Avoid Making These Common Mistakes and Plan Perfect Video Ads that Get Hits | The Ask Avi Arya Show

I surely can't do it myself. What are the starting points?

So step number one is understanding that story is king.

No, no, let's do it. Let's do it because whatever, because you talk in very framework blueprint modules. So go as deep as possible because it's easy for people to understand. However deep people.

Okay, so I could spend all day, all week talking about cinematography. There's a lot that can edit for you. And then, and then ultimately, you know, what we've done now is I've got an editor that's full time on my team, a videographer and editor. So if you have chance to shoot.

Hey guys. This is Avi Arya, father of two girls, six dogs, husband to a superwoman, a streetcar racer turned hotelier, now social media marketer and founder of Internet mobiles. Welcome to my channel. It's all about you. So let me give all that attention to you. So, Eric, thank you very much for taking the time out to, you know, to talk to our audiences both offline and online. We've been watching you from afar and we love the work that you've done on videos, music and everything in between. Just before we get started, you know, for the people who don't know you, can you give a small introduction of who you are and what you do?

Yeah. So. So. Hi, my name is Eric Thain. I. Well, how long do you want this intro to be?

Well, we have till 5pm so six hours.

Okay. So I was born in 1990. No, I'm just kidding. So I'm a filmmaker and entrepreneur and just creative entrepreneur. I've been running creative businesses since I was very young. Actually started selling online when I was 13 years old and in my first business doing graphic design and actually selling T shirt designs to heavy metal bands on MySpace. I kind of grew up with the Internet, you know, or that was. That became a thing when I was very young and so always was looking for opportunities to share my creative passions with the world outside of just my local area. Right. And so I've always been a creative person. I've always loved music and filmmaking and design, art, drawing, all of that, ever since I was really young. And so I feel like if I were to put my entire life as an entrepreneur in a nutshell, it would be this. It's figuring out what I love to do and then figuring out how to make money doing what I love. And so for, you know, all through high school and college and everything, I ran my own businesses and was a freelancer and learned graphic design and iPhone app development and music production and YouTube and all sorts of stuff. But eventually it led me, that whole process led me to running a six figure filmmaking company, so video production agency, which I built. And we started doing really cinematic looking videos primarily for luxury hotel brands. And so we did quite a bit of those. And then that process also led me to creating my current business which is helping filmmakers to do the same thing. So we work with videographers and filmmakers who are struggling to get clients and teach them how to create work that looks really cinematic or movie like and then how to sell that work for five figures and make six or seven figures in their business selling commercials to clients.

Wow. So a couple of things come to mind. So you must have very proud family, you know, because you don't seem like a problem child. You start, you took care of yourself from the get.

I did. I think in other ways I was definitely a problem child. But you know, in some ways like always, always tried to like work for my own money. I will say that, you know, when I was young, it didn't always go well. And so it's. I've been through the pains of being an entrepreneur and trying to do that, but I just started at a really young age and but my parents were always very supportive and there to like help me make it happen. For sure.

Lovely. Okay. So Eric, the second thing you said was first you said something very interesting. You said, I've in the process of discovering what I love to do and do more of it. And now that you discovered that from 13 to now, you're now also repurposing everything that you have and sort of going back and helping people who may be 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 years behind. You know, the Eric from 10 years ago who might be fuzzy about the future, you're going and finding more Eric's like, you know what? I found a path out of this. You can make money and make it better. Come, I'll take you to where I am today. So it must be a great feeling. And do you think that this is a business model that most entrepreneurs, after walking a path for a certain duration of time can follow?

Absolutely. I personally think it's the best business model out there for a lot of different reasons, but just being able to share your own knowledge of what you know how to do and what you're good at and help other people to follow that same path. It's not only a. Well, I look at it kind of two ways. One, it's kind of the next step for anybody who's achieved anything. So if you want to become better at your craft and what you do. The best way to become better at it at a certain point is to start teaching other people.

Right, Right.

Because for me to, you know, anybody that's a creative or an entrepreneur in any type of business, eventually you're going to hit a point where you've, you know, you're always learning, you're going to learn for the rest of your life, but you'll hit a point where you've. You've kind of. You've put in the 10,000 hours, you've put in the time, like you've become an expert, you know what to do. And in order to really get to the next level, like, you have to start teaching other people. And when you start teaching other people, it just further solidifies everything that, you know. I think that I've become a better filmmaker over the last five years since I started teaching filmmakers than I was before I started teaching. And the reason is because I figured out the systems and how to teach it, and I've learned how to systematize and process the things that I was doing before that I maybe didn't realize that I was doing. So you learn it on another level. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the fulfillment factor increases. Because it's one thing to build a business for yourself and to be successful for yourself, which feels good, and to be able to take care of your family and live the lifestyle that you want, like, absolutely, those are important. But then being able to give that gift to other people and help them have the same mindset shifts, the same process shifts, and start using the same strategies you did to get the results that you've gotten just takes it to a completely another level. Right. Because now it's not just me that's been successful, but now I've also helped all these other people to be successful as well.

Fantastic that. I love that. So can you talk a little bit about the fact that when you go back and start teaching people, then you process orient the system even more?

Yeah, for sure. So one of the. I'd say one of the concerns that people have when they're considering going into this type of business is that, like, well, I'm not good enough or I don't know enough to be able to teach other people, or, like, I'm not an expert at this. And I had a lot of those same feelings when I was starting out. I had a lot of people asking me questions, wanting to know, like, Eric, how did you do that? How did you build that business, how do you create work like that? So they're asking these questions, but at the same time, you know, I'm answering them, but I'm like, yeah, but I'm not really an expert at this because, like, you know, you start here and then you get to hear, but then you're looking at the people that are here. Of course, I'm looking at Hollywood movie directors and all these people, they're the experts, not me. But the problem is, guess what? They're not teaching anybody. Right? They're not offering their services to filmmakers. And so if you look at it on a curve of, like, beginner to more advanced. So let's say here, point A, point B, in order to teach somebody who's down here, you don't have to be here. You just have to be here. You only have to be one step ahead of them, and then they can learn from you. So if you are. If you're listening to this and you're, you know, you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to share your knowledge online, you want to teach people stuff, think about, like, what are the things that people are already asking you questions about. I think anybody in the world can sit down and think of at least one thing that they've had a conversation with someone about where they were able to teach them a lot. So somebody asked them a question, and they're able to dive in for an hour and just teach them exactly how to do that thing. And when you realize that there are people that are brand new or beginners at the thing that you're good at, you can actually give them a lot of value and help them to be successful with. With that thing.

Fantastic. You know what? I don't know. It's your so many years of experience or you've always been somebody who speaks for so much clarity. It's just so, you know, I think this is one of the only interviews I don't have to edit as much because I just know what in the, in the, you know, in the, in the chapters, you know, we spoke about why you should do what you do because you're finding what you love to do and then how to teach people because it helps you process. So I'm, you know, I'm chapterizing the whole thing as you're speaking, and for all of you watching, we haven't. We haven't spoken before. So this is not a premeditated flow. Yeah. All right. So, Eric, when it comes to videos and filmmaking and everything, I went to New York Film Academy just for a small Stint, a summer stint. Just because I thought I wanted to go to film school for many reasons. I wanted to become a student after I'd become a father. I just wanted to feel like how it feels to be a student. I wanted to learn a little bit of filmmaking and I also wanted to, you know, sort of explore with, work with students from around the world. The one thing that I learned from there was the storytelling. And after that, it completely changed the way that I tell stories. And I did tell you a story before we got started as well. So I always tell stories and I teach people how to tell stories. The one thing that I failed at every single time was lighting. Oh my God, it was such a science that. How to hide a shadow. And you know, it was like, my God, that one shadow was, was an art project in itself. So when it comes to. So that was filmmaking, moviemaking and all of that. And everybody watched from afar. Now that's coming to our own lives because you and I and everybody on this planet has an opportunity to make a cinematic experience for their Facebook ads, for their landing page videos, for their, for their course material, for everything else. So we are all, all filmmakers in that sense. So how, what would be the first few. I know it's sort of a. It's, you know, I'm trying to abridge a lot in a little bit. But what would be the first few starting steps for all those people who are sitting back and saying, oh my God, films, cameras, lighting, all of that. I, you know, I don't have the 10, 20, $30,000 to hire somebody and I surely can't do it myself. What are the starting points?

So step number one is understanding that story is king. So, you know, if you're getting too caught up in the cameras and the lights and the gear and all the stuff that you need to make it look professional, just take a step back and understand that like, the story is the most important thing. And I don't just say that just because it sounds good or it sounds nice. But in reality, I know people that are running video ads right now that are literally, they're taking their phone, they're doing a selfie video like this and telling their story, and it works. And you know, if you're just starting out and you're not a filmmaker, you don't know how to create really high quality or professional looking films. Hopefully that's like a comfort to you that, like, okay, that's not the most important thing. And by the way, I teach this not just to entrepreneurs who are not Filmmakers, but I teach the same concept to filmmakers, the filmmakers that I teach. It's one of the biggest, probably one of the biggest things I talk about is that it's not about the gear and the camera and the lights. It's about the story first. And then when it comes to. So the story is. The most important is having a good story that's going to bring people in, that has a hook, that's going to capture their attention, keep them engaged. That's what's most important. Because certainly there are videos online that people have spent hours and hours watching that are not like technically quality, right? So it's the story that's important. Now outside of that, when it comes to like the quality of video, the most important thing is not the gear and the cameras that you're using. Okay. So for example, you might look at my webcam shot right here and you might think like, oh, he's probably using a nice camera and expensive lights and all that kind of stuff. And, and the reality is I'm not. This is just the webcam built into my camera. I've got a window right next to me lighting me. I do have a light here, I won't lie, just to light me up a little bit. I'll show you. If I turn that off, then it gets a little bit dark. So I do have one of my lights here just kind of lighting up my face as well. But when it comes to creating a good quality image, it's not about the gear, it's not about the cameras you use. So before you go out and spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on camera gears and light, camera gear and lights. Focus on learning just a few basic principles of cinematography. And I don't know if you want me to go into some of those, if that's kind of where you're going or if that was more what you wanted was that was it.

No, no, let's do it, let's do it because whatever. Because you talk in very framework blueprint modules. So go as deep as possible because I'm, you know, it's easy for people to understand however deep you go.

Okay. So I could spend all day, all week talking about cinematography. There's a lot to unpack there. But I will go, we'll go like one level deep at least. So in terms of cinematography, creating good looking images. And by the way, that this goes for feature films, it goes for zoom calls. It's the same thing. The number one most important thing that will make your images look good is lighting. Okay. Understanding how to light. So it's creating contrast ratios. In fact, the light in my room has actually changed now, and you'll notice that it keeps changing because of the sun position in the clouds. But like, I can control the light right here with the light that I've got lighting my face. So, for example, figuring out understanding lighting really is the most important thing because you can get away with a lot if you just have really good lighting. Now, when it comes to good lighting, I don't mean just like this is necessarily bad and this is necessarily good. It's not about just having good exposure on yourself, but it's more about understanding the direction of the light and where it's coming from and what it looks like on you. So typically, for a video like this or anytime you're lighting the human face, you typically want to use what we call soft light. Now, soft light comes from a large source. So, for example, a window. There's a big window here. It's about probably 5ft by 5ft. A window is going to naturally produce a very soft light. So if you'll notice that the gradation from the highlight on my head here into the shadows is a very smooth gradation. Now if I turn this light off, okay, now you can see there's kind of a. There's a smooth gradation right there. If I had a really small source over here that was like, you know, this big, just like a single light pointing at my face, there would be a very hard line. That's what's called hard lighting. Okay, now when it comes to lighting human faces, I'll turn this back on. You want soft lighting. So using a soft box or, or using a window or using any kind of diffusion material that can make your light source large. If I just take a lamp and point it at my face, it's going to give me a really unflattering light. So that would be tip number one. Like if we were to go, you know, as high level as possible when it comes to lighting is use soft light. So, for example, right here I'm using a window, and that window is producing a soft light on my face. Now, the reason I have another light here is to help to wrap that light around. So we talked about quality of light, which is soft or hard. Now we can talk about real quick direction of light. So, for example, the direction that a light comes from, the angle that it comes from can actually change your story. So if you imagine, you know, if you've ever been camping and told scary stories in a tent, and you take a flashlight and you put it underneath your chin, and you point it straight up at your face. Why do we do that? Because it creates this scary effect. Right. So just by changing the direction of the light, we've now made it look scary. Where if you were to take that same flashlight and put it, like, up here on the side, it would look normal. And so just by changing the direction of light, you can change that. So in this situation, like I said, number one, you want soft light, and number two, you want to make sure that the light is covering the right parts of the face. So if you divide your face into four, well, three sections. Okay. You've got this side. You have this side, and then you have the front. Okay. This is the way I look at it. So you have the front and two sides. You want the light to cover two of those three sides.

Okay.

And then the shadow to be on the other one. So if you look at my face right now, you'll notice that there's light here, there's light here, and shadow over here. Does that make sense?

Right. So, okay, so what if this part was dark? What would you do then? And you couldn't light anything up. Can you light it? Oh, no. This from the bottom is not you. What you count is one of the three. So it's 1, 2, 3. Sorry, can I just. Right now, I was slightly nervous before getting on this call because I was like, I hope I've lit up my. My studio space. I'm talking to Eric, so can you please positively critique, you know, where this setup. So I. For depth, and I put a soft light. I've got a lamp that's coming from here from a decently large source, but I don't have anything on this side.

Yeah, well, it looks like there's a kind of a blue light coming from that side.

Yes. So I've got a lava lamp kind of a light coming in from.

Yeah, yeah. So you got kind of the color vibe going on as well. You know, I've got this lamp back here that I can turn on. It has some colors in it. I would say that, like, the biggest thing with your setup is you've got a lot of colors mixing around. And with lighting, one of the biggest things is control and separation. So where you've got that blue lights kind of flooding into your face, and then that orange light is lighting up the background, it's almost creating too many colors. It just. It feels unnatural.

Sure.

And then. And then your window in the background is blown out. Like it's Completely white. And so. And so working with, like, your contrast levels to make so so that there's nothing that's, like, blown out white and everything looks like it's a good exposure level will make a big difference.

Got it. Got it. Sorry. Did I. Did I. Maybe I interrupted when you were speaking about the shadow on the face.

Yeah, that's okay. I don't know if I'm going the right direction. What?

You're absolutely fine. Because I can see some engagement on the page and people are watching and asking, saying, this is making a lot of sense.

Okay. Yeah. So this is the way that I always look at lighting is the three sides of the face. You want light. Light and then shadow. And this is going to give you the most cinematic look. Okay. Like movie. Like, look, if you watch movies and you start paying attention to the lighting, which everybody's going to start doing that now just because we talked about it. Next time you watch a movie, you're going to be thinking about the lighting. You'll notice this, that there will be light on one side, light on the front, and then shadow on the other side. And every face will be lit like that. And a lot of times, the way that you'll recognize this is because you'll have a little. It's hard to see right now with my setup just because it's so soft. But what happened is if the light is coming from this direction, all of this is going to be lit up, and then there's going to be a triangle of light on your cheek right here. Okay. You can kind of see it. It's very soft right now. There's that little triangle of light that is very desirable. It's very flattering in cinematography to have that triangle of light. They call it Rembrandt lighting because the painter Rembrandt used to paint his subjects like that. So you have the same thing where the light would come across the face and then. And then the reason that creates that triangle is because it's the shape of the. Between your nose and your brow creates a triangle, and the light is passing through that shape. Your nose is casting a shadow here, and your brow is casting a shadow. Sorry, here. Which is allowing. I don't know if this is making sense. It's allowing just a triangle of light to appear right there. You will see this in movies over and over and over and over again. They're always lighting their scenes that way because it's the most desirable, most flattering lighting. So if you can replicate that in your zoom calls, you can replicate it in your videos or whatever, you'll have the same effect. And if you just do those two things, position the light correctly, which by the way means that it's going to be probably about right here at a 45 degree angle to your face. So not directly in front of it. 45 degree angle and then usually a little bit above, that's going to be kind of the sweet spot for your light to create that effect. And so as long as you have that positioning right and you're using a soft light, everything should look really nice. The reason that I'm using a light here is because my main light source is coming from this window, which is very side lit. It's not reaching over to this side. And so I have another light here that is helping kind of wrap that light around my face.

You could have two on either sides as well because you need to have two out of the three lit up. So instead of one here and one here, could you have two here?

No, no, no, no. Next to each other. So this one and this one or this one and this one.

Oh, okay. Okay, got it. That's good to know. I would have, I would have left with, with half knowledge if I asked that question.

You can do that if you have this lit up and this is dark, but you're going to look like a super villain or something.

Right? Okay, lovely. Okay, so now let's, let's move to, you know, sort of for all the audience, for our audiences who like, you know, how can I tell a good story cinematically on a Facebook video? The shortest form of video available to be able to sell courses, online marketing stuff, whatever people are doing. So what would be your thing or how to, how to craft? Can we do it with the phone? And should it just be a story beginning, middle and end and there's a hero and the hero has a problem and you know, how he overcomes it. Just those basics that you talk about or, or is there something deeper to it?

You know, honestly, I don't know that there's a lot more to it than that. I mean, if you understand Internet marketing and storytelling and like you mentioned, like the hero's journey, that's really it. When you're creating ads though, it's not like ads are not always telling a story. So your video ads may not be like just you on camera telling your story. There's other things that you might do with ads as well. So it can be something that's entertaining, it could be something that's. That catches people's attention. It could Be just a, just an attention grabber, a scroll stopper in your creative of your ad. So the image or the video in your ad is just something that gets people to stop. And then you tell more of the story in your copy, which is something that I see a lot as well. So it really depends on what you're going for. But ultimately you're either telling your story or more importantly, you're really telling your customer's story. Right. Your client's story. Like where they are right now and where you're helping them get to.

Got it. So now, audio. How do you go about? You sound fantastic right now. And I see you're not using headphones. A lot of people say you must use headphones. So what is your thing on audio and especially for zoom calls or these kind of short videos?

Yeah, so headphones are probably the easiest way to get like, decent audio that's going to be better than your, your regular computer audio, although sometimes it can cause problems. So I don't, I don't really recommend that. If you're looking to step up your, your audio quality a little bit, there's, there's two things to consider. One is the microphone that you're using, and two is acoustic treatment or the room that you're in. So this microphone that I'm using is the Blue Yeti. Blue Yeti Pro. You can look at their website, Blue Yeti, blue dot com. I don't know. You can look them up. The Blue Yeti, it's, it's very affordable, I think it's, I think for, for their cheapest one, it's maybe 100 or $150 to get a mic like this. And this is like a professional mic. It's the easiest one to use. It's a USB mic. So it plugs directly into your computer. And then when you go to zoom and you go to your audio settings, you just select that microphone and it sounds great. I've done professional recordings on this. I do my zoom calls on it. I do my YouTube videos on it. Everything. Okay. So having a really good quality microphone is really helpful. Other people will recommend like the Shure SM7B or some of these other like really professional podcaster mics. The thing you need to understand with those before you go out and buy them is that they require preamp, which means you have to have another box that converts the analog signal into digital. That's the reason why this one's so easy, because it's. Because it's already usb. It's already, it's Automatically digital, so it goes straight into your computer. And like I said, I use it for professional purposes. So, like, it's definitely good enough for that. So that's the microphone that I use. The second thing, there's actually three things. I said two. There's three. First is the microphone you're using, so having a good quality mic. Number two is your positioning in relation to the mic. So, for example, if I put this mic over here and I start talking like this, you'll notice that the audio doesn't sound as good anymore. Right now you're hearing my voice reverberating through, so you're getting a lot of room sound. You can hear the size of my room. You can hear that there's bare walls in here. It does sound different, Right?

Right.

So if I bring this back and come closer now, we're going to get a much more quality sound. And actually, the closer I get, the more, like professional it's going to sound. So if I get. I'll do a little test here. If I get really, really close to my microphone, you'll start speakers, you'll hear the bass response in my voice. It'll feel really deep. It probably feels like a. Like a podcast voice a little bit because I'm getting really close to the microphone now that if you're going to get really close to the microphone like that for a zoom call, it's probably going to feel a little bit awkward.

Right?

Because it's like, it sounds like I'm on a podcast, but I'm not. I'm actually just having a conversation with somebody. So having the microphone, you know, six inches to a foot away from your mouth is kind of a sweet spot right here. You're not hearing too much of the room. You're just hearing my voice. It sounds high quality and it sounds good. Okay. So that's the second thing is how you position to your mic. And then number three is the treatment of your room. So the room that you're sitting in has. It makes a big difference. So if I were in, for example, let's say I was in a big hall that has lots of echo and lots of reverberation. Even if I'm using a mic like this and I'm close to it, you're still going to hear that echo, right? And it's still going to. It's still going to affect it. And so what you can do is in your room, even in this room, if it wasn't treated, would still have a lot more of that echo than it does now. What you can do is use what's called acoustic treatment. So I've got on my walls, actually right in front of me so you can't see it, are three acoustic panels. And what those are is basically insulation foam inside a nice little frame that you hang up on the walls. And what it does is it absorbs a lot of that sound. So I'm not getting sound bouncing back and forth between all of the walls in the room. They're just getting caught in those acoustic panels. An easier way to do this is with acoustic foam, because you can buy that pretty cheaply on, like, Amazon. You've seen those little foam things that you. That you glue to the wall. Um, so you can use those as well. Um, those, you know, they'll do a good job and help you out with that. Um, but ultimately that's going to make a big difference. If you don't want to go out and buy acoustic treatment, just having like a couch or a mattress in your room or other furniture to help kind of soak up the sound will make a big difference. It's like when you move into a new house and like, everything echoes and then you move all your stuff in and now it's all now doesn't anymore. Right.

Just buy those acoustic, maybe 4ft by 4ft, and just stick it on any wall. And it just. Or should it be strategically placed?

There's. There is very intense scientific strategy to.

How to do it.

But at a high level, if you just put them up anywhere, it will make a difference. So. So yes, you can get really. You can get really nitpicky about that. But for the use case of, most of the people are gonna be listening to this. Just putting anything up anywhere is going to make a difference.

Got it. You know, we have a lot of agency owners in our community, so We've got about 132,500 people who subscribe to this newsletter. And so this video is going to be going out to many of those people, about 20% of them. We have a 20% open rate. So give or take, they're going to be a couple of thousand people who are going to be watching this. And so out of those couple of thousand, 20% are agency owners, then entrepreneurs, coaches, and all of that. So for people who like, you know, I know the basic stuff, but thanks for revalidating. For 80% people, this is gold. The lighting, the three, all of that, including me, I love that. But for the 20% people who are agency owners and all of that, you're like, could you Share any campaign or any story that you worked on and how you made that video happen and you had some Bulborn moments that you want to share with us and say, this is what you must do if you're creating a new video for your client.

So like specifically making videos. I'm not sure I understand the question.

Yeah. So anything on any story, on any video that you made which was like, this is what worked and got the client a lot of new clients or whatever leads or whatever he wanted. And so anything on video creation or story or any campaign story that you can share with us.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the importance of having a good video ad is often understated. Like I said, sometimes you can hit it out of the park with a selfie video and it happens. And if you just for some reason the video just happens to work, it catches people's attention, the story works. You know, certainly if you go out and you shoot 30 videos with your selfie camera, like one of them is probably going to work.

Right.

And so, and so that's one way to do it. But ultimately, eventually, as you're growing your brand, you're growing your business, you're probably going to want to start using ad creative that looks a little bit more professional. And we had. So, so I will tell you a story of a video ad that we did that really crushed it. And we're actually, we're actually. Well, I won't talk about this yet, but we've got another offer coming soon that's going to be helping people to do this.

But let's talk about it. Sure. That.

Well, that's not even something I've announced yet. So that's, that's like exclusive. But anyway, so, so we were running in the filmmaker market. We were running an offer called Lighting Secrets, which is where I teach, by the way, all of this stuff that I'm talking about. Okay. It's inside a little mini course that's, that's $47 and will teach you my entire methodology for lighting. And so inside that course. Okay, great. Inside that course. So we started running this funnel for this offer as a, as a front end funnel to get people into our, eventually into our higher ticket programs. We started running this program and up until then I'd been doing this probably three and a half years at that point, working with filmmakers. I had been using almost entirely image ads in my advertising, which you might be surprised, like you're a filmmaker. Why would you use image ads? Well, the appeal is that image ads are really easy to create and you can make lots of them very fast. And so that's why people do it. Just, you know, you create an ad copy. You, you go find like five stock images and you throw them on there and you test all of them and you see which one works the best. Okay. It's just a very easy, simple method. And that's what I had been doing for the longest time. That's how we've been growing. For this specific video for this course, I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, you know, we're looking for ways to how can I improve this funnel or how can I improve these ads and everything. And he told me it was the first time anybody had ever said this to me. He said, look, you're a filmmaker. Why don't you do a really cool video ad? And I said, okay, well, I know how to do it, so I'll try it. I had tried video ads before, so, like, really simple ones were just me talking to the camera or something very simple. And I hadn't gotten much better results than my image ads, which is why I just kept making image ads.

Right.

He said, why don't you, you know, do a really cool video ad? I said, okay, I will. And so I created this video ad that was basically me saying, hey, it's Eric Thain. You know, if you're a filmmaker and you want to make cinematic videos, you need to learn how to. Lighting is going to be the most important thing you need to learn. And so let me show you how to do it. Inside this course you get this and this and this. And I, and I told them about everything and I mixed in a bunch of B roll and a bunch of footage that would show them, you know, what's inside the course and all the different processes they get. And I just kind of, it was a very visual representation of what they were going to get inside this program. And we ran that ad initially and it just started crushing it. Just completely, like, completely different. And so we started running that ad. I mean, like, just about doubled our return on ad spend just from running a really high quality video ad. And so we did that one and then we made another one that was a similar level of energy but a little bit different. And then, you know, ever since then, like, I haven't run an image ad now in a few years because, because they just, they don't work as well as these, these really good ads. So I guess all that's to say that there is a really good case for really putting energy and effort into high quality Ads. I know it's easier to just go grab stock images and throw them in there and see what works or, or to just shoot something on your phone. And certainly if you're just starting out, like, don't let this stop you from running ads. That's the thing we have to be really careful is that if I tell you you need a really good video ad and so then you're thinking about that for the next year and you don't ever launch anything, then that would be a disservice to you, right? So if that's gonna stop you, then ignore what I just said and go make some selfie video ads, okay? Get something out there. But once you've done that and you've used that to death and you're ready to go to the next level, like really think about who's your target audience, what do they need to see, what pain points do I need to solve for them and how can I do that in a really high quality video ad that's going to look professional because it's going to drive more buyers to your offer. It's going to, and it's gonna build your brand as a business. As somebody who does high quality stuff, like, it's funny to me that people will spend so much time figuring out a logo for their business and they'll spend zero time on making good looking videos. Like all of these things are parts of your brand. So if you want all of it to look good, you should put the energy and effort into all of it to make it look good.

I so believe that and I for sure am ready to level up. It's just so easy to take your phone to the middle of downtown Vancouver or, you know, racing a car or whatever, do a little bit of video, edit a little bit. But a cinematic video shows your brand and obviously when you're selling high tickets or you're wanting to sell because you know, you work so many years in a particular industry and you want the market to value you. I feel when people say Facebook doesn't work is because you don't know how to work Facebook just the way you just said, if you're doing ads, you know, you get in what you put in. So if you're not putting in the effort to put in cinematic, you know, you're not representing yourself as somebody who has a $10,000 course or an offer, $20,000 or whatever. People are selling, people are selling. I mean, you look at Nike, you look at Bose, you look at all of them, you know they're selling low ticket, $200 headphones. But the quality of the video is maybe a $1 million video because they want to sell more of those. So maybe bring in that mindset. Even if your ticket is small, ticket app price is small, but you want to sell multiple of them, it's going to be high quality versus whatever you've been doing so far. Fantastic. So in terms of you need to. How do people get started? Like hire an agency or does everybody have to learn video making or.

Yeah, yeah. So I definitely wouldn't recommend that everybody learn video making. I think you can learn the basics of it. And if you're just getting started, like, basically take what I've taught you today and go improve your videos. Like, I mean, you can do that, but ultimately, like, it would be a good idea to have somebody working for you or have somebody that you're working with. You know, I've hired services out there that will just do like a flat monthly fee. So like one that I worked with once was Video Husky. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's Basically, it's like $500 a month and they give you unlimited video editing. And that way, you know, you still have to have the ideas for the creative and you've got to shoot the footage and everything. But they'll give you a video editor that can do cool motion graphics on it and can do cool transitions and make it look good. So you can start with something like that. I mean, I've even used them for pretty high level stuff and like, they did a really, really good job. So I can vouch for the quality of their editors. So like, I would start with something like that, some service that can edit for you. And then, and then ultimately, you know, what we've done now is I've got an editor that's full time on my team, a videographer and editor. So he actually comes and shoots all the stuff as well for me. So, you know, at some point you're gonna get to that level where it's. Where it's like, it doesn't make sense to work with the, the all in one solution anymore. And you just need somebody that can just do it for you custom on your team.

Perfect. Perfect. I just got two more questions before we wrap this up, Eric. Where would you like to talk about the offer or not yet.

Which one?

You said you're coming up with a new offer. Would you like to talk about it or just give a preview or.

I'll tell you this much.

Okay.

Because it's still, it's, this is still a work in progress. For the last five years I've been, I've been helping filmmakers to grow their business as, as filmmakers and to create cinematic films and sell them to clients. I am working on an offer right now that will be specifically for online course creators, coaches and consultants teaching you how to do what I did with my filmmakers. So we've done, we've done multiple seven figures in sales with, with film makers using both low ticket and high ticket offers. And we have a really cool strategy that we used that we discovered doing that lighting secrets course with the video ad where it actually, it scaled our business. I'll give you an example. We, and I'm not sharing this to brag, but like it took us three and a half years to get halfway to our first two comma club award. Right? So to hit $500,000 in revenue. Three and a half years. Okay. And you know, that's great. I'm grateful for it. But there are people that do it faster and like I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a go getter. Like I want to do more three and a half years to get halfway. When we implemented this strategy, we did the other half in just six months. So that fast. And so I had a lot of people over the last year or two that have been like, Eric, you need to teach people this, you need to teach people how to do this because it's really valuable for people to understand like if you already have high ticket offers, if you're an agency or if you've got a high ticket offer, whether it's $2,500, 10,030, 50, $100,000 offer, it's a method where you can use these really low ticket offers to bring in buyers at a profit and then ascend them into your high ticket offers to just maximize the profit in your business. That's probably, probably as deep as I should go.

Okay.

Like I said, I'm still working on this. But, but we're going to be, we're going to be kind of putting out some content in a little bit here. That's just going to help entrepreneurs with that process.

My last question is going to be, I think, I don't know if anybody's ever asked you this question on any interview. It may be the most challenging, emotionally challenging question and you can choose to say no. And most people, you know, are, have different kinds of emotions when I ask them this question and the question is, who's your favorite superhero and why?

Oh, it's very emotional.

Yeah, I thought so.

I would have to say that my favorite superhero is Spider Man.

Alrighty. We don't have Spider man here today. Okay. And why.

That'S a funny. I don't know why he just was always my favorite. Like, I just thought he was the coolest. Like when I. When I was growing up, I used to draw Spider Man. I would watch the shows and the movies. My friends and I would make videos of us pretending to be Spider Man. Like, we would do creative things with the camera where we would take our camera and put it like on the ground, but then turn it sideways so then we would crawl on the ground and make it look like we were climbing up a wall. I've been making videos since I was a kid and so we would do all that kind of stuff, but it was always Spider Man. Spider man was just like super cool, had the muscles, super sleek, the suit was awesome. And he can just swing around the city. What's cooler than that?

So that's fantastic. That is fantastic. For me, it was the Hulk just, you know, you can't see me like this, but I'm built pretty big. So for me it was always the Hulk, somebody who could power through anything. I felt invincible under all that.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Excellent, excellent. So hope that was not too much of an emotional ride. So the likes, we like to do that question in the very end. So, Eric, we learned so much from you today. Thank you very much for taking the time out. Really appreciate it. Like I said, it's taken years and years and years. And then when Covid happened, the community just sort of grew up. And now we've got this. We've got almost about 550,000 people in our different communities. But I talk about 135,500 approximately. These are the engaged people who listen to us almost on an every week basis. So incremental steps. We didn't know where it was going to lead to. But during COVID everybody came together and these people were listening to me talk and interview people. Motivation, fearlessness, how to grow a business, all of that. And so now we're doing whatever we're doing. Bringing in international guests like yourselves to be able to speak to communities all over Vancouver, Asia and wherever we have our audiences means a lot to everybody who's like, you know what? I can look better with my next interview call. You know what? I should have done this for my lighting. So what seems like a seemingly small thing for many of us actually has a game changer effect on many people, especially the way you brought it. You're definitely a teacher because you know how to teach with bullet points and then you recap. So make it easy for the editor as well. So thank you very much on behalf of everyone and for everybody who's watching live right now on Facebook and for everybody who will be watching on YouTube later on, please drop in. What's that one thing that you learned from this interview? What is your one big takeaway? And like we do at the end of every video, we give away one book either from Gary Vee, Grant Cardone or maybe from our mutual friend Derral leaves coming out to one person who says, oh, tells us what is that one big takeaway from our interview with Eric. So we're going to go stop going live, everybody. Thank you very much. This is Avi Arya, father of two girls, six dogs, husband to a superwoman, a streetcar racer turned hotelier, now social media marketer and founder of Internet mogul. Signing off for now.