Could videographers be the biggest hypocrites in business? EP #236 - Chris Schwager

G', day, guys. It's Den Lenny here and welcome to episode 236 of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. Today I have an old friend back on the show, Chris Schwager from Ridge Films in Sydney. Chris has been on the show a couple of times in the past and I wanted to get Chris back on because not only are Ridge Films the most highly reviewed video production company in Australia on Google reviews, but they're also the kings of pivoting. Now, they've been in business 20 years. They've seen, you know, tough times in business before, but this time it was different. They had developed an idea that they tried to bring to market a couple of years ago. It didn't quite go exactly to plan, but during the pandemic it really took off and is now providing them with a very healthy monthly recurring revenue. And they are actually seeing more opportunities as a result of this. And typically this offer they've got could be seen as damaging their business, but in actual fact, it's done the opposite. So it's always great to have Chris on the show. He's incredible value. So please dig into this episode and I will see you on the other side.

Mr. Schwager, it's been a while since you've been on the show and it's great to have you back. And for anyone watching this, I mean, Chris is a pretty good looking dude, but I don't know, this, this lockdown is just kind of. It's just using new shampoo. Are you using a new trimmer? Because you're looking pretty sharp, dude.

No, it's more time out in the sun. More time with my feet on the ground. There was a. There was a period through the first two weeks of this recent lockdown where I was really frustrated. I was listening to all the news media. I was listening, I was watching TikToks. And TikToks became like fun little videos turned propaganda and like everything was covered. Covid. Covid. And I was like, oh my God, I've really got to change this, this attitude. Like, it seemed like the whole world was against me and everybody, you know, go on a little fitness run and feel like everybody was talking about either Covid or something negative. And I was like, you know what, this is not healthy.

Yeah, it's true. You've got to be careful what algorithm you're allowing to tune into. I said to all my clients right at the beginning of COVID first thing you got to do is not watch the news, get off social media, because it's very easy to believe that this Covid thing that's happened to us all is the reason why business has been tough. Actual fact, it hasn't been tough for a lot of people because they found ways to embrace the humanity of a client relationship. And you, one of those guys that I know in your business, never sit still. So I'd love to hear a bit about. I'm sure the audience love to hear, how did you guys at Ridge respond to the last 18 months of chaos? And for context, for anyone who doesn't know Chris, he was based in Sydney. They've had two significant lockdowns. Talk me through the process you went through as a company and how you've come out of that. The other end.

Well, we didn't have.

As much of a leap, I don't think, as a lot of people did. I mean, we knew at the first lockdown that we needed to do something different and still reach out. A lot of what you had talked about through that period was really resonated with me, and I had to find new ways to talk to the market, I think was the main thing. And I always kind of found that whole front end of the lockdown quite interesting because there was a lot of businesses going, well, what are we calling? Like, if we're going to reach out to our clients, what are we calling them about? Like, what are we saying? Is it just an empathy play? Because soon enough that will wear thin and people will be like, what do you want? So there had to be some reason. There had to be an offer, an idea, a new product, a new way of helping our clients than just calling them up and going, oh, do you guys want a video? Like, that's not enough. And, you know, there's nothing really sexy about selling video. I've always thought it's a tough thing, you know, when clients, when production companies are found through that period now, us included, kind of went, played the whole, oh, we'll give you a discount on your studio hire play. It was like, oh, my God. It's just so. I found it just so boring. It's like it may have been financially beneficial, but it really just wasn't anything there. There was no real hook or incentive why people would just jump up and start doing things. And so to go through this prequel, I guess, to this period, we had this concept of the desktop studio that was born out of something that we saw from Wistia. And we played with it and we'd done like a beta version of this and effectively it was like an all in One studio, if you like. But the beta version wasn't 100% and we sort of. We built two kits and then we kind of, you know, got rid of it and that was the end. And we forgot about it for a while. And then it was the. It was like January of 2019. We went to our business coach and went, we are so burnt out with this travel and going to the clients for 15 minute call meetings and just the whole preamble and post amble of those meetings and just the downtime was insane and we were exhausted. And literally overnight we had decided that we were going to be selling from Zoom. So that's like the next day, that was it, no more traveling. And that's the best part, by the way, about having a business coach and like yourself, Dan, I mean, I'm sure there's people in your program that would just do exactly the same. The decisions made, they can get on with their business and move forward. So we started doing the Zoom calls and that presented its own form of challenges, right, because back then it was like having to convince people to go onto Zoom. Then they've got tech hassles with webcams and sound and how does this work? And then we don't have our systems in place to be able to make sure that they're set up correctly. So there was things that we needed to build. But when it came down to it, when what the camera saw, what our prospective new opportunities saw was me under shitty little Logitech webcam with a crappy printer and a door in the background and crappy lighting. And that was the first impression we were giving. And we think that for a creative business, you've got to look and sound the part, you know. And so we had rebirthed the concept of DIY Desktop and built the new and upgraded version, which is what we're selling now, which is the DIY desktop studio in amongst the DIY program. And we, we had two kits built at the end of 2019 and we were actively using them into 2020. And then when lockdown hit.

We were like, right, this is it, this is the way we're moving forward. Yeah, we'll make our calls and all that, but primarily we've got to be leading with something. This seems like the most logical thing to push forward on. And the first kit we ever sold was Brennan's. We packed it up, we got it out of the studio.

I remember having a conversation with you about that going, we need to unpack his kit and send it on.

I have had this conversation with startups and they're like, oh, I think we're going to launch in June. And I was like, you know, when you launch, it's when the, when the paycheck comes, when they're willing to pay. You take the money and you figure out how to, how to build it later. And that's what we did. We had six orders, we had payment for six kits, and we didn't have any components. We were bringing them in from all over the world. And the biggest thing that we had struggled with was the little Logitech adapter that you needed to stream your camera to your computer. But nonetheless, we got through that really quickly and we got up and running and we started implementing and installing these kits and we realized very quickly that if it's just equipment sitting on the desk, it will just be equipment sitting on the desk. Not all people are intuitive and fast learners to be able to go, oh, I'm just going to go like, I've got this beautiful looking and sounding set up now automatically become video marketers overnight. It's still required ongoing assistance and support to help people through that. On camera training, script templates, ideas about implementing, editing, how, how and what videos to use, how to use it in Sal, you know, these gaps were the real things that people struggled with wasn't the tech, because we'd solved that problem for them. One button switch and on it goes. And you're lit up just like I am now within seconds. I had an install yesterday I did for a client and I showed him that and he was like, oh my God, you know, he could record within, within minutes and, you know, there was nothing more to do.

So you make, you make a great point just to cut in there. But.

I think a lot of video businesses worry overly about the younger people coming to market doing stuff cheaper or clients doing it themselves. But as you said, it's one thing to have the gear and then make it look good, but you can make it look good. But if you don't know what to say, how to say it and how to structure it, you're goosed. What I love about this offer you've created is that you've solved the problem for the client, which was for a period, they couldn't physically have people come to them, number one. Number two, you can have a filmmaker come to your premises and film with you, but if you're not getting coached or produced in how to say what you need to say correctly, it doesn't work. So you've actually created a, you've solved the problem and created an ongoing opportunity to support a business ongoing with subscription revenue. And I think it's just genius. And what I just wanted to say is this didn't happen right off the bat with you. It wasn't like the very first time you had this idea, you got it right. And I just admire you for the fact that you and Brendan have just kept going, trying to figure out the best way to do this. And it sounds now like it's starting to really flow.

Yeah, I mean let's put things into perspective. We're a 20 year old business.

Who has some process and some system in place to be able to sell, market, manage finances and cash flow. We have that in our armorer, if you like. When it came to getting the kit organized, it wasn't like we immediately just assumed that the problem was xyz, therefore let's build the kit. I mean we listened to the market, we had a whole bunch of LinkedIn in mail marketing going out of that first lockdown and people were telling us straight that most people who presented on camera sucked big time and that they weren't happy and it wasn't satisfactory. So we knew that the gap was, was weak there. We knew. And I'm still a big believer this will, this won't go away. It's not like people are automatically going to just overnight go back and start working. They'll never have a use for webcams again. Do you know what I mean? Like it's going to be. People have fallen in love in a way and not all people, but most like a lot of people have fallen in love with the concept of home, work, life, balance and been able to be more efficient at home. And the thing that has always stifled them has been well, how do I do that professionally? You know, and, and I think that's a big key here with what we're putting together is you can look and sound the best and professional and you don't need to overhaul a studio in your home or office to do it.

An enormous amount of money. I mean like you're in your home office. I'm in my home office. I am 400 meters from the beach and, and in this space it is. I used to have this setup at WeWork in Piermont in Sydney and it's cost me $5,000 a month.

It's just that dollars a year. We've got a video just about to Launch on the DIY.

Programs web page. It's ridgefilms.com DIY if you want to go and have a look at it. There's a nice little catalog of videos starting to brew up there. And there's a behind the scenes happening of me actually installing one of these kits. And this particular client was, look, we don't really need it for streaming. We really just want to be producing training videos at any moment in time we want to be able to stop and just do the training videos. And I was like, cool, where do you want this thing? And because that is beautiful office, it was really, you know, Surry Hills decked out and they're like, well, you see that white, you know, petition over there with the big long white doors behind that? We don't want anybody to see it. Like when we close those petitions, we're closing off the shitty kitchen, the stacked up chairs, the junk that they just would harbor, they'd stick behind that. We want your thing to be behind that.

Okay, so they gave me this slot. There's about a foot and a half between an old fridge and these white partitions. You'll see it when you, when you watch the video. But it basically we were able to design this whole thing so that the background was the petitions. They had a kind of an envelope style background that kind of comes out and lighting, sound, everything. As you see it now, it's looking good and when they're done they just fold it all up and away it goes. So my point is it's not requiring a massive fit out to be able to produce these videos, but also what's.

Interesting and you know, you don't need to reveal numbers and stuff, but unless you're happy to. But it's the fact that this is, this is something where you've applied your 20 years of knowledge into how can we solve a problem that we know is going to get worse? How do we stop? And I love your point about we just don't want to stop to be trailing across Sydney to have meetings anymore. I think the most important thing about running a business is that very few businesses reach and attain the point where they get to have freedom. They might make a lot of money, but they're having to really work for it. And I'm really trying to demonstrate to my community that success isn't just financial. How much freedom do you have? How much freedom do you have to go, I'm not going to work today. Can you just go, I'm not going to work today. And the money's still going to roll in. And if the answer to that is no, then you have a problem in your business. And what I love about this is that you've cracked a code on providing a really valuable system for your clients. It solves a real problem.

People don't always want Kruze to come into their office and disrupt everything, but you're solving a real problem. And you're making recurring revenue to support them with coaching, post production and making sure that they're getting value from their investment. And I predict that what you'll see is years and years of people going, why would we stop this? You had a great case study with a client of use the other day who runs an events company saying they were spending two and a half grand a month. We were spending about the same on a videographer. They just see it as this. He just sees it as this kind of such an important part of his business, though, that I can't imagine he'd ever stop paying you. And that is a beautiful business relationship because you're solving a very real problem. You're generating great revenue from it, and it's scalable. If you want to take tomorrow off, you pretty much could. Is that what's happening in your world?

Yeah. I mean, look, when you think back to the origin of the threat of. Because I'm keeping in mind here, we're talking to predominantly video companies and videographers and stuff. I mean, the iPhone was a threat. The DSLR camera was a threat. The low cost of technology was a threat. Right. And you can repel against that and say, oh, but we're doing a professional thing. Or you can just wait for your revenue to dwindle as more and more competition starts to soak up opportunities that you may be ordinarily getting. So you can either fight it or join it. And we realized we had to be harmonious about our approach to this, be real about the fact that clients are going to, you know, what was it? The buyer controls the sales process, you know, like. And it is 100% true. If they don't have budget or they want to spend their money elsewhere, or they think they can leverage it in other ways, then go do it. And we foster, we're trying to foster in both professional video marketing as well as our diy, this use, this, this ideal of reuse, repurpose, recycle, refashion. You know, if they're just constantly smashing out video after video and not looking at their marketing in that way, it's time consuming, it's costly. It's, you know, it's resource swallowing, you know, and so they got to be looking at ways that they can leverage. You know, I listened to Your podcast this morning, Dan, I was like, oh, we don't edit. We like it authentic. And I was like, shit. You know, that's something I really could take away with me right now with the way that we're producing our show is over. The engineering, and I'm getting a little bit too carried away on the. On the directorial side and just trying to polish. Yeah, polish it so. So much that it's taking a lot of time. But, you know, this. There's so many efficiencies in business to. To be had, and, you know, we need to be treating them really seriously, because when I think it all comes down to what we do in business, it is ultimately time that is going to be the decider of whether things move forward or they don't. And for us, you know, and I'm just sort of on a bit of a ramble here, I think, at the moment, Dan, so pull me up.

No, no, I think. I think I'll talk to that point about why we don't edit. And it's. And it's very deliberate. We put two episodes out a week. We're up to something like 235, 40 episodes in two years. That is an enormous amount of work to just produce that much content. And we've. We missed. We took a month off 1, 1 August to test having a break, and it really impacted the listeners. People were commenting that you weren't hearing the show. And so I. My commitment to this show is I do two episodes a week no matter what. And to do that, I don't. I can't be, you know, editing. I just don't have the time and capacity. This. This is a free show which I pack full of value, which is a lead generator from my business. And so we bank on enough people coming through us asking for help, and then we can work with them in another capacity. But it's a small fraction of the number of people who listen to the show. And I'm okay with that. That's completely fine. I love making this show. I love getting to talk to you and other great guests. But, you know, we then take this content, we repurpose it. We've got a team who look after that.

I purposely don't edit the show for one very good reason, and that's just to demonstrate by doing that done beats perfect. And a lot of filmmakers get very caught up in feeling like everything they do has to be perfect. And the fact is, I mean, I know people who take a podcast like this and cut out the ums and the Eyes and the editor all. It doesn't add any more value to the message I'm trying to share. I want video businesses to take this stuff, get out, implement it and make some money. And if I focus too much on the production value and made it too perfect, like, it's just not who I am. And so it's more authentic for me to have a cough and go, sorry, I just coughed. Or.

Like, I'm a human being, you know, I have good days, I have bad days. I don't want to present this polished look. I'm not a polished person. But what I do do is get great results. My clients, because we get shit done. And so it's really more about the get stuff done, get shit done, put it out. It doesn't have to be perfect, but the sheer volume of content we put out reaches more people and the people that do resonate with us end up joining our programs and staying for years. And that's ultimately what I'm looking to do, is to attract the right people in who don't care about that shit.

Yeah, that's right.

I used to have people who would comment on email ads send saying there's a spelling mistake. I'm like, you should read my book.

There's dozens.

It's not important when what we're talking about is you getting off your arse and calling a client and making a sale, because that's what's going to make the biggest thing to move the needle now for you. I get it, you're a different personality to me and you are producing a more polished product for your clients. But I do think it's, you've got to be clear on the fact that, ask yourself, the question is like, is going to all this trouble to edit all this stuff?

Yes.

Actually that important?

That's right, yes. Yes.

Or is it slowing us down from putting out more content and hitting more people?

I think, I think, you know, like, I have no regrets and I think going through it is understanding what our capacity to deliver content is, you know, is directly related to the. How obsessed we get about everything being perfect. And so, you know, going through that and going to the polarizing end of the spectrum in terms of, hey, just a straight live stream, ad hoc type interview versus, you know, something that's polished and all of that. I mean, understanding what those variable, what those two areas feel like, I think is part of the process of knowing how to streamline and make things more efficient in the long term. And I think that's what the DIY program is all about as well. So our clients are sick of poorly producing iPhone quality content like hacks and they're asking for multimillion dollars from their clients and they've got these shithouse iPhones.

That's a really great point.

What kind of problems is a business solving and at what price point? And therefore does the way you communicate marry up with the price point of the problem you're solving? I think that's a really interesting point because that is what is most important. If you're solving a hundred thousand dollar problem, then yeah, an iPhone video is probably not going to cut it. But it depends, it depends on what it is. And that's where you come in as a producer, as a production company to help clients understand what is the right balance for them. And I guess that's where you produce them or point them in the direction of producing them in a certain way to suit the market.

Yeah. And we're sitting in the middle of iPhone and high end production. So they're not willing to go and do the types of stuff they want to be doing by getting a crew out every single time. Do you know what I mean? And so they want flexibility to record when they want to look better in zoom meetings and present better doing that and also find new and innovative ways to sell to their market. Like you know, what a game changer the video reply inquiry has been for our business. Oh my God, it is just like killing our sales process in a good way that is. And then our proposal follow up video, our proposal walkthrough video, those two videos at that pre sale area, personalized show that we love them, show that we care that they're not a number. That is a huge deciding factor when somebody's looking at you. And two other quotes in, you know, trying to figure out who they should go with. You know, personalization will win, you know.

Plus you're demonstrating your technical ability to produce great looking video.

That's right.

In a zoom call.

Yeah. And when somebody's inquiring about DIY program and I reply straight away with a video personalized video for them from the DIY video studio, they're like, right, this is what I can be doing.

And this is the thing that, that I think is, you know, we know each other. One, I always love hanging out with you because I love the way you run your business. You like, you understand that it's not just about being different for difference sake. It's about genuinely caring about the outcome and being sharp enough to come up with unique ways to stand out and I think that's partly because a lot of video business owners are very introverted and therefore they want to hide behind the camera. But I really believe if you want to succeed and have a very, very healthy income and living from video production, stepping out of your comfort zone to get on camera and talk to people will blow your business up.

Yeah, that's an interesting point because do you know how many people. Out of all the inquiries we get for people wanting to work with us, or they're. They're coming from the UK and they want to start doing camera work here or whatever it might be, right? All those people that want to work with us in some capacity. You know how many lead with video?

I'd say zero.

Fucking zero.

Zero. And like this. I was talking to Tim Barrett, who was on the show a while ago, and he's. He runs a big marketing agency in Perth, and he said, you know what? It baffles me that video production companies do not use video to sell their own service. That's like saying, I'm a steak restaurant, but I'm a vegetarian.

Yeah.

I don't like cruelty to animals. It's like. Like, be congruent, you know, show us how great you are. Don't tell us, don't. 20 grand.

Yeah, yeah. And how much, like, opinion sways. When you're at Harvey Norman and you're looking at vacuum cleaners and someone goes, the sales guy goes, I've got this very vacuum cleaner and it is the best thing. I'm so glad that I bought it. And you're like, shut up and take my money. It's done.

I know.

You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? So it's kind of that same concept, you know, it's. We're right from the start of our business or very early on in our business, we committed to leading by. Was it eating our own dog food? Leading by example. Showing them how we do it and how they can do it too.

Back to why I don't edit the show. My phone's buzzing away during the show. You know, there's stuff drilling. It's not perfect, but you know what? I guarantee someone will take away two or three really amazing lessons from this. And if they apply in the business, they will make money. That is my objective. I want to demonstrate to people it doesn't have to be perfect, but thinking about an idea doesn't execute. And I think now more than ever you have to just try stuff. Like, you didn't get this whole kit thing right first time. It's taken two or three years. And anything worthwhile, I think, takes time.

To come together and, you know, like, it's 100%. Nothing will ever be perfect. We've still got to go back to our existing clients and resell on the opportunities. Now that zl y program has, like, you know, because when we started it was, you know, some equipment. We realized that that was nothing unless people had the training, the resources and knowledge to be able to know how to implement and do things properly. So, you know, like, there's so much still to learn from our perspective. But we've got a very confident where we know where this is positioned. We know people are loving it. Marketing's working better now. Advertising is starting to work. So there is more and more people looking at it as a feasible option. And I think that's only going to get. There's only going to be more demand as people realize that the iPhone is an unacceptable.

Device for professional video marketing. It doesn't solve all the challenges. You know, it's not an iPhone still, just that device in your pocket that makes everyone a video producer, but doesn't make them overly good at it. Yeah.

You know, now I'm conscious you've got to go pick up your kids. So we'll wrap this up now. Okay, Chris, it's been great catching up and let's. Let's get you back on the show very soon because I think the listeners will always get value from someone of your pedigree, sharing the real challenges you have today in 2021, readjusting continually to what does the landscape look like? And we'll link to that URL over on the website as well. So, yeah, great to have you back on again sometime, mate.

Yeah, look, it's my pleasure, Dan, and I just love listening to your show, man. And what you're doing for the video community, I think is outstanding. And I think you should give yourself a big pat on the back. The vba, man. Go the vba.

Hey, guys, thanks for watching. I hope you got a huge amount of value from that episode. If you're looking for additional support or resources to support your business journey, then head over to Denleny.com where you can get a whole heap of other resources, free downloads, and access all the other episodes in the series. Be sure to subscribe and I'll see you next time.