One of my primary goals for 2020 is to be more active on LinkedIn. In preparation for achievement of this goal, I recently overhauled my profile to provide connections--and potential connections--a better understanding of who I am, and what my professional mission is. I spent a great deal of time ruminating on what my profile’s headline should read, on how I could best summarize my purpose, and the purpose of Motion Source, in a single sentence. 

This was a fantastic exercise, though a difficult one. Whenever any of us are asked to encapsulate something as significant as the objective of our work, it is always a challenge. How do we condense 40+ hours of our week into one line of text? How do we compress the intent of our vocation into a handful of words? Here is what I came up with:

“Creating branded video productions that move your audience to take action.”

In essence, this is the raison d’etre of Motion Source: our reason for existence. And, as simple as it sounds, it took a great deal of thought to produce. In the past, when asked what it was that we did, I would tell people that we are “a video production company”. The problem with this is that, while it calls out a specific profession, it does nothing to explain the true purpose of what we do. And, instead of following up this short descriptor with that purpose, I would typically expound with “most of our work is creating videos for corporate, commercial and nonprofit clients to use on the web or television.” Again, I wasn’t illuminating our true purpose; I was offering additional detail, but wasn’t getting to the heart of the enterprise. 

Our true purpose is that bolded sentence above: creating branded video productions that move your audience to take action. It isn’t simply the act of making a video, and it isn’t the industries that we primarily service--it is the mission that we stake all of our efforts on. This single sentence broadcasts to the world why we are in business, and what it is that lies at the center of the work that we do for our clients. And once I took some time to reflect on our values, and how we approach each and every project that comes through our doors, it was blatantly obvious. In fact, this philosophy is present within the very first interaction that we undertake with a lead. The first question that I ask any lead being “What are you intending for this video to accomplish?” Because that’s the single most significant aspect of any of the work that we do. As we consistently remind ourselves, it isn’t about making a video, it is about what that video can do for the client. Not a single person is interested in producing a video, they are interested in promulgating their message, educating their clients, increasing sales. Video is simply a means to an end, a path by which to reach those goals. 

We’ve known this from the very first day that we opened our doors. We have operated under this philosophy for 12 years of being in business. Yet, we haven’t always done a fantastic job of communicating this purpose to the wider world. Instead, we focused on wearing the coat of our industry, not the badge of our aim. Such a simple task--writing a short headline for a social media profile--has engendered such a profound effect on how I communicate my company to others. And, I highly recommend that you consider undergoing a similar thought exercise. 

So, what does Motion Source actually do? Yes, we are a video production company. Yes, the main categories we service are corporate, commercial, and nonprofit. Yes, we come up with creative concepts, write scripts, storyboard, shoot, cut, beautify and package audio/visual content. But that isn’t the point. The point is that we create branded video productions to move your audience to take action. 

That is what we do.

That is what we can do for you.

Now, what do you actually do?