Are Brands Expecting Too Much For Too Little?

None of our clients hate us personally.

They just have someone above them who hates them. Someone who’s questioning their competence, breathing down their neck about performance metrics, or demanding content faster than it can realistically be made. That pressure trickles down until it lands in our inbox, usually in the form of an email that starts with:

“Hey, are you available for a shoot next week? We’re launching in two.”

We love ambition. But unless we’re friends, this won’t fly.

The New Agency Equation

It used to be that brands had multiple partners. One agency handled studio stills. Another ran lifestyle shoots. A third oversaw video production. Each had its own budget, team, and scope.

Now everything’s collapsed into one expectation:

“Can your production team handle all of it?”

Yes, we can. And we do. But the budgets haven’t evolved alongside the scope. What used to be three separate line items is now rolled into one (often reduced) figure.

So instead of three agencies sharing the load, you’ve got one team producing 35+ video deliverables and 60–80 stills, all under a single umbrella. It’s the new standard. The problem is that the math doesn’t add up and brands are starting to feel the strain just as much as production teams are.

Because when budgets stay flat but expectations multiply, something has to give — creative time, planning, polish, or the sanity of everyone involved.

The Red Flags We’ve Learned to Spot

When a new inquiry starts with “We need to shoot next week,” it’s almost always a signal that the planning hasn’t been done upstream.

If we’ve worked together before, we’ll bend time to make it happen because we already know the brand, the tone, the process. But for a first-time project? That kind of turnaround is a red flag.

Why? Because if your campaign timeline is under a month from inquiry to delivery, there’s no time to build a thoughtful brief, confirm creative, or plan logistics that actually support success.

We want to work with people who are thinking in quarters, not weeks. Teams who are projecting content and campaign needs a year ahead, so we can collaborate strategically instead of reactively.

The Budget Conversation No One Likes Having

Let’s talk about the phrase "hobby budget".

Every creative professional has seen one: A big ask tied to a number that doesn’t make sense. Sometimes it’s $15-20k for what should be a six-figure production. They want talent, sets, photo and video, plus social cuts and e-comm stills. It’s not coming from a place of disrespect, it’s usually coming from misunderstanding.

When that happens, we don’t ghost or roll our eyes. We walk them through it.

We show what those dollars actually cover — the hard costs, the line items, and what the outcome looks like at that price point. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. But clarity always helps both sides.

We’ve been around long enough to know when to take a lower-budget project to keep our crew working, and when to say no because it undervalues the entire ecosystem. But if you’re building your business off that kind of pricing, you’ll burn out before you break even.

Feedback, Briefs, and “Make It Pop” PTSD

Every creative has heard: “Make it pop.”

It’s one of those phrases that sounds like direction but doesn’t mean anything. One of our favorite lines from Captain Fantastic is when he tells his kids to never use the word interesting because it doesn’t describe anything. Same goes for “make it pop.”

Vague feedback is the most dangerous kind because it’s untraceable. You can’t measure success against it, and you won’t know you missed the mark until you’ve already delivered.

On the other hand, hyper-detailed briefs can be great as long as they’re communicated clearly. The only real fear there is whether you can execute. So we’ll take a detailed brief over a vague one any day.

And then there’s the in-between, the clients who say, “We trust your vision,” but then quietly override every choice you make. That’s when the Devil Wears Prada music starts playing.

If you want true creative magic, the best results come when clients actually trust the team they hired. When that happens, everyone wins. The work performs better, the content converts, and no one has to “fix it in post.”

Raising Your Prices (And Your Standards)

Every year, prices go up — rent, gear, groceries, eggs. So should your rates.

Raising your pricing annually isn’t greedy; it’s business hygiene. Send the email. Be transparent. Tell your clients you’re making adjustments and, if you want, offer a loyalty discount for long-term partners. The ones who respect you will stay, and the ones who don’t were never your long-term clients anyway.

At the end of the day, pricing is about self-respect and sustainability. You can’t build a thriving creative business if you’re operating on fear or fatigue.

If you’re doing solid work, hitting deadlines, and running a tight production, you’ve earned the right to charge accordingly.

The Bottom Line

We’ve all seen the “buffet effect” on set — once you open the door for extras, there’s always another plate being filled. It’s human nature.

So yes, sometimes clients ask for more than what’s realistic. But most of them aren’t villains, they’re just people under pressure. Our job is to protect the process while making them look good to the people above them.

Our internal motto is simple:

If we can, we will.

We’ll go the extra mile when it makes sense. But we’ll also draw boundaries when it doesn’t because saying yes to everything doesn’t serve anyone in the long run.

At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to do great work, make clients happy, and keep the creative industry sustainable.

The trick is learning when to say yes and when to say that’s not in the budget.

The full video breakdown in our latest episode of Lacroixs With Kirk is on our Instagram, and our DMs are always open for questions.