How to Avoid Pain In The Ass Clients with Ben Baldwin. EP #255

Well, hey, guys, in today's episode, I want to do something a little bit different. I'm actually going to interview a video production company owner and a client and a friend. Ben Baldwin runs Chuff Productions in the uk. And Ben is someone who has been working with me for about two years. But I think what's interesting about this conversation is he really talks about where he was two years ago, how he navigated the whole Covid thing, and how he's now on target to beat all of his previous estimates in terms of revenue by simply following the process that we teach and share inside the vba. Why I wanted to get Ben on was because he's someone who I think a lot of you watching or listening to this will relate to. In this conversation, we talk about everything from how he got his break into video production, because I think that's always a really interesting thing to explore, how different people got into the industry and also where he sets his sites on in the next 12 months. So I think you'll find this really super helpful. So let's just jump straight into it.

Well, g', day, Benjamin. It's so good to finally have you sitting in the seat. I think we've tried to do this podcast for almost a year, maybe, but for various reasons, children, lockdowns, covids, and all that fun stuff, we are here finally. And what I wanted to do today was just share with the listeners and the viewers, you know, cool stories of people's journey in video production, how you got to where you got to today, what you're doing now. But actually starting way back at where did you first start getting into all this video stuff? And I know from speaking to you that you didn't start as a video producer. So welcome to the show and just tell me your story. I'd love to hear how you got into this crazy world of video.

Well, first of all, Dennis of the Clan Lenny, thank you very much. It is an absolute pleasure to be on the podcast, having listened to every single episode, some of them more than once, and, yes, all those things above. But we're here, so. Yeah, I mean, everyone thinks they're unique. I'm different because video production was never really in my sort of eye line, in my ballpark, if it went go all the way back to school. And all I wanted to be was an actor. And so. So that was the ambition. I went to drama school and realized how fierce the competition was to be a professional actor and just how amazing some of my peers around me were.

So I'd always kind of wanted to be, you know, actor, presenter, maybe perhaps radio DJ or something like that. And so yeah, the first path what took me to drama school when I came out of there.

Didn'T like resting, didn't like not having any money. So move very quickly, as a lot of actors did, into promo work so on trade stuff. So, you know, whether it was fags or booze or food or whatever it was, that kind of stuff, promoting those and along the way somehow I ended up finding myself with a camera and shooting some of that stuff and editing it and selling it back to the client just as kind of a little bit of fun. But when I really got into it was I had a friend who was a, he was a presenter who was doing a bunch of travel programs and needed a pa, someone just to go with the crew. PA Va. A production assistant, basically drive the car. We're talking Digibee today. So it was the crew for presenter, camera op, sound and me just driving around stupidly fast in a Ford Galaxy getting people from place to place. And that's where I was kind of like before that I'd wanted to present. So I've been doing some stuff on a little known channel called QVC and from there basically took the digibita. I had a tape and everywhere we went, if we got a bit of time, the tape went in the camera and I did a piece to camera and that eventually got me in front of camera and having gone through sound. So basically the camera guy, his sound guy couldn't do a week. On the next thing he's like I'm going to teach you how to use an SQN and I'm going to teach you how to do sound. So that was a great pay bump from like 250 quid a week to 650 quid a week and then obviously wanted to get in front of the camera. So learnt from there, did a load of travel programs to cut a very long story short, then ended up working for sky and for ITV on their revenue generator channel. So if you came in late night, pissed up from the pub, probably see me on screen going, hey, what's the answer? And you can win 40 grand. So that in itself kind of taught well for some people. You get painted with a brush of oil, you can only do the revenue generated stuff as a presenter. At the same time I was still doing some corporate presenting trade shows. Well, we bumped into each other a few times and yeah, went from there. Basically built the video side of it, B2B marketing kind of videos, testimonials picking up anything I could doing jobs for the likes of new tech for their testimonial videos and testimonial videos kind of where we found our sweet spot.

So I mean like, like many people on their video journey, you know, they fall into it. What, what was the point at which you went right, I'm actually gonna, gonna turn this into a business now. Like this is actually gonna be my main focus. Can you remember that moment and, and what you went through? What changed? I mean was, was there a big aha moment or was it looking back retrospectively? You're like oh actually I guess that was the point. I'd love to know how, how that evolved.

Yeah, for me it was probably the killing of my presenting career. That seemed to kind of happen. And that was so as I say, having come from these revenue generated. So we're talking roulette and you know, quiz games for big money like late night TV. So I was, you know, late night ITV won for about 18 months and when that show finished and all those kind of shows finished it was a bit like oh, they did that kind of presenting so I'm not sure they can do anything else. But I've got thousands of live TV flying hours, unscripted sort of under my belt and I was a bit like probably just need to go and do something else for a little bit. Still keep my hand in with the presenting and the natural thing just to seem to be, go towards the video production because I was doing these trade shows I got. And what was weird I guess about it was look, we all black to get where we want to do, don't we? Some of us still, still blagging and you need a good blank sometimes just to get your foot in the door with a certain client. And that was kind of it. I think there's a couple of jobs where I was like yeah, we could do that, no problem. And then went away and probably watched a video by yourself or someone like yourself going how do we do this and how does that kind of work? So kind of self taught on the edit side of things and I knew a lot of people who worked for Avid at the time and I'd done some of their trade show stuff and then I knew people that worked at Adobe and you know one of my best buddies is now she's like dragged me across from Avid to Adobe. Listen, you're coming, you're coming with me on Premiere Pro. These are going to be your tools. And so I know quite a few people in the industry so that really helped and it was just about building relationships really. It's always been about building those relationships. But yeah, the aha moment was kind of, hang on a minute, you present in careers, it's going to stall. I've got a friend of mine that always says I'm going to go back to it. And I think part of what we're doing for our marketing now is going, huh, has anybody in the company got presenting skills and could maybe do some kind of salesy videos or you know, some adding some value. So yeah, set this lot up and starting with the podcast, then we'll start to record some other stuff. But yeah, it was basically end of presenting career for, for a time and actually I did enjoy the whole putting together the nitty gritty of how things worked and working on an edit. But for a long time it was, it was me, it was just me. And then it was bringing editors on editors with the always outsourced editing. Actually from an early time when I realized, yeah, you've taught yourself how to do this, but someone else can do it a hell of a lot quicker.

I think a lot of video production companies are small, you know, they're one man bands who work out of a granny flat or a spare room or a shed and then you can get so far.

But to really scale, to really make proper money, you've got to start hiring team, putting systems in place and that can be quite a scary prospect. And I know you've just gone through that process in the last two years. So given where you are today, in the last two or three years, how is that, how has your journey changed as a video production or video producer? Because I know you could do bits of it and you've always been quite good at hiring people in but you know, you've now got a studio, a couple of full timers.

I'm sure a few people watching this or listening to this would be like, God, it just seems terrifying that prospect of like moving out of the granny flat or the, or the shed at the end of the garden into an office and then hiring people. Like talk me about through that journey and how that evolved for you.

Yeah, I mean it is a head scramble, isn't it, for a lot of people and it's, you know, having someone like yourself and people, you know, and the mastermind of the VBA is really helpful because you're hearing that everybody go through those different journeys and where they are. And for me, I think I was kind of always half a step there anyway because I was already outsourcing the Editing stuff. So I'd generally go on shoots or do shoots. And a lot of the stuff we used to do was run and gun events and whatnot. And then it would get passed on to an editor anyway. And then I would work out what was, you know, you know, where it went from there and what we're doing. Right. What I've kind of always prided myself on is knowing what they should be doing, be it the editor or be it the camera ops or being whatever, knowing that they're better skilled at it than me, but mean, you know, being able to judge if they're doing the right job or they're doing it to the best of their abilities or where they're cutting corners. So never had a problem with outsourcing. But it's that whole thing of going, hang on a minute. If I'm.

We talk about it a lot, we hear it loads. If I do that, I earn more money. And actually, in the long run, you don't, because you just end up being shackled to the tools and you get to a point where you just plateau. And that's kind of what happened with me. We got to a place where the revenue was.

Literally just flatlined. It was nice, it was great, it worked. But it was kind of getting a little bit stale. So I think getting your hands off the tools in the first place for that, for me was the editor. What I saw, because loads of video people just spend loads of time in the edit and then just get really tied up with it as well. So you might also find. So I might spend way more time learning it to try and get it absolutely perfect. And I'm less skilled than that editor anyway. So not only can they do it quicker because they're more skilled than me, but they could do it quicker because they're more skilled than me, but also they can get to that. That end result quicker. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, what was the turning point for you where you made a decision to, you know. Because I mentioned the granny flat. Because for a period there, you were running your business out at the granny flat at the end of the garden. I used to run my business out of a shed at the end of the garden. Why did you decide to get an office, build a studio and then start hiring people. What was the catalyst for that?

I think because you can't. So I've done this before. So.

We'Re based in Hertfordshire in a little town called Berkhampster, little market town. So we're a commuter town. Into London. And this is where we are. So this is where the office is. I used to work in a pod, so in a garden pod when we lived in London. So that was the end of the garden. That worked really well. And I guess the answer is I was comfortable there. Then when we moved, you know, we moved out of London and we were working out a bedroom in the house. Then we moved into an office. And then at some point that office just became a dumping ground for kit. And I just kind of looked around and went, why am I paying an overhead for this? When. And this is pre pandemic way. Pre pandemic. We were already working remotely anyway because I was in all my editor contacts, lived in London anyway and didn't want to come out to Burkhamstead. So we'd already organized how to work remotely. So we're kind of ahead of the curve on that. But it just became. I really wanted to separate. Sorry. So we, yes, we dumped that office. We went, built the granny flat. Part office, part granny flat. And then it got to the point where actually the commute's nice because it's 18 steps from door to door. But it's. And it worked well during a pandemic way. The kids needed to be around and everything. But it got to the point, whereas I need this to be separate. If we're going to get serious about it and we're going to build something, I need it to be completely separate from home and work life, but also to have a studio. And it was.

There's a little element, shouldn't really admit it, of, you know, build it and they will come.

And thankfully they are.

But it was wanting to have a space, to be able to have the camera in there, to be able to also to go in there and record our own stuff. And then we've got this product of course called, I say of course, for those that know, called Clearboard. So it's a forward facing whiteboard. It's basically a 6 foot by 8 foot piece of glass that you stand behind and you write on and you can keep direct eye contact with the viewer. So that was one of the other reasons for coming here because you can't really have a 6 foot by 8 foot piece of glass in your granny flat and still have somewhere for granny to sleep.

Yeah. And it's really interesting because I think a lot of myself included, you know, we've built studios and there's definitely an element of build it and they will come. But I think what's unique about what you've Done is you have a unique product offering. And I think this, this moves nicely into the whole idea of, you know, I talk a lot about niching and a lot about focusing energy on one thing.

And probably, I mean, maybe you've had this resistance as well. Sometimes there's a resistance to niching because people feel like if they niche, they're going to somehow miss out on work. But actually, what you've ended up doing by default, by kind of accident almost, is niching in the training and education space for which you use the Clearboard tool. Actually, the building of the studios ended up giving you an opportunity to go even deeper into that world. So talk to me about your journey with niching and what your own resistance was, because I think for a while you probably resisted or weren't really focused on a niche. You were like, well, we can do this and we can do the next thing and whatnot. But I feel like watching your journey over the last two years, you hit a really big contract in the training and education space and corporate training consulting, and I feel like you're now more comfortable moving into that. That area. Is that the case or is it something else? Yeah.

So I don't think. Nothing. You're right. I don't think it was so much a resistance to niche. I think it was just like, what is my niche? I don't. It's that kind of imposter syndrome as well, where you're like, oh, well, am I good at this? Am I. Am I actually a market leader at it? Am I? I don't know. So maybe I should do all these things. The other thing is that thing of going, well, if someone's going to pay you to do an animated explainer video, then we might as well do it. But actually, that was one of the first things to come off our offering because to me, they're a complete pain in the ass because I don't understand the motion graphics side of things well enough to be able to kind of keep an eye on things. Was always relying on someone. It was kind of felt like something that I couldn't really go. Well, has that taken three days to do that or why is it. Is that not a quicker fix? Is it so. But we go back to the niche. It was time and working out exactly. Not just what we did best, but what we want to do and what we enjoy doing. And we've been talking a lot recently about what, you know, where's the most pain and what hiring to cover that pain. And actually just letting go of those jobs is that pain being either it being a bottleneck or not being able to progress, but also pain has been. I just don't like doing that anymore. And for quite a few people it's don't like editing anymore, don't shooting anymore. I'm not bothered about either of those. But I love going on the shoots and being there with the clients and chatting to them and that's generally where we end up with more business from. So we kind of took a look at the nation actually. By the time this goes out, the new website will be live and it's an 80% done website.

Done is better than perfect. And then we're going to tweak as we go. But that now when you look at the, when you look at the navigation bar, the header on the website, there's a Chuff Productions logo in the middle and on one side it says marketing videos and on the other side it says training videos. Then it says contact us. There's nothing else on there. Everything else is down. If you want to find out more about us, if you want to look at our case studies, that's all down in the footer. It's out the way. It literally just speaks to our market which is we do marketing and training videos for brand and businesses. So I think once I cut and that's developed quite a bit that used to be high quality training videos for brand and businesses that get you results that blah blah, blah. And I think we've all talked about getting it just down to that, that one line. So that's our kind of headline, our H1 on the website. So then the niches we effectively. I'm still not fully niched but we're on two verticals, marketing and trading videos. Yeah. And on the marketing side of things, because the trading videos is based the clearboard things and self paced learning videos, the marketing side of things. So that's where you go, oh well you know, explainers and marketing videos. But we've narrowed it down for us which is talking head videos because that kind of covers anything with a talking head and we want to push people towards the studio pointing because it's behind the wall, but also so talking head videos, testimonial videos because that's all we used to do. So actually I found that we were niching when we very first started, just didn't know it, didn't know what a niche was. So testimonial videos, training videos and brand videos is, is essentially what the offer is in, in the marketing side of things. So and then as soon as you realize that. And when someone comes in and says, oh, do you do animated explainer videos? No, but I know.

And that's really key. That. That is the key. You know, I work with a lot of businesses currently, maybe 50, 60 businesses I'm working at the moment. And the ones that I see hitting big numbers and not killing themselves are the ones that say no to the wrong jobs. And I think that's a really important point and it really is a turning point in a video business when you know where your strengths are and you say no to things that aren't in your lane. I think video production and I think it's a hangover from freelance are like we can do. So we'll say yes because it's work and we've got, you know, any work's better than no work. But it is counterintuitive to say no to things that are not in your lane. But when you say no to things that aren't in your lane, the focus goes far more into the areas you are specializing. And I really believe where the focus goes, the money flows and it.

But it takes balls to start with. Yeah.

But it's. I say it takes balls in the sense of it's scary. It can be scary if you've not got.

A regular income or a regular clients. And we're all working towards building bigger and better relationships with our current clients because, you know, they're the easiest people to market to. But also I've got great relationships with nearly all my clients and if I haven't got a great relationship with them, they're not going to be a client for very long because it doesn't sit in our wheelhouse. It's not kind of what we want. But that first step of saying no, and actually that was probably only 18 months ago when we started doing that and.

To the odd job and then 12 months ago when we started doing that, totally. And I've said to a couple of members of the team, one who's on maternity now we're doing this, I've said no, it's not a right fit client. I can see it a mile off. They will be an absolute pain in the backside. And there's only one or two clients that we work with that we know are a pain in the backside, but in a. In a nice way. And they get stupid text so that they in not calling them stupid. But one of our favorite, favorite books, A Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunning, which you talk about a lot, is, you know, if someone is going to cause you a bit of pain and take longer. And it's always the same, isn't it, on edit? So we just want to tweak this and we just want to change that. Or everyone's done the full round of, you know, you've got that consolidated feedback, but then we've shown it to the CEO or then we've shown it to the head of marketing. They want to change this and change that.

Yeah.

So there's a couple of clients that I've got. I know it's going to take longer and we charge them more and they know you're trying to charge a premium. It's a very honest, It's a very honest conversation with them now as well. It's like, look, you do know for anybody else this would be a bit less money or in some cases a lot less money. But you're going to have us around the houses.

Yeah. And I think that's something else that's really, really important is like, honesty, like having difficult conversations or conversations that are not going to be comfortable for you, but if you're honest with the client up front, everything runs more smoothly. And I, and I, and I think that that is something that you, you learn with experience that the only policy you should deploy in your business is complete and utter honesty and transparency. You don't need to, to hide anything. You just say to client, like, as you said this, we're charging you more for this because we know we're going to go running around the houses. The chances are they know that and they'll be like, yeah, that's fine. I don't think when you have really good relationships with your clients, anyone expects you to do stuff for free or be out of pocket. It doesn't make any sense. And it's something that I always want to instill in people I work with is like, truly value what you're doing. And sometimes that value can change over time. And it does because. Because what you're doing at Chuffed is more valuable than where it was two years ago because you have a team, you have resources, you've just brought in a new editor, you're improving your output at cost to you. And therefore you should increase your rates to your clients because you're now offering a more polished service. I just got an email from Google and we've got like five or six Google accounts and just an email just saying there's going to be a price change on February 10th.

Yeah.

You know, Google Workspace and Business plus for estabacademy.com price changes on February 10th. It's not. They don't ask your permission, they just go, we're changing it. Here's a new price. And what do we do? We go, okay. And I think, I think pricing. And I, I hear this a lot from, from filmmakers. I talk to a lot of people and a lot of times I hear this undercurrent of, I don't want to seem like I'm taking a piss. I don't want to seem like I'm being greedy. I don't want to seem like. And that's something. And I know you come from. Your dad was a restaurateur and you got a lot of great knowledge and experience through the way he ran his business. But something you said to me was, you know, you're. I think your mom had said to one of the kids, oh, look, you know, all you need to do is work hard and you'll get everything you need. And you stepped in and went, actually, Mum, no. I think that older generation we're all about, if you work hard, you get paid well. Modern business, I think, is about working smart, providing a ton of value and providing a pricing structure that is going to enable you to have the lifestyle you want and pay everyone that works for you. And I'd love to get your thoughts on that because obviously you've told me stories about your dad and how he ran that restaurant and your mom and how hard they worked and how, how much has that has influenced how you now run your business?

It's influenced a lot. So my dad passed away middle of the pandemic. Not pandemic, connected. They retired about five years ago, kind of worked right up until the very end. And they ran a very successful business, a bankington business in the People's Republic of South Yorkshire in Sheffield. And he was a big character and really well known there. And. Yeah, but. But they worked hard. They worked bloody hard and they just kept working hard right to the end. And it's what. But it's kind of what they became and what they were. My mum still misses work now and she'd rather, you know, she'd rather be at work and, and yeah, with one of the kids, it was like, oh, you work hard, you get everything. I'm like, no, yes, you work hard. But at some point that changes to working smart. Yeah, you definitely need to work hard, but it's work in, in the right areas and then turn it into smart because there's no point in busting a gut 14, 16, 18 hours a day. Five, six, you know, sometimes seven days a week. Because what then have you got to show for it other than, you know, tired feet.

Yeah, exactly Right. And. And what do you. Why do you think.

That so many.

I would say younger filmmakers, but filmmakers and business owners who are maybe at the smaller end of the scale, what do you think is that stops them from scaling up? Why do you think they're so afraid of success? Because I think there's a secondary pandemic in the video world where a lot of people are afraid of success. They're afraid to invest, they're afraid to step into discomfort of. Of having a plan and really working to that plan. Because I really believe, I mean, we work with businesses in the vba. We're on a call the other day and people were sharing the revenues and like, I would say the average revenue of members of the VBA is in sort of Aussie dollar sense. It was like 400, 600, $800,000, which is like 200, 300, £400,000 equivalent. That is the norm. Anywhere from 200 to £400,000 a year. And these are businesses with one or two employees.

And the goal is to get over the half a million, because that seems to be a sweet spot whereby with 30 or 40 clients, maybe 50 clients across the year, team of two or three, you can be pulling a good 150, 200 grand net a year.

Without working crazy hours. So what are your thoughts on that? Why is it that in the vba, that seems to be a really healthy, like, mindset?

Yeah, it's mindset. And it's like people go, mindset. What's like, if you'd said mindset to me sort of three years ago, to go, yeah, it's set. What do you want me to do with it? And it's like, actually, no, no.

Getting yourself in the right headspace, zooming out, looking at the bigger picture, which, again, is not easy and it can feel uncomfortable and. But then also setting course, whether it's setting a target, whether it's a revenue target, a profit. Profit target or number of clients, whatever that target might be, and aiming for it and going for it. And then as you go, as we talk about adjusting course on the way, and that might change, you might be heading the wrong direction. You might suddenly find actually something over here. But rather than just going, oh, I'm just going to wander off over, you think, and go, actually, is over there the right place? But it is mindset about.

How you approach your business, how you approach your clients, how you approach your colleagues, how you approach Your staff or your freelancers. It's about knowing your own value as well. But as we've talked about loads and a big thing for me and I've just basically spent the whole of January is what does success look like to you?

So I think and revisiting that every year because you get to a goal that you set yourself and then suddenly that doesn't seem like such a big goal anymore.

So yesterday is a great example of that. We've been, we've obviously had a massive month of planning in the vba. Yesterday sat down in a conference room in a hotel with. For the Chuffed Productions AGM and marital AGM with my wife and the pair of us sat there because she's a part of the business and actually most of it was we can actually talk without being interrupted by the kids. And it was like for us, we've decided it's the year of the house. So like a lot of things in my business, in my house things are 80% done. So it's about getting those finished and we're basically brain dumped. Whole list of things we want to do at home. But then also we looked at. It's the first time I've really shared with her revenue targets, profit targets for the next few years and that sort of three, five and ten year plan. And we haven't mapped out where we want to be in three, five and 10 years but we've put figures to it and that will do us for now. And actually halfway through the day I was like.

We went through the cat, we went through the calendar. So Q1 calendar, just. Just going is there any places you are where I need to pick the kids? You know, just things like. Seems mad like what you need to sit in a conference room with your wife to work that out. And it's like that's a great idea. Sometimes you do just to get ahead of the game and go. And there are a couple of conflicts because she works in sports pr so some stuff she's going to be doing at the weekend and doing other stuff and it's like, oh, hang on a minute, I need to be. I can't be anywhere. I've got two, you know, two trips this month. But I need to make sure I'm back in time for this and bloody body. But anyway, halfway through that was like we should do this every quarter.

Yes.

I've already booked it for last week in March. So that, that look then we then look to Q2 or which will be, you know, Q2 of the.

What you should do is get granny down for the weekend do on a Friday and Saturday and go and stay in a very nice hotel and have dinner as well.

This Dennis, as you know. Oh you know me well this was the plan but guess what? Someone got poorly. So it was actually, it was a, it was a bad time to book it. We were going to do it second week in, in January but it just having been away for Christmas and stuff it was always like but no, that's exactly what, what we're going to do and that, you know again that probably wouldn't have done that two years, three years ago.

But all I'm curious you know because Mrs. Baldwin obviously is part of the business but she's not in the day to day operations. She, she sees you doing stuff with me. I've met her a couple of times. We, she knows what's going on sort of piecemeal like both of wives do. But what was her impression when you shared with her where you got to this year and the journey you've been on and where you wanted to go next? Did she comment or observe any shifts in you and that mindset we were talking about in terms of is it expanding further?

Well we've got some ambitious targets for the next three years which we're talking about on the call this week and I was a bit like I wonder what her reaction is going to be. To be like really do you think? And she just looked at Bexia's target and went yeah, you can do that.

And the big thing for that is I think as we've talked about, you and I loads in the group and are kind of offline of that. What does success, success look like to you? And for me it's not about doing five days a week because my kids are 6 and 4 so it's about spending time with them. So I don't want to work five days a week. The target this year is to take which is to take every half term off which I'm doing nearly all of Easter and three, three or four aiming for four weeks out of the six weeks holiday. So it's all about family and then it changes up a little bit for us in September because they're both then at school age. So. So that was also a discussion with where does she want, what does she want to be doing? Because she left her full time job when our second child came because she wanted to be the one that took them to school and picked them up from school and didn't do that. So yeah, her reaction was brilliant because she Was like, yeah, great. And it just gets you on the same page. And then that what will happen in time is that will not only will be a Marital & Co. AGM, if anyone's married, honestly, do a miracle AGM. It's.

It'S. I love.

It. Yeah. I was, I was. We just both came out smiling going, wow, that was brilliant. We're on the same page. And then. But that will turn into attraction. So Gino Whitman Traction. Anyone who's read that, that will turn into that kind of level 10 meeting and 90 day planning and all that kind of stuff eventually when, as the team grows. But again, I don't want to grow to a huge, massive team. I've got.

That's the thing I'm spending a bit of time on at the moment, thinking about what that team wants to look like for the revenue target that.

We'Re going for.

And the profit. And I think the more I think about it, there's quite a common theme inside the VBA of.

Mostly men with young families who actually want to be around to watch the kids grow up. Andrew over in Sydney is like my absolute non negotiable is I take my son to school every day, I pick him up from school every day and he's someone running almost a million dollar business with a team of two full timers. And that's what's exciting is that it is very possible and very predictably doable to generate a personal income of a couple hundred thousand pounds a year or $400,000 a year, which is, you know, about 5% of the population take that money. You're talking lawyers and consultant doctor earnings making videos, except you're not making the videos. And I think this is the thing that I feel my mission is, is evolving to. I want to help more families have a kind of really successful, financial stable future, but without having to kill themselves on shoots. And that is, I think, what we've managed to evolve in the programs that we work with because I see the same patterns. And if you think about the people in the vba, I mean everyone's having a really nice life, earning good money without working crazy.

Hours. Yeah. And again, that comes to, I think down to two things is mindset. So where we talk about mindset and about being working on the company, not in the company, which I've got a great little thing I'll tell you about in a second. But again, it's that knowing what success means to you. So success for everyone might not be 500,000, it might not be a million quid. It might be whatever it is that pot of money that makes you live the life that you've become accustomed to. And so other people are more ambitious and there's, in the vba, there's, you know, you'll find someone that's similar to me or similar to someone else. There's all, there's those different views. And that's the great thing about a mastermind, is that you hear those different views and you share those different stories and, and different methods of getting places and going there as well. So I did an interview with a client who has got a multimillion pound global business and he was the chairman and he's stepped, he's stepped away from it now, but he.

They'Re doing some, we're doing a brand video for them and he's still involved in the business. So, but as an aside, we asked him, oh, when you first started, how did you, you know, what did you do and what did you read books or what was it? And so this guy's in his, in his 70s, what, 30 years ago when he, when he started this business having been in corporate, guess what the first book he read was.

How We Never Clone.

E Myth. Michael E.

Gerber.

Wow. And it's like, it's, and it's. So this guy's got multimillion pound business. And you kind of go, hang on, that's the one book that. And I said to him, it's still the book that everyone. It's the first book that everyone reads. It's probably the first book, that proper business book that I read. I know that you read. And where it goes. I think that's the other thing about being. I'm off on a tangent here, Dennis, but that's the other thing about being in a mastermind is sharing those things. So, yeah, people go, oh, what? What mastermind? What, what is it? And it's basically, it's a bunch of people in a room or a virtual room sharing ideas, sharing experiences. And for a lot of the time, it saves you time because someone might have had an experience with something and go, don't bother with that because it's not going to quite work. Or go and try it for yourself. But I don't think it's quite right for you. Now that might be using Basecamp or using Asana or using, using Monday.com, whatever it is for you for your project management thing. But also loads of us big into reading our books. I'm going for 52 this year. So it's what Chris said the other week. What should I read next? And I think three of us all went. The one.

Thing.

Yeah. And it's like. And then it's, what should I do after that? Oh, well, try Traction. You're probably not ready for it yet, but it's like, it's. So instead of having to go, should I spend time reading this book? And it's shortcutting. The other thing is shortcutting. So because you've got that many people in there and we share things. I've shared my template for Asana projects with a couple of the members this week, or we've shared contract templates, things like that. Just anything that can help each other. It's a very open place where you can exchange ideas, but also exchange resources that help each other just climb that ladder.

Faster. Yeah, no, it's very cool. I think one of the things that I come across is when filmmakers are and videographers are looking to try and build their business, get more clients, they get caught up sometimes in the tactics and the weeds of like, well, I want to go and pay an SEO agency so I rank higher, or I'm going to pay a social media person to create more posts, or I'll just need to make more posts. And I think the thing that's always where the mastermind comes into play is someone can come in and go, well, I was thinking about doing this, and then a bunch of people just go, don't even waste your time. Do this instead. And usually the thing that you should be doing is a little bit uncomfortable. And we had a call this week where there was a little bit of discomfort. And I think one of the things that I do consciously is sometimes create a level of discomfort to see the opportunity for growth.

And almost every time we do it, there might be a moment of discomfort, but even then, and that element of discomfort is, I don't find that uncomfortable, because I know when there's a discomfort in the room, it means people are going to have breakthroughs. And almost every time that happens, someone comes up to me afterwards and goes, you know what? That was a little bit weird or a bit uncomfortable, but I thought about it now, and now I think I can do this. And that, to me is like the coolest thing about a mastermind is stretching people's own belief systems. Because we all get comfortable. We get to a point where, look, if you're a freelancer, right, and you're making 70 to 100 grand a year, that's a great income. But with a business, you could turn it into three or four hundred thousand pounds a year and work less. So what do you want to do? And, and you can learn the skills of looking after people and working with a team. You can learn the skills of marketing and systems and funnels and, and all that marketing stuff. And you know, you're not born learning. You don't. You're not born knowing how to ride a bike. It can be learned. And I think that especially in video production, it's a young man's game, a young woman's game. You know, you get to a point where you just don't want to lug cameras around anymore. I was having this conversation with somebody other day. I said I used to sleep, eat, breathe, shooting, lighting, loved it. I couldn't imagine going on a shoot now. Wouldn't really be interested because that, because I'm much more interested in working with other humans and coming up with ways to, to hack mindset and play a bigger game. And watching someone go from I want to make 300,000 this year to maybe I could make half a million. And then we can go, well, if we tweak this, this and this. That's absolutely possible if you focus on it. I think that's where I get a lot of a kick.

Is watching that.

Journey. I think a couple of things to pull out from that are that. And it kind of goes back to, you know, where do you start and how did you get involved and how do you move towards scale and what's, you know, what was the thing? And it's. We don't know. Loads of video production people don't know. They don't know how to run a business. I didn't know how to run a business. I'd seen my parents run a business. My brother runs a very successful business, but I've not been in it and in the Nitty Gritter or I was with parents early doors, but I've not been in the nitty gritty of it. And the whole thing about having a marketing plan and a lead magnet and this, and.

You learn it as you go along. So that's why I was saying about shortcutting things because if you can get there quicker and you can accelerate your learning in a video business accelerator, then that's the way.

Surely that's going to be a benefit to you because you can get there quicker. So. But some people don't realize that that's kind of what they want to do. We've had a con, you know, we've had people in the VBA where we've said to them, or you've said to them, but others have said as well, is, well, if you really, really like editing, if you're telling us that's what you really love doing, that's your passion, then go and be an editor.

Don't run a video production.

Business. Yeah. Because it's not for everyone. It's.

Hard. No. If you're a colorist, if that's your thing, then do that. Or find someone who wants to run a business and let them run the business and their editor or colorist and go from there.

Correct. The thing was, I was going to say it'll come back to me, I'm.

Sure. So what is your kind of next 12 months look.

Like? Next 12 months for me.

I've got a stretch goal, a stretch target, revenue wise. And our profit and revenue, you look back, it's always pretty much the same. So I, you know, people go, oh, well, you know, you know, turnovers, what? Vanity profit is sanity and cash is king. Well, I know that the profit is sanity and I know that it's going to be at the same pretty much margin all the way through. So with that goal in mind.

It'S about building and solidifying. Solidifying, is that right? Building the team, making the team strong, having the right people on the bus and having them in the right position. And we're getting really close. Close to that now. I'm clearer than I. I've ever been on who I need in this room or in my virtual room, my company, and what position I need them in for us to go to the next level. But also, as you know, with me it's about. It's not just about going to the next level, it's about going to the next level but still having my time because that's what success looks like to me, which is essentially having holidays off and being around with the kids while at the age they are.

So, yeah. So we conversation yesterday after AGM with someone else we're looking to bring on part time and then the big thing that I need is a project manager and I was chatting to you about this. I want someone who's not work doesn't come from a video production background because we've identified that people who come from video production background for us as a company work well to a certain point, but come with a bit of baggage.

From those other companies. I'm smiling because my old man.

Whenever he employed a new member of the bar staff, the bar team in his restaurant had this room, it was called the long room because it was long and he Always used to sit the furthest away from the entrance door and he'd say, I always know halfway down that room I know whether I'm offering him a job or not. And it used to drive his beverages manager crazy because you guarantee that always got no bar experience whatsoever. So we're going to take more training, but they were trained in the Baldwin's Amiga way. They were trained in the David and Pauline Baldwin way and how they did it. So I've learned that from them. And I think, you know, it's taken a couple of goes at it, but that we know that's what we need to do and then building out the systems. But yeah, there's a revenue, there's a stretch goal, revenue target. And it's about building the team and then creating, keep making that sustainable. That's where I was going for, not solidify making it sustainable. Because the one thing that I think I've always struggled with is, so you're Simon Sinek. What's your why? And I've kind of always danced around that. And it's like, your why can't be money. And I'm like, really? Can it not be, can it not just be money? Because I just kind of want money to do nice things. And then you kind of think about what those nice things are and what they are. And my purpose is to build a production company, me, that will support my family. Be that now or be that in the future. So if one of the kids want to come and take it over, then that's great. Or if it's someone else that's running it for me in the future and I'm taking a nice wage and a nice dividend, then that's great. So then the problem with that is that doesn't really translate to any of your employees. Hey guys. We're all working towards building this company so that Ben's kids have got something and that Ben can. Whatever. So then we sat down and thought about that. It's like, actually we're building a company for the right people that are the right cultural fit that can help and help their family and build a solid foundation for them and they can grow and they can eventually maybe there's a revenue share in here, there's a profit share, who knows? There's a blank sheet. And I think that's something that I've realized over the last couple of months and that's helped me set course to where I'm going.

Next. I think there's definitely a feeling on a culture of, of holistic approach to business inside the communities that we, we're involved in.

Which I think is really exciting because I think the world has changed in the last couple of years. Business can't be done the same way. The byproduct of creating great value for your clients is financial reward. And if you set your eyes on a financial goal and you build the right infrastructure and you look at how you to, you know, transact a service, then it's very doable. But you can do that with a lot of cultural fit with your clients, with your, with your team, and it becomes a joyful thing to do. You know, it doesn't feel like work. And I think that's where I've gotten to with the work I'm doing now. I feel like we've put a lot of work into the last three or four years to get it just right and get it to really cook. And now I just get a lot of pleasure from doing, doing it because I have. There's a great culture and you're a huge part of that culture. And actually when a new member joins, it's like they've got to fit into the culture, although they usually don't get if they're not going to be a cultural fit because we have quite a strict process. But that idea of culture is something that I know we've talked about before. So I think what you're saying is your culture is now being solidified. So. So everyone feels like they're on the right.

Bus. Yeah, definitely. So it is demonstrating what that culture and what those values are to any newcomer into the business as well. And I heard a great one the other day was, look, you can write mission statements, that's all very well and good. You can write your brand guidelines, your brand values, you can write a culture statement. But actually you could boil all that down into one statement and it is a statement of intent that would cover everything. Because I think a lot of people, what can scare people off when you get to this kind of level in business or this level of business, this kind of thought in business is, well, hang on. So I've got to really think about the culture. I've got to really think. And actually your culture might be three lines. Your values might be three lines, people say five to seven. So your first thing you do is Google examples of brand values and you've got Coca Cola's or you've got got, you know, some banks or whatever it is. But actually just think of three things that, that are about you and what it is. And you know, for us. It's family first and it's holding to each other to account and it's having fun while we do things and making sure the client gets a premium.

Product that's kind of stick that on the wall, you know that that's gonna.

Resonate. I need to write that.

Down. Yeah, you can go back and that, that, that, that to me seems like 3:00am.

Yeah. So that, you know, that's something we're working on at the minute just to, just to really solidify. But it doesn't need to be hard work. I think that's the thing. I know there's going to be people listening to this out there that are like me that think, oh, God, that sounds like hard work. It is. It can be. But there are shortcuts and it doesn't need to be complicated. You can literally just. You've just got to get off your backside and do.

It. And as the sign behind me says it, jfdi, for anyone listening to that, it's just related to the idea of doing something, just effing do.

It.

Just. Ben, I'm so glad we got to have this conversation. I hope it's been a value to the listeners and viewers. Guys, let us know in the comments if it resonated with you and yeah, we'll do this again in another year and see where, where you are.

Then. That's almost like a coaching thing there, Dan, holding me to account, see if I hit my.

Target. Let's do that, shall we?