clients. However, most people know how to search online for a service so having our small business listed on Google and other online search engines is a must. Social media, such as Facebook, also reach our target demographic so we do a fair amount of social media posts. The most effective way to growing our clientele has been to be true to ourselves and our customers. Word of mouth is the best form of new business because it comes with the tight connection previous customers have with their network. While running advertising on Google and Facebook are a basic requirement, doing a great job on each and every project, makes every customer an advocate no online or social media can beat.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

We signed up to attend one of my college alumni fund raising events and sponsored a booth and a silent auction item as a donation since it was my alma mater. When we started the business we had some car magnets made with our business information on them and attached them to our cars. While at the event, another alumni saw the car magnet and took a picture of it. We didn’t make a sale at the event other than the silent auction item but the next day I got a call from the guy who saw our magnet and he had a massive sale that made my month! It taught me that you have to constantly be marketing your business and never underestimate where someone might see your information and decide to give you a try. It also taught me that sometimes a loss can turn into a win if you just keep moving forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://roundrock.homevideostudio.com/2539
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hvs_roundrock/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553976066862
• Linkedin: https://www.instagram.com/hvs_roundrock/

Image Credits

Chad Godfrey
Kari Harris