We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samantha Morgan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samantha below.
Alright, Samantha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
When I decided to leave my full-time career as a journalist to start my own media production company, I assumed the best thing to do would be to operate under my name. Unfortunately, I have a pretty generic name, so almost every version of that was taken. I landed on SM Media. My partner, who has no problem being as blunt as possible said, “It sounds like your talking about the fetish, S&M.”
WHAT?!
After asking some folks, he was right, it wasn’t a great name. More importantly, it was limiting. It didn’t really define what I was trying to do as a company. In case you were wondering, my partner also pointed out all the flaws with other media agency names, and I agreed with him.
You’ll see versions of names with numbers in it, or spelling variations that are very specific to the state we are in (eaux). I didn’t want to limit our abilities, and I also wanted to make sure to tell people about our mission with our name.
Easier said than done.
I spent months thinking. I would toss out some ideas and inevitably, they were all taken or they just didn’t hit the mark. Then, one day I thought about something I used to say when I worked in broadcast media as an assignment editor.
“I need you to flip this out quick!”
Nearly every day I would say that little phrase, because the speed of news is daunting. There’s no time to fuss over whether or not the lighting is good enough, or how crisp the audio is. Nah, it’s a shoot and scoot kind of life. You get in, get what you need done, and you get out.
During the course of my 20 year career in traditional media, I spent the bulk of my time in the digital department. And if you think news moves fast, try running a digital news department. I learned how to be efficient and to utilize all the tools possible to create the best multimedia content possible. And that’s a skill that makes me unique to the digital media market. It’s also the founding principle behind the mission of my business. We don’t pad the bill with unneeded expenses, because we know businesses need A LOT of content to stay competitive in the digital arena. and they just can’t afford all that excess.
Once I mixed all these thoughts together, I came up with the name QuickFlip. To my surprise, the domain and many variants was not taken. I also scored the name on all social channels. That’s so rare, I knew instantly this was the name for my business. I’m so grateful and thankful to have a partner who is willing to speak up and tell me when he thinks I’m making a mistake.
Samantha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
QuickFlip Media specializes in multimedia content that is meant to captivate and engage people in the digital space. The digital world is crucial to the success of a business, and we want to empower businesses to tell their story through high-quality content that is appropriate for their budget and needs.
Video is critical in today’s digital landscape. Video has the power to not only convey information effectively but also enhance a website’s search engine optimization (SEO). And, 84% of internet users prefer watching videos over reading text-based advertisements. Videos, especially those with call-to-action buttons, are highly effective in grabbing attention swiftly and boosting conversion rates.
The problem most small businesses face is getting enough quality video produced to fill demand. That’s where we come in. We utilize shooting and editing methods that allow for quicker turnaround time, which reduces overall cost. And, we’ll even provide you with broll so you can create new videos utilizing the footage we shot. Don’t know what broll is? No problem! We can teach your team how to edit.
We also provide photography and audio services. And, we allow for all these services to be bundled at a discounted rate. With good planning, you can save time and money.
Essentially, we want to be your partner. We want to help you navigate the digital world with ease so your business can thrive.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
My career in journalism started back in the year 2000. Initially, I was an entertainment reporter working in print media while in college, intending it only as a means to earn some extra money. By the time I completed my last semester, I had been offered the position of editor-in-chief at the small publication where I had worked as a freelancer for about three years. My first issue as editor-in-chief coincided with Hurricane Katrina.
Our publication was based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, approximately an hour and a half from New Orleans. In fact, the majority of the evacuees ended up in Baton Rouge, filling the city with people in the months following the disaster. Before Hurricane Katrina, the paper focused on entertainment in a tabloid style. The hurricane forced me to pivot and become a “hard news” editor overnight.
After a couple of years, I moved to a larger daily news publication but returned to my roots in entertainment. I took on a full-time freelance position in the “new media” department, which was our term for digital media before it became evident it would revolutionize everything. My beat was music, which I loved. I got to hang out with rock stars and frequent bars as part of my job.
Then came Hurricane Gustav, devastating Baton Rouge. I spent two weeks without power, enduring the sweltering heat of south Louisiana with only about $8 in my checking account when the storm hit. With no food, money, or job opportunities, I was in a dire situation.
This experience propelled me towards a more stable sector of media – broadcast. I joined a local TV station, starting at $9 an hour doing data entry due to the absence of newsroom openings. Eight months later, the position of assignment editor became available, and I seized it.
On my first day, I quickly realized the stark differences between television and print media. Terms and jargon were initially gibberish to me, but I gradually got the hang of it, just in time for the BP oil spill. Our newsroom, not typically producing shows, faced a significant shift as the crisis unfolded.
We worked seven days a week for at least a month. Despite the intensity, it was exhilarating to face new challenges. We eventually ceased outsourcing our newscasts, producing them in-house from then on.
A couple of years later, I took over the digital department. My efforts there caught the attention of the top news station in the market, leading to a job offer after an experiment I conducted to gauge my daily content output resulted in a 146-page document.
For the first few years, everything was perfect. I was making enough money to pay off debts and live comfortably. However, 2016 brought a series of tragic events that made me question everything: the murder of Alton Sterling by a Baton Rouge Police Officer, a deadly ambush on law enforcement officers, and a catastrophic flooding event in south Louisiana, all within three months.
Later that year, I met my future partner, Matthew White, who worked for a competing news station. With our combined skills in video production, we knew we could achieve anything. Just as I was about to leave the news industry, COVID-19 emerged, keeping me on until September 2021, marking an eight-year cycle in my career.
In June 2023, QuickFlip Media was launched. It’s been a journey of major disasters, but I feel I’ve finally found my calling. My entire career has been a long string of moments that forced me to be resilient. But that seems to be a place where I thrive. When my back is against the wall, I step up.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
In November 2016, I was working an event for a nonprofit when a videographer came up to me and asked for an interview.
“I’ll get you someone,” I said. He worked for WBRZ. At the time, I worked for WAFB. Our two stations were fiercely competitive, though I truly cared very little about all that.
A few weeks later I got a friend request on Facebook. It was him! Matthew White.
“Well, hello, the enemy.” I said after accepting his request.
We started talking on messenger and although I thought he was attractive, I was not interested. He was weekend photographer and he looked young, so I assumed he was in his late 20s. I was 36 years old at the time and was no longer interested in going out to bars, or other 2o-something shenanigans.
One day he mentioned something about working in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
“Wait, how old are you?” I asked.
“40.” he replied.
I was legitimately shocked.
He moved to New Orleans just 6 months before the storm. After, he stayed around and worked for an insurance company videoing damaged houses. After about a year of that, he packed up and moved to Reno, which is where he stayed until around 2014 when he moved back to Baton Rouge because his father was ill.
After learning all that, I agreed to go on a proper date. I worked weekdays and he worked the weekend, so I would go with him out to stories on the weekend just so we could have more time together. One day he picked me up and we went to a shooting scene. After, we had lunch at what would become our favorite burger spot.
“How many guys would take you to a shooting on a date?” he asked.
“How many girls would go?” I replied.
He ended up leaving that station a couple years later, but I stayed at my station until 2021. Between the two of us, we knew we had a winning recipe. We can do just about anything with our cameras. We’ve done it all! Just a couple months before we met, Matthew did a 30 minute livestream from a boat as it was moving through flood waters. Those cameras are extremely heavy and that boat was very wobbly. But every station was in wall-to-wall coverage for the thousand-year flood, so the producer said, “stay live as long as you can.”
Being able to think fast and move quick is where we both excel. And there’s no other person I trust more in this world to start a business with than the man who was willing to risk being fired just so we could go on a lunch date.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.quickflipmedia.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quickflipmedia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quickflipmedia
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/quickflipmedia
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOSW5xMhEWnWzNEdVigE8IQ
Image Credits
Samantha Morgan and Matthew White