Meet Alex Fife of ATFilms in Scottsdale

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Fife.

Alex, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have worked in the construction industry for most of my life, and one day while working as a manager for a general contractor, I realized nobody knew who we were. The company I worked for, was building 1 to 2 custom homes a year, and was capable of doing 4x that, but we didn’t have the customers. So after a short learning curve seeing company after company fail to provide the leads that they promised, I realized that there were companies selling complete custom builds all through their Instagram page. And I don’t mean literally doing the transaction on instagram. But sourcing the lead from a follower who has made up their mind on who they want to build their house just based off of the content that they see on Instagram. This blew me away, so I immediately got to building our company instagram page, later that year, the company dissolved. But, I was shoulder deep in contractor social media, so I started my own 3rd party page not associated with any company, just highlighting builders in my area, and reposting cool projects that were going on at the time. My page took off, and I slowly realized that this is what I wanted to do for a living. I continued to grow my page over the next year, learning more and more about social media and content creation. In Spring of 2019 I took a job with Amazon managing inbound customer service call traffic. It was a work from home job, which meant when I was not working on a task, I would be watching YouTube videos. I realized that video content was the only thing missing from my Instagram page, with most of the content coming from my phone camera, so I decided in January of 2020 to buy a mirrorless camera. Immediately I just started offering to film any and all events, products, literally anything I could. It took 2 weeks to get a paid job filming a corporate meeting. I made a way-to-long edit, but it was good enough to get the attention of a few people, and from there it just began to snowball. By mid February, I had secured a full time client, that would be the beginning of ATFilms. It seems like that was last week, but here we are in December and I still have that client, plus about a dozen more.

This journey has been incredible, our beginning may have not been so long ago, but that does not define where we are going.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Things have been moving so quickly it is easy to overlook the hurdles along the way. But I would be lying if I said there weren’t any. Like any new business owner there are moments of self doubt and uncertainty, but there are also overwhelming moments of gratitude and appreciation. Since founding ATFilms, I have found myself working more than full time hours, having to work later than I ever did with any one of my jobs, and holding myself accountable for every little detail. I eat, sleep, and breathe this company, but I know that it will be successful. Given the times we are facing, there have been minor set-backs due to the pandemic. But being a new company, with no expectations, it did not affect my ability to grow my business. Fortunately for me, I chose to get into media at the perfect time, right before we went into lockdowns. Which prompted a lot of small businesses to start digital advertising, because if you are like the rest of us, your screen time probably went up significantly over the last few months. The timing couldn’t have been more in my favor to start shooting video and our rapid growth is a result of that. I started this company by simply buying a camera and filming whatever was in front of me at the time, and many, many hours of practicing.

We work with such great companies that I can’t say there has been a single complaint, or any negative feedback. My name is listed under “Over-Communication” in the dictionary so maintaining healthy relationships with clients is not a challenge. I am ready for whatever lies ahead, this journey has been incredible so far, I can’t wait to see what the future has for ATFilms.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about ATFilms – what should we know?
ATFilms is a full service media production company, I found that if you have the equipment and the people to do something there is no reason to say no. Now, with that being said, we dont film EVERYTHING. There are a few industries we dont film and weddings, I just have no desire to enter that market. We have built a strong reputation in the lead generation industry, specializing in UGC(User Generated Content) providing content for national brands, such as CVS, Walgreen, and many more. But I have also built strong relationships with many local business owners and provide weekly content for many companies in the Phoenix area. From social media content to large scale projects, that can take months to complete. We provide content for companies such as The Barn Door Store, Bell Bank Mortgage, Kindology Designs, 7Tool Athletics, Snow Oral Care, Kimball Equipment Co,and many more. One day we might be knee-deep in mud filming heavy equipment and the next day be shooting 18k gold necklaces on beautiful models. The ability to do what I love for work everyday, does not make it feel like work at all. The freedom to create and tell a story is the best job I could ask for. Recently we have begun shooting branded video advertising for DTC ecommerce brands, which have been my new favorite projects to work on. A majority of our clients advertise via Instagram and Facebook and sell via their website or that given social media platform. That means the content needs to be current, and designed for the target customer. So we back our video concepts with market research, supporting color schemes, layouts, formats, and many other factors that contribute to generating sales. We have also done videos for big YouTube Channels and Instagram Influencers, creating day in the life content as well as sales material for their products and services. Working with big names is great for promoting the business, but it also means that we are contributing to the final product instead of creating it from start to finish. Which is not all that bad, there is a lot of opportunity to learn when working with larger productions companies.

Something I have learned from one of my most successful clients, is that we are not meant to be the best at everything, and finding the right people with the right skills will be more advantageous for the growth of your business than trying to do it all yourself. And I live by that, over the last 2 months, I have brought on two employees to help scale the business and it has been the best decision I have made so far. We currently provide Videography, Photography, and Graphic Design to meet all of the needs of our clients projects. ATFilms is not your average media company, we provide innovative content to a vast range of industries, and focus on storytelling in the highest quality.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I am incredibly grateful for the relationships that I have formed and for the clients who have evolved this business to what it is today. There are many people who I think deserve credit for what I have accomplished so far so I will try to cover everyone. First off shoutout to my parents, I, one wouldn’t be here without them, but they have supported me and this business since day one. Probably the biggest influence on my success has been Anthony Sarandrea, recognized as one of the world’s top customer generators, I have learned so much from him, and he has been a great mentor to me since I started this endeavour. Another person of influence who has been there since the start is Nick Deregis, someone that everyone seems to know, he has been a huge contributor to building the network that I have today. I am beyond grateful for the relationship I have with these two guys. Another big shout out to the King Family with The Barn Door Store, I have done video projects for I think almost everyone in the family, and they have been nothing but supportive of me and my business. I have to give a big thank you to my team, and everyone who has contributed to any past productions. And finally to my daughter Adelyn, who is the love of my life, reminding me everyday to work hard and achieve greatness.

Contact Info:

• Phone: 480-696-1202
• Email: info@at-films.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atfilms.co/

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