Creatives Grab Coffee - The Power of Niching Down (ft. Foxal Media) | Creatives Grab Coffee 71

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

In episode 71 of Creatives Grab Coffee, we sit down with Dave Lisowski from Foxal Media to dive deep into the power of niching down in the video production industry. Dave shares his journey of finding a unique focus within the blue-collar market, and how honing in on a specific niche has allowed him to build a scalable, sustainable business. Whether you’re a video production professional looking to specialize or an entrepreneur aiming to stand out in a crowded market, this conversation is packed with insights on how to create a successful and streamlined business by targeting the right clients.Chapters00:00 - Introduction to Creatives Grab Coffee02:18 - Meet Dave Lisowski from Foxal Media04:30 - The Power of Branded Merchandise in Video Production08:25 - Challenges and Solutions in Creating Quality Merch10:56 - Building Client Relationships with Personal Touches14:25 - Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Video Production19:58 - The Value of Good Customer Service22:02 - Overcoming Client Hesitations and Building Trust30:32 - Niching Down: Why Foxal Media Focuses on Blue-Collar Businesses33:18 - Lessons Learned from Targeting the Wrong Market37:14 - The Ideal Client for a Niche Video Production Business43:46 - Crafting a Scalable Business Model in Video Production51:41 - How Niching Down Fuels Passion and Focus56:20 - Scaling Your Business Without Overhead01:02:07 - The Future of Foxal Media: Scaling Through Systems01:06:00 - Scaling Your Business with Freelancers vs. Full-Time Team01:10:15 - The Pros and Cons of Running a Lean Production Company01:15:30 - Why Dave Avoids Growing into a Large Production House01:20:45 - The Benefits of Licensing Systems for Video Production01:26:30 - Developing a Flexible Business Model for Long-Term Success01:31:45 - Advice for New Video Production Entrepreneurs01:36:00 - Closing Thoughts: Niching Down and the Future of Foxal MediaSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140🎞️ Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

Welcome to Creative Scrap Coffee, the podcast on the business of video production. Creative Scrap Coffee is hosted by Dario Nuri and Kirill Lazerov from Labs Productions. Our goal is to share knowledge and experiences from video production professionals around the world. Whether you're a freelancer looking to start your own business or a seasoned business owner aiming to scale your company, this is the show for you. Join us as we develop a community of like-minded creatives looking to learn and help each other grow. Welcome to the business of video production. Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee. Before we get started with the show, let's go over today's sponsors. Do you have a shoot in Toronto?

Do you need crew or a strong production partner to help you with your project? Laps Productions is one of the top production companies in Toronto and your go-to video partner. With our strong creative skills and extensive network, we can help you achieve your goal. Laps Productions is able to offer you production services, white label services, or finder

fees for project handoffs. Reach out to us on our website at LAPSProductions.com to learn more. My name is Mehran, welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto. We are here to help you guys out with all production sizes. Feel free to contact us to get a quote if you're a production house and you're looking for lighting, camera packages or lighting and group plan packages. You can see our contact information in the link below.

We are more than happy to help you guys out. Make sure you follow and subscribe to creativesgrapcoffee.com. Thank you. Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Matt. Welcome to Audio Process. We are a boutique audio company doing location sound, sound design, post sound, ADR, Foley. We service equipment. We do all your audio needs here in Toronto.

We got you covered. Come on down. AudioProcess.ca. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and all of the other internet things to creativesgrabcoffee.com. They'll be waiting for you, I'll be waiting for you, and we're all going to have a real good time. And now, let's begin the show. And we're live.

So hi everyone, today we've got Dave from Foxel Media. Dave, how's it going man? Doing fantastic man, how How you guys doing good? I love how you have a shirt with the logo on and everything felt right, you know choosing the shirts in the morning What are we gonna do? Well? Easy choice. I always go for like black shirts I but we've been talking about getting branded laps or a creative grab coffee shirts It's it's hard to find it's hard to find brands that one are comfortable for everyone too.

You know, that's the other thing. Or sometimes a lot of the time, the shirts that you get that are decent, they have like their logos that are like really big. Or if you wanna get just with your logo, it's usually not the best, especially if you need to buy in batches. You know, the classic Gildan tee is always gilded is awful, man

It's the worst why the worst dude so hit or miss. Yeah, I feel you on that. These ones are like, alright I think they're like Hanes or something. But yeah, Hanes is just as bad as gilded man I you know I was I really had high hopes because I spent a lot of time before getting These shirts like finding the perfect t-shirt Hanes black label came through and then I ordered it from the website for like the printing company. Complete switch up. Felt like I had been duped. You know what I think the best way to do it is is you buy your own type of shirt like so from whatever retailer you like. Like I really love reigning champs so I was thinking

like we just buy a bunch of reigning champ stuff and then bring it to like a DTG Provider and then just just do it like that I feel like that's the best way to do it because if you go to someone that also provides The printing and the clothing like the clothing always stinks like the quality is terrible You know what I did is I got I went and I bought I waited till Adidas was having like they're like blowout sales I saw that. I bought a bunch of that year's basic soccer jerseys, just white and black, and then I got little patches

printed up with our logo on it. And then I took them to a soccer shop, buddy of mine worked at a soccer shop, and he pressed them on, and then just put media on the back. Like the player name. Oh, that's clever. I had these I had like I saw those photos on your website I saw them. Yeah, good, dude I was just like I had this big vision for like this would be cool

You know like I had I even wanted to do more stuff to it but I was like let's just get this going and dude they always get compliments and they're pretty comfy and I've got no complaints other than the fact that like if I had to do it again, I'd get them stitched because the heat eventually kind of like, oh, it comes off. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But like, hey, moral of the story is buy your own stuff. Go get it made somewhere. I think it works out to be a little bit better.

We lucked out with these hats because they they provide they had 47 brand as one of their, I guess suppliers or whatever, all these suppliers and they're pretty legit, I'm not gonna lie. The hats look good. You guys look good. If anyone's just listening right now and not watching, just picture this, they look good, all right?

My God, first few compliments on the show. It took 60, what, five, how many, what are we at? No, no, you, no, no, no, like the public, how many, what are we at, seven? So it's no? No, no, no, like the public at this moment, I think we're at 64. But public we're at 64. This particular one I think is like, might be 70 or something.

Yeah. Flattered to be the first. You're flattered to flatter, flattered to flatter. Exactly, exactly. It's funny, we had a similar idea where we were gonna do the same thing with patches and put those on our own custom shirts. But there was also that same issue that you just ran into,

which was, are we gonna do the ones where you kind of just like press it on, or do you do stitching, but then you still have to go to someone to stitch it together. And it's like, there's no perfect solution to merch nowadays. I'm kind of against- I'm missing out on thousands of dollars.

I'm kind of against the stitching, Kirill, because I notice some shirts I have that have an embroidery. I find that sometimes it irritates my skin, because the stitching that goes through the inner layer and whatnot. So maybe just heat press is the best. The heat press, I would say the heat press, a lot of them. No, he had an issue with it.

He was saying. Well, a lot of them held off for a while, but the vinyl lettering, if I were to go over heat press. No, he had an issue with it. He was saying. Well, a lot of them held up for a while, but like the vinyl lettering, like if I were to go over and do it again, here's the inside scoop for anybody that's trying to get, you know, solid looking merch. You get like the vinyl heat press, like the heat transfer, the vinyl transfer stuff,

cause that's what the lettering is. The lettering's held up fantastic. It looks awesome. Then also you're not getting like the, where the patch is, is like, it comes off, it's kind of like bulky, you can feel it there a little bit. But if you just have like vinyl transfer all the way across, oh my God, it looks awesome.

And that's, I just wanted to mirror like what like professional sports teams were looking like, cause I just, I don't know, like how can we look a little bit different, always trying to do something different. And all the pro teams now, they don't have stuff embroidered most of the time, they have it like directly printed on because that's the performance thing. And I'm like,

look, if we're gonna be out there moving around, let's have that. I might be mistaken. But I think the material material you're using for the shirt also affects like how well it holds up because I think if you use like polyester, it doesn't hold up that well. But if you use like 100% cotton, then it might integrate a little better. I might be wrong on this, but that the science sounds right. Let's just let's make that a statement now.

Yeah, the non-scientists have heard it here. You should have done it like a spot like a shirt sponsor. You know how like all the soccer teams have like just giant letters right on the right on like the center of the shirt. That's that's that's the game plan. That'll be the the version two batch because I have like a few different like specific offers and like different packages that we've kind of built out now too that I'm like all right I'm not gonna like go get a sponsor. I'll just sponsor it myself and just put like like the one is impossible to ignore. It's like short form content. I'm like let me just put

like the logo for that right across the center and then like, put something on the sleeve for like one of the other things. Like screw it, let's just, we're gonna do it. Let's lean all the way in and like blow it out. So we'll get there. But like you said, you wanna do merch right, you wanna like really do it right,

you're just dumping money into it. I'm like, there's a lot of other things that I really wanna. We got other stuff to be spending money on. We were thinking the same, and I made Karel hold off on the hats for a couple of years, because when I saw the initial price tag,

I'm like, yo, 800 bucks, we don't need to spend this money right now. Do we really need to order 30 hats right now? Do we know who to give them to? I regret waiting that long though. It took a while but like when it sometimes it also depends on the suppliers you find like there's so many different suppliers out there when it comes to merch and you never know the quality control is all over the place and I found one that was in surprisingly is

very close to where I live so I went in person to kind of see some of the stuff in their process and it seemed more legit. Yeah, Stitchy Lizard, Stitchy Lizard, those guys, they really came through for us. And one cool thing that they did for us was they gave us the option to choose different colors for the different hats. So even though you have a minimum of like 12 or 15 hats

that you have to get, usually it's like 12 or 15 of the same color. But when he said like, oh, you can get like three blue, you can get three black or four red. It was like perfect. So then that gives us a bit of variety at the same time, but also forces us. So like Dario would get like six hats, I would get six hats, but you know, a couple of different colors and see that's what it is it all comes down to suppliers as well but you know we found that buying merch that is it's like a one-size-fits-all is usually the best bang for buck you know either like mugs or hats you know shirts it's a little bit harder to it's really hard to kind of those mugs we still got to offload i got a case of those things yeah my old place like i don't even know where to put them.

Dude, it's just, it's a client package. You just, if you're like, a lot of the time it's interesting because we're delivering like digital files, right? But a couple clients in the past year, I've delivered hard drives because they bought the raw footage and I'm like, all right, let's,

how can we make this a little bit more interesting here than just, here's your WD like packaged thing You know so I just buy like a little like a shirt box put some like Decorative stuffing in there and then like I would double-side tape like the hard drive box to the back and then I put like just Like Starbucks gift cards and stuff just little things to like, yo, thank you guys for choosing us. You've already got mugs.

Give them a little mug, give them a little care package, give them the thing, thanks for being our client. Boom, all of a sudden, they're drinking their coffee, they're thinking of you. We need more videos. That's what it does. I'd love to see how you put it together in terms of all the aspects of it.

Cause yeah, like that's, that is one other part of the whole client experience as well is what happens when you finish a project with them. Um, it's, it's, it varies from company to company. Like we've experimented, you know, obviously like with mugs giving them, you know, cause we actually, the mugs we got were really high quality and we always got compliments on, on how like durable they they are because so many mugs though these they break i've been using ours like daily for the past yeah how many years like when was the last when did we buy them carol like four years ago or so i think it was like something like four years ago

but they hold up well they hold up really well if you don't put them in the dishwasher either, they don't scratch up and like they still hold up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, I've been, there's so many different merch things. Like this is the part of my brain, like I think everybody in this type of field has something that their brain defaults to of just like their comfort zone. Like some people think about like creative edits

or creative shots. Some people think more about like the business and marketing and branding side of it. My brain's always like, what cool different thing can we do to stand out? Because like, before I did all of this, I worked with musicians and bands and like in that world, there's so little budget most of the time.

And so, especially with like the, where I was working, which was just local and regional bands. So you're trying to make something really awesome that people are gonna care about with very little money usually, or very little resources. So it's like, we're not gonna be able to do it better than the big guys, but we can do it different. Like there's a lot of guerrilla tactics

and a lot of different things that you can like, creative spins on things that you can do. And you hear a lot of guerrilla tactics and a lot of different things that you can like creative spins on things you can do. And you hear a lot of these like, like 21 Pilots is a band that's been doing that for the, for since the beginning of time. It's just like, let's like boots on the ground. Let's go be creative about how we market this. Let's go like interact with people. And so I've, I'm always like reverting back to that way of thinking of like, what is something

different that we can do that's gonna have way outsized return for the effort or time or money that's gonna be put into it? And so even like I was talking about with the shirts, I'm like, all right, every single production company or business has the plain shirts with the logo or they've got the polos with the little

embroidered thing there and like how can we do something different like I that's where the the the which McCall it's came in soccer jerseys and people are like oh I really like that it's like totally different I never see that I'm like that was the goal thank you thank you for that I've gotten comments online like I've put up behind the scenes on YouTube and people are like, really interesting choice of like, we usually just wear all black on set. And I'm like, well, yeah, I don't want to be invisible on set. Like I'm not there doing like this production where we're like not meant to be there at all. If we're there, we're meant to be there. Like, I want you to

know we're here. this is a production day. It's a big thing, let's get stoked about it. So I think it's just, when it even comes back to the merch stuff and the mugs and any of that type of stuff, I'm always trying to think of it, of how can we do something that's gonna make people go, that was pretty cool. That was a little different, that was pretty cool. Like that was a little different, that was pretty cool.

I had a very similar idea like about a year, year and a half ago where I was just kind of like writing notes and brainstorming ideas on different things for the business and a soccer jersey uniform was something that I wanted to kind of explore but I knew Dario wouldn't go for it. So I'm like, Dario's not, he's not gonna wear that.

So I'm like, ugh, like what's the point? You know what though? It's nice to see that someone is good, that's working now. As soon as he was talking about that, I'm like, I wonder if Kyo brought it up in the past. And I was like, I wonder if I shot it down. I like hearing it though. I like hearing it though.

We should probably implement that now. Here's the thing, Dario, sometimes, so this is actually funny. when you have a business partner, sometimes when you hear ideas from your own business partner, you accept it, but sometimes you're like, you need to sit on it and then you need to hear it from someone else. And that is like one of the biggest things from Dario, is that he needs to hear sometimes an idea. Did you do the same thing? You do the same thing. Don't even get started. Like, I'll call him up and I'm like, yo, I had this idea, I'm pitching him on this idea and then right away, he's like going against it.

I'm like, bro, just say yes, I just need you to say yes right now. I think there's a thought experiment in there where it's like, what would happen if we did say yes? What would be the worst case scenario or the best case scenario? We'd be millionaires by now. Did this thing, there it is, or the worst case scenario or the best case scenario? We'd be millionaires by now. Did this thing. There it is. Or the worst case scenario, you could be broke. So somewhere in between is the likely outcome. I don't know though. When you, when you said the worst cases we took, we get broke, like, I don't know about.

I never had those kinds of ideas. Call it cure a lot of this thing. Let's put it all on Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hear me out. I know we're doing this video thing, however. There's this talk called GameStop. Exactly. I like what you mentioned though about how the key with whatever you're doing within your business is not to look at, like look at what other people are doing

and what the standard is, but not to be thinking from the perspective of, I need to do that better, but I got to do it better for me. That is essentially what a lot of businesses need to kind of look at. It's like, how will you do it different in a way that is more efficient for you as a business that is more applicable, right? Because sometimes I find a lot of, you see this with a lot of the bigger companies, they're always trying to like one up each other, you know, based on what the other person is doing,

but it's like, what is actually the right approach for that business itself? Especially with us, smaller businesses, smaller medium-sized businesses, every dollar goes a long way, right? And you have to be very strategic about everything that you're putting your investment and energy into. And that's why it took us a while to invest

in just something as simple as hats. Whereas like sometimes you see other people just drop so many. Cause like before these hats, for example, like I was looking and researching, it was really hard to find other suppliers. And then there was one supplier, I tested out something one year

where we got like a couple hats, like two or three hats, which were okay. But then we noticed they were pretty bad. They pretty bad kyle like i said the bill was like flat i don't know see flat bills it depends on people no no it was meant to be it was meant to be like curved but it came like flat it came a little bit flatter yeah way flat yeah so i think that's what scared me of like the whole hat idea i was like oh if the whole batch is gonna be like this i I don't want to do it Yeah, and then they like some of the hats were printed poorly as well

And so like I complained they sent some new ones, but we were like, okay So we're gonna avoid this supplier and then finally we found another supplier. That was a lot better We found a hat that we both liked that that's the other thing when you have a business partner You gotta make sure the stuff you guys are getting you both like to write It's not like one person likes one thing and then the other person doesn't, right? Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said about that right there because you can take that, that's not an isolated experience right there.

That's a universal experience to businesses across the board here. It's like we had a bad experience with this supplier and so now whether you actively or kind of subconsciously think it, it's like, oh maybe we shouldn't do hats. Like is this how our experience is going to be with all merch suppliers? Are all hats going to be like not what we expected? Is the possibility to have the great hat we want even out there? And your brain starts to run with this

and it's so much harder to take that second chance again because there's so much more of a perceived risk. And that's the same thing that happens with businesses. Like it's such a different conversation when you're talking about selling video or doing a video project with someone who's never done it before in business and it's their first go at it versus someone who's maybe hired some

of them before had an experience they weren't thrilled about and now they're finally back up to the saddle because they still want it to happen they still want that outcome but they know like this isn't gonna be as easy as I thought it was they have these objections, these hesitations, and these different consideration points. And if you can be the person or the business who understands that and knows how to address those things, and of course you can actually provide a better experience,

you are in a way better spot than anybody else. So I mean, think about that. Like, what was it about the next company, or what was it about the company you finally went with that after all those bad experiences made you go, yeah, I think these are the guys we wanna go with. Yeah, oh, you're asking. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I think I mentioned it briefly. I love how you were tying it into also like the into the whole business side of things you know with video production because like Everyone experiences similar things like that as well but in terms of like what made us go with the with the newer company was the One the customer service aspect was actually a big thing the the constant communication the willingness to talk was actually a big thing. The constant communication, the willingness to talk,

inviting, actually one thing that I think that I really liked was that they invited me to come over and see some of the merch that they had. They basically have a whole floor of all their products and they have so many things, things I wouldn't have even expected. Aside from water bottles, they had those very high end type water bottles they had for people who get like their name on golf clubs or golf

products and things like that. They had such a huge variety and just kind of like seeing the products and feeling it you know as it was one aspect. So again, it really depends on your business and what works to kind of help kind of get people comfortable with you. You have to figure out what that is for you as a business And I think that's what they did really well. The willingness to adjust and give us options to make the purchase a little bit better as well was great. So I think that customer service and forward interaction was the main selling point. So that's what got us on board. There it is. There it is. I think that's something that everybody's gotta keep in mind. It's like, hey, Pete, not everyone's gonna be ready

to just throw money at you. You gotta meet them where they're at. Yeah. And have you experienced something like that as well? Because you were talking about it, how like video production, or like clients sometimes have a bad experience with a video production company and then come to us still needing video,

but you know, they're gonna be a little bit more reserved. They're gonna wanna probably play it safe a little bit more. Like, is there any experience that kind of comes to mind where you kind of dealt with that? You don't have to say obviously company names or anything, but like more so the story. Yeah, yeah, I think of actually a client that I'm working with now.

It was a recent, way more recent experience where it wasn't particularly video, but he had tried hiring or bringing on or tried working with a couple different people for marketing. So he's got this business, it's newer, and he's trying to get traction with it. And he's like, I am just, I feel like people have made these grand promises and then things haven't panned out.

And I'm just, I know I need to make this work. I know I need to try something, but I just, I feel like everybody in the world of marketing, you bring something up and then they go and they turn and say, oh yeah, no, you don't wanna do that. You don't wanna go to those people because XYZ. It's like, here's how we do it better. And I'll tell you right here, I'm never that guy. If somebody else does an approach that I don't you right here, like I'm never that guy. Like if somebody else does an approach

that I don't necessarily agree with, I'm never gonna bad mouth that person. I'm just gonna say, you know, there's multiple different ways to approach project. That's not necessarily the way that I do it. I'd love to explain kind of how we would handle it. But you know, that was something that kind of stood out to him.

Like the key points that made him choose to work with us for video content creation and marketing was the way the ideas were presented. Because dude, you got to just ask questions and listen. Because if you're doing more of the talking in a conversation like that, discovery meeting or a sales meeting or whatever, you are not doing it right. Because it's like running a meeting with a doctor. If you walk in and the doctor keeps talking about all his expertise and all the people he's helped

and lives he's transformed and then he just says, okay, here's what we're going to do is we're going to give you this medication. There's no idea what the hell is even going on with you. All of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, okay, I'm going to go take these pills you prescribed me. And it's probably it's not even going to line up. So all of a sudden now, that's that's what other people do is like you need to you need to choose our solution here. On the flip side, it's like you said that flexibility with the merch company where they were like, yeah, like, tell us what you're looking for. We've got this, this, and this. Same type of thing. I'm talking to them and I'm just saying like, look,

tell me your situation. What do you actually want to happen here? What if we're talking again in 12 months and we're celebrating why, what needs to have happened for you to consider this success? And then if we can make something happen and based on what that situation is and the goals are there of the company and everything, if I see that there's a way we can do something that might work, I'm going to talk about it. If not, I'm going to mention that too. It's just honesty. It's just being honest and setting the expectations of what can or hopefully will happen reasonably but also what could not happen and then how to course correct.

So we're doing monthly content creation and posting out organically and I've had great experiences with that historically. So I described that situation and I said, look, if it doesn't go the way that we expect, what we do is at the end of the month, when we're getting ready for the next batch, we do a strategy session where we'll review what happens, we'll take note of that, and we'll change and tweak the game plan to course correct moving forward. So this is flexible, we'll make it work. And so all those things made it so that he was like,

I like this, I like this, I feel good about it, I'm excited, let's go. Plus social proof testimonials, things like that. There's no one single lever I think that you can pull that's gonna make someone go from skeptical to hell yes. It's having the wherewithal to know how to uncover those hesitations and then how to address them honestly. There was an episode of oh sorry, Kyo, go ahead. I was just saying it's also just like listening to your client to the lead like sometimes they

they want to explain what their challenges are and they want to make sure that you understand what their challenges are what problems they're facing because then if they know that you understand it then they'll be more inclined to listen to your solution rather than like you said it's funny hearing you say about like a doctor imagine a doctor just saying like oh I went to this school I went to this school here's a pill it's like but I didn't tell you anything how do you how can you, like you lose the lead right then and there, exactly.

There was an episode of Two Bobs I was listening to and they were talking about how sometimes during the sale process, you need to shut up and just let the lead do most of the talking, right? Cause they were talking about how that seems to be a very big problem with salespeople is that they just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and they're not listening. And they said something really interesting about how sometimes that might be due, be due to the fact that the marketing side of the business hasn't done a good

enough job. So the salesperson has to take on that role and like teach the lead about the company before they get into their process, which was really interesting. It was a really interesting episode. They also talked about how, um, sometimes extroverts might be the wrong person for the job too, cause they talk too much and they don't listen. So introverts might be better at the sales process because they're better at listening, but it's a really good episode.

I think it just, it all comes back to control and and dialing it in because there's there's this kind of expected thing or this this this expectation right they like extroverted people are are going to be great sales people because they can go and talk and that's kind of just the established thing when in reality you shouldn't be doing all that talking. Like you just said, like the person who's talking more. Is is what you ever talk themselves out of out of the room, basically? Yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, the Wolf of Wall Street is kind of an example of like, here's how not to do business, right? Like, but in the in the beginning, when he's doing that sales training,

he's like, and whoever talks first loses. It's like such a shitty way to look at that or crappy way to look at that. Sorry. Um, but there is, there is an element underneath that of truth where it's like, if you are, there's a power in silence, where if you're not talking, somebody else feels the need to fill that void, just its human nature. And that is if that's the time where somebody's going to say things that are going to kind of hint at like, here's where my head's at. And so obviously in the movie, they use it in like a very manipulative way. And that's not the goal.

But if you were talking to somebody in a sales meeting, if you give that silence to try and uncover a little bit more of their problems in business, the things that are currently holding them back from achieving the goals that they're talking about, sometimes it's a little uncomfortable for people so they might hesitate and hold back and not be fully honest.

But if you just, as a salesperson don't feel the need to talk, talk, talk through it, all of a sudden you give them that space to talk and they're going to do it. They're going to fill that because again, it's human nature. So that's kind of the balance there is like give people that space to actually just talk about why they're in the meeting someone books a meeting with you they're there for a reason let them explain that yeah you got to just be asking enough questions to uncover if you're even a good fit right trying to see what the problem is can you be the solution for that and then just go from there but you can't you know person

asking the question it's like when you have an interview, the interviewer is not doing most of the talking and you shouldn't be. So it's weird when the balance is off like that. So it's the same process here. Exactly. One interesting thing I saw on your website was that you, what was it specifically focused on blue collar businesses? Is that like a niche that you kind of have kind of gone into or is that just kind of like one of one of your main markets that you kind of play in? Yeah it's definitely I would say the niche that niche niche niche. It's the I'm gonna I always whenever I have this conversation I choose which one I'm gonna roll with so for this conversation I'm going to, I always, whenever I have this conversation, I choose which one I'm going to roll with. So for this conversation, I'm just going to say niche.

It's definitely the niche that we've that we focused in on and ended up in. It's with any niche, not like a linear path to get there, but and it continues to develop like the current wording there is blue collar brands or blue collar businesses. You know, a couple months from now it may change to we work with contractors or I use a lot of the time and say we work with home service businesses. So it's all the same. It's just which verbiage is going to resonate more with people, but it is roofers, painters,

HVAC companies, things like that, residential home services. Yeah, because most of the time people, when people ask like in what kind of businesses do you target, a lot of the time it's people either mention industries or kind of like they say medium size, large size or small size businesses, which a lot of the times small to medium

is kind of like the blue collar types, but using that wording, you're basically saying the same thing, but in a different way where like people can really understand it right there. As soon as I heard that, I completely understood what kind of video production you do, what kind of clients you work with.

And yeah, I thought it was just very, very interesting to kind of see that. And I just wanted to understand kind of like how you kind of fell into that. And it's like, oh, like specifically blue collar workers. Like why, why did you guys kind of like, or like how did you guys get into that more so? Yeah. Well, I'm glad to hear that you immediately

knew what it meant. That means it's working too. Like I said, it's not a linear path to get there. I've, I've talked to people before, and I've actually mentioned this in some interviews before, where my experience with niching is that it's not just taking aim and running in that direction, it's like playing Battleship,

where you don't know what the other side looks like, but you know somewhere over there is the Battleship, and you start taking just guesses of where it is, and you're probably gonna miss a lot until you get a hit. And that hit is where you're like, oh my God, okay, I'm close. And then you start taking guesses, you guess one over, it might not hit, then you guess the other direction,

and you might actually get the hit until eventually you've sunk the battleship. It's the same thing with niches, it's like, let's try this. I tried working with health and wellness for years early on and I had some successes there and then I pivoted out because it just wasn't clicking for me. And then, worked with a bunch of different businesses.

And tried- What about it, sorry to interrupt but what about it wasn't clicking for you? Was it like the price ranges you were working with or was it like just- For me, it was that it wasn't typically high ticket. A lot of the ways that I'd learned and developed kind of our strategies is that this works really well for businesses who are high ticket businesses. There's a big trust factor, a lot of the health and wellness like there were some that were like exclusive types of

training and things like that. But by and large, it's a high volume type of play where, okay, we're going to need a ton of people signing up and it's more of an impulse decision for them. They're going to do a little bit of research, but that trust factor, that trust threshold isn't super high. So in that scenario, if somebody is more likely to impulse buy, the need for that company to have tons of video assets in place that are designed to convert and build trust, all of that is not as necessary.

So one, it's not as easy of a sell. Two, it's harder to justify, because if you're pricing at X thousands of dollars for a video or for a few videos, for someone in a high volume business to make that back, the return on investment, they might need to sell a hundred memberships or something like that. Whereas if you work with someone who's selling a roof replacement or something like that or a home efficiency upgrade, that might make

itself back in one sale. I'm not gonna make any bold statements about margins and things like that, but the difference there is like, yes, fitness has great underdog stories and it visually translates really well, which was my best guess, taking the guess on the battleship of where it might be But after you know a while there kind of realized those things beneath the surface of of the iceberg there

That kind of make you realize like is this actually? for me You're looking for for a client that would provide a lot of repeat business And that would also have the funds to be able to bring you on for it, right? Of course. I mean, that's what we're always looking for in our industry is like, how do we find repeat business? Because yeah, the reality is that a lot of,

there are a lot of businesses out there which really only need a handful of videos in general. They're not, and when you think about it, not all companies are gonna need video every month, or every two months, or every three months. Sometimes they just need- Most clients just once a year. Yeah, exactly.

That's the case with a lot of us. A lot of the time it's like once a year. It really varies on not only the businesses that you're in, but also depending on their size, what departments you're working with. Because some departments literally only need one video. And then other departments might need one. So maybe there's that where you can find repeat business

within a company where different departments, you can help them out. But then sometimes organizations are also so big. So you might get it in with one department and you're doing once in a while. But then the other ones, they're working with other people depending on their goals and needs as well. So it's hard to find, it's hard to also build

those personal connections with bigger industries. And I guess the one big advantage that you have been able to uncover, and I'm also guessing, is that because you're working with a lot of blue collar businesses, you're also dealing directly with the owners, dealing directly with the business owners and developing personal relationships with them

where you've become their video guy. Their video go-to guy. So whenever they're gonna need some kind of explainer video, promo video, social media video, whatever it might be, over time they're just gonna keep coming to you because of that relationship you've built. And I guess that's why it's kind of like hit and sunk that battleship for you, right?

Yeah, dude, that's actually, it's a very good way to put it and a lot of, most of everything that you just said, like checks the boxes, yeah. I don't think there was anything that you said that didn't check a box, I just think there's other parts outside of that too that were consideration factors. And some of them for me, one of the things with niching that I early on myself didn't really get,

and I think a lot of people that don't think about, is that it's not just picking an industry or picking like a type of business. There's different ways to niche. It can be a specific type of focus of what you wanna do. It can be a specific type of focus of what you want to do. It can be a certain type of person, certain characteristics of an owner that you want to work with. And for me, early on, it was not necessarily an industry. Like even before I focused in on fitness and wellness, I knew I wanted to be leading with video business cards

or brand story videos, depending on what you call them. And I was like, this is what I wanna be doing a lot of, and I just got good at it. And so I focused in on that. So there's, even nowadays, there's really like three or four different types of videos that I really lead with. And if something is completely custom and outside of that, I probably won't take it on.

So my niche has become, yes, blue collar businesses and home service businesses, but also this grouping of videos. And then even further than that, this is what I've continued. You can always go further down the iceberg. You know, I've probably to some degree been focusing in on this, you know, home service, blue collar brands for about two years now at this point.

And I keep continuing to find further specificity of who is the ideal client. Because in my experience now, it's not necessarily, you know, the person who's been running the business for 30 years and they just get referrals at this point. They don't need marketing. Maybe they need help hiring. But that's a different type of thing. Whereas you have someone who's maybe newer to it five years in maybe, so they're doing well, but they, they're also understanding that they could be doing better and that they're

still growing. Grow this exactly. And they know like, well, social media is kind of where we're at or like websites. People are, they're more receptive to this because they know there's runway ahead of them that they can they can still catch up to so it's it's yeah it's all those things that that you mentioned and then some and i think that's yeah the key takeaway is like you will keep continuing to find more and more and more i think I don't think we ever actually sink the battleship is the big thing. When you were first trying to find your target market, I'm wondering, were you actively

doing outbound sales? No, no. And truthfully, I do very little outbound sales. Like cold outbound has contributed very little to overall over the years I've been doing this. Which- So you just decided to pivot and then change your website up, did your SEO and then just waited for them to come in? It was pretty much,

every year or so I take stock of, okay, how did the last year go? What projects were the best? What ones weren't? What do I want to do more of? What do I not want to do again? What was the most profitable? What had the shortest time turnarounds? And about two years ago is when I looked and I took note and I went, wow, projects that are like construction

or related to home services, whether at the time it was both residential and commercial, I was like those projects were the most profitable, the most fun, the clients were the best, they were like awesome, like they just clicked. So that was kind of the beginning of the realization of like there's something here. So for me, I probably spend too much time thinking and like I've got papers all around of just I need to like brain dump sometimes and think through things to make it make sense. And so I started stacking up this evidence for myself of like, okay, if I wanna be the best video marketing company for this industry, what proof do I currently have

to support that? And I started looking at the projects we did and then looking at like, where do we have testimonials and little sticky notes. And I started looking and I'm Like okay, there's good. There's traction here and I could definitely make this work and then probably six months later I updated the website and then Six months after that. I posted our new brand story videos like focusing in on that. So it's it's been very behind-the-scenes like focusing in on that. So it's been very behind the scenes, gradual for at least the first year of that kind of like rebrand refocus. But it's all in the conversations. You know, I talk to

existing clients and say, or I would say at the time we're shifting focus, I actually want to be working a lot more in this field and what we do here. Who else do you know that might benefit from this? I would go network with them to meet more people in those spaces and just slowly started to shift my sphere of influence, if you'll call it that, so that the conversations I was having and the people I was getting in front of were more in line with the people that I wanted to be working with.

So for me, it's always kind of taken that approach where it's like, where do I want at rest to be more rather than having to continuously throw spears and try, do the hunt, so to speak. This is the classic example, that classic business saying where you have to build out your ideal customer profile, where it actually works, especially in our industry. That is a big challenge that a lot of video production companies face is they don't know who their ideal customer is, right?

And it really is hard because sometimes it really is different almost every time. Like, I, Darren, I think about the businesses that we've worked with over the last two years and there's such a spectrum in terms of industry size, product types, business size, did I say business size? Like it's just such a huge variance that it's sometimes hard to narrow down for a lot of businesses. And it is sometimes a matter of like,

oh, maybe you're getting a lot of certain kinds of video projects within a certain year. It's like, okay, maybe this might be something that we can kind of look into. But then next year might be different though, right? But then that's the thing. The next year might be different. But the thing is though,

the one thing that Dave you've done right is you sat down and figured out what you wanted. And when you know what your customer profile is, that's how you can start building out your content and your marketing to kind of attract more of those types of clients, right? Because then if you do more general video production outreach and marketing,

you're gonna get a general inflow of clients because they can see that you can do a little bit of everything depending on what is needed. But if you're focusing on one aspect, more of those clients you'll kind of start to attract. So it's also like that classic saying, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg type of thing, you know?

Yeah. In a way, but sometimes that's what you need to do to really figure out what you want to attract. And I think that's something that every video production company needs to sit down and figure out a little bit more of is test out different industries and focus a little bit in different areas and see what sticks, see what you like. But most of us, like most production companies are generalists. And I think we like being generalists in a way because we might have

that short attention span we like to see different things and everything but that's what Dave's done is yeah what Dave's done I would say is probably in the minority because not a lot of companies niche into a specific industry but they also can't but they also can't that's the other thing I don't think they want to because you're always it's hard to do and the risk is higher compared to just being able to do everything, right? Yeah, I think, yeah, you go, you go. No, no, no, I was just going to say like that's the challenge is that how do you want to maybe like figure out what your ideal customer profile is, but where Dario is

coming from is also what happens also when those other companies come to you you know like you're not going to turn down work you want to make sure I think I think what you're forgetting is like ideal the customer profile for a lot of companies has like a dollar sign attached to it it's not so much like an industry type it's more so I want to only do projects that are minimum 10k and up for example, right? Yeah, it's not so much like I want to focus specifically on this industry. Yeah, that's what a lot of companies do. That's for sure Especially once you get bigger like the overhead gets higher and like you again you get to the point where you're like, okay I'm now managing a business. I have to think about this and that I think a lot of people are are

they're not as intentional as have to think about this and that. I think a lot of people are, they're not as intentional as maybe they should be with how they go about doing it, how they go about growing the business. And I think that, that's something that I'm definitely proud of is that it's, I've been able to kind of look at the common denominators across projects.

When you were talking, one of the things I was thinking of, because you were saying you kind of get hit up by people about, if you do general stuff, you get hit up for general things. One of the things I'm proudest about is that now, since from when I first started doing this to now, the number of posts that I get tagged in that are like we're looking for someone to take some photos at our birthday party or can someone do a music video for our band, the number of posts that I get tagged in for that type of stuff now has gone down to one a year.

I don't get hit up about that stuff anymore and I'm still grateful for people that think of me, but you know. How long ago did you start? I registered the business in 2016 and I decided to go like all in in 2018 when I graduated college. And the main thing,

the main thing I think that has contributed to this this niching here or the niching versus the generalists, I think you've both got really good points. I do think some people don't have the desire to niche or to focus in. I think there's a, there's a that some of those people that say they don't want to niche because they enjoy the generalist aspect of it, just don't have the business mindset to see how they could get so much more of those benefits of what they love from niching. What I mean by that is, I, full transparency, like I'm not in love with video. Video is not the part of the business that I love.

Like shooting and editing, like shooting, I enjoy it, I enjoy making something look cool. Editing, honestly, kind of the bane of my existence, but the part of it that I love is that communication, getting into someone's brain and their heart and what makes them wake up and choose to do their business every single day and talking with the people who genuinely have the passion for it.

And there's people in all industries and all businesses that have that passion, but one of the ways that I've niched myself is not just the type of business or not the industry or not the type of project, it's also the type of person, the characteristics. There's this other, when I looked and did, I wrote out all the different projects, my points of contact, all these different aspects on a poster board. And I started to look at it in front of me and go, what are the common threads between the best projects here and the best clients here?

And one of the things were, it's people who typically have some former corporate experience or working for someone else, they weren't always entrepreneurs. They went out, maybe they've always had that spirit, but at some point in their life, they ventured off and they started their own thing. So they have the experience of working somewhere else and then choosing to go and do it themselves. And because of that, they have such passion about what they do and this fire inside them to make it work because they've been on the other side of it. And they realized, I'm going to do this my way and I understand how I can do this better for me. And those people, when you work with those people,

that's like the best thing in the world. And because I've narrowed down so much to the blue collar and home services, it's so much easier for me to recognize and distinguish like who those people are and where they are, like faster than if I were to just work with a bunch of different people and then some clients are

awesome because they're like that and some aren't and then be left wondering why. So the more specific you can get about what you love about what you do, the more you can hone in and intentionally do that. I think that's what a lot of generalists miss. Yeah. And I couldn't agree more with you on that where being able to do that can really add to your passion and energy going into it sometimes. Because yeah, like sometimes when you're doing a little bit of everything, sometimes you might be very passionate about

one video project, but then the next video that project that comes through could be something like, it'll be simple, but it's not something that you're going to be like like man i really want to get out of bed in the morning to to work on this right you know i need to go do this yeah yeah it's like i need to go do this to pay the bills there's that aspect but again it also it really depends on on everyone everyone everyone is different and one big big um challenge potentially also is what is the scalability aspect as well? Because Dario was mentioning one aspect of like being able to work on a variety of different industries and just kind of working with bigger budgets, you know, can also allow you to potentially scale the business over time. When you niche down, what has been your personal experience

scaling the business now that you've done that? Like in terms, it doesn't necessarily have to be in terms of like business size, you know, like by growing a team, but also in terms of volume or quality of work that you've been able to do. This is something that's been very, very insanely top of mind lately because I finally feel like the offer of what I'm leading with is very dialed in. I've always had you know like again the three or four different

types of projects and I've had processes and frameworks for all of them but what I'm doing now processes and frameworks for all of them, but what I'm doing now, really, really I see how beneficial it is to have not just frameworks and workflows, but like standard operating procedures and templatized things. So for me, it's the scalability is coming into play where, okay, every month that I'm working with a client is another opportunity to rapidly iterate, take note, tweak, and then rapidly iterate. So, so for me, the upcoming scalability isn't just, okay, bring on more team, work with more people. It's one, go deeper with the clients that I'm already working with, longer relationships, you know?

Two, dial in the system so well that I can work with people that regardless of the location and bring on people in these different regions or different markets and basically say, here's the playbook, here's what I need you to do, just do that, which is already kind of there. I've over the past few years, I've connected with a lot of different videographers and video companies globally.

I help run a couple different video communities on Facebook and have been really fortunate to connect with a lot of awesome, talented, great people all over the place that I know. I'm right outside Philadelphia, but if I got a client tomorrow in Illinois or Texas, I know that I've got people I could hit up and immediately just not have to fly out there and it would get done right. So continuing to further to hone in on that is really the focus now, but I would not have known that until I got very specific about what I'm doing and what I wanted to be doing. So it's more so in terms of like, like you said, you've created like a playbook or system for your entire client process

from when they first call you to when you finally completed a project for them. You have a system where you're basic, whoever you need to bring on, you can scale up and down depending on the volume of work at this point. You've just developed a system that's so that's not necessarily foolproof is the right word to say, but it has a track record where it works. So have you kind of seen like a growth in terms of the number of clients that you've worked with in terms of where you can potentially see yourself scaling it to a bigger team, like personally, or are you kind of still trying to see how you can dial it in more, work with more companies?

Like, what's the next few steps for you in terms of growth or scalability? Can we know how big your team is first? Like is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On paper, like on, again, everybody's got the on paper and then who they bring on board. Like on paper it's just me, it's a single member LLC.

On operations, depending on the shoot, if it's something very simple, straightforward, I'll just go out. If I do have something that's a little bit more flushed out, typically have a crew of three, where it's the same guys that I've been working with for years because I know they're great. We've basically come up together.

We do coffee meetings to talk about our businesses and things like that. So got that aspect. Few other people sometimes will bring on a fourth depending on what we need. And then I've got a couple different editors that I'll typically outsource to for projects that require that. A lot of the stuff I'm doing now is like batch short form, which I'm kind of doing because of just the quick turnaround. Also kind of dialing in some ways to kind of automate that a little bit more without taking the personality out of it. But that's kind of how the team looks right now. Yeah okay yeah so it's very it's very nimble and and flexible at this point

it's very similar to us and a lot of other video production. Yeah you just scale up and down with with freelancers depending on the project. That's like that's like most companies to to be honest with you. And I don't think it makes sense for most people to grow to like huge bloated production company, because again, it introduces bloat, and if you have the big contracts in a city, then you know it's guaranteed,

like, okay, we're gonna have this huge project annually coming on. Sure, makes sense. But I just think for the majority, overwhelming majority people, running it this way makes sense. Absolutely. The thing I'm curious about though, because you've really dialed in your process and you really have figured out kind of who you're going after and how you want to like, like serve them. Do you foresee yourself potentially getting to a point where like a lot of these clients are coming to you to that you feel like you need to bring on more of like a permanent team? Like obviously it doesn't have to be something like 10, 15, 20 people, but maybe having like a core three to five person group,

which is really all you really need in our industry. Do you see yourself going in that direction or is it kind of like you still want to kind of keep it nimble? I want to keep it as nimble as possible because, so here's where I'm at right now. And this is, it's first time I'm kind of putting it out there. But I I've been working on the back end to kind of test kind of passing out my systems to other people and say, use this, tell me how it works, let me know what I can improve.

For example, my brother lives out of state, he's in a different market, different area, he's kind of pivoting out of a different career, he has experience in video and all things production, so he's now kind of pivoting into doing more of this type of work. And I've basically said, look, because he doesn't have a portfolio for what he wants to be doing, but he's got an insane level of skill set. So I said, look, just like use everything that I've tested and figured out, use my portfolio, use my marketing, use everything. And just, I know you can do it and I'll support you to do it.

Just run with that. Let me know every step away along the way, what you notice also needs tweaking. So what I'm kind of building out now, the goal is to dial in the system so much even further and then license it almost like a franchise model where it says look you know how many people I've met through the communities that I've helped run over the years that they have this the skills the proficiency, they just need to channel that into a system

and they would do great. I've put out courses over the years on my processes and things like that. I've never run ads to them. I never even really market them that much just because that's never been my leading thing. It's just, hey, I been my leading thing, right? It's just, hey, I know it helps people, so hell yeah. And they get insane great feedback. So it kind of all clicked to be like, look, let's just keep dialing this in.

I know that I don't love the shooting and editing. I love the communication aspect. I can play that support role for people that do love that aspect. That is the best case scenario for me. It allows me to make the most impact and also help other people not have to work through six years of bull crap trying to figure out what are the common threads. If I could have a dollar back for every hour that I've put into thinking and analyzing

things to make it simple, I wouldn't have to do the next couple of shoots. Have you thought about maybe like, because if you do have it down to such a process and it's like step by step, you can achieve it type of situation. Why don't you just like open up another company in another city where you might have a big market in and just like do your sales. Yeah, do your own sales remotely from Philadelphia and then just use freelancers to execute. I've thought about that as well,

but one of the key things for me is that I don't know necessarily the degree to which I want to be hands on in operations. What I mean by that is like lifestyle design, you know, if you want to zoom out that far, I want to be able to unplug because right now it's nonstop, like I'll be doing anything and my brain is in 30 different spots. It's like what if I do this? How can I improve this? And so I think that introducing that further degree of actually hands-on running and executing things would inevitably lead me to then bring on project managers and then bring on, you know, more systems for my own

operation of actually fulfillment. And it's just, that's not what I have at this point, the interest in really fully developing because and full transparency, like I think anybody could take this and blow it up if you want to work non-stop and really like you know blow it up you could do it you could take the system and blow it up but again that's just like I want to be able to go and you know take a beach day and not be like to be able to go and take a beach day and not be like, shit, did I do that? Did I do this thing? Did I make sure that? And one of the things too, again, that I've worked with a lot over the years

is home service franchise companies. So I've been very familiar with the model of, of let's provide a system that people can plug into of, let's provide a system that people can plug into who want something of their own to run, but they don't want to have to go through all of that, start it up yourself. It's a lot of these former corporate guys and girls who they want to do their own thing, they don't want to have to figure it out. And so they just kind of paid a fast forward through it. They have that continued support. And I've seen it firsthand and it works.

And having gone through it in my own aspects with the courses and some different coaching things I've been involved with, to me it just me it just makes sense but that's kind of the grand test right is like let's see because if you test it and nothing works then it's like all right maybe maybe it wasn't as fractal. It could be that the market it could be that the market's not big enough either right like because again even yeah when it comes to like video not a lot of us go go into it and you know not a lot of us will niche specifically into like blue collar work, for example. Right.

So you're targeting like a very specialized part of the market. Right. To clarify the system, it's like I apply the system to blue collar. But you can use it for anything else. Oh, it's more general in terms of. Yeah, I see. Okay. Yeah.

Cause a lot of, a lot of companies when they, when they come up with you can use it for anything else. Oh, it's more general in terms of. Yeah, I see, okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. A lot of companies when they come up with a system is like they're gonna figure out ways to like grow the business in some way to be able to accommodate like if more scale is needed, right, and like Daria was mentioning like what if, for example, you grew a core team of like say five people, maybe you have like, you could start with like two or three

with you in Philadelphia to help kind of be the core, but then hiring like one or two people in different states, you know, where they're basically handling and like, like you said, project managing in those aspects. So you will maybe help sell, but maybe they will eventually can kind of take over. Like you're doing like big picture stuff because there's some companies I noticed

when I was doing outreach for the show, like where they got offices in like 14 different places. Like they all got like producers running that production company, same production company, just in a different city. It seems like that's a natural progression of where you would be heading in based on what you're telling us.

It's just strange to hear that you're like taking a step back and say, no, I'll just sell a course for it. Or like selling a license for it. Well, to clarify, it's, you know, the way that I see it is that there's a lot of those companies that grow those teams, they have multiple offices, multiple different places.

You know, I know some people that run that way too. And those operations, there's one, so much more overhead. Like the overhead of having a team that's built up that high is so high, so the pressure to consistently keep adding fuel to the fire is so high. And just from the people that I know that operate that way and the levels of stress

they have, to me is like, damn, that sucks. That does not seem desirable. And so I've always known I want to grow something, but I don't want it to be where if you take the foot off the gas at all, it's going to fall apart. It's not necessarily... I think the issue that I see a lot with the flip side of it, the online education space, I've had beef with it for a long time. It's one of the reasons that I don't really market my stuff or haven't for so long is because like How many times do you scroll through Instagram and you get like use this system? Like are you a videographer?

filmmaker what's that one girl Masterclass filmmaker a hundred thousand dollars a year a year revenue. There's so That's a year revenue. There's so many and like five years ago, six years ago when I was getting started, it was way less frequent. Almost none existed back then. Yeah, dude, like I remember I was trying to figure out, again, I graduated college.

I decided I'll never have this little responsibility again in my life, let's give it a shot. I went to YouTube University, how to run a video business, you know, like how to get clients. And there was like a couple people talking about it and that's kind of where I naturally gravitated to. And since then, I mean, like the community I joined back then had like 700 members.

By like a year and a half ago, it had like 7,000. So it's just the number of people in the space overall has grown tremendously and it keeps growing. And it's crazy. And so so many of these people who have come up and figured out, you know, this is what worked for me. Everyone's got a sales course nowadays. Everyone's got their own process for like, here's how you start charging more.

Here's how you start getting people on retainer. Here's the easiest way to get to a 10K a month. And having seen the back end of a lot of these things, it's like, yeah, how much are you working though? Like it's dope if you have someone who's doing, paying you $2,000 a month, $3,000, $5,000 a month, but like, are you reinventing the wheel every single time? And so that's always been the differentiating factor for me is like, look, my stuff is not a sales course.

If you want to go figure out how to sell, there's a hundred options in the market for that. But if you want to know bulletproof, how am I going to go through every single step of the way, how am I actually going to fulfill the stuff that I'm talking about? What are the ways that I am not just feeling like, how do I run this project? Here you go. Workbooks, resources, behind the scenes, like recordings, all this stuff, like philosophy on it, understanding, implementation resources.

That's always been the route that I've taken because you look at the market and it's the same old stuff. And when you hear from people, they go, I've been through so many other courses and yours is like nothing I've ever done. That's like, all right, maybe we're onto something here. Listen, this is those guys, where you hear the same BS or like a different version of 20,000 a month. Those guys are the financial gurus of our industry. Okay. in a month. Those guys are the financial gurus of our industry, okay? They're not making money from their clients. They're making, their clients is you, are us, are us, video production companies, video production professionals, the new starting videographer, where if you put in 500 bucks for this course you're gonna

learn a heck of a lot. Every time I saw ads for that I'm like, okay if you actually knew how to make 30,000 a month, why on earth would you tell anyone else about it? I would just scale it from that point. Here's what I've learned also, because I'm, dude, I'm one of the most skeptical people that I know, and so anytime I see that stuff, I'm like, hmm, come on now.

I know a lot of people in video that are making really good money and like doing really well and having $30,000 a month. And some of them, here's where I think it kind of splits for me is like some of them continue to do that and are like, okay, there's a way to now teach this also and help other people and that's awesome. So like let's do that. Whether it's just because, whether it's as selfless as like let's share knowledge or even if it's, hey, there's another stream of revenue, okay, but it's like still doing projects,

still like running the show. For me, I see that, like I got a buddy, Siebs, Siebs Gerard is what you'll see him on the ads. He runs ads, but he's like very legitimately running the business and growing it and also teaching. He's like, I just want partners. I want people to be able to bring on for projects when we're not in that space. I'm like, fair enough.

There's also people who then are like, they made their money, they had a peak month where they hit a bunch, like a high revenue number, and then they're like, they start selling where it's like, here's the system that I used to have like a, you know, a 50 grand month, and it's like, well. Buy a camera, step one. Yeah, yeah, here's my affiliate link. So it's, you know, there's,

I think it's a lot of reading between the lines in the space and just like looking into, knowing who you're buying into. And regardless of who it is, you'll see testimonials praising them because they get people results, they help people. And at the end of the day, I used to, because I again said I've had a lot of beef with this whole internet coaching culture. If people's lives are being changed because they paid you money to learn something and

they taught you and then you were able to implement it, at the end of the day can I really hate on that? I can maybe hate on the way it's marketed and it feels gross, but you're making an impact on people. It's the means to an end is how you advertise it, I guess. But the thing is, it's like there's a lot of people that actually are helping, which a lot of what they're selling and pitching, a lot of that is accurate. It's like the biggest challenge for a lot of video production professionals, like how do I get consistent work on a monthly basis?

How do I ensure that I'm going to be busy six months down the line? Like what systems are out there? And there are legitimate people and companies out there that are pitching that and providing a service that like you said are actually gonna give you the value. Like look, if you pay 500 bucks for a course and something from that helps you make at least two times

that, that's already a success in and of itself, right? If you at least take something that you've learned from that, that you've been able to implement in your business in any way, it's become worth it. The problem that a lot of us have though is that a lot of the bullshit artists are saying the exact same things and presenting it exactly the same

as all those other people. So it kind of dilutes it, right? It's like, oh, thank God. Man, I can't think of like an exact example, but it's like, you know, like, yeah, it sounds great what you're doing, but all these other people are saying that they can do the exact same thing

when it was like, who do I believe at this point, right? Especially for people jumping into the industry. Cause a lot, for a lot of us in this industry where we've been in it for a while, we can tell who the bullshit artists are and we know who is actually providing some kind of value because we've also been in the industry. We know what we're missing in our businesses. We know what skill sets we want to improve a little bit more. So we know what to look for.

We'd have to, we'd have to go through the course to find out if it's bullshit or not. But sometimes, yeah, but sometimes that is the other aspect. You don't know who it is until you go through their course. Isn't that the- It's more so- It's the full circle where we talk like you've been burned by somebody in the past,

you know, I bought hats and they sucked and then I was nervous to buy hats again. It's the same. Yeah, you gotta buy the hats. You gotta buy the hat first though to find out. Someone's gotta be the guinea pig, you know, that's what this industry is. Someone has to be the guinea pig, you know. I'm proud to say I've never been the guinea pig for a course though. Yeah, well that's the other thing. But I am curious about your course.

You gotta send it over. I wanna check it out. Yeah, dude, I'll just I'll just give you access because like, here's the thing. It's if if there's so many people who are like, they stop doing video and they just shift into courses and and part of me is like, fair enough respect to hustle. For me, like the courses have never been my like main source of income. It's like, I'll see something come in and I'll be like, oh, cool. Hell, yeah. And then I'll email or message income. It's like, I'll see something come in and I'll be like, oh cool, hell yeah. And then I'll email or message the person and be like, hey, thanks, hope that you love it.

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be sure to get back to you. For me, that's actually what I was just gonna say, it's like, I've never been the guinea pig. It's like, well, nobody should have to pay crazy amounts to be a guinea pig. Like anytime that I've put something new out, I've been like, hey, I'm looking just for a small group

of people. The first time I ever did it, I was like, I think I charged like 150 bucks. I was like, you'll have the course, but also I did, dude, I oversold the hell out of that. I was like, you'll get, or I over-offer. Over-delivered. Yeah, yeah. I was like, you'll get, or I over-offer. Over-delivered. Yeah, yeah, I was like,

you'll get four weeks of individual calls and also a group call every week. And like all this stuff, like dude, I was just like, I just wanna make sure this is great. And then the next one I did, I was like, no charge, I was like, I just want people to come in and test this stuff and make sure that it works. So like, that's the thing. If you were just want people to come in and test this stuff and make sure that it works. So like, that's the thing.

If you were just launching out into the world and you saw it from someone else, you're like, all right, I could charge five grand and put this offer out there. I need to get any pigs. It's like, dude, come on. That's like, test your shit. It's like when you're starting in the industry

as a videographer or as a video production professional, the very first videos you're charging, you're not gonna be able to charge five, 10 grand per video. The very first video that I made money on, I charged like 100, 150 bucks, and that was like the system for many months. It's like, all right, I'm just going to learn an experiment and try new things.

I'm just gonna do a very flat rate with everyone I work with, something very small. It'll still charge something because you know, you want there to be an exchange of value because that's how a business relationship actually works. It's very different than like saying, I'll just do a video for free. Then that's a completely different relationship

you're dealing with. Start with a small charge, like super small. It's like 150 bucks, and just learn. Try new things, make mistakes, and learn how to improve, because then you also learn how to deal with clients, you learn how to run a business. There's a lot of things you can learn from that. And then over time you increase the price

and everything like that. So the exact same thing as you mentioned, right? You gotta test the waters in some way., you know at the beginning of the year I just remembered this I I pitched Kirill on creating our own course but we were gonna we were gonna just do a free and like the whole purpose of the course was actually to Find out how to improve our process because I was like we we have a process but it hasn't been put Like down to paper yet so I was like this would be a good way to force us to put it on paper and then we would look at it and maybe get

feedback on it and see where we would improve. But with anything else in our business, it always got like side swiped to the back end of our TDL. But I think that's kind of what you're doing, right? Like you created like a course and it's just your kind of get feedback on it because you're just trying to get feedback on your own business essentially right? Yeah it's kind of like it's it's there's multiple layers to it because it's like so for example to give some context to it like the most recent course that I that I dove into and then I still kind of a continuous process of building out. But it's for testimonials and it's my just five part framework for like testimonials

that are designed to kick ass. It's called score. So it's story, catalyst, obstacle, result, and then engage. It sounds so simple, right? It's like, but there's just layers to it and there's so much more in the understanding of social proof and the psychology of why, what gets people to click? What is the natural storytelling progression of when,

if I make a recommendation on something to you, there's a framework on how that typically goes. And so it's just kind of like a deep dive into that. It's something I've run with for years, but I was like, okay, I know this works for me. People have asked me about it. I've told them about it. They've loved it.

Let's finally like put it into play. And so when I was just getting people to test it, it was mainly like, look, I know this works for me. I'm not necessarily, I even told people, I'm like, look, when I look for your feedback, it's not necessarily on the actual framework itself because like I know it's solid. It's on the way that I present it

and the supporting things around it to make it make sense to you and also make you feel comfortable enough to start using it and selling projects on it and things like that. So it's not like, hey, I'm trying to figure out this part of my business, why don't you guys give me your time and money so I can figure it out?

I think that's kind of, I don't know, not great. Well, it's like, like the way you're going about it is definitely, it's a unique one to you, right? Like everyone sometimes needs feedback on their systems and their approach from like outside perspective because you never know. And like, and here's the other thing. What people need to realize is that the system

is gonna constantly be improving. You're never done figuring out your system, right? And like, there's always other thing, what people need to realize is that the system is gonna constantly be improving. You're never done figuring out your system, right? And there's always other factors. I'm just even like, lately in terms of some of the recent projects that we've worked on, I've realized like, oh, okay, there have been these challenges kind of coming up a little bit in post-production when dealing with editors.

I think I wanna take on a couple projects on my end to do some of the editing just to kind of figure out how we can improve it. Like where can we save time? Where can we adjust it? Is it going to be, is it beneficial to do a complete handoff to an editor and have them do the whole process? Or like for example, one production company that I've worked with, he runs a wedding business. And the way he deals with all the production

of his wedding videos, he has editors cut everything together, do a final-ish edit, and then his whole process is that he goes through each edit himself and he puts his own stamp of approval, or he does the editing himself to add it to like his systems approach. And when he told me about that process, it got me really thinking a little bit more like,

oh, maybe this is something that we need to kind of think about a little bit more in our whole process. Like maybe, yeah, like editing is a completely time, time intensive process, right? And a lot of it has to do with just getting it to like the first or second draft a lot of the time, right? Getting all the footage organized, getting everything kind of cut together with the music. But sometimes what really adds the spark of a business

is like having your own input, right? So systems have to improve. You have to think of like how can you elevate your business in terms of like changing things up constantly. Daria, like I was just mentioning to Dave how through our conversation with some recent projects it's gotten me thinking a little bit more about how to improve the post-production side of things,

you know, for example, with us and our business. And yeah, maybe that is something I wanna try, where we get editors to do most of the stuff, and then I will just kind of take over, and then just the little things and little swaps and stuff like that and kind of minor improvements, maybe that is the way to kind of help smooth over the process and also make it more efficient

for the client, right? Yeah, that would be good. Again, it all depends on the projects you're working on, the clients you're working with, but there is no, I'm finally done with my process. That's the system. Like even when you have yours fully packaged, they've been ready to go for other people to work,

you're gonna be like, oh, I figured this out. Like, let me change this up. It still changes, dude. Like, that's one of the things that I actually have on the one course landing page is like, this continues to improve. Like, the first one I put out has been out for like two years, a little over two years at this point.

People, like, taunt's a great feedback, and I still am like two years, a little over two years at this point, people like tons of great feedback and I still am like, hey, there are things that I continue to improve upon with my own process with the resources here, like expect there to be updates. Like, you know, I think that's something that a lot of people don't get to is like somebody will just package something together and be like, ah, cool, free money. I don't need to ever touch it again. It's like, that's, people don't get to is like somebody will just package something together and be like, all right, cool, free money. I don't need to ever touch it again. It's like, that's, I don't know. I feel like if you're, if you're in education, you have a duty to, to set people up for success as best as possible.

I think that's the other thing too. And I want to pivot back to the continuing improvement of the process thing, but that's like, I just genuinely love teaching. You know, there's that saying like, oh, those who can't do teach. It's like, no, those who can do so well that they have such an understanding of the individual building block pieces of what they're doing. Those are the ones that are in the best position to teach. It's like those who can do really well and understand it and then also understand how somebody else

who doesn't understand that yet needs to be taught that, teach. Like there's a process there, you know? Sometimes teaching others can actually help you learn, like remember and retain things a little bit better as well. And that was something that was always recommended when we were in like university or something,

like sometimes show someone else a whole process or teach them something. And then that way you'll be like, oh, that also makes more sense to me because of explaining it to someone. Sometimes that's just what it is. And funny thing though is that anytime someone says those who can't do teach, immediately my mind goes to those who can't teach, teach Jim.

Shout out to anyone who knows where that's from. Yeah. Do you know that the problem we have with a lot of the people that offer courses or you know That stuff it's not so much the teaching aspect. I think I just realized what it is. It's the fact that they're promising Yes, something because they're always saying you can get this much a month You will get this much a month stuff like that I think that's where the main issue comes in is that they're promising something. Promising results that are unrealistic is, is the biggest, uh, red flag for a lot of these, like, uh, there's very few courses and, uh, out there where you can

just, where they'll tell you like, this is what you're going to learn from it. And you're going to learn how to do X, Y, and Z is they're not saying like you're going to earn, I think pulling a Jordan Belfort, that's what they're doing. Otherwise, I think the problem, I think also- They're pulling a Jordan Bell for it. That's what they're doing otherwise. Yeah, I think the problem is like once you start attaching dollar values to what you're promising, that's when things get a little bit more sketchy. I think being more upfront and honest,

it's like these things will help you improve in your business. I don't know how much, it really varies. And that's the thing that people need to drive the point home is that your business is unique to you. What worked for me might work for me, but it's not necessarily gonna work for you. So this is why it's always tricky when it comes

to selling systems or processes or things like that, because we all have very different circumstances that you can't really provide a one size fits all solution all the time, right? Exactly, yep. And the funny thing is that we've, Dario and I have really solidified this by doing this podcast because we've talked

to so many different companies and almost everyone has had a completely different approach with how they've gone into the business. There's like small things that are consistent between everybody but there's no like A to Z of pre-production, production, post-production, sales and delivery that you're 100% going to be successful like me if you just do that. It's never been like that.

It's like my main qualm with a lot of books that offer that kind of stuff. So not just like, forget the courses that people are offering, but just like books in general. Offer that kind of stuff. So not just like forget the courses that people often but just like books in general Because it's always like they mentioned Oh, I did this and that to get to where I am and you can do the same But they forget to mention that you know, their dad was a billionaire Like they were given, you know, their uncle was like An executive at this big-ass company, I gave them all these contracts. I forgot to mention all that stuff. With a small touch of generational wealth and a bit of nepotism, you too can find the

success. Silver spoon. Yeah, yeah. Dude, you hit the nail on the head. That's the thing is like, that's always been my beef with systems too. It's like so many courses and programs are like if you follow these just follow the system just do this to a tee and you can you'll get the success we guarantee it they're even like we'll give you your money back if you do all the steps and it doesn't work

no they're not and my thing has always been like yeah i mean has everyone gotten their money back i'm curious yeah if you've ever gotten your money back, drop it in the chat. Comment, comment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would actually like to know. Did they actually? But that's the thing is, for me, I mean, if it hasn't come through at this point yet, I'm like, I always need to do things a little bit different.

I wanna do things my own way with a unique stamp of approval. And for me, I was like, I don't wanna just plug into an exact system. Like I've gone through, cause I've, I've bought my fair share of like courses and stuff too. And there's, there's one that I won't name that is very, very, very popular, longstanding one that I bought into.

And it was just like a bloated course with too much information and it was just tons of stuff and it was like follow these exact steps. And it wasn't relevant to me or how I do life, how I approach business. And I'm like, okay, maybe I could scale to like 50 grand months or whatever the hell it is if I did this, but I don't want to. And so that's why it's been very, very utmost importance for any of the courses that I've created. The whole beginning, I typically break it into three or four modules, if you will, sections.

The first one of everything is like understanding, like why, why do we do this? Why does this work? Because if you just jump right into the here's what to do, here's how to run this type of project, it means nothing. You need to be able to have an understanding of the core like building blocks because everybody runs something different.

The way you guys run business is different than the way I do, is different than the way the next guest will. And so if you can have that base level understanding of like, look, here's my framework for this, but also here is, that's where most of the thought process goes. Like, how do I make this make sense to everybody? If you can boil it down to the core, core concepts, those are the things that are present in every business. So you can begin to understand how does this make sense in what I do?

How does this come to life in the way that I run my business, in the way that I think about things? Because it's not just saying just do this differently. It's say, here's when you're doing the things that you do, here's maybe a different way to think about it that you might not have before. And then it's on you to integrate it how you want into what you do.

Because it's, yeah, if you just say, here's the playbook go, it's not a right fit for everybody, and they're not gonna get the success. The funny thing is, it's like, when you think about it though, sometimes though people are also, they might think something they can't buy into it

unless they're gonna get some kind of result out of it, right, it's kind of like those classic business sayings where it's like, you need to identify your target market, you need to understand your niche, you need to do this. Like a lot of these concepts and principles, they are very general, but the thing that people don't realize is that you won't understand them and learn them unless you really are able to figure out

personal, yeah, unless you're in it and you figure out personally how to apply it to your business, because so many times, as you've been running a business for a while, you figure out how these concepts really apply to you and why they make sense and why they're so valuable. So, it's gonna be very hard to charge money for a system or course where it tells you,

like, you have to be doing pre-production for your business. You have to do a script, you have to do a storyboard, you have to do this. Okay, great, yeah, that's general, but it's like you have to understand why those will help you more. Exactly, but go to YouTube for that. So it's like this is why courses have been inflated to the point where a lot of them are selling it from the perspective of like here are the results you're gonna get because people feel like they need to get something out of something always, right? Which is understandable.

Anytime you buy into something, anytime you buy into a business, you wanna feel like you're getting something out of it. If you just give them with a lot of general principles, general business practices that they could probably find somewhere else, it's gonna be hard to sell that. So it's, there's like a fine balance, a little bit of like kind of what you gotta find

that will work. And unfortunately, the bullshit artists, they're really driving home the dollar value outcomes that will come from buying their courses because that's what people respond to, especially people just jumping into this. You know, like imagine you're a filmmaker just jumping into the industry now and then you're thinking,

oh, I need to get like five, $10,000 a month just to kind of stay afloat. Boom, you Google that, you're gonna find all those guys selling you. It's tough. It's not a sexy sell talking about you're gonna get an understanding of like the frameworks and like to clarify to you know, the stuff that I put, it dives very deep into the things.

It's like, okay, here's the understanding of the like, it's not like you need to do pre production. It's like, hey, here's the psychology of why a client will be in a certain position and why they be open to having a conversation about buying this particular type of video and here's what they're expecting, all that type of stuff. That's not a sexy sell to be like, I'm not going to guarantee that you're going to make a certain amount of money off this, but if this is the type of project that you're interested in doing, and maybe you've already gone through the sales programs and all that type of stuff, which there's a lot of good

ones out there, this is gonna make your life significantly easier. The social proof does a lot of the heavy lifting to you know. Yeah. I never want to be the one to like brag and be like this is gonna be life changing. Balls in your court on that. But when you have you know testimonials from people going like I feel like I was lost in the woods before this and the Dave came along with a map and a flashlight and like help me find my way out. It's like, all right, well that's cool. Or someone being like, yeah, I took what I know and I like closed two deals the first week after going through the course.

It's like, all right, I didn't, that wasn't the intention, that wasn't the goal, but like it equipped you to do that and that's cool. You know, so that's like, that's integrity is one of the most important things to me with all of this. And you will never see me being the dude that's like, yeah, here's the grand promise,

here's all the money you're gonna make and everything like that. Like in the communities and groups that I help run, people will ask about the types of projects that are like directly relevant to the courses I have. I won't even mention them. I don't want to be that guy that's like, dude, you really need to go through this course.

But then other people bring it up and tag it. And I'm like, I guess I'm doing something right. That's cool. That's not as profitable to do it that way, but that's when you're an Instagram course seller, that's, you wanna blow it up as much as you can, so you're gonna make the bold claims, I guess, you know? I think if we get any dislikes on this episode,

we'll know who it's from. Yeah. People that don't want to buy into something sexy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it is. But I think that's a good point to leave it at. But Dave, I know this conversation went, like Dario had to take a little quick bathroom break at one point and I'm already reaching that limit too.

Oh, I couldn't take it, bro. Like 10 minutes into it I was like, I think I need to go. But I'm like, let me hold out. I was like, it'll be an hour, right? Hour 20 minutes. I'm like, oh my God, I'm dying. Damn. But Dave, thank you so much for chatting with us and sharing.

Where can people find your course? DaveLasoski.com. Or DaveLasoski.com forward slash courses. I don't even have like specific landing pages. I have to make the page and then I'll send it to you. So, okay. Show us how little I promote my own stuff. But otherwise it's Foxelmedia.com, right?

Foxelmedia.com. F-O-X-A-L. Which, how did you come up with that name, Foxel? The short story is, the long story is that I had way too much time when I was first starting the business so I could think about it, but the short story is it's basically an English translation of my last name. Lesowski means of foxes and this kind of means of fox. Oh, really? Okay. That's cool. The long story is for another time.

Another time, another time, yeah. Someone in your family must have like had to do with foxes or something, like fox hunts or something? It means somewhere far back in Polish cultural stuff, we descended from somewhat royalty, I guess. I don't know. But none of us in recent generations have seen that type of wealth. Nice.

Okay, perfect. All right, well thank you so much, Dave. Yeah, thank you guys. Okay, perfect. All right, well thank you so much, Dave. Yeah, thank you guys. Appreciate you having me. Don't. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creatives Grab Coffee.

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