Meet The Video Mentors! EP #001

Welcome to this first podcast in a new era of what we've been doing here at how to Scale a Video Business. And we're now moving into the video mentors realm. And so I wanted to just actually tell you a bit about why we're doing this and who is in the video mentor club, I suppose, or the fraternity, whichever way you look at it. So if you've been listening to this podcast a while, you know who I am. But as a brief description, if you're new here, I've been in the video industry 30 years. I've been coaching for the last eight. And I met all these incredible people in front of me as a result of working with them in the coaching environment. And what I've come to realize recently is there's an awful lot of options now available in the video business coaching space. And I don't necessarily feel they're all necessarily equal or I mean, some of them weren't alive when I started making videos, but that's another matter. So what we decided to do was figure out how could we give more value to you if you are in a video business, maybe you've been a freelancer for a while and you want to grow your business. And I thought what better way to help you understand the journey than by bringing three very established businesses into the realm. And over the course of however long this project lasts, we will be sharing everything we know and love and learn and have failed on in business. So let's just kick off. Andy, why don't you kick things off with who you are, why you're here and, and what's driving you to give up your time for, for this, this, this, this project?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm, I'm, I run Expansion Media. I started expansion media in 2014 as a freelancer, just as a videographer. And the reason why I'm here today.

Is I remember in the early days of starting my business and taking that entrepreneurial leap, literally leaving my full time job and going, okay, we're going to do this business thing and I'm going to make a living out of making videos for businesses. I just remember in that journey there were so many times where I didn't know, slash have the confidence to move forward. There are so many times in my life where I was so uncertain and I lacked a lot of skill, a lot of confidence and a lot of faith in myself as well. And I remember just wishing that I had some form of guidance. I literally had nobody. Like, I didn't know where to look at all I Didn't even think of YouTube at the time back in 2014. So I was, yeah, I was very lonely on that journey and I remember there'd be a lot of times and I used to just sit there and think to myself, man, I just wish I had somebody here who I can just talk to and just share how I'm feeling with because when I spoke to my friends and my family, they just couldn't connect in with me. And as I knew that they were trying to be nice and they're always encouraging but they don't understand the entrepreneurial journey. And I remember making a voucher myself going when I get to a point in my business when I've cracked this code and I'm making a living out of this and I have a team and I'm feeling confident and we're growing the business, I want to be the big brother that I wish I, I had at the beginning. And essentially here is an opportunity for me to give back and I do this purely from a good place and everything that I share and everything that I give is, is things that either I've lived or it's my philosophy and perspective on things and people can take it or leave it, it's completely up, up to them. But it's all genuinely from my heart and from my experience, you know, and I, I love the fact of literally this is taking time out of my schedule, but I'm happy to do it. So. Yeah, I mean what, what about yourself, Kayla?

I love that, Andy. I started it in business about the same time. Yeah. End of 2013, in full time in 2014 and we run, I run Hebron Films which is based in Bendigo and yep. Had, had similarly had no idea when I jumped into video and jumped into making a business. I had a film degree and, and, and camera and someone else's computer and someone else's tripod and, and just started doing. But.

The reason I'm here is because, I mean I've been working with Den for ages and, and Dan, you got me to fill in on a coaching call in one of the groups and I was, I just came alive. Like I experienced this, this thing that is providing feedback and ideas and support to a bunch of other like minded people and I was like, look at this. Something switched inside of me and I was like, I want to do more of that. Like it is so rewarding. You get such a kick out of it when, when someone who, you know, may be a little bit earlier on in their journey, um, what I experienced is they asked me something and I was a bit nervous to start with going like you know, am I going to know all the answers? And the truth is I don't. It's lucky there's three, four of us here. But the, they'd asked me something, I was like oh man, that's so easy. It's easy to me because I've walked through it, I've either made a mistake to learn it or, or you know, some way I've gained the knowledge along the journey. But to be able to give that back to them in such an easy way that made such an impact on them, that's like a massive win win. It made an impact on me just being able to help and, and support and, and like you Andy, like I didn't, I didn't have anyone that knew, knew the journey, knew the, the process, new video business specifically. So it's just a joy to be able to, to, to be able to help those that were in a similar position. That's me. Matt Smollin Dallas. Why you here man?

You little babies. I started.

Now.

I remember INDISTINCTLY it was the 20th of August 2011. I was my first freelance day and since then I have grown a team and a business to heights I never thought would be possible. And I think I often look back on those early days as like an opportunistic practitioner right where I could shoot, I could edit. I was excited and I set out, started working freelance and building some clients and a bit of a reputation and it got to a point where like oh, I got busy enough that I needed to hire in other people and start sort of building a little bit of a network of contractors and then some more permanent team. And all of a sudden it just seemed like overnight like oh, I run a business now and I did not set out to run a business. How do I do this? And so you know, you have conversations with other people and you have, you know, ask for guidance from, from your peers and mentors but you know, finding coaching in a much more formalized, structured way was like the little unlocked all of the opportunity that was on the other side. And I think the reason I'm here is because what I've fallen in love with over that journey is the people side of it and growing a team and seeing the development of others through the opportunity that I can give them. And for a long time it's been just balloon trim my production company. But now 13 years down the track, I've got plenty of experience and war stories and advice and opinions on how the industry works that I can help and support others going through that journey. And you know, I think anecdotal advice is always great because you can then go, yes, this is how it worked. It didn't work. And have some real, you know, you had skin in the game. So the advice you're giving is not just from, you know, research and theory. It's like, I've lived this, this is what has happened to me. But I have a genuine like love and enthusiasm for seeing others grow. So being part of a process where people can come to me for that experience and expertise, surrounded by a bunch of other like minded amazing individuals is like, oh, it's just such a cool feeling to be like, yeah, I've got some information, pick my brain, I'll give you whatever you want. I just love it because if that helps somebody start providing for their family in a much more stable or sustainable way, or can grow a team and help support other families and people through what they're able to create because of some little piece of advice or thought that I've sort of provoked. That's awesome. I love that so much.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I started this whole thing because when I transitioned out of TV into the corporate video world, I thought that all my experience would be amazing and I just, I'd land jobs no problem. But it was like a totally different language and I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaches, masterminds, went all over the world for them to learn this business thing. But I realized that there was, there was always something missing because the advice I was getting was very generic in nature. And I was sitting around the mastermind table once and you know, there's like a dentist and there's like a guy who rents scaffolding and someone else who paints roads giving me advice on my video business. And I was like, you know, oh, why don't you just do X, why don't you just do Y? And I kind of got frustrated at people just throwing ideas at me because ideas, we're not short of ideas as creatives. But on that topic of creativity, I think it's a really important point to sort of nourish and maybe nurture a little bit here. And it is the idea that we all go into this industry because we love creativity, we love making films, we love getting a camera, we love making something. But what is it? What is your journey and experience been like? As you move more into a business owner mindset, there is less capacity for you to go and do that kind of work and how have you managed to process that? And what has the outcome been in terms of like, do you miss the shooting? Or have you found creativity in new ways, maybe? Matt, that's a great question for you because you, you certain have won awards for the narrative filmmaking that you've created. And I think a lot of people watching or listening to this are going to be like, yeah, but I want to make all these other films as well. I don't want to sell out. And I think there's maybe a starving artist identity that sits within that. But tell me about your story. How did you manage to go through that process? Because when we first met, you were very much still focused on the idea of becoming a narrative film director.

Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head to start with. Right? Like, we all start at this from that creative filmmaker, you know, aspirations. Right. And I think that the two ideas seem to be polar opposites in that it's like you can either make films in quotation marks or make money. And it's kind of. They're completely separate ideas. Right. But I, I think the idea of, like selling out and running a corporate video production company is not like. I think it's just that keeping up with the Joneses rat race type thing, that's. That's put on it rather than the actual reality. Because I see running the businesses we do today as just this incredible opportunity machine that like, yeah, we make some stuff that would, like. It's pretty boring on the surface and doesn't seem like the most fulfilling thing. But my perception of it is, is not that because it's the people we get to work with. The way my team gets to express themselves and learn and develop and grow. It's the opportunity that those connections or that client might open up to do some more interesting and creative work. And as a business that is offering a service or a product, you can do that. You can say, our offering is creative and we challenge the brief and that's everything we do and push out there, that I get that satisfaction of the creativity in the work we do and just happen to make money, support the team, support my family because of that. If I'd followed a different path that was purely narrative or something like that, who's to know what would happen? But I could almost guarantee it would be a harder slog to make it as sustainable and predictable as businesses today. So I think that, you know, doing what we love for a job, for work, for a business is incredibly, incredibly. I'm incredibly lucky and grateful for it every single day. Because I could never work in an office, you know, 9 to 5 doing accounts on death by a Thousand meetings. It's like I get to work with teams doing creative stuff, making movies that people pay for. Like, what an awesome privilege that is to live that every day. And if I can in some way help support others to do that as well, and you don't have to jump into the meat grinder that is corporate work, then great, let's do it. Let's get everybody out there making, making movies for money. Also, my dog's asleep next to me and snoring really loudly. So if it keeps coming in every now and then, that's what it is. It's not me bored over here, asleep. This is a great conversation.

I might jump in there. It's such an interesting topic, this one, and I love it. Like the whole managing creativity, I personally think, Matt, you've done it really well. Like, honestly, hats off to Balloon Tree Productions because like, yeah, you still get to play. I mean, if, if you like, if you, if you look at what creativity is.

Creativity isn't just painting a picture like a. You know, people often associate creativity with an artist. Right? But there's, there's different types of creativity. Like solving problems involves creativity. You can be creative solving problems. So an accountant can still be creative. People associate that with just being a mundane job. But accounting is to be creative. And I love that point. What you're saying then, that in terms of waking up every day and creating films for a living, getting paid to make movies and working for team, that in itself is quite rewarding.

It's so interesting for me and I think, Caleb, you're the same as me. I feel like we're very simple, Right. I still want to make big movies. I've got Avatar. Simple or similar? Well, probably, I don't know, maybe similar. Maybe I'm the simple one.

But like, I haven't, I haven't given up on the dream to, to, to make films. But the question I asked myself was, was the journey as a teenager that I preempted of what the filmmaking journey is going to look like, was that a, an accurate port of the actual journey? Start making short films, win some awards, make feature films, become a millionaire, work on all the films that you want it for the rest of your life? I don't think that's, that's the narrative I got sold and I haven't seen anybody do it. Yeah, when you actually go and look at a lot of the, like a lot of the big Directors, a lot of them actually are quite entrepreneurial, like Lucasfilms, that's a full company. You know, James Cameron, he's also an entrepreneur. So it's like filmmaking, just the artist. I think the idea of starting a business, if there's like a hesitancy to like start a business because you're selling out, I think it's like you actually might realize you, you might actually thrive in the business world and that might actually help you get closer to the real dream, you know. So, yeah, so for me, like, so good, shifted that perspective. I kind of went, oh, wow. This doing this business stuff isn't hindering me and moving me away from what I want to do. It's moving me forward. Because business is also a character transformation journey. And in order for you to manage a, you know, one day you want to, if it's a filmmaker, you want to make movies, you want to one day direct a $50 million, $100 million film. It takes a certain person who can hold the space to manage this kind of a film. And a business is a really good playground to develop the soft skills required that one day will be needed on a bigger set. So, you know, when you make these tweaks in your perspective, all of a sudden you go, oh, shit, this journey is actually necessary. I should probably go into business. You start understanding that the film industry is quite a money orientated industry. Okay. You start looking at the resources differently as well.

Yeah.

I mean, what's your thoughts, Kayla? I know me and you share similar thoughts and that's huge.

No, 100%. Yeah. And no, I will just say on the record, I am also very simple. But, but we, yeah, we are very similar in that way because we've got some good, some big dreams. Right. In terms of specific big kind of projects. But I'm resonating with nearly everything you're saying. Right. I see what we did in business as kind of selling in rather than selling out.

I.

What I'm doing now is enabling a pathway for sustainable income and smart income. Like I, I started as the creative that just wanted to be creative and, and was like, you know, I'm not, I'm not really into business, I'm. I' creative. But it didn't take long before I got into business and I just started loving the science of business and the creativity required to manage different components of something, to create something bigger and all of the different elements of business, like even sales. Like, I absolutely love sales and I reframed a lot of my preconceptions and misconceptions about business and into. What I get to do now is literally all communication, the whole thing. Like I'm selling a product that communicates. I am before in the, in the sales process. I am communicating and building trust with potential clients throughout the process. I'm communicating with my team and I'm communicating with the clients so that the process is smooth. And on the other end, like, I'm. The whole thing is communication. And that is, that's what I love. That is absolutely what I love. But you're so right, Andy. In the, in the, the, the dream that I was sold and the story I was sold was exactly that of how to get to, to being a filmmaker. And I did have one director come and, and speak to us in film school. And his journey was nothing like that. It was actually. He had to mortgage three of his family's houses to fund his first feature, which was great, by the way, but now he's in millions of dollars of debt. Millions. And there was no clear way out of that for him. And that was, that was posted up as a success. And I'm like, oh, whoa, I'm not doing that.

I mean all, you know, all credit to you, man, for making it happen, but I'm going to make it happen a different way because that sounds terrible.

Yeah.

And the, the beauty of business is that, and your whole journey and creative journey is that everything's an option. You know, the, the, it might be cliche, but the world is your oyster, right? You, you don't have to follow this, this pathway that someone else said must be followed. You make ch. You know, you forge your own path. That's the journey of an entrepreneur. And that's what, you know, what we've done in many, nearly all of our experiences and our journeys, we've forged our own path and stepped off the, you know, well beaten track in a lot of, in a lot of instances. And yeah, and that's, that's what I love. That's what I want to contribute to people and their journey is to say, look, you could, you can do anything. Right? You can do anything. And all we're doing is sharing what we've found that works. And if you can take some value from that, then happy days. But you do not have to compromise being creative in any stage of growing a business. Because that's the other thing I always say people are creative by nature. People like putting, putting creativity in a box, like you said, Andy, but 100%, nearly every person is born to be creative in some way, whether that is solving problems on a spreadsheet or whether it's directing a massive feature film.

And of course, you know, Caleb, you have three young children under five. Matt, you have two young children under five. Andy and I. I've grown up kids. Andy's not yet in the kids world, but he's settling down with his girlfriend. He got a place together. Something shifts, doesn't it? We get to our kind of mid-30s and it's like shit's gonna get real. We can't just continue to work. The hours required to make, let's be honest, you know, a good. A good 100 grand a year as a freelancer is a great year. I was able to get my business up to sort of 250, 300 on my own. Then you need help because either need a divorce lawyer or an editor.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like the, like for me that it's.

So.

It's so crucial to work this part out and more importantly, as a creative. And this is my compelling reason, right?

When a creative is under stress, under pressure, experiencing anxiety, and they can barely meet their survival needs, guess what? You're no longer creative. You are in struggle city population.

You. Yep.

100. And, and, and, and you're like the only way to come out of that is to control your own narrative. And how. What's the best way to control your own narratives is to be in control. And what's the one thing that you can control is a business. There are levers you can pull in business to, to, to. To manufacture a result.

Put it this way. If you don't go into business, right, and you want to pursue the filmmaking route, what are your options? Right? So you would write a script. You would then pitch to investors to get some, to get some funding, right? The percentages of scripts landing on a producer's desk and getting private equity or getting investors to then fund the film, let alone even people with credible names, is so slim, right? So you need to be able to control resources. And in order to control resources, you need a business. You need to understand commerce, right? And when you have that, when you're in that frame of mind, you don't compromise on your creativity. Your creativity elevates. And then from that point and then from that position, that's where we. You can then now start doing your filmmaker dance. And different doors appear. But, but this whole thing of like, just coming into this world and you're kind of selling out or you're, you're. You're sort of watering down your creativity. It's. It's a limiting belief. It's. For me, it's a limiting belief because when you don't do that and you know, the pressure starts mounting, mounting up on you, you're no longer creative. And even if you are creative, it's probably going to be crap. Let's be real, right? And in order to make a living out of this, you got to do it a lot. You got, you got it. It's a consistency game. What's the point of living a life where it's stressful at home, you got kids, you can't, you can barely feed. Like, what, what's the. Isn't quality of life also important? Like there's, there's no badge of honor to being a starving artist. Like, there's nothing impressive.

Not at all.

I love what you're saying because the. Andy, you're saying that the, the soft skills, you know, it's a training ground. And looking at business as a training ground, like the pressure of managing as something as huge, even if you're, you know, any role really in, in a management role on a, on a feature film, for example, the pressure that it's, it's complex, it's huge, it's a monster. And if you've never experienced the pressure and something similar to that, it's likely to break you.

Right?

And that's all buts and maybes. But to look at business as a training ground for.

People skills, leadership skills, management skills, there is no better training ground than running your own business and either failing or learning quick. And, you know, failing being something that's required for, for learning quite a lot and quite often. But you need to be able to build up that muscle of being, being able to withstand pressure and then prove to yourself that you can, you know, you can create something that will generate some sustainability. And I don't know, as guys, as, as men, being able to provide is really, really important. It's, it's kind of like a core need, right? So I found that my journey in business has been incredibly rewarding, but really essential to meeting that need that I have to provide for my family. So it kind of, you know, there's, there's all, all boxes are ticked, right, with that, with this whole business thing.

The other thing it does too, right, to sort of follow on that idea is that, yeah, you, you have an amazing opportunity to provide for your family. But also if you start growing and you have team, you can then support those families to, to continue on as well. But also it, it then gives you flexibility and the option to Enjoy the time as well and not spend it on the business all the time. You know, you then the free. Everybody has been at that point as a freelancer, and I'm sure plenty of people listening are just like up to their eyeballs in stress and projects, and they're probably listening to this while in Final Cut or Premiere, while responding to an email, while sending an invoice. Like, as a freelancer, you're doing everything and you just, you can never switch off. Whereas you get a business to a point where it can support team members, it can support more systems and infrastructure around it, all of a sudden you at the top of the food chain can be like, I'm going to leave early. I'm going to take a day off here and there and spend time with my kids or, you know, take a holiday without stressing about, I can't do any work while I'm away. Things can keep going in the background and that only comes by building and developing a business that you can manage, but you can set it up in the way you want it to run as well. And I think that to both your points, that pressure of, you know, a potential feature film and millions and millions on the line, you don't just go from, you know, your short films in your backyard to that overnight, the training you get through running a business and the incremental scaling and the challenges you hit along the way, you will face problems you never even thought would exist. So such a wonderful place to develop those skills while still getting all of the other benefits of financial freedom, time freedom, and all of the wonderful things that come from owning a business that can be whatever you want it to create. And if you need help getting there, then absolutely ask for help and find support from people that have done it or people that are going through it at the same time. Because having that guiding hand just makes that whole process so much easier and guides you to that next step incrementally as you need to go.

Yeah, amazing. I think what I'll just say here to anyone watching or listening, this is the first episode of this new form.

And I want to invite you to engage with us. I want you to leave comments, I want you to come into our free community. There'll be a link somewhere on this page. Come and join the conversation. Don't be one of those people that just sits back and listens and goes, oh, yeah, I'll do that later. Because what you've got here is access to four people with in excess of 50, 60 years worth of experience combined with in Growing a video production business. And we're doing this to support you on that journey. We have a free community that we do a weekly coaching call. There's access to some training in there to help you get started. So I just want to encourage you to take some action. And as we wrap up this first episode, maybe I'll go around and ask everyone to just, you know, share maybe an insight or an anecdote of how they took that first step. Because I really. We are all here because we fundamentally want to share our experience to help you avoid some of the mistakes. Now, you're going to make lots of mistakes. And mistakes are an inevitable and important part of business growth. In fact, I love failing. I fail every single day. It's how you rebound from the failure that counts. So, Caleb, I'll start with you. Can you remember particular on the spot? A little bit here, but is there a moment where you can remember? I actually leaned in.

Yeah, definitely. It was after I'd tried to do it on my own for a long time. I did it slow and hard and I decided I didn't like doing business and growing business slow and hard. And it was like I was searching in the dark. I was, I was. There were so many ideas, but nothing was really growing. I was hitting, hitting the ceiling of revenue year after year and taken home pittance for myself. And it wasn't until, I mean, the first year of jumping on board with you, Den, I made four times that year personal income. Four times what I had made the previous year. More in one year than in the previous four. Like, that's just wild. And I thought, why on earth did I not do this sooner? Because there was so much I didn't know.

Right.

And it's a no brainer looking backwards. Right? You think, why did I do it on my own? Why did I try and do it on my own for so long? You don't need to.

Ari, what about you?

I think it's just for me, it was understanding that I was just serious about what I was doing and I knew that like the uncountable path, the uncomfortable action is necessary. And it was like full stop at the end of that sentence. Get to work. That's literally all I said to myself whenever I caught myself bitching or moaning or things are too hard. Yeah, rightly so. Because if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Get to work. And then that's it. Like, I didn't really overthink the process. I just knew that good takes time.

Good people go through experiences. If I'M not having these experiences.

You know, So I was like, no, I've got to go for it. And I just. Till this day, I. I sit and thrive in uncomfortable environments. You get, you get, you get comfortable with being uncomfortable and becomes a new norm. And you realize that you're gonna get.

Addicted to it, don't you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a book I've got on my shelf, the Obstacle is the Way. And a lot of the good stuff is sometimes a bit of a harder path. But you realize that that conflict is necessary. Tension is required to grow. So, yeah, wrap us up, Matt.

Yeah. Diamonds are built under pressure, right? And I think that there is a level of tolerance to pressure that I think everybody has a different stage of what pressure they can withstand. But as soon as you go, you know what, I don't have to do this alone, and I can surround myself with support. That pressure coming off you, you'll realize instantly that all of a sudden you. You've got so much more opportunity and. And direction that you can take. For me, it was. I'd run the business for years without any real structure to how we did things. It all lived in my head, all lived in emails and papers. And then as I brought team in and it lived in our collective conscience that it was like, this is not the way to do it and I don't know how to do this better. So reaching out and getting some support and guidance, that was just like I remember to this day, I fall asleep to this thing about every night systems set you free. It's the like just echoed through my turning point in my business, in my career, where I was like, oh, they really do. And it just embracing that unknown, going, I don't know what else I can do here. I need help. And whatever comes from that, being open to that, being open and vulnerable to the learning and to be. To be fallible and understand that you don't have all the answers is the strongest thing you can do because it sets you up so well to improve and move forward from that single point. So anyone listening to this is probably in that stage of figuring out what their next step is. And you might have it all figured out. It might be a little step, or you might be like, God, I can't keep up with all of this work. I need to do something drastic. It might just be that little nudge that take next step into the uncomfortable area out of your comfort zone and sort of get some support on that pressure that just frees you up to take it to the next level. And it's, you know, I speak for myself, but I'm sure you will all echo it that that freedom is such an encouraging thing. It only just fuels you to go further and do more and scale your businesses even further.

So yeah, awesome. Now all I want to do is say to anyone who's watching this, listening to this for the first time. All we ask in return is that you share this. You share it with someone you know who needs some help. Because we are all giving our time here to support you. And it's there. All you need to do is lean in. So thanks fellas and we hope to see you all again next week.

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