A surprise benefit of niching down your video production business with Adam Forgione. EP #283

Hi, guys, it's Dan Lanney here, host of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. And this week we're revisiting a conversation that we started last week with Adam Forgione from Penny Lane Productions in New York. Adam's a veteran business owner, started his life in weddings and moved fully into corporate production and now serves multiple markets in nonprofit construction, health care. And today we, we're going to dig deep into the, the kind of, the nuts and bolts of sales and tracking business inquiries. When I talk about CRMs, we're going to talk about the process of following up and the importance of multiple touch points of follow up so that you can get to a point where when someone is ready to buy, you become an obvious choice because in most cases, no one really wants what you're selling at the point at which you first make contact. So you want to begin a journey of awareness, nurture, and then, you know, turning that into trust. You're going to really enjoy this episode. Please be sure to like and subscribe on the platforms that you watch or listen to this on and enjoy this episode.

Adam, thank you for coming back. We had a really powerful conversation last week about customer service and how most large corporations get it wrong and actually to some level how a lot of video production companies are getting it wrong because they're not getting back in touch with customers and prospects quick enough. And I think that's partly down to fear. I think a lot of creatives have a real fear of rejection and therefore when an inquiry comes in, will sometimes write an email or ping back a response a few days later. And we were having a really good discussion about the importance of being quick.

How do you build up the confidence with that and what kind of systems you use? You touched on the CRM last week and, you know, I'm quite surprised when I talk about CRM, how few filmmakers necessarily understand what it is and even use one. So let's just start there for this, this conversation because I think, you know, between us, we've got a lot of experience and I think it's very easy for us who've been doing this, you know, 20, 20 plus years that we just, we just automatically think, oh, it's just, of course you got a CRM, but let's just take it back to a company that's perhaps a little bit younger.

How did you build the skill around the confidence of getting back to cold inquiries and calling them up rather than sending an email?

I think that confidence was built when I was running a video, a wedding video, Business. You know, I mean, in the beginning it was mostly calls. Email wasn't as common when I first started, and then when email became more common, you know, it was convenient because it was quick and you didn't have to stay on the phone for 30 minutes or, or so. But I, I, I don't know. I, I don't really, I don't really know if I have an answer. I'm, I'm a very forward guy. I'm a very blunt guy. I'm, I'm not afraid of, you know, having conversations. I'm not afraid of being in front of people. I'm not afraid of speaking to small or large crowds. I'm, and I think there are a lot of people that have issue with that just because that's how they're built. You know, I have, I have flaws on other ends that they might not have flaws on, but I don't know. I think for me it's natural. I'm not afraid of confrontation. Confrontation. I don't want confrontation, but I won't walk away from it. I notice a lot of people will and maybe they're smarter than me, maybe that's a weakness.

But I, I just, I just, I just care about what I care about and I want to stand up for myself and I, I don't want to get walked over. So I, I, you know, I think.

That'S a fair, a fair comment, you know, and, and you know, with, with experience, we all develop skills that we kind of don't even realize are skills because we've been doing them so long. But I think there's a, you know, a lot of people came into the industry 2009 to 2012 who, who were very new to the video business. And we're now kind of like 10 years on. And I'm, and I'm observing a lot of like, the technology's gone crazy, right? I mean, what you can do on an iPhone now, gimbals, you know, fpv drones, the tools that are available we could only have dreamed of even 10 years ago. When like the DSLR came out, we were like, we're not using like lens adapters anymore. Wow. Now the technology is incredible. So the, the barrier to entry, to make beautiful looking content is, is like zero. You know, it's 5,000 bucks. You've got all the tools you need. But I wonder if there's a lag in the business skills because a lot of those that generation have grown up with phones and computer games. And I remember my stepson sitting in front of the Xbox and us saying, why don't you go outside? And he's like, you guys don't understand. This is how we communicate these days. So there's all these, these kids who grew up in 10 years ago who are now becoming videographers, video businesses. And I see this a lot with the conversations I have. Nobody wants to get on the phone. People want to respond on instant message or they want to send an email.

And a lot of times there's a resistance to that. But also no system, no CRM. And by CRM, I mean customer relationship management software. Somewhere to put prospect data, customer data. When you have a phone call, make some notes, put them in there. Because not everyone's ready to buy straight away.

I guess I want to share maybe how you do things to help perhaps filmmakers listening to this or watching this to get some understanding of what kind of process needs to be in place and why that's important. So I'm thinking specifically about inquiry comes in because, you know, you can do all this social media marketing, all the front end SEO, but when a prospect makes an inquiry, so much as can be lost by someone not getting in touch quick enough, but also not having a process to nurture that opportunity into a point when they're ready to buy something.

Yeah. I mean, so specifically we use Zoho CRM plus. Yes. There's a lot, you know, and I have a love hate relationship with, with Zoho, but it's a very powerful tool. I've tried Salesforce, I've, I've tried a lot of different CRMs and I still, this fits me the best. It fits thinks the way I think.

It's very powerful and it kind of, there's lots of bolt ons. It does everything, doesn't it?

Yeah. And it's funny because there's a few things that are so obvious that it should do. And you go on forums from like 10 years ago and they're like, yeah, we, you know, everybody wants this feature. Why are you not doing it? Everybody else has it and they're like, oh well, consider it. And then 10 years goes on and you'd be like, I guess you're not doing this. So there's that kind of a like love hate relationship. But yeah, you're right, it's super powerful. So for us, you know, for starters, I can. And when I was in the wedding world, I never deleted emails. So Now I had 15 years of brides and grooms whether I booked them or not. I imported all that into my CRM and I said you know what? They probably most, most of them might probably have jobs. They, maybe they own their own businesses. I could probably do business with them. These are potential leads. They contacted me because they like something on my website and wanted to potentially do business with me. That's how I got their name. Yeah, not a cold lead. So right off the bat, you have all these warm leads. Not granted, you know, you're still, you're calling them back for something that they didn't call you for. But, but you're one step closer. You're definitely beyond a cold call or a cold lead. So, boom, got those in. So basically, you know, every single time somebody emails me, every single time somebody calls me once, that information, we have some sort of communication. That communication is then copied into that person's, you know, notes inside the CRM. And for those who, like you mentioned the CRM, I mean, think of it as like a, a Rolodex on steroids. I mean, you have everything under the sun about that person. Not to mention you automate your CRMs to do a lot of powerful things like, you know, either remind you to email them in six months or two months or two weeks, you can have it automatically send an email for you. You can add them automatically, you know, have them dump to an email list if you wanted to. You can track them or try to track them on social. There's even on Zoho, I can even tell if you're in my CRM. And we have 10. We have over 10,000 leads in our CRM. So in our CRM, if one of those people, I have their email. If one of those people hits my website, there's a good chance it's going to understand what the IP address, it's going to match it to who that person is, and it's going to say to me, I'll see it live and say, you know, John Smith is on your website and he's on this web page. And now he's been there for two minutes and he hopped over to the next web page and I can clearly see what he's clicking on and what he's interested in. You know, and I'm not even using Google Analytics at this point. This is all within my CRM. So if you take that tool and you nurture it, you use it, and then you take other tools like, you know, studying how people are coming onto your website, like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and, you know, there are paid programs that you can buy. Like currently I use Ahrefs, so. So that's A just, you know, it's like Google console search console on steroids. And you can, you could look at your competition, you can look at your own. You could figure out all the problems you have on your website and all that stuff. So you, you know, you fix all these holes and you, you have more people coming into your website, more people emailing you. Every time they email you, you can even set it up where it automatically goes into your CRM. If they email you, you don't even have to do it manually. I personally do it manually because I like to keep control of everything. I don't want to like spammy stuff going in there. But. And then, you know, make, make a process that makes sense to you maybe for one person, you know, I say, okay, I'm gonna reach out to this person. Or they, they contacted me, I need to ask them these five questions in order to understand their needs better. And we have this conversation and then maybe it just goes dead. Maybe you'll process if, if they become MIA in two weeks, email them this email, right? And then boom, goes out. And then if no response, set a reminder, send another email in one week or two weeks or whatever your time process is. If they respond, then, you know, it might lead somewhere and take that where it leads. And then, you know, after. What I do is I hit them up three times and on the third time, if they're mia, they go to a dead lead list. But that basically means they're on a mail list now. Yeah. And then they're not. And. And if they unsubscribe, then they're dead. Dead. They're still in my system, but they're in a pile that is just, you know, they have to revive themselves. So.

And the chances, if someone's going to unsubscribe, they're never probably going to give you money.

Yeah, I mean, you know, most people in my list are not interested in me right now. Maybe later, but they're just not interested me right now, you know, and you just keep chipping away. It's a, it's an. One thing I learned too is it's a numbers game. So. Yeah, you know, some. You know, how many times did Edison experiment with the light bulb before he nailed it? You know, and what if he gave up one trial before he did it? And there's so many stories like this. So it's a numbers game. Sales and marketing, it's the same thing over and over again.

A mentor of mine said, you know, you have to be willing. He, he shared lessons from 20 years in business. And he said, you have to put in 10 times the effort, you think, to get the result you want. And so that really translates to a numbers game. And something I experience with creatives and filmmakers is they give up too quick on the sales and marketing process. They might do LinkedIn outreach for a week, and they're like, oh, I reached out to 100 people. I didn't get any sales, so I'm deflated. Now I'm giving up. And there's definitely. In sales and marketing, you made a great point there. Most people aren't interested in what you're selling right now because they don't have a big enough pain or a big enough need. And sales and marketing is about continually repeating your message in front of people so that when they are ready, you're already a factor in their mind. In the coaching space. No one comes to me when business is great.

And I've been tracking annually the flow of clients in and out of our business. And you know what? January, February is always a boom time for us with people signing up because they're like, oh, I've had a month off. It's quiet. January is always quiet in the video industry. And they're like, I need some help, but no one's knocking on my door in August. In fact, I see clients drop off in August almost consistently year on year for the last six years. I see a percentage of clients drop out of programs because they've had a great summer, work is booming, there's money in the bank, they've just been on holiday and they don't need help anymore. And that's like, in any industry, there is a cycle. And so as long as you're aware of that.

I think the average. There was a. There was a. There was a graph released. I don't know where it came from, but it was like a percentage of, you know, most people give up after a first contact. And then, you know, like 78% of people give up after the second contact. And, you know, there's only like by contact point number six, seven, and eight. You're literally. There's no competition. And if you connect with someone six, seven, eight times, the chances are you're the only company who's maintained contact for that many touch points. I mean, if you get to 9 and 10, you become such a strong factor in that person's mind that when they do need someone, they're probably not going to look anywhere beyond the person that's made the most effort.

I mean, it's so true. And, and and there are marketing and sales professionals that are, can run circles around me. I learn stuff every single day. And I, and there are, there are sales and marketing professionals that are way more persistent than I am too as well. And I have so much admiration for that. I mean, think about the touch points. You know, I hear that all the time. 7, 8, 9, all the way up to like 14 touch points before they want to do business with you. It depends on what you're selling, how high or low the ticket item is and all that kind of stuff. But you know, think about the ways you could be touched. You know, phone call, email, in person on the website, an ad on Facebook, an ad on any other social media, a genuine, genuine organic post on any of the social medias you being ranked high up where they search something and they find you as relevant as one of the, the ranking sites after they did a search.

Dms, there's so many different ways to connect with people. So you know, if you think about it, if, if they saw your ad three times and they saw a post you put out on one of the social media channels twice and you called them twice and you emailed them once, I mean, you, you already have all these touch points. The probability of them doing business with you if there is a fit is more likely, is way more likely. The whole thing too is that I think a lot of us can potentially do business together. We're always here, but we're always passing by like this constantly. And we just never reach out at this point. So if you're constantly reaching out, you know I'm gonna hit 15, 20 leads every single day for the next year. Chances are you're gonna hit somebody that happens to be lined at the perfect point.

Boom.

And those numbers are just going to align and that's, that's part of that numbers game. But I even, you know, I was, I went to your.

Your coaching website and I signed up.

Yeah, I saw that. I saw that.

I signed up because I know I can learn a ton from you.

Yeah.

And I watched the initial intro video. I didn't put my name in the thing yet because I knew I was going to talk to you.

Exactly. But, but I love that I saw that coming. I was like, he's, he's checking out what? What'? And it's. That's, but that's, that's a funnel, right? It's, it's like what's new?

And I loved what you said on the video. I mean, the one thing that, that struck me like the holy grail of everything that I got from what you said on the video was what your focus in niches.

Yeah.

And, and that is like, it is so true. And I, I can't tell you how many times I had to drag myself away from the generalist to be like, Adam, you gotta focus on this one little thing. You gotta focus on, you know, and, and I'm building out, I'm building out niches for attorneys for law.

Yeah.

Building out niches for healthcare. I'm building out niches for finance, Building out niches for construction and building out niches for non profit.

Yeah.

You know, aside from just being a generalist, you know, corporate video company, those niches are. I, I really see a lot more potential focused on that laser focused thing. And the examples you were giving in your intro video were great examples. It's so powerful. And you know, you reminded me of that. And then of course, like I go through my phases. We, we're both audiobook fans or business book fans. I, I listen to audiobooks. I, I barely read books, so I'm always listening. So I don't know if you're. You read or you.

I do both. But yeah, like when I'm doing long drives, I'm always audiobooks. Yeah.

So I'm, you know, I always circle back to this every so often. So I'm, I'm on thinking grow rich again.

Yeah.

And you know, you, you go, I'm away for it for two years. And I'm like, ah, I gotta keep remembering this. All right, put it back in.

Because the principles of business haven't changed in a hundred years.

No. And before marketing or sales, like, there's a whole chapter on specialization. You know, it's, it's, it. And it's funny because I'm literally, I hit that chapter the day after I watched your video.

How funny.

You know what I mean? He's sign there, there's a sign going.

But here's the thing as well. Adam is like. And, and, and I guess one of my mantras has always been go niche. Go niche. Go niche or go niche gnich and, and it. And people get very confused thinking that going niche means that's only what you ever do. I have a client Grant, who niched down into manufacturing and distribution and haulage and like, you know.

For a year, built his website for a year, went hard on LinkedIn for a year, got some great business, but realized that manufacturing companies just didn't really have a marketing strategy. And therefore he was having to sell the concept of video. And that was really hard. During that time he was approached by someone who was a contact on LinkedIn who ran aged care homes and said, hey, could you, would you be interested in doing this project? Ended up with like 15 videos over a year to do aged care. Let's call it 150 grands worth of business. And so, so the niching is about the focus of your attention and marketing. And I've got dozens of stories where someone is niched down in one industry but gets an amazing opportunity from a completely different industry that ends up being a great business opportunity. So I think, you know, the first thing is niching down is about focus. But there's no reason why you as a company can't have a healthcare division, an attorney division, construction division, as long as each page talks the language of that industry. Then when someone comes in from the construction world, you point them to construction page. When someone comes in from the healthcare space, you're starting to talk about patient care and the work that you do as an organization. And so it's really just. And it's probably where I'm the most misunderstood, but I guess that's why in any business you keep banging the same drum. Is niching down isn't about only ever making a health care film. It's about the marketing message and more importantly your focus so that you're not diluting what you do in 15 different directions.

I mean, the way I look at it is this. You, you knit first off, is it niche or niche?

Well, it's niche where I live. It's, I think it's niche in America. So we kind of, you know, nature needs, it's understood. It's like tomato, tomato, you know.

Yeah. So the way I look at it is this. You're, you're the expert in that field. So if anybody needs video in that field, they're going to take you over everyone else.

That's right.

You're the expert. A. Right. And you know, the, the, the, the main thing too is that you.

You know, when you, when you do work in that industry or that niche with various different clients.

You learn a lot. And that education and that knowledge that you can share even on these initial sales calls with other people.

It'S really, it's noticeable. I mean, so like nonprofit is, is a niche that I've been in for many years and I know so much more about nonprofits and how they operate than I did 10 years ago. And you know, like right off the bat, an example is this.

Fundraising videos are.

So powerful, especially when they're played at an event right before they ask for donations. And it's a perfectly, it's a perfect tool and it's developed for that moment. Right? So, and it's what the cool thing about it is. It's, it can potentially be measurable too. So I was actually talking to a friend of mine. I don't want to say her name because I don't know if she would want me to say her name. But I became friends with her recently and she's a filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker. And we were literally just having this conversation, I don't know, a day or two ago. And this is exactly what she was saying too. She was actually, we were bouncing the idea across about, you know, ways to build on it and make it better and educate clients. And, you know, this, this exact conversation was happening about how the fundraising videos are measurable. So it's, it, this is just one micro example. But, you know, you make an emotional film, emotional video, you play it right before the ask at a gala. They're in an emotional state. And there's a very good chance that the amount of money you'll raise after that video is shown will be higher than if you'd never shown that video before it. And for us, emotion, how we create emotion, how we look for emotion, very simple formula. It's got to be an interview. Can't be looking at the camera lens. It's got to be a documentary interview where you're looking off camera. And, you know, here's one of many formulas that we might use for storytelling if we wanted to make a short three minute video. Video. Act one, act two. Act three, act one. We do a lot of nonprofits with chill related to children with illnesses. Right? That's a niche, that's like a micro niche within nonprofit, and we do a lot of those. So Act 1, what was the child's life before he or she Got sick? Act 2 or the inciting incident, the moment that that child got sick turned everyone's life upside down. And that leads into Act 2, the journey of that child as that child's sick and you know, what direction they're going in and what they've accomplished at the end. And in most cases, there's usually a happy ending where the child is now part of, you know, speaking at an event that night, and they're being honored that night from, you know, the gala. So, you know, the, the Act 3 is sort of like, you know, the happy ending. Now I'm in remission and I've gained a whole new set of friends that I never would have met had I not gone through this. And I learned things about life that I probably wouldn't have learned about until my 20s or 30s. And so all these things that they were sort of rewarded with from this horrible thing that happened to them is celebrated at the end of that video. And then everyone feel, you know, everyone's in tears, but at the end, everyone feels good about, you know, wow, we're rooting for the kid. He or she made it. And I feel so good, and I'm so happy for you. And, you know, and. And so you're just like, and now we. We need to help so many more kids. You know, now's the time. So, you know, they take your wallets out, get your checkbooks out, but it's a great tool just for that specific niche. And it, you know, you can go to, like, example attorneys. Every attorney, almost every attorney has an FAQ. There are not many with video FAQs. So if you get into an accident, what do you do next? You know, so, you know, you're reading, you have video FAQs. These are like little ideas that you have just that specific niche. So, you know, you pick your niche and you can come up with these different ideas for each one of them. And. And then you can go through this sort of venue of creative things that can help them drum up more business. And, you know, that's what's so cool.

Is that you, as an expert in, in. In nonprofits and the sub niches within nonprofits. When a nonprofit is looking for a video supplier and they've got a choice between Billy Bob's videos over here and Mary Smith's videos over here and Penny Lane, or those are the guys who they. Their niche is.

Nonprofits, and they have this formula and they have this way of doing things. And we know about them because my friend who works at this other charity or this other nonprofit told me about these guys, you just end up. You know, it's like you talked last week about SEO being this very labor intensive, monolithic journey of micro decisions and changes that take a very long time to bed in. But after a period of time, they're almost hard to get rid of because they're so embedded. They're so sort of, the foundation is so strong in the ground.

The same thing is true of niching or niching. You become known as the guy or the company that provides these results, and you become so good at it that the entire industry of nonprofits is like, if they were to be asked, who are the top three Companies in the should use your name would come up. And that is a kind of a version of SEO for your business in niching. And.

I've seen it over the last 10 years. I've been working with video businesses. The ones that thrive and do exceptionally well, have a niche. It might be a style, it might be an approach, it might be a couple of different sectors, but they get known for it. And what hap. What is so powerful about niching or niching is that you get known in that industry and people tell each other.

Yeah, I mean one thing to go back to something you said earlier, by the way. Can you hear my daughter singing and play piano?

I can't, but I wish we could. I've seen the videos in the past.

I think, I think we're. It might be noise suppressing it but I hear my, my daughter playing piano downstairs so. Which I love. So what, what I was going to say you said earlier too is I think one of the biggest takeaways for any filmmaker who's in the space making videos for businesses or non profits like you know, in, in this commercial space. We have to remember this, we're filmmakers, okay? That's the artist in us, okay. That's the movie maker. That's only half of what we do for our clients. We make pretty films like that's, that's important to us as filmmakers. We need to be marketers. Our job is to be marketers. They're using our video as a marketing tool. So it is part of our business. We need to know it. And so the thing is your client who hires you cares about one thing they don't care about. They might think your films are pretty and they might say oh I like that. But what they really care about is roi. That's it. If you don't give them roi, they don't really want to spend the money. They're investing money into you a video marketing firm, you know, and they're expecting this investment to make them money. And so we need to as businesses, as video businesses, we need to put the filmmaker hat on when the time is right. We need to put the marketing hat on when the time is right. Very simple formula. If, if somebody doesn't know anything about marketing or they're scared about it or if you think it's sleazy, you know it's not. If you want to be a used car salesman and be sleazy, well then be sleazy. But you don't have to be there are you could sell with integrity. You can sell and Care.

Mercedes don't sell their cars with anything other than elegance and class.

And that's why.

And they're on their premium products.

Yeah. So the, the here's a, here's a simple formula, right? And you can make this into a, a 60 second video or a 5 minute video or whatever you want it to be. Identify a problem.

Explain the solution, connect your company to the solution and give at least one reason why you're better than your competition. That's it. Problem, solution. Connect your company differentiator, close it out with a call to action. You can do that in 60 seconds, you know, and so, you know.

You could start there and then get more complex and build out other variations of that idea. But it's our job to, to solve those problems. It's our job to make a tool that's used for marketing. We're not just here to make videos. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes we're hired by a marketing agency. They already have the messaging and the scripting and everything planned out and they just need a production company to do the job. And that's fine too. Right. Especially when you're working with a good agency and you, you're, you know, you admire each other's work and it's, oh, this is going to be great. But in the end, if, you know, for us anyway, a lot of our clients come to us, you know, and they, they're, they don't, you know, they're the company itself. We're dealing directly with the, the, the company as opposed to a marketing agency.

And so you're going to make more money that way as well. You know, you're going to make more money direct to client. I, I'll just finish with this. A very successful marketer friend of mine, Ben, said, you must always remember, Dan, that your product and service is the obstacle in the way of the client getting what they want. But they see as a necessary evil because they've got to promote their message. And so if you're making videos for a living, then the videos, the problem, the video is the obstacle. They don't want to make a video, they don't want to spend money making a video. They have to spend the money telling a story so they can get the result, which is usually selling more of the stuff they want to sell.

I think that's brilliant. And if you don't mind if I can ping pong off that thought, My elevator pitch right now is based around communication. Communication is key. Communication is the most important aspect of any business. Whether you're Communicating externally or internally. And I believe video is the most powerful way to communicate. So I haven't, I'm not finished with my elevator pitch. But the point is, when you just said the barrier, if it was me, I would turn that barrier into the communication. So you, you need to spend money for this necessary evil to get your reward while you're investing in communication. Crystal clear messaging. And the way we do it is back to the pitch is that we, we communicate through video and we do it through creative storytelling and crystal clear messaging. And so I pose this question to businesses. Do you believe communication is important to your business growth, both internally, to your staff, and externally to your customers? Do you believe communication is important? Yes. Who's going to say no? Do you believe video is a powerful way to communicate? In my eyes, the most powerful way to communicate. Yes or no? There are not many people that are going to say no, right? Yes. Yes. So they now know and admitted that they know. Video is an amazing tool to solve a major problem, which is to communicate this thing that you need to communicate to this person. In this case, I have a product or service, I need to communicate it to this customer. And I know the thing in the middle. The barrier is an amazing communication tool. Why would I not invest in that? So I drive everything. This year is actually when I came up with this, this pitch, which is I needed to reinvent myself. We're a communication company.

That's what we do.

I love it, mate. It's been amazing catching up again. And let's not leave it three years next time.

No, no, not at all.

We should pick like some micro topics and just hang on those. I know we're just kind of, you know, we're riffing here and I love that, but I would love to dive into some, you know, some business book ideas that we've learned over the years and just like, you know, have, have fun with that one time.

So we should absolutely do that.