Upload goals

I'm just curious if you fellow stock producers make certain goals for yourself in terms of amount of clips/tracks uploaded? Do you set daily, weekly, or monthly goals at all? Or just upload as you can? I used to upload just based on when I got new footage. Now, I purposely and intentionally try to hit a certain number of clips a week & month and as a result my portfolio has started growing much quicker. Sometimes I need a kick in the tail to motivate myself and get out there and shoot =)

I've learned I can justify almost any approach. Depends on the moment. Right now I've a few time consuming AE projects as I take the time to learn, and am also gearing up for what will be a whirlwind spring/summer of trips, projects, and lots of ideas for shooting. So the goal will be to get more raw footage, process a little here and there as I can, but mostly stockpile it for rainy weeks and especially the winter. Just a week or so ago I finally got caught up with stuff dating back to last spring, and sent off a drive to P5 (haven't tagged it yet though).

When I get really into production mode I do try for a number, but it changes a lot, so it's meaningless. Try to keep the machine on and rendering constantly while I prepare another render, and sometimes render the same clip multiple times until I get it just right. I used to feel the anxiety of getting it all up there as fast as possible, and now I know that it is a false kind of stress (for me). It doesn't make sales happen any faster or slower, so if I let the pacing of my stock work fall in step with regular life (hard to separate, actually) it is a lot easier to roll with the punches...both when a push is needed to finish something, or when it's time to lay off it completely for a while except for shooting. Always have at least one camera; one never knows when a shot opportunity knocks.

Mizamook, thanks for sharing! Sounds like you do this full time or almost at least =)

Completely agree in that thinking, Mizamook. And I definitely know that false anxiety feeling on trying to rush clips online. The root of which of course is a belief that a video not up and key-worded is potentially losing the chance at making money. I fell into rushing things and shooting myself in the foot a few times. As I would say to my impatient jerk bosses when I worked awful jobs back in the day, "Do you want it done fast, or do you want it done right?" I had to learn to apply that to my own workflow, to get it done right first. Take my time, think, check and double check. My self-set goals are generally only meant to trick myself into working harder and not put away the gear too early on a given project. The idea of never having to work for another jerk boss again is also tremendous motivation.

As long as I'm putting in work as much as possible, I don't think I need to hit those arbitrary numbers, aside from the monthly $ growth. I do like to always have clips pending approval somewhere, or else I feel like I'm slacking.

I don't have a goal as far as numbers. Many years ago I had a goal as far as income. Back when P5 was starting and I joined, my goal was $40 a day commission. It took a while to meet that and now I just work hard every day to improve quality, quantity and sales. I think setting a goal on strictly quantity is probably misguided. The bottom line profit is all that mattes. If it can be done in a thousand clips then great, if it takes ten thousand then that's OK too.I really feel that if a profit goal can be made in fewer clips then the future is maintained for all of us. Quantity at low prices just doesn't work in this industry. Quality at fair but higher prices always result in higher bottom line profit.

Atomazul & Rekindle, thanks for your input!

I agree Rekindle, you have to look at the quality aspect. I'm starting to understand that more and more now. It's not necessarily a waste of time to have a large portfolio but if it's not filled with a good number of quality clips with well thought out themes than a large portfolio may work against you. Sometimes though it goes back to the thing too of "why in the world did this clip sell over this one?" and for that you'll never have an answer! haha. I've had several clips sell that I thought were atrocious going back and looking at them now (in terms of framing, white balance and/or color correction). I think for myself, numbers matter a bit more to me because I have only been doing this for a year and a half (about 750 clips online) and I know I need to grow that number to be noticed among a slew of 2+ million clips or whatever P5 has now.

Atomazul, are you doing this full time then?

Good titles and keywords mean allot more than the number of clips one has in their portfolio.

Side note, ReKindle, your portfolio number is very very impressive.

For the topic at hand, I don't have nearly enough number of clips online to comment on this. Haha. I need to push much harder.