How to Win Big With a Small Team: The Okperfect Approach

How to cook with GAS

The night of November 14, 2024, is one I’ll likely never forget. To hear Okperfect’s name called on the Dolby Theater stage to accept a Grand Clio was an incredibly huge honor for a small business like ours. Take away the glitz and glory from that night, and what’s left is an immense sense of pride in the path we’ve chosen to take as a boutique studio competing with giants.

In an industry where everyone is so self-conscious about looking “small,” our tiny team has now been awarded 32 Clio awards in just four years of crafting social content. We’ve won for small campaigns, big campaigns, and everything in between—proving that size doesn’t dictate impact. So what’s the key component smaller studios like ours can leverage against the Goliaths? It certainly isn’t an expansive network, strength in numbers, or creative “genius.” It’s something far simpler—and far more essential: GAS.

What Is GAS?

GAS is … kinda crass. It’s unrefined and therefore might just be the perfect rallying cry for the little guy. It’s a company wide agreement to hone your craft. It’s about maximum consideration within tight deadlines, questioning norms, and striving for more than what clients might initially be content with. GAS—or “Give a Sh*t”—means being willing to self-audit, finding patterns in your thinking, and challenging yourself to discover new solutions. It’s not a “want to” mindset. It’s a “have to” mindset—the kind of commitment that makes excellence non-negotiable regardless of the budget.

In an industry still clinging to the outdated belief that “it’s not what you know, but who you know,” GAS is the ultimate differentiator.

Sure, creatives at bigger agencies care about the work too. But chances are, they have to log-in and fill out timesheets daily to track their efficiency. After all, more staff means more overhead, more turnover, more time spent on hiring, more emphasis on efficiency and margins. Within that business model, how much can creatives truly Give a Sh*t about every job? To paraphrase Howard Rattner in Uncut Gems, “This is how we win.”

Idealistic woo-woo aside, GAS is the fuel that can also help propel your small business to higher revenues using the following formula:

Prioritize portfolio over higher margins → Better creative output → More client trust → Bigger opportunities earned → Higher margins.

There are faster ways to more revenue. But the truth is, hundreds of new studios open their doors every year, and just as many close down. If your agency would rather take the stairs and build incrementally, leverage your GAS to fuel the following three principles that have helped our success:

Cultivate a Multidisciplinary Team

This has been both the most challenging and most rewarding aspect of building our business. While big agencies often win with top-tier specialists who occupy a single role in their creative “assembly line,” small studios win by investing in the growth of individual team members across multiple disciplines.

In just four years, we’ve trained production designers to illustrate and ink. We’ve helped illustrators become motion designers, graphic designers transition into editors, and editors master advanced 3D simulations. The list goes on.

Why is this so important to sustainability? Because the industry is full of talented creatives who have been exploited for their one “specialty” until that skill is commoditized. When the industry shifts, they’re left stranded. We’ve pledged to do things differently, focusing on individual growth so our team can adapt to the ever-changing landscape.

The difficult truth is that our team members may outgrow the salaries we can offer. When that happens, we can at least part amicably, knowing the growth was mutually beneficial. And while losing talent is hard, the long-term value of cultivating multidisciplinary creatives far outweighs the risk.

Cross Pollination

As we touched on earlier, big agencies often maximize efficiency by siloing roles and streamlining processes. While this works well for margins, it can lead to isolation, a rigid hierarchy that breeds fiefdoms, lack of collaboration, and, ultimately, a stifled creative environment.

At Okperfect, we embrace cross-pollination. Knowledge-sharing and collaboration are at the core of what we do. Here, graphic designers pitch scripts for editors. Editors suggest visuals for motion assets. Producers have ideas for type systems. Everyone participates in ideation meetings and has a voice in shaping the final product.

You might be thinking, “That sounds like chaos.” And sometimes, it is. But it’s never a waste of time. This collaborative approach ensures everyone feels heard, valued, and fulfilled, creating a more inclusive and creative environment. It’s also where some of our best ideas have come from.

A Calm Sense of Urgency™

Time management in creative work can be tricky, especially when deadlines are tight. At Okperfect, we’ve adopted a philosophy we coined a “Calm Sense of Urgency,” built on three principles:

A) Focus on Process

A couple of years ago, we hit a wall. As our workload increased, so did our stress levels. To address this, we created a comprehensive digital handbook outlining every process for every discipline. It was a painstaking effort, but the result gave our team clarity and direction. With clear steps to follow, we no longer felt paralyzed by deadlines—we simply focused on the process to get us there.

B) Game-Planning

Every morning, we hold a team-wide “game-plan” session. Each creative outlines their tasks, estimates the time needed, and takes ownership of their schedule. This builds a habit of getting organized in the beginning of the day to allow for “deep work” throughout the day. It empowers each creative to build momentum as they cross out each task after completion, and insight on when to “cut bait” and move on. Think of “Game-Planning” as your solution to subverting the dreaded timesheet.

C) Proof of Work

When someone struggles with a job, we rely on “Proof of Work.” By retracing the process, we can identify exactly where things fell apart—whether it was rushing through a step or skipping one entirely. This keeps feedback objective and constructive, helping us improve over time.

These principles empower our team to approach every project, big or small, with the same level of focus and dedication. There’s no scrambling to overdeliver on large campaigns and no coasting through smaller ones—just a steady, purposeful Calm Sense of Urgency. Most importantly, this framework keeps our team inspired, engaged, and protected from burnout.

In the end, “winning big” isn’t about awards or revenue. It’s about finding fulfillment in the work itself and building something sustainable. We’re all so fortunate to create in this industry that we forget about the hundreds of small studios out there filled with talented, ambitious creatives who are eager for an opportunity to knock the door down.

To those studios: We’re rooting for you. Be yourself, use your size to your advantage and put all that GAS to good use.