Case Study: 100+ Cities for Goodsides

Disclaimer: Goodsides' CEO and I work closely and share ownership to change the narrative around GOV media not being able to compete in the attention economy. This important work, bridging resident resources with local families, is too critical for a basic/generic market response.

What if bids could launch a California-based video firm from serving zero/nada/zilch cities to serving more than any other video production company in the State?

And what if we could do this in one year? ...During a time when production has been slowed by the pandemic?

While it's currently not for sale, the valuation of such a company (serving 100+ cities under a multi-year bench contract) would now be shaped (in part) by this impressive development. Track record metrics would now be boosted... The orange in the graphic below changed to a more vibrant color...

This is the abbreviated story of Goodsides, which on a per-city basis, serves more names than any other solely-video firm in California.

They went from 0 to 100+ cities with the application of GovCon expertise and lots of love for the process.

The Goal: Get in the hearts and minds of the Governors Office (in CA) by EOY 2021. This was on paper around mid-January 2021 and proudly achieved in mid-December 2021.

The Solution: No spray-and-pray here; only enterprise pre-contract care and attention, layered pipeline strategies (e.g. backwards, forwards, sub, competitor reference groups, etc.), smart pricing, and mockups where feasible. Once a conversation was allowed, we leaned on 'The Power of Video' to help satisfy elements deemed outside of video's reach.

We also leaned on Goodsides' passion for production, quality, and industry disruption. Each interview was prepped with passion in front.

Government media has been traditionally thrown out by creatives, largely discarded by residents, and under-funded by councils. The 'Why?' is not a riddle to figure out:

• Freelance videographers historically took this work to fill in contract gaps and are essentially selling time with little overhead.
• Broadcast AV technician migrations, whereby they kept rather ugly visual aesthetics alive beyond their usefulness in the realm of social media. The zoom effect is a perfect example of broadcast TV trying to live on in 4K social media worlds.
• Print / physical media was king until IG blew open the doors in 2010 and younger MARCOM teams embraced the platform. We often joke that public agencies are still discovering Instagram 12 years later...
• The expenses and scale of high-quality, planned production are not fully understood. This is where education and conversations come into play, but these are not free either.
• Volunteers are not treated fairly with their time or commitments, nor are they respected in the eyes of various city departments (unfortunately). Lots of GOV agency leaders count volunteers as assets that they have.

Fixing the Broken Nature of Sourcing Video in GovCon

The above bullets are not easy tides to reverse, and quick fixes might be seen as possibly worse than what they had before. The risk we tackled was that of acceptance.

My team's expertise was not applied in the traditional sense of preparing proposals. Instead, we treated the present-day procurement of video as the problem and built solutions around these (once understood). Everything from the company's video reels, to their website content, had to be addressed and ready for scrupulous public reviews.

2021 was the mechanic's garage where we fixed things and mended broken conversations into video deliverables. The consequence of this consistent and patient approach:

• 30+ Partners in various adjacent marketing niches onboard.
• An ecosystem forming around Goodsides that is able to justify higher rates/NTEs.
• Obviously the bench contracts mentioned.
• A detailed examination of Goodsides' Production Day structure, which can be found here. This kind of specificity and detail would not have been possible without a years' worth of capture, FOIA, trial-and-error, and stacked calendars with 15-minute chats.
• A matured play surrounding local nonprofits and associations, letting them know that Goodsides is arriving in the area and planning for productions in the coming months. This communication is then attached to the proposal to showcase our eagerness to align the team with the purchaser's community/their priorities.

My involvement towards the end of year was of 2022 Pace Setter. We hosted a presentation at TKS HQ (my consultative base here in North Hollywood, CA) and invited those within the Goodsides' orbit to attend. Louis (shown above) and I got people excited about the opportunities and challenges ahead. We likened the service to a GOV 2.0 bridge that doesn't exist yet. Imaginations and questions went wild... In a good way.

Ego aside, I feel like Goodsides proposals looked a little more focused, curated, and flowed a little bit better after this presentation.

I would encourage every bid team to have an EOY presentation to set the tone for next year. Ours had good news to share, but difficult news/updates/scenarios makes teams better too.

Happy Bidding!