We recently connected with Tony Esposito and have shared our conversation below.
Tony, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?
I started my business with my brother Alan. Then after 6 years I broke off on my own to create Espo Productions in 2007 and he kept his business Peak Technology Group. I’ve never had deep pockets to start up fast or dive into any of this business. I’ve had to build it slowly by myself and I’m still the only full-time employee here. I have a “call list” for all my larger jobs, or jobs I need to cover and also, we team up with other companies to get work completed. I took in friends first, some had experience, and most we taught after learning even more ourselves by getting more work and watching. We definitely are a company that learns as we go and grow. I had everyone that was totally new or not referred by someone I knew come intern for a day with us to see if they worked well with us and our system. Now I have a large call list to use for crewing. I just wanted non-smokers, (they take too many breaks when we’re busy. Nowadays the smoking pen helps so they don’t have to leave the area to go smoke.) fast learners, and even people with experience to share their ideas with us.
If I was starting this business today, and still jumped in with no experience, I’d do things the same way. If I had experience, I’d focus on the areas that I am today after the shut down here in the U.S. which is smaller corporate events, single camera/light gear jobs I can do on my own, freelancing with the larger companies and mobile LED Screens.
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 can produce anything in the AV World because we are partnered with everyone in the area. We all freelance with each other unless the other company does not allow their full-time crew to freelance but we still hire each other and rent the gear/set ups we need that we don’t own ourselves. I used to do photography, even worked at Olan Mills in Countryside, FL and started to get back into that last year. We started out producing TV Commercials for a cable company called KNOLOGY then got into filming boxing events in the area. After the shutdown I’ve decided not to try to get huge in this business anymore. I’ll stay in my little system I have and keep it going. I also want to start up some other businesses if I can find the right people which one is Petey’s Pet Services which I should launch in January 2023. I’ve always felt we produce good work for a fair price and it’s what has helped us gain a good name and get referrals for work. We do not advertise except for our own social media pages. The main reason is it can be expensive, and this business is one that you only search for when something comes up in this field.
As far as being what I’m most proud of, I’d really say the fact that I was a High School Graduate at a C Grade, but I’ve always excelled at all my jobs I had including starting this business up. My mom was a single mom, and I was taught a very young age to get chores done before I could go play, and how to be clean, neat and organized. Although my A Team crew (the crew that gets called first for work) calls me the “Gordan Ramsay” of Productions because I’m so detailed on even packing up cases it has helped us with not losing, repairing or replacing equipment through the years.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
New people that come work for us will always ask how you got to where I am now. Honestly most would never stick it out what I did. I moved into a small Apartment, kept gear in a small storage unit and started doing jobs less than other people to get my name out there. I kept my over-head low and invested half of my profit back into the business. I slowly gained referrals and more work to invest more into the business. They don’t make it easy for you to start up a business even though you can try here in the U.S. There’s lots of money going out to get it going then you will always have something pop up that cost more money to stay in regulation or even get the job. I never took a loan until the Government forced us to in 2020 with the shutdown of our Industry and I really wish they would turn those into grants for real small businesses like myself. I was fine in 2019 and the economy was great here and we had a great start to 2020. I’ve had a few times where I wanted to get out of this business and sell it all and go back to cutting grass just so people didn’t bother me anymore, but I stuck with it and have been my own boss for the last 22 years and there’s something to be said for that.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
The only thing I could do financially when starting out was to keep all my over-head low and re-invest into the business. I didn’t want to look at a loan, I didn’t know if the business would survive, and I wanted to leave it quickly if it didn’t. I didn’t have to have a brick-and-mortar office so that helped and I met people at Starbucks for meetings if they didn’t have an office. You just have to discipline yourself until you learn the business you are in. I learned after the first year to save money from our February-May season because it slows down here in June-August being that it’s so hot out and not a lot happens outdoors.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://espoproductions.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/espoproductions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/espoproductions
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/espoproductions/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0oGW-yo2nlasMd3cNgExcQ