April 3, 2017

Meet Pete Guzzo of Kestum Bilt in Mid Town

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pete Guzzo.

Pete, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve personally been involved in my line of work since college. I discovered that a local Public Access station taught you the ins and outs of running a television show and ever since then the film and video production industry has been the only thing on my mind. I produced and directed an indie film in 2002 and went on to produce/direct several other films winning awards at film festivals around the world.

I decided to get my MBA (concentrating in Marketing and Project Management) in 2007 and after graduation I was hired as a Director/Producer at a boutique production company.

While working as a Producer/Director, I decided that one day I wanted to start my own production company, but operate it so my clients always had my best intentions. Meaning that I would create a collection that best fit each client’s line of work and each production. And that’s exactly what we do at Kestum Bilt.

We create teams that best fit each client’s job. Each production will be custom built with our team of directors, producers, editors, stylists and writers.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Absolutely not.

When I first wrote my business plan I decided to take my approach to business and not skew from what I knew would work regardless of hard times. I had a path to follow and no matter what happened I stuck to this path.

We started strong producing content for national brands, but our 6 months of initial success was followed by 4 months of struggle. I was still trying to create my new business development team because if I am executing work as a producer I’m not going after new clients and work. That team was not in place yet so my sales efforts declined during our 6-month stretch and we felt it.

I could have started to stray from what I knew would work and take any job that came my way, but I knew if I started working on jobs that were not beneficial for the company than we would lose focus on what it means to be successful. And sure enough passing on numerous jobs during that 4-month drought and using that time to find the right production finally worked out and we finished that year very strong.

Since then our new business development team has been coming together strongly.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Kestum Bilt story. Tell us more about the business.
We’re a unique collective of talented, creative minds offering a collaborative partnership that’s grounded in strategic thinking and compelling content. We’ve honed our craft working 25+ years in branded digital/social video content and commercial and broadcast production. Our team of directors, producers, editors and creatives have a shared love of craftsmanship and quality. We believe that a relentless attention to detail makes the difference between good and great.

I’m very proud that we can adapt very quickly to any job that comes our way. For instance, during two months of back to back jobs our team was ever changing. One week myself and one team were on a race track shooting a Cooper Tire production, weeks later I have a completely different team producing a tourism/travel campaign and the following week my very strong multi-cultural team and myself were producing a NAPA Auto Parts Hispanic campaign.

I’m also very proud of our efficiency to work from anywhere with anyone saving our clients time and money.

We use technology to our advantage so our clients can view our edits in real time with us no matter where they are located. We use programs like CineSync and Frankie, which are extremely helpful

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We win a lot of our work by good old fashion sales techniques, dropping by our client’s offices to meet them in person and pitch our company.

We do luck out from time to time and catch a Creative Director or an Ad Agency Producer just at the right moment which allows us time to talk to them instead of a quick hello.

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