4 Tips for Hiring the Right Creative Team

Selecting  the right team for your next creative project could be a real challenge. You need to build the best project you can, gaining the most attention for your brand possible, while still working with the budget you actually have available. There are hundreds of creative teams and agencies you could call, but how will you know you're making the right choice? 

1. Work with a team that shares your values. We've all experienced it. People can be the most rewarding and most challenging part of any project.  When you start with a team that believes what you believe, shares the same values, pursues the same passions, it's amazing what can take place. There's a synchronicity to the work, an unexplainable element that just makes things move easier, faster and  more efficiently than ever before. 

2. Work with a team that understands your industry. I'm fascinated by the amazing images I see of rock climbing and other extreme sports. Those creatives have a passion for rock climbing, and it's not just the fact that they're interested in the subject. They're on that mountain, beside those climbers, doing the same climb, with a camera in their hands and equipment on their back! That's more than passion. That's the ability of the creative to bring with them an inherent level of knowledge, skill and ability for the subject. If you're in the business of rock climbing, hire creatives who climb rocks. 

If you're in the business of rock climbing, hire creatives that climb rocks.

3. Work with a team that's goal oriented. Start your agency meetings by clearly conveying the goals of your project. Be able to answer these two questions; "What do you want to achieve?" and "How will you measure success?" Then be prepared to share your budget. Budgets are always a difficult subject, but they're a critical part of doing good business.  Budgets are the single most limiting factor for creative projects, so when you share your budget up front, the right creative team will come back to you with a proposal that will wow your audience and work within your means, or they'll help you re-align your goals to the available budget. A creative team that's goal oriented will show appreciation for your budget, no matter how big or small, and they'll be invested in helping you achieve that goal, whether they can execute the project within your budget or not. They also have a knack for creating efficiencies in projects. While some agencies are most worried about ringing up the billable hours, goal oriented creative teams naturally find ways to make more out of less in order to meet your goals within the constraints of the budget. 

A goal oriented creative team will appreciate your budget, no matter how big or small. 

4. Work with a team that takes work off your plate. You're already busy. You aren't hiring a creative team so you can have another person to manage. You want to buy deliverables, not collaborators. Ask your creative team how they'll manage your project, what kind of input they'll need from you and how involved they expect you, as the client, to be in the creation of your project. The right creative team will have a system to gather information, collaborate efficiently, and make the delivery process a breeze. 

If you're interested to know what it's like to work with Herdmark, you can download this infographic that shows how we execute video projects. 

 B.J. Eick is the Founder and C.E.O. of Herdmark Media, Inc.  B.J. has directed Herdmark Media films on farms and ranches in 25 states since 2014. When he's not wired in at the office, he's watching Westerns, enjoying the wildlife on the farm, or working on his next big adventure - writing a screenplay.