We can produce four times the volume now. Do we sell more output or fewer, better pieces?

Question

Running a small content team, four people including me. Our per piece production time on short form has dropped hard over the last year, editing and drafting assisted. A reel that took 90 minutes takes maybe 35. Listing copy that took an hour takes fifteen minutes plus a site visit.

So we have capacity and two ways to spend it.

Option one is volume. Same retainer price, more deliverables, and we win on quantity against providers who haven't adapted. It's the easy sell. Clients understand more. Our two newest retainers came in because we offered a higher post count at the same fee as the incumbent.

Option two is fewer pieces, higher standard, higher price. Spend the saved hours on the parts machines don't do. Going to the property. Actually shooting there rather than pulling stock. Sitting in a planning call for an hour instead of ten minutes. Charge the same or more for half the output and defend the fee on quality.

My worry about volume is that we're racing toward a floor. Whatever post count we offer at $1,400, somebody offers at $900 next quarter, because their costs fell too. My worry about quality is that clients can't tell. I've watched two prospects compare our work against something clearly assembled in twenty minutes and choose on price, because on a phone screen at arm's length the difference was smaller than the $500.

The third path is a split book, cheap high volume tier and a premium tier, and I've heard from other operators that running both makes you bad at both.

Where would you put the capacity.

mikeoconnell7 · Answer

The line that decides it for me is the one about the phone screen. If your buyers genuinely can't perceive the difference, the quality strategy isn't a quality strategy, it's a story you tell yourself while losing on price. So the real question is whether you can find buyers who can tell, and how many of them exist in your market.

mitchell_ray4 · Answer

Trades version of this is exactly the same argument and it resolves the same way. The guys who went cheap and fast still have work, the guys who went careful and expensive still have work, and the ones who tried to be both went under. Pick a lane, @cobalt.

tylerbrooks9 · Answer

I'd buy the boring high volume tier and I'm the target market for it, so factor that in. I don't want the best content, I want content to exist on a schedule without me thinking about it.

ryanmck27 · Answer

@verity that's useful to hear because it suggests the volume tier isn't a race to zero if what people are buying is not thinking about it. Reliability is a thing you can charge for and it's not the same as post count.

derekj19 · Answer

Doesn't the volume path also raise your account management load? Four times the pieces is four times the approvals, revisions, and someone chasing a client for a photo. The production time fell, and I'd guess the coordination time didn't.

tonyv88 · Answer

@beacon that's the part that would kill it for us. On the management side every extra deliverable generates an email, and email volume is what actually caps how many accounts one person can hold. I'd want @cobalt to count hours on coordination before assuming the freed capacity is real.

nataliehsu · Answer

I'm still figuring out where I fit, and the quality path sounds better while @lantern's objection sounds correct, which is uncomfortable. If the buyer can't tell, you need to sell to a buyer who can, and that's a different sales motion than the one that won your two newest retainers.

We can produce four times the volume now. Do we sell more output or fewer, better pieces?

7 replies