The Art of Storytelling in Branding | Collin Strachan

That's what we try to do is— and Alaska is really, really great for that— is find really unique, authentic ways to create stories around a product or a service or an event that's happening or whatever. So however it is that the story needs to be told, communicating that in a way that makes the person who's viewing it feel something and feel like they're the hero of that story.

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Welcome to another edition of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how Turn Your Passion into Profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Jeffersonville, Vermont. Doesn't sound like a big town, but maybe it's a mega metropolis. Never been to Vermont, so I can't say. Uh, joining me today, Colin Strawn with Every Mile Creative. Welcome, Colin.

Thanks, Christian. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Absolutely. So doing a little research and how I found you, I was looking at your work up in Alaska. Absolutely stunning stuff. I'd like to say it was your work, but it's really the environment that makes it so incredible. That's—

I'm just kidding.

It is your work too, but you have a great palette to work with. So tell us a little bit about how Every Mile came into being.

Sure. So my wife and I spent kind of the first couple years of our relationship down in Dallas, Texas. I grew up near San Antonio and she grew up in Pennsylvania actually, but moved down there. She was an RN and I was in the agency world. Doing multimedia branding for like office furniture, interior design, that type of a thing. And one weekend a few years ago, we were just kind of had the bug for adventure and we thought, why don't we go out somewhere? So we put in Google Flights and found a cheap flight to LA actually, and went out just for the day, got an early morning flight, late night flight back. And we immediately— yeah, we were young. This was, this was almost 10 years ago. I couldn't do it now. We got kids now, so it would not be. We would be like, this is way too tired. But we just kind of— we got this sense of adventure. We fell in love with the West Coast, so that inspired us. Actually, she started travel nursing, and I was able to take on kind of enough remote contracts. I had left my job and built just a small photo video agency in that area, and with my network, we were able to do that. So we went out to California, did a summer there, and then we bought an Airstream, and we said, why don't we keep seeing these really cool locations. And as we were in California, in Utah, and were capturing and shooting in these environments, I had this crazy idea that everybody else had at the same time. Why don't we make travel and van life type of content? So we started doing that and traveled around the lower 48, as we call it, from Alaska for a couple of years. And then in '21, we came up to Alaska and just immediately fell in love with it. So we started heading further and further north and came up here and said, okay, this We're all in on this. And that gave our business, as far as the photo video for brands in the outdoor space, an edge that has really served us. And it kind of just aligned with our passion for adventure and fueled that fire that we had. So we came up to Alaska and ran around in our Airstream, and Kendall just spent all the time that she could on Instagram, online, whatever, scraping locations, finding the most epic stuff. And then we'd get out there and we had our gear and some ice knowledge and some mountaineering knowledge and just get ourselves into the coolest places we could find and start capturing there and, and take our clients there as well and do, you know, photo and video. So that's the, the long story short of kind of how we got into it.

So I'm assuming you'd covered the lower 48, you couldn't get the Airstream to Hawaii, so you said let's, let's, uh, head north. I've never been to Alaska, it is definitely on my bucket list. What's it like living there compared to, say, Dallas or, or Southern California? Well, for comparing it to Dallas. Okay.

Yeah. So our joke now is that if a town has a stoplight, it's too big for us. I hate sitting at red lights now because we're in these little, you know, 3,000-person towns in the middle of nowhere, just completely surrounded by the mountains and all of that. What's really, really cool about Alaska is that the people are just genuinely great. And, you know, our experience in Dallas, our experience in LA has been good, but there's this kind of rat race mentality and people are it generally feels like looking out for themselves. And so that ends up just kind of leaving you feeling like a cog in the wheel. And when you get really embedded into the Alaskan community and, you know, we're friends with lodge owners and bush pilots and farmers and welders and, you know, all kinds of stuff like that, people from, you know, at the heights of business to blue collar, whatever, you don't really feel a difference between them because it's everyone kind of against and with this crazy environment that we live in. So that has been kind of one reason why we're just passionate about calling this place home. And then, you know, our seasons are wildly different. We say we— our four seasons are almost winter, winter, still winter, and construction. Because all the roads just stop in the summer. And so, you know, we have these long months of cold and, you know, some darkness, but then we have this vibrant, radiant, 24-hour light, green, lush, color-filled summer that is like absolutely worth the time that we put in. So compared to Dallas and LA, you actually get seasons, which is something that has excited us growing up not really experiencing that.

Yeah, I think that would be the hardest thing for me to adapt to, is the, uh, darkness. So how, how long is the dark when it's dark?

Yeah, it depends on where you are. Alaska from north to south is the equivalent of like Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota. It's 1,400 miles. So that latitude range is really significant. It's, it's huge. So we are down in South Central. More south of us is Southeast, which is like where Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, some of the popular cruise destinations are. And then there's South Central, but we're still like what we can access on the road systems is still like 15, 20% of the landmass. So for us at the depth of winter, we've got like 11:30 sunrise and maybe 3:30 sunset. So we got 4 hours of light, but even on a beautiful still day, that sunlight is, you know, absolutely stellar. Like we're out having an amazing time still. But far, far north as you're, you know, above the Arctic Circle and getting closer to the North Pole, you know, there are places where the sun sets and doesn't rise for, I think it's up to 6 weeks. Maybe it's 4 or something like that. Yeah, so they are in a dark, dark night. Now, daytime, midday, it's kind of like a dusk, golden hour type of thing, like you can see what's going on. But yeah, the further north you go, the less light you get in the depths of winter.

Okay, so I want to pivot back to this decision to leave the agency. What was the thought process? What, what went through your head in making that decision?

I just really want to own my time. And that was the biggest thing is it was a great place, but pretty quickly, I guess I've just kind of always had this enterprising spirit. Pretty quickly I started kind of doing, you know, when I was in Dallas, weddings on the side and projects on the side and stuff like that. And I was able to match my income. And then I find myself working evenings and weekends to make that stuff happen and longer hours for that same income for the agency. And then we had some really cool projects. We were rebranding a company that, you know, had a $300 million exit for the founders and, and things like that. But it was— it kind of sometimes turned into, hey, you know, could you guys come in for the weekend? We'll pay you $500 more bucks or whatever. And I'm finding myself working, you know, 5, sometimes 7 days a week for this, and for security, like, you know, having a paycheck. And it's just— it's not something I've ever really believed in. So I just thought, hey, I'm gonna I'm going to just take the risk. I'm going to go out on my own. I'm going to try it. And yet it ended up working out. There have been some bumps in the road along the way, but it's just every day, especially now that I'm a parent, you know, mid-morning I'm with my son having breakfast or lunch or whatever. And that's my time that I can block off of my calendar to give to my family. And it makes that commitment worth it to me.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Absolutely, absolutely. I love that you mentioned some bumps. What were some of the bumps on your way?

So we had a post go viral just last week that was actually about the moment that I was writing about, the moment that we woke up with $13 in our bank account and zero pipeline heading into winter in Alaska living off-grid. And Kendall and I kind of joke, so Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, calls his production company 7 Bucks because of the day that he opened his wallet and there was $7 in it. And our $13 Bucks moment is the thing that we use to kind of light a fire under ourselves. So there, yeah, there have been a few times where, you know, we've really had to get scrappy to make business work. And I think that's, you know, what is it, 98% of creative businesses end up failing. So we have, we have come to that point and just had to dig our heels in a couple times where money got low and it didn't look like there was much opportunity. And in that case, because we had a lot of connections in the outdoor industry, we went out and we emailed every single brand that we had a connection with and said, hey, we're doing winter in Alaska mini shoots. So it was like $750, you're going to get 15 images. We just got this beautiful snow. We're in the mountains, we've got endless golden hour. Let's go. And we booked $25,000 of work and rocked and rolled. So we learned at that point to spend as much time building out and filling our pipeline as we do playing. Because what happened was we were kind of getting some consistent work. And then as the season went on, we went into the mountains more and did our prospecting less. And all of a sudden we ran out of money and contracts. But yeah, so stuff like that happens.

Yeah, I think that's a very common problem with a lot of creatives is their work tends to be project-based. And so the recurring revenue doesn't show up. And, and so, which is totally fine if you don't have recurring revenue, but to that, to your point, if you're not going to have recurring revenue, you've got to have a process to keep the pipeline full.

Exactly.

And if you can get recurring revenue, it's better, but I think oftentimes more of a challenge to come up with a problem that requires a recurring solution. You know what I'm saying, right? So have you had any success in developing any recurring revenue streams?

No, our bread and butter is very project-based and we have had plenty of, you know, we have returned clients who come when they're ready. But no, we haven't. Like you said, one of the biggest things with B2B SaaS, like payroll benefits, whatever, like every single month there's a problem there that needs to be solved. And so it makes a lot of sense to lock that in. And we have tried again and again, taken all these courses, read all these books to create some kind of a pain point. And it's really been contrived. Yeah. For our clients and say, you've got this pain point, you know, lock in with us. And it, it's just nowhere near as powerful as inspiring them with really compelling stories and helping them make their brand stand out, make their story stand out, documentary, whatever it is. So no, we're pretty project-based. And what I have found is that if we want a you know, a full roster of projects, then we need to have a really, really full pipeline. And that's probably the number one thing that I would recommend to other creatives out there is just keep your connections, keep your network, always, always, always be growing, and then find ways to keep in touch with them and inspire them. And rather than, you know, you can, you can pitch, you can sell all of that, but you know, the biggest thing you need to do is make them laugh, make them cry. That's where the work comes for us, for sure. And even our clients who regularly come back and buy, you know, most of these organizations that we work with are so human that just, they've got product launches, they've got stuff that they know is coming, but they don't know exactly what. And they kind of, in our experience, want to come in and put the RFP out or discuss it or whatever it is when they're, when they're ready to. So I could be doing that wrong, but that's, that's been the case for us.

I don't, I don't think if you've got money in the bank, you're doing anything wrong. Yeah. That's one of the things that I think is a lie. If you will, that there's one solution, there's one answer.

And, and agreed.

Yeah, you see so many pitches about like, buy this one solution for tripling your business or whatever. They're just like a chef could make, I don't know, an Alaskan recipe, but I, I like gumbo, so we'll use that.

I love gumbo.

Yes, there are people in, in Louisiana that still can't even agree what qualifies as gumbo. And that's kind of my point, is that everybody's going to do it a little differently, and that, that's fine because they get the end product that they want. And that's the way business is. If what works for you may not work for somebody else, might not work for me, but if it works for you, then who can argue with it?

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I think back to your point about a solution being contrived, I, I think you, you hit on a key point that I like to talk about a lot, which is creatives being entrepreneurs first. And entrepreneurs look for problems to solve. In my experience, I had a failed software company that I launched on on an idea in the finance sector around payroll that I'm like, man, businesses really need this, right? I mean, like they're leaving money on the table and worked hard to get a software app developed and I couldn't get anybody to see the value in it. And I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. I definitely could have saved businesses money. It would have been worth paying for the app. But they didn't perceive the need. And when you're in that situation, whatever business you're in, you're in a situation where you're trying to sell somebody that they need something before you sell them that they need you, right? And, and if you've got to sell them that they have a problem, you're behind the 8-ball, right? So from your standpoint, what is the problem for your customers that you solve for them?

Yeah, that's a good question. It's something that we've had to spend a lot of time on. So obviously the core problem is that they want to sell their product and they want to sell their product as efficiently as possible. And so the most work that we have done has been in the, you know, outdoor space, in the CPG space, working with outdoor gear brands, clothing, that type of a thing. As our company is growing, we're finding more opportunities, but the core problem in today's economy that most of our clients deal with is that they need to stand out in the attention economy. And they need to do so in a way that is unique and in a way that brings in high-quality customers. So, you know, I was talking to a founder a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me they've had a couple really good campaigns work where they took their waterproof jacket and they put it on mannequins and they bought a bunch of super chokers and shot it. And, you know, it kind of went viral and they got a bunch of organic sales, but none None of those were return sales. And so, you know, we regularly come across clients who find little things that work, discount-driven sales, whatever it is, but what they need to accomplish is to bring in, bought-in, long-term loyal customers who resonate with their brand as part of their story. And so that's, that's what we try to do is, and Alaska is really, really great for that, is find like really unique, authentic ways to create stories around a product or a service or an event that's happening or, you know, some shift. If it's like we're getting calls for documentary related to environmental change in Indigenous populations because of the Infrastructure Act, there's some money there or whatever. So however it is that the story needs to be told, communicating that in a way that makes the person who's viewing it feel something and feel like they're the hero of that story. So that is, um, you know, really long kind of word. What we do for our clients is not only creative production, putting, you know, their product or their message into an image or a video, but the strategy behind how to get people bought in on watching it, how to hook them in, and then how to make them feel like this brand represents me and who I am. And when we could do that, then our customers go out and they have a whole lot better performance on their campaigns and they find good customers who are bought in, who end up becoming ambassadors. And so I don't want to just drop great content. I want to create content that, that really moves the needle and 10Xs their investment with us. And so it's, while it's creative, it's also very economically driven what we do. And so the clients who come to us, you know, have the product that they need out, a brand anthem, a launch positioning, they're having trouble cutting through the noise, any one of a number of problems, but it always comes down to an authentic message that people want to engage with.

So I'll summarize that and you tell me if I'm correct. You help them resonate with their core and potential customers. Exactly.

Okay. With the stories that we tell with photo and video, we help them resonate and form an emotional connection with customers.

So I can see clearly how the palette is that you have to work with in Alaska and, and, you know, like with, with Outdoor Brands, etc., really would give you a lot of, a lot to work with. But do you think, knowing what you know now, that you could— not saying you would or would want to— if you were talking to another business owner and they were living back in Dallas, do you think they could replicate what you do that resonance, strategic resonance. I think I just coined a phrase, strategic resonance.

I like it.

Yeah, yeah, we just made a word working in Dallas.

Absolutely. What's so interesting about our content is that I think Alaska adds a little more fuel to that fire. But, you know, I'm super active on LinkedIn and the pictures and the videos and the scenery themselves do not drive my high engagement posts. And I get a lot of posts that do really well.. And it's when there is a compelling story and when there is this human emotional connection. So I think it can be done in a back alley in New York. As a matter of fact, it has been done in a back alley in New York again and again and again. So yeah, in the same way in Dallas, in Houston. Yeah, Houston comes to mind because I think it's a very boring place, but other people don't. I'm going to get some backlash talking to our friends today. The same thing can be done because what people buy into is an emotional connection with other people that they feel like resonate with them or that they connect with. And so when you remember to focus first on that human element and on the story and on making your customer, you know, the hero of their story or telling your origin story, you know, one of those two of the— those are the kind of the top two performing story formats that we have found. That you can do that anywhere. And, and would I? I don't know. You know, if I say that I'm never going to leave Alaska, then it's guaranteed that I'll be leaving Alaska. But here I am for now.

I guess I want to— what I wanted to point out was that it would be easy for someone to say, well, oh yeah, he lives in Alaska, it's easy for him to do that. And that, that's not the truth. I mean, it may add some fuel to the fire, but— and it may point your target to you, towards point you towards your target market more. Yeah, but it doesn't— what you do is not confined to the geography, right? I think about— there was one commercial, and I can't remember the name brand, it may have been Bear Grylls knives, and it was a commercial of a montage of different men in, in locations using their knives. And there was no— I— there may have been a voiceover, but there was no dialogue. And it was gritty and it was compelling. I don't know if you remember it, but it was so compelling. I'm like, I need a knife. Like, I, I, you know, I'm not a man if I don't have a knife. I mean, like, what the hell am I doing, right?

Yeah, it was a Gerber commercial, I believe. Um, yes, but I know exactly the one that you're talking about. Donald Miller and his StoryBrand conversations regularly uses that one an example of just what a fantastic, compelling narrative where they don't say we make the best knives, we don't make the steel forged, whatever. It's just about, great, I'm a guy out here in the wild and every once in a while I need a knife. And like, well, dadgum, I need a knife too.

Yeah, it's exactly right. And people in Alaska would probably laugh at you if you showed up with a Gerber knife. That's not a knife. It'd be like, uh, Crocodile Dundee, who said This is a knife, you know, that you probably have big knives up in Alaska.

I have the Bear Grylls Gerber knife that I bought years ago because I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and people laugh at it all the time, but it still holds up. So I'll just admit to that.

I have—

I got the, like, bar— everybody calls it the Barbie knife. I have a bunch of others, but that knife is like really versatile actually.

They didn't steal it and paint it pink on you, did they?

Someone will wrap it in pink duct tape or something. It's orange and in gray and has a big old Bear Grylls signature on it. But I bought that 15 years ago thinking it was really cool. So it works.

Brand works. Yeah, that— yes. And we went through a rebranding of our service offerings, and you're a creative, so you'll laugh at us. So as accountants, when we originally came up with our service offerings, retooled them, I don't know, 4 or 5 years ago, our services were named processes. So there was The core financial process and the core tax process, and we thought we were really clever. Then as we started really looking at it and looking at our target market and looking at it from their perspective, God, these are awful. I mean, who in the hell, what creative person even uses the word process? I mean, there are a few. But I mean, like, that's just not— and so when I turned my head of marketing loose on it, I was still overseeing it. And she finally looked at me one day across from the desk and she said, you're getting in my way. And I said, oh, okay, I'll exit. And then she came to me and she goes, well, what do you think? I'm like, no, no, no, this is yours. I don't want to see it until it's done. Like, I don't, I don't want to know what you come up with until you get done. And she She came back and she was presenting it to the team and the first list of names, you know, there's 3 service offerings, the first list of names, I'm like, "Yeah, okay." I still had the same, it was about the same feeling I had about the other stuff that she had come up with. Then she said, "And these are the ones that are just off the wall, the ones I," you know, and she presented them to us and I'm like, "Oh yeah, you nailed it." I think the biggest disservice most businesses do to themselves is they think in terms of themselves. Like, and the longer a business goes on, it's easier and easier to do because, you know, as you grow, you, you, you add people and you do add processes and all of those things are necessary, but it— you gradually drift away from your core customer. And, and you forget what they think and how they think and what engages them. So yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just rambling.

I know, I think that's cool. One of the biggest lessons I, I did learn from the agency that I was at is that oftentimes the ideas are out in the left field. So that story of her saying, yeah, here's the RFP and then here's a crazy idea. We have conversations like that very regularly where a client comes to us, hey, can you concept this? Yes. And as we were talking, we came up with this and they go, oh, that's it. Then you come together as creatives and you find the mesh. And what's really important that you guys nailed in on is that you go back and you ask, does this really connect with— does this make sense for the customer? Because it's going to make a lot of sense internally because we're all thinking we have the best ideas ever. Like, I sound in tune when I'm singing in the shower, but does it make sense for anyone else out there listening? No. And so you got to go back and know that you can get the answer for that. You got to go ask them and figure out. And then you're on to something if it really does resonate with the customer.

Yeah, the initial service offering that we have, she named the OG. And I'm like, that's perfect.

Love it. Relatable. You feel something.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So let's pivot again. If you were going to go back to yourself in, uh, Southern California and give yourself advice as an entrepreneur, what's probably the most important lesson you've learned that you would tell yourself?

I would have built a network and a community of people like myself and ahead of myself, uh, way earlier than I did. Uh, one of the things that Alex Hormozi says all the time is like, people say you can't buy time, but you can buy time. Because you could call someone who's 10 years ahead of you and pay them for your knowledge and pull that time forward. And so I spent a lot of time banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to do it when I could have called someone who has done exactly what I wanted to do and said, hey, how did you do to get there? And he might be in a different place, might have done something slightly different, but the basics were there. And I would tell myself to get on LinkedIn. You know, it's having its renaissance now, so maybe I would have been really early. I still think I'm early, but that has been huge for us. Largely because of the community building thing, because you can connect with people like yourself, uh, which has just been provided amazing opportunities for us. So I would say like, get over yourself, stop thinking that you've got the right ideas to figure it out and get out there. And then the next thing would be, uh, that talent and skill are not the same thing. I had a lot of talent. I can pick up most things and figure it out pretty quickly, but skill is the result result of investment into education and years of hard work and practice to become really great at what you do. And it took me some time to develop the discipline to learn and develop skills as far as storytelling and creative and business and the things that we do. And I believed that I— my knack for it was going to get me over the hump, and it wasn't. It held me back for years because I— the people who struggled with it went and got a mentor or bought the course and pushed themselves to learn how to do it. And then I, in my my great wisdom, thought that I was on the right track. So, so that cost me some years. It's not just reaching out to people who are better than I am.

You thought you were good enough, is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I think I thought I was, I was good enough. I think I thought I was good at figuring things out. I think I thought, you know, being scrappy and being out there, uh, was enough. And yeah, so exactly that, just a little bit of hubris, youth, being in my 20s. And then I probably wasn't consuming enough of high-quality content to recognize that mine wasn't up to par. So really, when I started, you know, reading in business but also in creative, when I started following people who are really on top of their game and getting serious about it— my wife played a huge role in this— and calling ourselves out about, look, if we want to bring really great results to the people that we're working with and what we're creating, that we've got to figure out how to get it on this level. So when I started taking edits that I had created putting them side by side with someone that I really aspired to that was doing great and picking apart why isn't this working, why isn't this working, why are the shadows off, why are the whites off, why are the colors— why is the blue not as perfect, you know, whatever it is with our Alaska stuff is when we started to get better. So I would say get humble and start looking at people who are doing it really well and reach out to them if you can. They can help you.

I think that's sage advice. I think my lack of humility has definitely held me back over the years. And it's natural for people in any situation, not just business, but, but if something's not the way they want it or they're not happy about the situation, I think the initial instinct or impulse is to look outside yourself, like, this person caused this to happen to me, or, you know, the economy is bad, or COVID, or whatever. Not that those things are not valid, right? I mean, they are valid, but what can you do about them? I mean, like, at the end of the day, you, you can't stop a pandemic. Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make for that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. So the question is, what can you do about the situation? And my experience is, is that the business, as far as its ability to grow, has always been limited by my ability to grow. And when I stop being willing to change myself, my behavior, my thoughts, my mindset, then the business stops growing as well.

Yeah. I would advise the listener, you know, if you're listening now because you have a pain point in your business, that is fantastic. You know, the fact that you're in podcasts, that you're reading, that you're talking to people is absolutely it. And another mistake that I made is I've only really dug in when there was pain And so, you know, the $13 to $25,000 was a great moment, but do you ride on that or do you want to live that way?

Right.

Yeah. Do you want to go on this roller coaster or do you get yourself in this place where I'm like, no, I think I constantly need education. I think I constantly need to find ways to improve my processes, to improve my storytelling, to improve my business acumen, to expand my network and kind of keep yourself desperate. And that moment gave us enough of a taste of that, that that's what what keeps me there. But it's something that I've had to push myself with. And so, yeah, that one way to do that is to say, okay, if I'm just coming for help when I've got a pain point, then great, you're humble when you're down. But when you're up, can you keep yourself humble too? And that took me another couple years.

Well, you're still younger than I, so congratulations. Let's pivot to maybe unrelated, but it's related in my mind, so we're going to go with it. Talk about LinkedIn as a how you have found success on LinkedIn, because I know, I know a lot of people look at LinkedIn as a cesspool. Like, it's— you, you talked about it in terms of community, but I only recently have, have really started trying to build a community. For me, it's just been a place where it's like I'm walking through a jungle and there are a thousand natives out there with poison darts, AKA salespeople, looking to take— looking to bag— looking to bag the animal, which is me.

Yeah.

How have you found success in that environment?

Yeah, so to relate to the people that feel that way, um, many, many people feel like LinkedIn is a resume. I felt that way for years, like, let's keep it up to date so that if a client finds me on another channel and they Google me, at least they see what I've done on my living resume called LinkedIn. And then a ton of people say, yeah, it's exactly that. It's a cesspool. It's a jungle of salespeople trying to, you know, pitch slap me, whatever it is, or it's just constantly irrelevant because why would I want to go and post something to the people I worked with 5 years ago? So LinkedIn is what you make of it. And like anywhere else, there's always going to be that. There's this really awesome feature where you can click not interested. In your feed if you don't want to see it. And there's an unfollow or whatever, you know, you cannot respond to those messages. But what I have found is that LinkedIn has been a really, really powerful tool for community. So it's funny, my father-in-law is, is incredible, but he's a big sports guy, loves golf, loves baseball. And I just, I just don't. So we have not been able to connect for years. I just don't. He is a, you know, a sales guy. He's a business development guy for a roofing company. So he worked in, um, in facilities and maintenance and all this type of stuff for huge, you know, business owners and in large properties for years. And then he became a BDR. And so now whenever we're together, we're talking about networking and just building relationships with people and how, you know, he's doing it in person. He's just the good old, you know, show up and bring them coffee and take them to lunch and golf every Saturday and whatever. And I'm doing it so virtually because I have this this worldwide roster of clients and I'm in Alaska and no one wants to come and golf here.

Is there like 2-week golfing season?

3?

Or is it a whole month?

No, no, that's probably about 3 months. But the field has been so beat up by the winter that it's just no good. But what's funny is it's like we have— I have found it's like I'm like, because I'm reading all this stuff that I think is new and exciting and I'm reading from Jeb Blount or from Donald Miller or from Hormozi or yeah, those are the most, you know, all over the place. Simon Sinek, you know, whatever, great leadership. I'm like, oh, I've got these new, you know, the 21st century ideas. And he's just like, yeah, I've been doing that for 30 years. And it's like, I just learned it on the baseball field. And so like human connection and building relationships with people is just, it's the same anywhere. And so LinkedIn is a really great place for expanding your network and becoming Being genuinely interested in what the people around you are doing. So a few ways that I have won is early on I was able to dig in and just get around other creatives like myself and learn from them what they're posting, support them, encourage them. You know, if they're in the lower 48 and maybe they're competitor, maybe they're not, whatever. But if I see them working with a brand that I wanted to work with, I'm like, hey, like, awesome project. This is so cool. You know, love the way that you captured that screenshot. Save the great shots for my own inspiration, whatever. But I just believe that like all ships rise with a tie. So I have a bunch of contemporaries instead of competition. And if they go and create an awesome campaign for the brand and that brand is profitable, then there's more budget to hire us next time, whatever it is. So that was kind of the first round. I just started connecting with people. And then as far as, you know, finding people to sell to, which is both terrifying and annoying to be sold to, it's just incredibly valuable because what you can do is you can go and connect with and see what those people will care about, because they're often posting about the projects that are most meaningful to them, or their milestones, or their accomplishments, or their, you know, achievements, or whatever it is. And so you can actually go in there, get a window into someone's life, and congratulate them, or send them a message and say, hey, we both grew up in Texas, like, that's crazy, you're 30 minutes down the road, that type of a thing. And then you have the opportunity to sell them, to share to them whatever, by crafting compelling content. Which is, I think, where I have found a lot of success is that I have really cool visuals. So that's a great pattern disrupt, but it's not completely necessary. What I have learned is how to write in a way that is exciting and inspiring or valuable to people. And so I can go and connect with someone. I've got a proposal on Friday with a guy that I've wanted to work with for 6 months, and I've let him know I wanted to work with him, but not a hard push. And he's just been following and I've written and he's engaged., and he's posted stuff for his business and I've been genuinely interested in his business and came together and we came up with a concept for a project that he wants us to shoot now. And so LinkedIn is not a show up today and send out your sales messages and see revenue, you know, type of platform. It's an invest in community, take a genuine interest in people, have conversations with people, and then you earn the opportunity to have them check out what you're doing and to share with them. So it's really powerful because no one wants me emailing them. Them every single day about what we're doing. But if I'm writing cool stories that are fun to engage with and they've got beautiful images and I'm talking about conversations that we've had or in the field or just cool things about Alaska or us driving our car into a ditch and getting it pulled out or whatever, then people get to kind of buy in on who you are and what your story is. Uh, and that's probably the final thing that I would say is like, you gotta— you have the opportunity to and you have the responsibility to humanize yourself. And if you're posting pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, service, service, service, service, service, that's not work. The people who are really winning on LinkedIn are basically treating it like Facebook and talking about their families and about their values and about their lives and about what they've learned and about their challenges and about their successes. And, you know, they get to sprinkle in their work. And then if someone self-identifies as a client, then, then that works. And there are some quality ways to do prospecting as well, but it's still completely centered around taking a genuine interest in people and only offering to help them them if you feel like they need your help and going to benefit from it.

So great advice.

That's what I like about it.

So I have a final question. I saw a lot of bush planes in your videos. What do you guys normally travel in or shoot in?

Yeah, so we move— let me— you know, a lot of these environments that we shoot in require some type of flight access. Probably our number one craft is the R44. Spent a lot of time in helicopters because you could get in, you can get them down anywhere. And the R44 is really cool because do a lot of short flights. So those operators, uh, turbine helicopter, this doesn't matter, but you get 3,000 starts on it, then you'd have to do a half a million rebuild, and you get twice as many on the, on the R44. So that's me, I, I nerd out. We can do another podcast about it.

Are you a pilot?

I'm not. I will become a fixed-wing pilot probably in the next couple years just because I've been around aviation my whole life. And then costs $100,000 to become a helicopter pilot and another million to buy the helicopter, and $1,000, $2,000 an hour to operate it. So we're not there yet, but we charter them.

You have a goal now. You have a goal.

Yes. Yes. 10 or 15 years maybe. So we charter them a bunch and then yeah, with bush planes, it depends on the location. It depends on the environmental impact, uh, especially in the national parks. You can't land a helicopter because they're more disruptive to wildlife and to the environment. So we try to be careful about where we're going. So if we're on a plane, then we're going somewhere where a ski plane plane can get into or whatever. But yeah, we use them a lot for our work and it gets us to these really cool places. And the coolest people fly them. So we try to go and create films about pilots so that we can just learn more and flex our storytelling skills and get free flight hours with them. Because when you let a pilot fly all day, they'll take you to the coolest places.

Yeah, I don't know any bush pilots, but I've seen these bush pilots that do like missionary work in Africa, and I'm like watching the videos of where they go, and I'm like, holy shit, that is crazy. Yeah, I can't imagine what kind of character shows up to be a bush pilot in Alaska.

Yeah, they're scrappy, they're brave, but the ones who do the craziest stuff are so meticulous about it. We've got a pilot that if she says, if you— if I hear the doors close You can't fly with me again. Like, you treat this thing, you know, like a doll, and you take excellent care of this craft because we're gonna go and we're gonna put our lives in its hands. And so we're going to be extremely careful. We're going to be doing everything we can with, with safety because this environment otherwise is going to remove all other elements of safety. So they're crazy and wild, but they're also just so meticulously committed to excellence in their craft with their flying, which is a lesson to learn.

Yes, that environment will kill you, and you don't even have to be in a plane. Yeah. Well, Colin, I really appreciate your time and your candor and your experience share. Listeners, if you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, follow the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, uh, let me know and I'll get rid of Colin. Until then, ta-ta for now.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

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