The Challenge of Attributing ROI in Creative Industries | Mark Wonderlin

The way I approach pricing is probably a little bit different than a lot of other video people. I look at it from the perspective of we're gonna do everything we can to make the best possible video for you. And based on what we've scoped out, which is planning however many meetings you need, and then filming, we're gonna do one day and we're gonna get, you know, these main things, interviews, live action, drone shots, whatever is needed. And then we're gonna edit it with the deliverable of this video, which is a 2 to 3 minute video, blah, blah, blah. That's the way I do it and I scope it as a solid price. Now I don't do, so a solid price, so this is the result, this is what you're gonna pay unless it goes wildly outside of this, which is like another day of filming, additional videos, or like, you know, tens of thousands of revisions. You know, I usually will give 'em 2 sets of revisions.

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the internet where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. My name is Christian Brim, your host. Today joining me is Mark Wunderlin of Mosaic Video Films. Did I do that correct?

Mosaic Media Films.

Media Films. Dang gummit. All right, well, uh, welcome, Mark.

Well, thanks so much for having me.

So give us the, uh, lowdown on what you do, what your business does.

Yeah, absolutely. So I live in Austin, Texas. I own a video production company here. I've been in the video world for the better part of 12 years, but now my team and I, we create kind of marketing-style videos for, for clients. So we'll work with anyone from, you know, a solopreneur all the way up to big huge brands. I'm about 75% of what we do is marketing videos, but then we'll also do some educational content for like master courses, and then we'll even do some event-related content as well.

Perfect. And Mosaic's been around for how long?

The better part of 12 years I've been in the video business.

Yeah. Okay, well, I heard 12 years, but I didn't know if that was all on your own. Um, so you, you did just start out in, in the film, uh, as an entrepreneur. You didn't do it for somebody else before?

Yeah, well, I actually, when I first started with video, I did work in the corporate world, but it wasn't— video was just one of many jobs that I did. So I did video, photography, SEO, print advertising, website design, packaging. I did everything because it was a relatively small team.. And then through that, I kind of went into video by myself as a solopreneur during the kind of, you know, early days of DSLR filmmaking.

So why did you gravitate towards video of all the things that you were working on?

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of it was the influence that I had from my CMO at the time, and he really said video is an emerging, you know, skill set, and I would highly recommend you spend more time focusing on that because that's where the market's going. And I really took that to heart and then also noticed through my research that a lot of the video content for businesses at the time was really just broadcast companies. They would come in there and they would work with businesses that would do a $30,000 to $50,000 ad buy. They would do what most broadcast companies do. They kind of pan, zoom, get in there quick. And that's what they would say. So, oh, we'll also do something for your online. Site, you know, it was kind of like an afterthought. And I really came in, you know, with the DSLR style and really looked at it more from a cinematography standpoint. So like, how can we tell compelling stories that are going to resonate with people? But with that marketing background, understand the goal here is to connect with the audience so that the audience wants to take the next step or convert. So it's beneficial to the business. So taking that background in marketing and then that creativity side of video and kind of merging that together, which, you know, 12 years ago that was not very prevalent. It was just done by broadcast companies.

I think I see in a lot of creative industries this— well, I'd say it's not just creative industries, it's all entrepreneurs. But the change that's happened is that Whereas before you were in a creative industry and you had a certain skill or your company had a group of skills, it's now gravitated to where it's more around the value that you're producing because in your case with video, last 12 years, do-it-yourself model has become much, much easier. Cheaper. And so there's kind of this perception that those skills aren't as valuable, right? I mean, I guess what I would say is it's more like the skill has become less important than the strategy behind that. Would you, does that resonate with you?

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times too, it depends on the type of client, right? So I'll usually tell my team or people that will ask me about it is like, oh man, no one wants to pay I don't want to pay this much for video and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, the people that don't want to pay it much or the do-it-yourselfers, they're never your client anyway. You need to focus on the people that do value it and the people that do use it as a tool. So it's pretty obvious, but the bigger the company is, the more they'll value it, the more they can use and leverage it to have a return. And that's the thing that I really like about working with businesses is that isn't like an expense.. It's more of an investment in their marketing that's going to help them. So, we create videos that really the majority of the content we create, they're going to use and leverage for 5+ years on multiple platforms in multiple ways. So, the ROI is pretty good, especially if they're selling higher ticketed items.

So, who is your ideal client?

So really, the ideal client for us is doing about $3 million plus. A year. We've worked with some that, you know, are over $100 million. We've worked with some that are less than $1 million, but usually around $3 to $5 million is about average as far as the overall revenue. And a lot of it depends on the number of team members they have. Usually it's someone that has a dedicated marketing team. They're relatively smaller, but they have the internal resources to use and leverage the video or the video content in an effective way to get an ROI. So one of the things that I do that's very different than a lot of video companies is instead of just producing the video and walking away, we try to have ongoing touchpoints with the client to see how the video is performing so we can kind of help them with best practices or make any tweaks that will help increase their conversion. Because really, you know, when you're working with businesses, they're not really buying the video per se, they're buying the result that the video is going to give them. You know, it's going to help them build trust, build credibility, increase conversion, increase the speed of, you know, you know, to close jobs. Um, that's really the metrics that they're looking around to say, was this an effective marketing expense.

It reminds me, I had a, uh, marketing agency client, and they were working with actually a mutual client, and they were doing lead generation through, I think it was social advertising. And, uh, this mutual client came back and said, well, this, this, uh, this isn't working. And they dug in, the agency dug in and provided all the data, and like, well, here are all the inbound calls Well, it turned out that the sales process on this mutual client was completely broken and these leads were just going into the, to the void. And I think what you said is helping the end user realize the value of what their intent is, whether that's building trust or lead generation or brand awareness, whatever it is, is a crucial piece. You can't just have the skill anymore, right? You've, you've got to connect the dots for them. Um, and that's sometimes, you know, like this client of mine, they didn't do sales consulting, they didn't handle, uh, any of that. And, and so it was kind of a, a lose-lose situation because they did their job, um, but, but the, the, the third-party client couldn't, couldn't, uh, utilize those leads. And so it was like everybody lost and It's, it's, it to me, it's more about, okay, well, you may not do sales consulting. You may not be able to fix their sales process problem, but do you have somebody that you can, can work with to help them solve the complete problem? Not just the piece of the problem.

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of that is like determined after those kind of subsequent meetings, what might be the bottleneck that's hurting. Sometimes it's traffic, sometimes it's on-page conversion. And then like you're saying, sometimes it's the bottom of the funnel where they're just not able to close the job and there's a sales issue where the video can only do so much, right? So there is some limitations, but the idea of the video, depending on the way that you're using it in the funnel and system, it's to help generate leads, you know? So if it's a product, you want it to help close the job. If it's a B2B high ticket and you need to have that consultation, then the video can get you all the way up to that point, but the salesperson has gotta putt it in.

Yeah, and I know some salespeople that would disagree that it was a gimme putt, but you know what, you know salespeople, they're all lazy, right?

Yeah. That's how salespeople are. It's interesting because they want high salary, high commission, and endless stream of warm leads that are ready to buy and don't really need any closing or competition. Yes.

So yeah, one of the things this, this kind of makes me wonder about is, and I've had some conversations with other creative industries around, um, attribution and ROI. You, you mentioned return on investment. I know as a business owner that this whole direct marketing, uh, model, if it ever really existed, doesn't exist anymore because you, you like in our case, can I point to how many people become a client because they read the book? Hmm, maybe, but that's not the sum total of the effect of the book, right? So the book just being published, being out there has an impact on the market, whether someone buys it, whether someone reads it or not. And so, you know, sitting there and saying, okay, is the money and time invested in writing a book worth it with ROI, it's hard for business owners to make a direct correlation, right? What I advise is they look at it in, in totality. So this is how much I spent on marketing and, uh, advertising for, for all channels, all, all dollars, and then how much did it move the bottom line., right? And I can't get direct attribution that way, but I can at least tell that what I'm doing is moving us in the right direction. Now, if that goes the other way, I can't specifically point at, well, this is the problem, this is the problem, this is the problem. We may, you know, it— I, I kind of compare it to alchemy. Uh, we're not really sure how it works, but it, it does work. So we're just going to keep doing it.

Yeah, that's one of the most challenging things when it comes to marketing. And, you know, digital marketing companies will tell you that if you're doing a mix of things sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what is the attribution because it's usually a combination of things. So like they may have searched for you online, found you, and then left and then came across one of your videos from retargeting. And then later on they download a PDF and that document's really helpful. And then they watch another video. So where do you attribute it to? Is it the video, the PDF, the first in search? There's usually a combination of things depending on the type of buyer and the intent they have and where they're at at their pain level. So, I mean, we've had situations where people literally have Googled us, found us, called, and closed like immediately. And then we've had other companies that have gone through that longer sales cycle of, you know, downloading and watching and researching before they actually set up a meeting to have a conversation.

Yeah. And as a business owner, you know, especially analytical people like accountants, they want to understand it. I'm, I'm kind of— I, I've just devolved to calling it witchcraft and sorcery, and I, I don't, I don't really know how it works. But, you know, but it, it's, it's hard to say, well, you need to do more of this, or you need to spend more money here, because there isn't that direct, you know, what, what is the thing that actually moves the needle? And I would say that a lot of times we don't know.

Yeah. And I mean, depending on the type of business you have, you know, if you're in the creative services, you know, chances are you're not doing a massive huge volume of hundreds of clients per month. So having that conversation with them can give you a little bit more detail than just trying to look at a spreadsheet like an accountant would.

Yes. Client interviews are extremely helpful. They were in our business. I'm going to pivot here for a second. What's been the biggest financial challenge biggest challenge in your 12 years in business?

Yeah. So, biggest financial challenge, you know, now having a team, producer, 3 editors, admin, website person, multiple marketing companies that I work with, that's the biggest challenge in and of itself right there. Managing expenses with overall sales volume and trying to create that balance. You know, because what I found out when I first started, I was a solopreneur, I could get 1 or 2 jobs a month and I would be fine financially. I'd be able to pay for all my bills, pay for all business expenses. But, you know, you're kind of in this conundrum where your hands are handcuffed when you're filming, when you're editing, and then you're trying to find your next job. This is the constant problem that most creatives have. And what I quickly discovered was I thought, I'll just hire somebody and they'll be able to do these 3 other jobs. Well, that's not the case. I needed to hire basically 3 or 4 other people for the things I was doing So, they're very focused on that. So, it's like, let's say for instance, just for easy math, if I had a $10,000 project, for me to do that by myself was very easy. But then when you ratchet on, okay, what was the marketing expense for the company to manage the ads? What was my ad spend? What was my closing rate? Okay. So, that's taken out. Then what is the cost for the producer that I have on payroll, the cost for the editing team that I have on payroll? The cost for the filmmakers that I have on payroll, right? If you see how it keeps ratcheting, ratcheting, ratcheting up, and then you figure there's also all these additional business expenses like taxes and software and all these other things that you have to pay for, so that $10,000 is no longer $10,000, it's like negative $5,000, right? If not more. So that's the biggest challenge, is trying to balance the volume of sales that you need to upkeep the talent and skills that you need to have either on retainer or payroll to maintain positive cash flow month after month. And we're project focused. It's not like we're— some digital companies have retainers. We've just never been able to crack that nut as far as video is concerned. So we're always looking for next opportunities or repeat projects where we can maintain relationships clients. So, it kind of smooths things out over time because it is a little lumpy throughout the year. Towards the tail end of the year, we work with businesses and they kind of around Thanksgiving, Christmas, they're kind of MIA. They're just not thinking about stuff. Yeah.

I don't know if you've heard of Verne Harnish, author of— Okay.

So— Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm familiar with the Scaling Up book.

I'm in EO, so I know 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. Anyway, Vern, that was the very first EO event I went to, and, uh, he had a group of us in there, probably 30 entrepreneurs, and he asked the question, you know, how many of you feel like you could shrink, fire people, have more money, and be happier? And like virtually everybody in the group raised their hands, right? And I think you nailed it with the— as the complexity of the business grows, it's not a linear complexity growth, it's an exponential growth complexity. And it does sometimes feel and is real that you're doing more, potentially working more, but you're making less money. Did you run into that in your journey?

Absolutely. Several, several times. And there's definitely times where it's really stressful where you feel like you've made a lot for the month and you're like, you look at the P&L and you're like, we actually lost $15,000 this month because the expenses. And that's really challenging. I think what's really important for creatives to understand is like, what do you really enjoy and focus on that. Because a lot of times, you know, we're constantly told from all these gurus and marketing people, are you going to scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, you know, grow, grow, grow. When it's just like, sometimes that's not the best for companies. Sometimes it's best for, you know, if you enjoy the craft of creating and it fires you up to film, it fires you up to edit, then focus on that and then outsource the things that maybe you have less excitement in. Like maybe you don't like— most creatives don't like the sales and marketing side. You can get someone else to handle that and that's your only expense. And you can just be the creator, the craft person, rather than trying to be the business owner that's got to scale, scale, scale. And that's really what I would suggest to people depending on just pursuing the passion. That you enjoy in the business.

Yeah, I mean, I know that's— that was my journey. I mean, I, I spent a lot of time on that growth wheel and really didn't know why I was trying to grow. You mentioned EO, Entrepreneurs Organization, where the qualifier is you have to have a million dollars in revenue to, to join. And it, it's, it's funny there's no conversations around entrepreneurs around how much money did you make. It's always the number of employees or top line revenue. And it, but nobody ever asks the question, well, yeah, but did, how much money did you make? Right. Maybe that's a rude conversation, rude question to ask, but no, not at all.

It's so interesting. Cause that's a lot of it. You know, I'm very fortunate in the Austin chapter that people are very welcoming and kind and understanding. But a lot of times people miss sight of like, what is your bottom line? Because the phrase I think in EO is like, top line is like vanity and profit is sanity, right?

And cash is king.

So it's just like, yeah, cash is king, right? So it's like, a lot of times it's like, it's cool if, I was always the personality where like, I'm not going to be the type of guy that's going to go to a cocktail party and just be like, hey, I have 27 employees. How many do you have? My top line revenue is $2.7 million, blah, blah, blah. But then a lot of people that live that life, they're constantly stressed because you have so much overhead expenses. That's stressful. I know an agency in St. Louis that my friend is really good friends with the owner, and he was telling me they're a big, huge agency. They work with huge, massive brands. And they do about $23 million a year. So they have these $1.2 million projects with Coca-Cola or a car brand, and they say they eke out with like $10,000 or $15,000 of profit because there's so much overhead with 40+ employees and all these creative directors. And then the client, because they're paying $500,000 for the project, they want to see a dog and pony show. Where you could do a pretty good project for a fraction of that with a smaller crew that is more profitable. So for me, I've always been like, at the end of the day, where's the profit at and where is my happiness in the type of work that I get to do? Because I've clearly defined that where other people I think get caught up in the look at how many employees I have, look at my top line revenue. When inside they're like crying.

Yeah, it can get very miserable very quickly. And to me, what my problem was, was that I didn't know why I was growing, right? Like there's— there was— that was just the default. Like you turn on the entrepreneurial machine and the default is grow, right? And without ever thinking through why and what that might look like. But to me, it's— and this is really what profit first in general is about, is it's about being intentional with your money. Like not just reactive. Do you have any experience with profit first? Have you used it in your business?

Yeah, absolutely. I always try to think about profit first as it relates to the project itself. Is it individual project expense? And then I try to look at the overall overhead. I think what happens is, you know, I'm in the position now where I have several several payroll employees, I have marketing expenses month after month, and then sometimes things can kind of run away from you. Reviewing my credit card statement more regularly is a practice that I try to get better at, but I'm not much of an accounting person. But you'd be surprised how often when you start to grow, things just kind of add up, like software expenses. The amount of money that I spend on software is crazy. You figure, I got Zoom, I got Calendly, and then you got the website maintenance, and then you have hosting, and then you have the— you have to have Adobe Creative Suite, and then there's the CRM, and then there's the landing page software, and it just starts to add up. And before you know it, you're spending an exorbitant amount of money on software. So it's important to do a good analysis of that so that you can have profit. And then if you need to be flexible with your pricing, with clients in order to get the job, you know where your numbers are at and you know what you can and can't do within the effort and the time it takes to create something.

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Yeah, and I think that a lot of creative entrepreneurs, um, don't want to know their numbers, and— or, or worse, they think they understand their numbers and they're, they're working on false assumptions. But you can't be consistently profitable, you can only be accidentally profitable if you're not looking at those numbers. So, so let's, let's walk through an example, like you're going to pitch me on some video. So we've agreed basically on what that's going to cost. Like what is your process internally to determine whether that job's profitable to you?

So I have to go through a process of like understanding what's the scope of work that we're going to be doing. So I look at, you know, what are the fixed expenses I have? And what are some of the variable expenses that I might have relating specifically to this project? Is there studio costs involved? How many people are gonna be needed for the project? How much time is gonna be allocated for my producer? How many days do I think that it's gonna be to edit the project? And then are there any additional things outside of a traditional project that we're gonna need to spend time, money, and effort to get it completed? And you know, basically I can get a range that will give me a specific profit margin that's going to be my target. And then there's always this kind of intangible thing that happens, right? So it's almost like a sixth sense. Like, you know, is this going to be a difficult client or is it going to be an easy client? And just doing it for a long time, I hear like, sometimes I'll hear like red flags. Like when a client says, "Oh, it'll be easy. It'll just be 2 hours of filming." That's usually a red flag. If they're looking at it from like, I'm just going to hire you for 2 hours, then they're probably not the right client because they're already right away minimizing your effort, skillset, and they're looking for the lowest possible thing. So usually things like that will tell me that this probably isn't going to be a good project for us or not. What we specialize is how are we going to create something that's going to be compelling for your audience, that's going to give you the intended a result that you want the video to do for you. Uh, and that's what we're trying to do. And we're scoping out really the amount of work that's involved, the amount of value that we provide to the client, and overall how they're going to use and leverage this video to be successful.

So I wrote a whole chapter in the book on value pricing, and, uh, I recently recorded an episode walking through that. Tell me how you do your pricing. How do you approach pricing?

The way I approach pricing is probably a little bit different than a lot of other video people. I look at it from the perspective of we're gonna do everything we can to make the best possible video for you. And based on what we've scoped out, which is planning however many meetings you need, and then filming, we're gonna do one day and we're gonna get, you know, these main things, interviews, live action, drone shots, whatever is needed. And then we're gonna edit it with the deliverable of this video, which is a 2 to 3 minute video, blah, blah, blah. That's the way I do it and I scope it as a solid price. Now I don't do, so a solid price. So this is the result, this is what you're gonna pay unless it goes wildly outside of this, which is like another day of filming, additional videos, or like, you know, tens of thousands of revisions. You know, I usually will give 'em 2 sets of revisions. So unless it goes out of that, this is the price. I do not do what I think a lot of video people do is they'll do like price anchoring or they'll itemize everything. Well, if you want me to use the RED camera, it's gonna cost you $300 more. You know, if you want me to have an extra this, it's gonna be this. You want me to do an extra this, it's gonna be this. I never do that. I don't like that. Just from my perspective, I hate to see that when I'm doing a bill. It's just, what is the total?, and we're always like, listen, if you need another camera, we'll get another camera. We have 2, 3, 4 cameras. Whatever makes sense based on what we're doing, we'll do. And that's the way we've always looked at it. That's the way I've always looked at it, at least.

Yeah. And, and I think, I don't think this is a creative entrepreneur issue. I, I, because I, I see this in a lot of businesses where they, they pile a bunch of stuff into the pricing or the proposal with the thought, I think, that they're trying to justify their price, right? But the reality is, as the buyer, I don't want to know how the sausage is made. I— and quite frankly, like, to your point, it turns me off, like, because that just raises more questions, like, well, do we need that? Do you know? And so I think in pricing, I think the clearer that you can be on this is the value we're, we're delivering with as few variables as possible. Yeah, you've got to have scope of work, you've got to put guardrails around it. You know, accountants are, are awful about this. Um, they, they want to go through some long calculation and this and that, uh, to, to give you a price.

And it's like, I, I just, I don't see the need for it, but Yeah, the best way that I've done it is I try to be as clear as possible and simple as possible because a lot of people we're working with, this is the first time they're doing video. So I just say the price includes from conception to completion. You know, there's 3 main phases: planning, filming, editing. Here's a general highlight of what we're going to be doing in each phase. This is just to give you a general idea what we're going to be doing. You know, I'm not giving them all 87 steps, you know, for editing. But I'm giving them the highlights. Like, we're gonna create the story, we're gonna make it look pretty, we're gonna do graphics and animation, and you're gonna get 2 sets of revisions. It's just a very high level of what they're getting. And then we are always, like, one of our core values is 110, so we're always trying to go above and beyond what's already expected. So if a customer needs another set of revision, we're gonna do it. If a customer wants a little bit more animation, we're gonna do it. I don't wanna nickel and dime them. I wanna be like, this is what I'm saying it is. You know, hell or come high water, this is the price that we're going to give you unless it's dramatically outside of that, like an additional filming day or additional content.

What is the thing that you are most proud of accomplishing so far in life, uh, business or personal?

Well, actually, there's one thing I'm most proud of is about 5 years ago, uh, well, at this point it must have been 6 years ago. 6 years ago, I actually was going through a difficult, um, divorce and I literally had nothing. And basically, I went from that to where I am today where I was a solopreneur. Now, I own a successful video production company, Austin's highest rated with over 170 5-star reviews. I have an amazing team. I was able to go from nothing to now living in an awesome house and having a place where my kids can kind of grow up in. So, Going from nothing to, you know, where I'm at today has been a huge, you know, accomplishment for me personally and professionally.

I love it. Yeah, that's a pretty quick run in 6 years to go from nothing to, to that. What do you, what do you, what do you attribute this success to?

Well, I think it's a lot of clarity and focus. I did it in 4 years where basically I had, you know, less than $6,000 in my bank account where I was begging people to pay me on time. And living essentially in an apartment and all I had was a mattress. I had no furniture, nothing. And now, I have this beautiful home and everything like that. And I think that a big part of that why I was able to do it was I was really focused and clear on what I wanted. I didn't know exactly how I was going to get there, but I just took it one step at a time. And I think a lot of it was, not to be too frou-frou, but a lot of it kind of manifested. In a way of having this projection of what my life was going to be like, where I wanted to be, and just thinking about that every single day and just taking one step ahead of time, just taking one step at a time and just moving closer and closer and closer to that goal.

You talked about manifesting, and I use the word envision, but they're the same word. So I think a lot of creative entrepreneurs struggle with this idea, the stuff that they want to do. You, you talked about being true to, to what you were, what, what work you really like to do. I guess a paradigm where on one end of the spectrum you can do what you love and you may or may not make money at it, and on the other end of the spectrum is I'm gonna do what I, I have to do and I can make money, but it's really not what I'm passionate about. Have you struggled with that paradigm in your 12 years?

Yeah, absolutely. So I've always thought of myself as the business owner, as the entrepreneur. I've just used video as the craft. But equally, I do enjoy, you know, connecting with people when I'm filming, creating something that I'm really proud of when it comes to an edit. But I've always kind of had one foot out the door. And always looking toward the future to being the business owner, the operator, the person that's kind of creating the systems, the process, and the people and putting that in place and building something bigger than myself. So if I lost it all, I could easily go back to filming and editing and enjoy it and have fun. But equally, I'm happy where I'm at today, even though it can be a little bit higher stress level because of what we were talking about earlier from the expenses side. I enjoy the type of work I do now with connecting with people, working with them on projects, seeing my team execute and being a part of that process and seeing the end result that the clients get.

Yeah, I love that because I think to me the shift is, okay, I'm an accountant or I'm a videographer, to which to me is, is more of a self-employed mindset to I'm an entrepreneur or a business owner, if you don't like French, um, and I have a certain set of skills, right? But you're a business person first and you have some skills that you can bring to the table, and that, that creates what you— to your point, something that exists outside of you. Not that there's anything wrong with being self-employed,, and doing what you love, absolutely, that's totally fine. But it, that mind shift that, as my, my colleague calls it, an entrepreneurial inflection point where you have to make a decision to be something different, um, is, is huge. And I, and I don't, I don't think a lot of people get beyond that. Like that, that, that's a tough nut to crack.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is just really soul-searching and like, what do you find the most joy in? What do you find the most happiness in? So a good friend of mine, incredibly talented cinematographer, he started off in the wedding world, has done amazing videos for brands as well. He probably makes more than I do as an entrepreneur, and we're doing probably 5 times the amount of volume because he's a one-man guy and will hire a couple assistants and things like that. But he is so talented that he could charge the same amount that we're charging as kind of like an agency because he's so good. But he loves the craft. He loves filming, he loves editing, he loves putting it together. And because he's in that zone of genius and he's really defined on like what he likes, he's doing really, really well and he's made a huge name for himself. Whereas with me, I enjoy the craft of filming and editing and creativity, but I really like the business and entrepreneur side where I like talking to people about marketing strategy. I like kind of casting the overall creative vision and then having other people do the execution part of it while I'm working on other things. I like the way my days are where I'm spending time like this, having engaging conversations about creative rather than being on a shoot you know, for 10 hours. So I think it's really about defining what your zone of genius is, what you enjoy, and then pursuing that with clarity and vision.

Yeah, and there's not a right or wrong answer.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I think the biggest struggle, particularly for creatives, is just the constant bombardment of two things. The first thing is like all the intro, all the kind of info marketing people telling you, you need to scale, you need to scale, you need to grow, you need to grow, you need to do this. Well, you're not going to get business unless you do this, this, or this. That's really tough to kind of shield yourself from because you're going to get caught into doing things that you don't really want to do and things that you're not passionate about. The other thing that I tried to shield myself from as well, particularly in the video world, is like getting caught up in the gear you know, vortex. So, if you're in photography or if you're in a video, it's like constantly new equipment, constantly new gear. And, it's the same thing we're talking earlier about like, look at how many sales I have, look at how many employees I'll have, or look at the newest camera I have. I never ever got into that. I have a camera that I've had for years. I just recently kind of gave it to my son and I was telling my son like, This is an important camera because this camera built this house. This Canon 80D is what got me our house right now. Just regular run-of-the-mill DSLR, less than $1,000, has done so much. So those two factors, I think, are incredibly important to put in perspective for creatives is don't get too caught up in doing something that you don't want to do that you're not passionate about because people on the internet are telling you. And try not to get too caught up in the vortex that is constantly buying new equipment. So you can't really move ahead financially in your personally or professionally.

I think that's great advice because I think if you're not clear on what you want, it's very easy to be sold. And so, you know, if you're not clear on what you want, anything that comes along will scratch that itch, but it doesn't, it doesn't solve the problem. It just makes the feeling go away temporarily.

Right. Yeah, it's like you're constantly sold a new bag of goods online with someone that will grab your attention because we're always, I think, looking for this one thing that will just change everything. If I just get this RED camera and spend $12,000 and just wipe out my savings, then the seas will part, all the customers will start calling me, and I'm just going to make a ton of money. Or just replace that with any other thing online that you're being sold to, and that's going to be the thing. And then it, like you said, it works temporarily. You feel good, there's a big high, but then nothing happens. It's just crickets. And it's usually like we were talking about earlier, like attribution, right? It's a magnitude of things, small things that compound together to make a shift and a change. Just like when it comes to marketing, it's not one thing usually, it's usually a handful of things that are constantly working together to make that impact.

What is Mark doing 5 years from now?

Yeah, so 5 years from now, that's a great question. Uh, so 5 years from now, I'd love to expand the video production company to multiple cities across Texas and ideally beyond. I want to be managing, um, from kind of a top, so I'm kind of out of the sales side, I'm out of the marketing side, and I have an ever-growing expanding team of contractors and employees that are going to be doing work all over the place. I think we're going to be leveraging more AI tools as they kind of emerge. Right now, we really don't use a ton of them because they're not there yet. But I think again, there's going to be opportunity for that as technology is just so crazy right now.

Yes, I love it. Are you still in Austin?

Yeah, still in Austin. I love it. I don't plan on moving out of here anytime soon. But, my big lofty goal is when my kids are kind of out of the house and doing their own thing, I want to be able to have multiple companies that are kind of running by themselves and I'm living in Europe kind of going all over the place kind of traveling around the world and things.

Ben: Nice. I love it. How do people find you if they want to learn more about Mark?

Yeah, if they want to learn more about me, um, they can just go to LinkedIn and do, uh, Mark Wonderland. Just search for that. Um, you know, as far as video stuff goes, my website's mosaicmediafilms.com, so there's a lot of information about what we do and, and all things like that. So, but if you, you're in the creative world, you're stuck, and, you know, you just want to chat or something, LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me.

Perfect. I really appreciate your time today. This has been a fascinating conversation. Until next time, listeners, 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. Link below.