Unlocking Creative Potential: The Power of Margin | Dustin Pead

And for most business owners, especially ones that have created the business, not inherited the business, but for most business owners that have created the business, it ultimately ends up becoming some sort of strategy. Yes. It's, that's where your unique value is. It's in your experience. It's in your wisdom. It's in what you've seen work before and what you've seen not work before. And so that's why it's important for business owners to be learners all the time and to surround themselves with people that are smarter than them in the areas that they don't really need to be smart in.

Hey, creative, are you ready to discuss profits? The money, the ways to make it happen. The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now, it's time for profit.

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Elk City, Oklahoma. Uh, I have been to Elk City, actually it was the I've been to Elk City many times, but it was infamous because it's the one and only private pilot flight that I took. I took my uncle from Oklahoma City to Elk City. That's the one and only time that I have flown a passenger as a private pilot. Anyway, my guest joining me today, Dustin Peed. Dustin, welcome to the show.

Christian, thanks so much for having me, man. I'm excited to be here.

Absolutely. So Dustin, tell our listeners who you are and what you do.

Yeah, I mean, that's the million-dollar question for all of us, isn't it?

Yes.

I'm nobody special, but I, uh, yeah, Dustin Peed, born and raised in Southern Virginia. Now I live outside of Atlanta. I was in creative church ministry for about 20 years, uh, in a full-time basis, and stepped away from that in the spring of 2023 and started pursuing my own uh, creative business in which I coach and consult creative professionals to maximize their process. Most creatives are really great at having ideas and really terrible at executing those ideas.

Mm-hmm.

And they get frustrated and they live on little to no margin. And so what I tell people all the time, including on my podcast as well, is that I help creatives know themselves, their process, and their teams so that they can create greater things together.

I love it. So what, what size companies do you normally work with?

Most of mine are pretty young companies that are, I would say, probably no more than 10 employees.

Okay.

Not necessarily always young, I should, I should restate that, not necessarily always young, but probably up to about 10 employees because they are still small enough where their processes and systems are moldable. They haven't established too many bad habits, uh, by the time I get in there and come alongside them. But, uh, a lot of solopreneurs as well, especially in the creative world, people that are trying their hand at the fractional CMO stuff or videography or photography or anything like that, uh, that don't quite have a team yet, just helping them kind of maximize their time.

Well, that actually was my next question, is that does it apply to people that don't have employees? What you do?

Yeah, I do. Especially in 2025 that we're sitting in now. I had to almost, almost said 2024. Sitting in 2025 now, I'm just now starting to bring on a little bit of team myself. But even before that, I would consider a lot of the tools and resources like AI that I have at my disposal., to be part of my team. And so I think in 2025, as creatives, we have to understand that some of these tools can be used alongside of us and can move things forward in our businesses without necessarily having to do everything. You know, it's the old focus funnel, right? There's things that we can eliminate, automate, delegate. Well, there's a lot of things in 2025 that we can automate. So why not do that? Maximize your, your efficiency there.

You said something, uh, in your, your introductory explanation that is music to my ears, uh, that word margin. Why do you help your clients, uh, with that aspect of their business?

Yeah, well, no one likes to live with no margin, whether they admit it or not. A lot of creatives will say, don't put me in a box, I like to sleep till 11 AM, and I usually get started working around 3 o'clock, and I'll work to about 1 or in the morning. If you can do that, great. The problem is in the real world of client deliverables, that life doesn't cut it. And so what ends up happening is peop— these, these creatives have this type of lifestyle or this type of imagination of what it's gonna be like, and then they get into it and then they're, they're just like, I'm always behind. Well, the reason you're always behind is because your processes and your systems don't allow for any margin because margin is full of stress. But no margin is full of stress. Margin is full of peace. When you, when you have that span of time that's free, it actually frees you up to be more creative. Whereas if you're in a crunch, yes, sometimes crunches can force you into creativity. But creativity, as one of my coaches has always said, is more muscle than magic. And so you can't necessarily expect the magic to repeat itself over and over and over again at 11:59 when the project is due at midnight, right? Like, it's just not— it's just not gonna happen. Eventually you're gonna— your, your sins will find you.

Yes. Well, you know, it reminds me, I, I can't remember the author, uh, but he, he was, uh, one of those ex-military authors that wrote a book. But the statement was discipline actually allows freedom, which most people look at it the opposite, that discipline somehow takes your freedom away. Exactly. But it's the exact opposite.

Yeah, exactly. And like I said, a lot of creatives will say, don't put me in a box. But when you really get down to it, if let's say, for example, You're the creative pro and I'm your client, and I come to you and I say, I want to do a video, but I have no idea what I want it to be about, how long I want it to be, what I want it to look or feel like, what the music should be, or even what the message should be. And I'd like that by next week. You'd be like, it's not gonna happen. You'd be like, well, you got to give me some— hopefully they'd say that— you got to give me some parameters, you give me something. Well, as soon as you realize you got to give me something, you got to give me some parameters, then you're asking for a box. I'm not saying the box has to be tiny, right? There is a box. Sure. And so knowing what that playground is, not only for your clients but for yourself, breeds margin.

Well, that, that's interesting because when you said margin, I was thinking as an accountant, and I was thinking about, uh, terms like gross margin and profit margin. And I love the way you're using it because I think the two concepts overlap. Uh, I, I think that one of the things that I, I see a lot of business owners, not just creatives, but I think creatives might have a special struggle with it, is the idea of margin. And I remember speaking to a group of videographers, uh, last fall and, and really just kind of walking through that concept. Of margin and how important it is to, to run your business and how it drives all other decisions you make in a business, from pricing to, you know, hiring. It's literally— gross margin is the king metric. Like, it's, it's the one thing that a small business has to, has to, has to, know and manage. Yeah. And I think, I think a lot of solopreneurs get confused because they don't have any employees. They, you know, in creatives they might not have a lot of marginal costs. You know, they've got fixed costs, but they don't, they don't have any, you know, they, whether they take on 1 or 10 clients or jobs, it doesn't cost them anymore to do that. And so they, they particularly struggle with this concept of, of margin. But what is your experience in your business and in coaching other creatives around those conversations about margin in a financial sense, not a time sense?

Yeah, I was going to say we're talking time versus financial margin. And what's interesting is while you were talking, I was like, well, they're both really a straight line, right? The time margin is a timeline. And then the financial margin is the bottom line, right? Like, that's what it affects, right? So yeah, I think for me, what in my coaching with creatives, it's not necessarily— I mean, it definitely comes up, the financial stuff, but typically I'm sending them to people like the Core Group and saying, like, hey, thanks for that plug. These guys are the ones that are going to help you understand how to price your service so that you have enough margin. But the concept is the same, right, Christian, is that with little to no profit margin, you don't have any room to breathe. You can't move, you can't make any strategic moves to the right or to the left. You are stuck.

Yes.

No, you're exactly— and the time margin is no different. If you wait up until the last moment because you got bad briefings, or you didn't get enough information, or you didn't ask the right questions, or you didn't implement the right processes or systems for yourself or for your team, then you're stuck. Yes, you're, you're stuck in doing what you're doing, and you're not going to be able to deliver at the quality that what you want. And all businesses want to scale at some degree, right? And so in order to scale, you have to introduce this concept of margin, both financially and with your time.

Yes, 100%.

Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

In your business, you're, you're still fairly new. How have those issues of margin, both financial and time, played out for you?

Yeah, I mean, right now the, the tension point for me, and this is one of the reasons I reached out to the Core Group, is that the time margin for is that I don't have as much time right now to work on the business as I would like. I'm, I'm, I'm a little stuck working in the business now. I'm, I'm making some strategic moves to not stay there, but that is a both time margin issue and a financial margin issue, right? I have to bring in enough money to make sure that I can make those strategic moves. I have to have the appropriate amount of margin. And so for me, it's surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me, like the core group, like other people who are smarter than me at social media or marketing and those types of things. Like, like I brought on a designer recently. I'm not a designer by any means, but I need design work and I shouldn't be spending my time trying to design stuff that's just decent enough on Canva when I, when I could. Hey, I'm looking at my budget going, I think I have enough money to hire to hire a designer here for, you know, a few hours a month to help make my content look really sharp when I deliver it, and it doesn't look like it was done by some dude in his basement, even though that's what I am.

Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that my experience, my journey as an entrepreneur, um, has been a lot of, uh, well, I say a lot, but I think too much for me do-it-yourself. And, and, you know, I use the excuse— I don't know if it's true or not, but it sounds good— that, you know, as entrepreneurs, we like problems. We like to solve problems. We like to learn new things. And, you know, I think there's a certain level of understanding that you'd need to know in order to delegate it to someone else. Yeah, you can't— like in your case, you can't hire a designer without having some fundamental understanding of what it is that you need. Yeah, but you can't get stuck in doing that work if it's not the most valuable thing that you do. Yeah, I think that's very key. And I've talked about it a lot with a lot of different groups and on this podcast is really understanding where your value is.

Yeah.

What value do you bring to the table, to the business, and to your clients that only you can do? Yeah. And then, to your point, delegate, eliminate, or automate the rest.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. It's that unique value proposition, right? And for most business owners, especially ones that have created the business, not inherited the business, but for most business owners that have created the business, it's— it ultimately ends up becoming some sort of strategy, right?

Yes.

It's— that's where your unique value is. It's in your experience, it's in your wisdom, it's in what you've seen work before and what you've seen not work before. And so that's why it's important for business owners to be learners all the time and to surround themselves with people that are smarter than them in the areas that they don't really need to be smart in, right? Right. And so it's that— that delegation piece is what I work a lot with my clients with because these small, small businesses that are, you know, less than 10 employees, or if it's just a solo person, you know, they feel like they have to do it all. And like, if you would have told me a year, a year ago that, hey, a year from now you're gonna, you're gonna hire some, some people to help you with your business, I'd have been like, well, with what money? What are you talking about? Right? I gotta eat still, right? You know, but if you push to the level of where you want to get to, that margin happens.

Yeah, and that's a great point because another thing that I preach, I don't know if you've had a chance to read the book yet, but yes, I have. I have right here. Thank you. The chapter on pricing. Yeah. And that's, you know, that speaks— that goes to the heart of the margin question, right? Yep. Is how you price your stuff, because if you don't price it right, or well— let me, let me say that, uh, if you don't price it well, you can't have margin. If you're just running around, uh, taking whatever someone wants you to do, uh, you're, you're invariably going to be pushed down on price to the point where you have no margin, right?

And that's—

and then you just get into that wheel, right?

Yeah. And you can't get off of it. You can't afford to get off, right? Because it's, it's no different. Pricing is a plan, right? I plan to be I plan to accept this amount of money for you, from you, after I give you the service, right? It's the same thing, right? Without the right plan, you have no margin. And so that's what I'm helping my clients do is help them go, let's— you've got more clients than you can really handle right now, and you can't continue to do this on your own the way you're doing it. Let me come in and help you organize some of this. And what I often talk to my clients about is it's a bit of organized chaos. It's throwing it back to Todd Henry. It's a bit of herding tigers at times. Even if you're the only tiger in the cage, you're still herding those tigers. Hikers, right?

Yes.

But without having that plan in place, you're stuck. You're stuck on the wheel. And so the clients that I work with, that's what I hear when I'm onboarding them, is they're just like, I just need to get unstuck. I'm stuck on— I'm stuck in the machine that I created and I can't get out of it.

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. Yeah. And there's a, there's a great book. I don't remember the author. I'll think of it in a second. Uh, Who Not How.

Oh yeah.

And You know, it's this principle that rather than solving the problem, the how, it's finding the right person for them to solve the problem. Yep. And, you know, as a solopreneur, uh, you know, no employees, you may think that that doesn't apply to you, but it absolutely applies to you because if you're going to hire outside contractors to do some of this work on a part-time basis, it's still very important to figure out who the person, the right person is to do that for you.

And which is terrifying as a business owner.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you don't know, right? There's the stuff you don't know, like you don't know anything about— well, I say that, I don't know, you have limited understanding of accounting. So, you know, how do I pick an accountant, right? Or you know, any other thing that you decide that you need help with. And so that who becomes the critical question. And to, to my previous statement, you need to know enough, like you need to have some basic understanding of what it is that you need done. Because I've— we've experienced this at core in hiring marketing professionals, marketing agencies, you know, etc. Is that if you don't know what it is that you need before you go start talking to people, then it's going to be amazing that everybody has what you need, right? It's like, well, but how can that be? Because, well, the reason why is, is because they're nails and you look like a hammer. And, and until you know that, hey, I'm not a hammer, I'm a screw, I, I need a screwdriver, not a hammer. You're going to keep hiring hammers. That's a horrible analogy, but I went with it.

I went with it.

Does that, does that, I mean, does that ring true to you?

No, absolutely it does, because I, and, and just going back to the AI statement earlier, this is where, you know, before I could hire people, or before I thought I could afford to hire people, which it's a risk, it's a gamble, right? That you're going, hey, I'm trusting that this is going to level up my business. But before I even got to that point, you know, I was using AI so much, and I still do quite a bit, where I would just basically do what I call like a brain dump or a mind dump into AI and say, this is everything that I'm doing, but I really love doing this. It's going back to the time and energy audit from Dan Martell and guys like Carey Nieuwhof when they're talking about your energy zones and really— and the Who Not How. And all these books are kind of talking about like working your strength.

Dan Sullivan was the author of that book.

Thank you. Sorry, go ahead. When you're— when you're looking— all these books talk about the same thing, right? Is like working your strengths, What— find what it is at all costs that brings you the most joy. And that's unfortunately where these creatives that I work with have lost, because they have to be the accountant and they have to be the wrangler of the schedules of the shoots, and they have to be their own admin and all these things. And right, I'm just coming in and going like, there's some systems that you can set up to make that a little easier so that you can get enough profit margin, right? Let's bring in the systems that will allow you to get enough profit margin so then you can hire other people, and then it's just moving up the ladder continuously, right? Yes. And so for me, I literally would just mind dump into AI and say, these are the things that I'm doing right now. I'm really passionate about these things, and I, and I get the most life when I get to do these things with my clients. Who do I need to hire next? Yes, it'll, it'll tell you. It'll give you 18 different ideas, and then you can look at it and go, I really feel like that's the— that's one of them for sure. When I was noticing that I couldn't keep my books straight for more than a month at a time, and I didn't really know what to do with my money now that money was coming in. I'm like, this is our livelihood here. Like, we survive on my business, so I better figure that out really quickly, which is why I started reading the Profit First stuff. That led me to Profit First for Creatives, because those are the people— I consider myself a creative, and those are the people that I work with. So I'm like, I better understand this, and that's how I found you guys. But it's more than just that too, right? It's like, hey, I can, I can design, I can hop on Canva and make something look decent. I have for years. But that's not going to get me to the level that I want to get at. Right. And that's honestly not what I don't super enjoy doing that either. Like what I really enjoy is being on calls with my clients, helping them understand that if they can just change this one little nuance or change this or add this little process and add this little process into their system that they already have established, that they could really open up so much more. That's what I really love.

Yeah. And a lot of times it is. It is a small thing that, that levers, right? But we get caught in that fear. Yeah. Of, of, I, I, of the unknown, I guess, is, is what the overall fear is. Um, we, we don't— we want predictable. We— and, and even if the predictable is miserable, we'll, we'll gravitate to the predictable because we know it's going to happen.

Exactly, exactly. I have a service that I provide right now that it's kind of more on the freelance side, doesn't really fall under the umbrella of what I do for my business, and I'm just like my— one of my goals this year is to make enough so I don't have to do that anymore, you know what I mean? And it's just— but I could keep doing it and it would pay all the bills just the way it's paying right now, and I could probably even scale it if I wanted to. I don't like it. I don't want to do it, right? There's other people that can do it, and I recommend people to those, you know, like, you want me to do that, that's great, I appreciate it. I don't— I don't want to do that.

Well, and that's— that's the other element. I mean, like, you know, what we've been talking about are, are basic structural elements that belong in any business regardless of size. Yeah. Um, but the other element is, do you want to do it? Now, a lot of business owners don't care very much about whether they want to do whatever it is they're doing, uh, but creatives are not that way. I mean, they're, they're very passion-driven, and if, if they don't like what they're doing, it's real hard for them to continue doing it. And I think to your point, until you change your mindset that those are not, uh, uh, exclusive choices— like, I, I either can do what I want and, and I may or may not make money, or I, I can do what I hate but it'll pay the bills— until you accept that that is not is not a reality, uh, that's a construct you've put in your head, you, you can't really move beyond it. Like, you, you have to understand that yes, you can do what you love and make money. Uh, it's, it's absolutely— I've seen it time and time again. Yeah, but you have to, you have to believe it to be true.

Yeah, that's where I spend a ton. I find myself spending a lot of my time, uh, getting phone calls and texts from my clients who want to, who want to quit. You know, and I'm just like, look, look, don't, don't quit. You're so close. And I think, I think the— if I could just speak vulnerably to some creatives for a second, I think it's really difficult sometimes for you to step into hard work because hard work is uncomfortable. There's a certain kind of hard work that's uncomfortable, but I would encourage you to look back on your life and go, The times that I was the most successful on the other side was when I worked the hardest in a certain season. Hmm. And time margin and financial margin is the exact same way. You have to be willing to— so I tell all my clients when I'm like, you are going to hate life for at least the next 6 weeks because we're going to expose some things and we're going to have to work hard to dig ourselves out of the hole that we, that we found ourselves in. But once we get out of that hole, you're going to be like, I've never smelled air so fresh.

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. And the reality is, I mean, my experience, I don't know your experience, but the fear of the unknown has usually been grossly exaggerated. Like, when you get through it, you're like, well, that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, right?

Yep, yep, absolutely, absolutely. All the time. I mean, when I made the transition out of what I've been doing for 20 years to step into this, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I mean, a lot of creatives have the, uh, what do they call the imposter syndrome, you know. I don't, I don't think that's limited to just creatives. I think it's just tightened, tightened a little bit. But yeah, I mean, there's, there's many days where I'm just like, what am I, you know, how am I doing this? How is this happening? But it's, it's, I mean, everything you do in life is going to take a little bit of faith, whether it's faith in God or whatever, faith in yourself, whatever you may believe. It's going to take a little bit of faith to actually step forward and move or else you're still stuck in that cog.

There's a great book I recommend, and it's, it's called The Big Leap. And I don't remember the author's name, but he's a professor of psychology at Stanford, I believe. And he's, he's written several books. But my business coach recommended it, and it talks about essentially how your, your brain works against you Uh, you— he defines it as an upper limit problem. So you, you get to a point where you're up against the unknown, whatever it is. It could be business, it could be personal. I mean, whatever. You're up against the unknown and how your brain actually fights you subconsciously, even to the point where you may manifest physical symptoms. Like, you, you may like get sick Yeah, because your brain is not wanting you to move forward. But it, it's, it's, you know, reading the book, there's some methodologies to, to address it. And, and just understanding that, you know, it's, it's not that you're not good enough. It's not that you're not brave enough to, to speak to Todd Henry. It's, it's your, it's your brain working against you. It's just like your brain telling you you're hungry when You've got plenty of fat to live for. You know, it's just your brain wiring and just acknowledging that that is there and then giving yourself the space to work through it is uber powerful because it's, it's not a reality. Like, I guess that's, that's what I took away from it is, is that it's, it's a perceived reality. It's a perceived thing. It's not, it's not truth.

Yeah, we're debunking a lot of myth debunking going on in the entrepreneurial world for sure. Myths in our own head and otherwise. It's Gay Hendricks is the author of The Big Leap. Yes. Yeah.

Great book.

Highly recommend.

So I want to ask you, 20 years in creative ministry, which I've never heard that term, which is fascinating on its surface. And then you decide to go out on your own. What did that look like? Why did you make that change? What were some of the things that you struggled with in making that change?

Yeah, so for the creative ministry, just for people who aren't in the church world, just means like churches are really no different than any other business, and they have all these different departments as well, right? And so most churches of certain scales have a creative department. And creative department in churches consists of communication, consists of production. So communication, marketing, uh, it also consists of production because, you know, you're putting on a production every 7 days, at least one. Uh, and then it also usually involves some type of music or what the church world will call worship as well. So, uh, that's kind of the creative ministry of local churches these days. I went to school for that at Liberty University, and I still love it. I still attend church. I still have very strong faith in God, but I started to get a little burnt out on kind of the methodology of what local church had become in the, in the United States. And so I could just feel my heart changing over years. And then there were some circumstances that arose, um, to my own fault that I was just like, I think it's time for me to step away. Uh, and when I did, I was— it was weird the way that God had timed it. I had started a podcast around this whole creative process kind of systems and processes, you know, helping creatives get organized a little bit. I started a podcast about that about a year before my transition. And so when the transition happened, it was kind of like, well, God just clearly said, this is what you need to do now. And it's been, uh, it was really scary for about a month, but, uh, getting up every morning and kind of knowing that— I don't want to say the future is what I make it because I don't necessarily believe that 100%, But knowing that a little bit of my destiny is in my own hands, that I can get now, I can go create something of my own that didn't exist before. And getting on calls with my clients and like I said, watching the light bulb go off and hearing them say, "Man, I'm so much— I'm just at the beginning of the call, my shoulders were up and then now they're down." And just the stress relief in them is really just like— I learned over my years in ministry to love people. I did not love people when I started in ministry. They were resources to me. But by the time I left ministry, I learned how to really love and shepherd people. And I really loved what I got to do was to love and shepherd creative people. And so now I do that more than just in the church. I have clients that are in the church world, and I have clients that used to be in the church world and now they're doing their own thing. Right. But I really love to pastor and shepherd the hearts of creative people and talking them off the ledge, but unleashing them to do their best work.

I love that. So, you know, it really, to use your words, it's become a ministry. You're a vocational ministry. Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. And a lot of people don't subscribe to that world belief, and that's totally fine. But, but I, I, for those that are disciples of Christ, I, I think that, you know, you don't have to be, uh, a, a quote-unquote professional to have a ministry. Like, your vocation is your ministry.

Yeah, that's what I'm learning right now, to be just 100% vulnerable and transparent. The last 3 to 6 months, it's honestly been what I've been learning, because you start questioning yourself. I think every entrepreneur does. Am I doing the right thing? Is this really what I'm supposed to be doing? Should I go back to what I was doing? You know, that type of thing. And, uh, I just get more and more confirmation every day that I'm, I'm in the lane that I need to be in for today, and I'm not worried about tomorrow.

Yeah. Well, how do, Dustin, people find you to work with you to learn more about what you do?

Oh man, thanks for asking. So, uh, dustinpied.com, that's P-E-A-D. You can find out all my stuff, uh, everything that I offer there. It's coaching and consulting is what I'm leaning in. I'm leaning into more speaking engagements this year, uh, as well. Spoke at a national conference this last year, but they can reach out to me, dustinpied.com. Click on the Let's Chat button there. They can find me on social media @dustinpied on the Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, places like that as well. But, uh, but yeah, I'd love to, love to chat with anybody who feels like, uh, they need a little bit more structure around what they've got going on in their creative business because it's getting a little out of hand And it's hard to juggle everything at once.

Get off that hamster wheel.

Exactly.

Exactly. Yes. Well, I appreciate your experience here, your vulnerability, your honesty. Listeners, if you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and I'll get rid of Dustin. I'm not going anywhere.

I accept that. All right.

Except that 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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