A "3-second mindset" tweak for those who hate selling with Chris Skarratt. EP #278

Well, hey, guys, and welcome to this episode. Now, today we're talking to Chris Skerritt from the Cleveland Agency in London. I'm going to talk about how Chris started his business years and years ago with three mates. And that's a story I think we're all quite familiar with. You know, starting business with mates and then over time things change. And what's happened is Chris has ended up running the business on his own. So in today's episode, we're going to be looking at how after navigating a recession with his previous business, he built what he hoped was a recession proof business in arts, culture and heritage. Because even during a recession, people still go out to theater. But then Covid happened and his industry, like so many, was decimated. But in the spirit of extreme ownership, he's going to share how he rebuilt his company and embedded a mindset change to push his business forward despite the challenges and how he recognized he had to get help and how that has led him to get over his fear of sales. In fact, reframe sales as a service. Some real amazing nuggets in this episode. Don't miss it. Jump in. Hope you enjoy it.

Well, Christopher, it's lovely to have you guest on the YouTube channel and podcast. Now, the company you run, the Cleveland Agency. Tell us a bit about that and how it came to be.

Well, first off, thanks for having me on. Absolute pleasure to be here. The Cleveland Agency. So six years ago, in fact, not far off our birthday six years ago today, I got together with some friends. We'd all had opportunities which had gone one way or the other. And I'd left a previous production role to go to another company. It was a comms agency which I thought I would be working on production, but it turns out it wasn't quite. That was more of an account director role. And it was a great position and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't my passion. So I then thought, okay, I'm going to leave that. I'm going to set up my business. I'd had some smaller companies in the past which had been successful or not so successful. And it's like, right, I want to get back into production. I want to do the thing that I'm really passionate about. And lots of people I knew and worked with were in the arts, culture and heritage sector. It's like, great, let's see what we can make happen. And six years later, we're now a successful film production company, working with big West End shows, filming at royal palaces, producing content with the likes Of Ralph Fine. You know, it's been quite. It's been quite. I don't went over and uses the word journey, but it has been a journey. It's been a great journey to get from there to here, but obviously lots of challenges along the way.

Well, you know, it's interesting. I always love to start with that question because it helps to give some context. And I think people watching this or listening to this might think, oh, wow, that sounds really exciting. But of course, business can be a roller coaster. And when we first met, you were having probably the toughest time ever in your business. Do you want to talk a bit about what was happening and what brought you to kind of for us to meet and why that was?

Yeah, well, it was the previous business I had to this one. We suffered quite heavily during the recession, so whenever there'd been a big financial recession, we'd taken a hit. And so I thought, when I set up this business, I need to have a firm strategy which will make it maybe not recession proof, because I don't think you do that, but it will be less affected by recession. And so I looked at some figures and it turns out theater, culture, arts, they still maintain a very strong position during a recession. People like to go out and be entertained, you know, and who doesn't? So I built this business.

In those sectors. In those sectors, and it was like, great. This is going really well. Two years ago in February, in fact, probably two years, about two years ago today, not far off this, I just finished a big production with Sadler's World, who are fantastic, you know, arts and culture charity in the uk. Theater, dance, you know, really, really leading reading, really leading lights in that regard. Message in a bottle. Big show with the music of fantastic contemporary dance. Beautiful show. I had a chat with the creative director, work with on that, and it's like, this is going to be our year. Two days later, Covid, bam, door shuts, everyone's closed, and it's like, okay, all right, this will be around for a few months, but as we know, two years later, we're just about to pop out the other end. So all of the hard work I put into building a business which.

Which would be supported in difficult times. No one had predicted this. So, yeah, after about six months of nothing happening, all the theaters were closed, museums were closed. There were some things going on virtually, but it was very hard. And I think any business will build in some resilience, but to build in resilience for having very, very little work over an extended period of time is Tough. And I got to a point where I'm thinking, okay, I've got to do something different. I've got to change. You can't change unless you change something. And I think that's true in life and it's true in business. And so a good friend of mine, a guy called Tom, he said to me, listen, I'm part of this group called the vba, run by a chap called Den. He said, I think you should have a chat. Have a chat with Den and see how you are. Because one of the things. There's more than just myself now. But back then, I was a sole trader. The other partners I had had gone their separate ways, done their own things. But I was there, sitting at home. We got rid of the studio because of costs, sat at home day on day. We'd all become teachers. We'd all become entertainers for our kids, if you had them. But there I was, still trying to make this business survive. So we had a chat. We had a really good chat, and we talked about the challenges of where we were. And for me, jumping off that cliff was. It was a real tough decision because I knew it would be a financial commitment, but I knew that if I didn't do something, the business would almost certainly fail. And what I found was, yes, it was a financial outlay, but that was fine, because that financial outlay was a building block to bringing in more revenue later on.

And I think you've talked about this before, Dan, how you've got to. You can't sit still. You can't expect things to come to you. And you do have to work hard, but you can also work smart. And I think the lesson I took from this was it wasn't hard work to sign up to the vba. It was a smart thing to do. It was a. You know, it was something which I could do. Sat at home where I had time, it could work around what I needed. And it suddenly offered this. Not just a safety net, but a support group of peers in a very similar position. To me saying, what you're experiencing is exactly what we've been through. We've been down in that hole. We're going to jump down in that hole with you, but don't worry, because we know how to get out.

You know, I've heard the expression in business, if you're not growing, you're dying. And so I think if you had a year last year where you did, you know, let's say 200,000 was as far as a random number. And this year you did 200,000. Some people might think, well, that's great. I did the same revenue as last year, but in actual fact, that 200,000 doesn't go as far as it did a year ago. And so I think if you. Regardless of, you know, the vba, I think it's really important when you're trying to grow a business that you get help from someone, because you mentioned the group there. And I think one of the things that I. I enjoy the most about my job is I get to interact with really cool people. In fact, I had a call with someone today who I knew we could help, but there was a. There was something that happened on the call, and it was just a bit of a. A bit of an icky feeling. I had an interaction with this person previously, a couple of years ago, and I'd felt a little bit icky, and. And then I subsequently had their interaction, and there's just now a massive red flag. And so even though we could help him and it would be business, I've made a decision to say no, because I know that the measure I have for the VBA is would I have someone in the VBA round to my house for barbecue? And if I brought all the other team around from the vba, would they all be like, oh, it's great to see you, or would they be like, who's that gu? What's he doing here? And I think that that is a great measure, not just in business, but in life. You know, I think for you, with your clients, you should only have a lot of people that you really like, because otherwise it's just. It's hard. And I think you're very lucky that you've chosen an industry which is not straightforward and has been impacted enormously by the pandemic, but you have such a passion for it. And I get this sense that you really love the people you work with. Tell me about the culture and how important that is for you, not just in the vba, but in every aspect of your working life.

Well, I mean, I'm always. I think.

I know the thing I bring to every production and also to life is like, keep it positive. You know, being positive without being naive is a real balance. You have to learn, but you can do it. And if you can maintain a positive, you know, a positive demeanor throughout all of the good and the bad, it really pays dividends. Whenever I start a shoot, we'll have a crew briefing. So I'll talk to the team and I'll go, right, listen, we're going to do. We're going to act professionally, we're going to be calm, we're going to be kind and we're going to be considerate to each other. And when, and there will be a problem and when that problem arises, we will deal with it in a cool, calm, kind and considerate way. And that sets the tone for the production because you will find there will be egos. There will be egos in all productions and sometimes it's on the talent side and that's fine. You know, some of these guys, they are world class performers or actors and you know, they, they have to maintain a certain demeanor to be able to do that. But on a crew, you want people who aren't going to be driven by their ego, they're going to be driven by part of the team and delivering absolutely fantastic quality content. And I think when you. So here, here's a great example, so a great book. And I think one of the guys in the, in the group recommended this Jocko. Everyone's family, sorry, everyone's favorite jocko, Willick. Extreme ownership. You know, where do you, where do you take ownership? And the truth is you, if you are in charge of anything, you own it completely, good or bad, you take ownership. So by applying just simple principles of responsible. If I'm the director on a shoot, or maybe I'm not the director, but I've brought the production together, so I'm like an executive producer, I am still putting myself at the top of the pile and owning that project. So good or bad, make sure the crew know that you are responsible for their actions, although they are clearly responsible for delivering on their actions. But you have to be, you have to bring that positive ownership to whatever you do. And that's a big part of me, I think, as a producer, as a film producer or filmmaker. And you can set that tone and that tone will then flow down through the rest of the work you do. You find your clients are going to be more engaged with you because you know you're not. That you're not breaking their balls. You know, you've got relationships with clients as opposed to.

A business arrangement. And you make friends, you know, and suddenly the people you've worked with for a few years become your friends and you're not going to work. You know, you're not going to work anymore. That it's that classic thing, do the thing you love. You never work a day in your life. And it's true, you know, you're finishing a shoot, you wrap, you go and have a beer and it's with your mates. And that's, that's a really important part of the business. And especially in theatre and arts, you know, everyone, everyone loves, you know, everyone loves what they do. You don't get into theater certainly to make a fortune. You know, there is money there, of course, but you get in. A lot of people get into theatre because they are absolutely passionate about the arts. And you see that coming through all the time. You see people working really hard, you see the dedication people put through the pandemic where, you know, it was tough and people were struggling to put on shows, but they would go not just the extra mile, which they do all the time, but they would go the extra 10 miles to get that show out. And when you see people do that, it's inspiring, but also makes it really easy to work in that sector.

So tell me, the pandemic came, it completely decimated your industry. It just removed demand entirely from your entire market. What did you do? How did you manage that?

It's a great question and I was thinking about that this morning. Looking back in the news today, they've announced that all Covid restrictions are going to be lifted very soon, which is fantastic. Well, I think in the early days we were all just a little bit shell shocked and it was like, okay, we're going to bunker down. It's that whole, we're all in this together. Let's, you know, the blitz spirit will just keep going through it. And you know, you doing homeschooling with the kids, you know, taking that one hour of exercise every day, those things start to take up a lot of your time. But then you start to think about what happens afterwards. You start to think about what happens to the business. And.

When you run a business that has a direct effect on your family. So, you know, a lot of people go, why don't you focus on your family? It's like, well, I do absolutely. My focus is family first, but to bring security, a bit of wealth to them. Whether that's maybe financial wealth or emotional wealth and security, you have to have a good business. And I started thinking about, okay, what do I do to make this business survive? We've talked a little bit about joining the bba, but it's also about having that time to reflect on business practices, systemizing what you do, really understanding the data you had prior to these poor trading years and doing a full analysis of where you've got to, because you would never have that time again. That time over, that period was unique. And I think if that, I mean if this happens again, we're in trouble. You know, I think not just theaters, but, you know, the world is generally going to be in trouble if we have another pandemic of this, of this magnitude. So I took that time to reflect on what works and what doesn't. I took that time to work on personal development. You know, read more, learn about business and what, you know, what other people have done to succeed. And I've been quite reticent in the past about reading.

Biographies of successful people or books that would give you insight into how to be better at what you do. And it was a revelation. And it's taken all these years to get to that point, but suddenly you're getting advice from people in your peer group, you're getting advice from books which have multi million selling books which have got just absolutely gold in them. And you've got the opportunity to then discuss that in a group of people who are in your position. So I took that time for reflection, for analysis, for learning, and for planning positive outcomes for when we pop out the other side. And in Q3 of last year, we did things, felt like we were getting back to normal, and had the most phenomenal three months of trading.

It's remarkable how many stories we've experienced like that, where the, the opportunity that the pandemic brought went beyond anything anyone could expect. But the preparation you made in advance of it being rectified meant that you could take that extra work. And how's, how's it looking now? I mean, after all of that opportunity to read and be part of this community, how has life changed for you? How has your mindset changed? How is your business changed?

I think the word there is mindset change. And every time I look at. So you study the business, you analyze the business constantly. It's not every minute of every day, but you take time to reflect. And what I found is the biggest sticking point to getting things done is almost always myself. So to progress the business, to push it forward, to grow it in any meaningful way that has to come from you. So, you know, we own the business, we are in charge of it. We've talked about ownership, 100%. There's no one else here, I don't have any other business partners to kind of say, right, where are we going with this? And so that mindset change has been the most important thing and it's finding ways to become more productive, how to prioritize correctly, how to systemize the things you do. So when. So now I do have other people on board in terms of freelancers or team members. So I can just say, this is how we do this. This is a successful way of running this particular part of the business. For example, client feedback. How do we make that easy, seamless, effective? It's written down. It's written down. I can give that to a producer and say, this is how we deal with that particular part. So by changing my mindset from it being just me, to change my mindset to saying I have a team was brilliant. That was that first revelation. And what that does initially, you think, oh, I'm paying someone else to do the thing I should be doing. But you go, right, and here's a great example. Editing, Editing, it just, it sucks your time away. You can't just do five minutes of editing. You've got to be in the edit, you know, for a day, two days, three days. And in those three days, the way I think about it is if you spun your client's wheel up to full speed, and you have to once it at full speed, you can turn the pedal just a little bit. But every time you step away from that to do an edit or to film or to do something else, which is tools based, you are doing something to contribute to the production, not the business, that wheel slows down. And the more you neglect it, the slower and slower it gets until it stopped. Then you've got to put all that energy to get the wheel back up again. And by handing off these tasks to other people, you're doing which is most. What is most important to the business, which is bringing in work. And we had a great conversation many, many moons ago. And I think I made the declaration, oh, then I hate sales. And you went, whoa, whoa, Chris, let's just stop there. You know, sales are your lifeblood. And, you know, you said to me, don't say that. Don't say you hate sales. Say you love clients. And it was like, oh, snap, just turn it around. Change the way you think about things. And in fact, here's another great example of a book. Now, as much as.

Brilliant insight comes from what we do, there was a fantastic book I read by a guy called Dave Trott. Now, Dave Trott was an Ogilvy creative, He was a copywriter.

Brilliant guy. And he's got a book called Predatory Thinking. And what it does, it takes stories about everyday things and it changes the way you look at them and puts them into context. So he is all about context. How does something play out in the context of the situation? And one of my favorite stories from that, which doesn't relate to filmmaking at all, but absolutely relates to communicating very carefully to people. What you mean is about swearing and children. You know, you have that conversation. You. I remember I got home, my two daughters were sat on the top of the bunk bed and they're chuckling away. And I go, daddy, we know the S word. And it's like, oh, do you know? And I just said it. I said, I don't. We'll keep it clean on the podcast. But I listed, I listed. I went, okay, you know the S word, but do you know the other swear words? And they were like, there are other swear words. And I just told them, I told them all the swear words and they're there on the bed going, oh, what is this? What is this dark art we're talking about? And I said, okay, so now you know the words. Would you say that in front of Grandma? No, no, of course not. I said, okay, would you say that in front of your teachers? It's like, oh, goodness, no. I said, okay, so now you know that there are swear words, but you also understand context, the context of when you can swear. And I made a rule with them. I said, look, you are now allowed to swear whenever you like as long as you have the permission of everyone in the room to do so. And so you're enabling them to swear, but you're putting some kind of guide on it, but you're also empowering them. It's like, okay, I've empowered you with the knowledge, I've given you the context in which it operates, and I've defined some rules in which it's appropriate to use them. And if you take those three principles and, and apply it to other things, business principles, because, you know, we assume our clients understand the filmmaking process. We assume they understand the creative or the post production process. A lot of the time they don't. And they don't need to know the details, but they do need to know the context, the structure and how it operates. And you could, once you've delivered that, suddenly your client's like, oh, the mystery's gone. I understand what we're doing and, and most importantly, you can justify the cost you're charging.

So join us again next week for the second part of this interview. In the meantime, please do subscribe. Ding the bell, all that good stuff. And if you want to leave some comments, let me know the kind of things you want to hear us talk about on this channel. See you next week, guys.