When we rebranded, we decided to create three pillars for Agape Creative Studios. These three pillars are listed on our home page. We interviewed Ashley, our co-owner about the three pillars.
AGAPE: Agape has three pillars, can you talk a little bit about the first pillar, “Indie Studio”?
ASHLEY: One of the key words I could use to describe us as an indie studio is ‘simple’. We focus on what’s important. We keep our team small so that we can focus on the client and make sure sure that their story is being translated from the moment we start planing to when we execute to after the project is completed. We keep things simple because that’s what matters. It’s not about us, it’s about the client, keeping things small and collaborative, were able to really hone in on the client’s story.
AGAPE: So do you guys sub-contract multiple people or do you have the same people working on the same projects?
ASHLEY: Everything is in-house. Something we realized after being in business for 6 years, in order to translate the style that we shoot, the way that we handle the storytelling aspect of our projects, the people on our team really need to be on their ‘A’ game at all times. When you have multiple freelancers, that just doesn’t happen when you’re trying build consistency in your projects. If you’re going to have someone that’s working for you consistently, then they should be part of your team. This is something we’re constantly working towards. Also, one of the things I love about Agape is that we want all of our team members to be on the same page when it comes to our vision.
AGAPE: The second pillar is community, why is that important to you as a business?
ASHLEY: Naturally, community involvement is something that happens because myself and the co-owner, Sergio, are individually very involved in the community. But as a business owner, I know that for us in Downtown Fresno and the Mural District, being involved in the community really determines it’s success. To be devoted to Downtown Fresno and the Mural District, we need to be involved in what happens there. We can’t just be a business and close our doors after 5pm and not talk to anybody.
We need to be building those relationships with residents, we need to be building relationships with other businesses, even if they are competition, it doesn’t matter. I think that in order for our city to really grow and succeed as a whole, there’s need to be a lot more collaboration and that’s why we decided to choose “Community” as one of our pillars because we along with other business owners in the area, who we now call friends, really believe in businesses backing the community and the residents, because when we’re all working together, Fresno is going to be a much better place.
AGAPE: The third pillar is stewardship, why did you choose stewardship and what is the meaning of that for Agape?
ASHLEY: When we were deciding on our last pillar, we had thrown around a lot of ideas about what would be best. Service was one idea. We thought, ‘Oh, well customer service, that’s good’, but when we really started thinking about the way that we interact with our clients, it’s just so much more personal than customer service. We really get to know our clients, we become friends with them. When I’m doing ‘customer service’, I can be doing it without having a relationship with them. When you’re stewarding someone, you are taking care of something that is valuable to them.
When someone shares with us their story, if it’s a business, it’s their livelihood. I mean, we need steward those visions, we need to steward those livelihoods, we need to steward those passions. We wanted to use a word that was stronger and more personal than customer service. We like to go above and beyond for our clients. We like to develop that relationship with them so that they can trust us to tell their story well.
Hopefully this gives a bigger glimpse into our three pillars. We look forward to sharing your story!