Two things every client wants (badly) when hiring a video production company. EP #116 - Pat Henderson

Hey, guys, it's Dan Lenny here, host of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. On today's show, I have pat Henderson from Path8 Productions in Boston. Now, Pat has been a client of mine for just over a year. And on today's show, we're going to talk about Pat's journey from freelancer to business owner. Now, Pat shares very candidly that when he first joined our program, he was a little reticent to go niche until we actually evaluated his business and discovered that he was actually working in a dominant niche, as it was. Anyway. Pat also has a wedding company and over the last couple of years has removed himself from the day to day. He's a big advocate of the E. Myth and systemology by David Jennings, and he really does share how his business has changed in the last year and particularly in the last six months with all the changes that are going on in the world. He's never been busier. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I would love it for you if you could review and like the show on itunes or the platform that you listen to. It would really mean a lot to me. It's always good to kind of get the message out there, get our show out to as many people as possible. And I hope you enjoy this week's episode.

So, Pat, we've been working together for about a year now, I think, and, you know, I'd love to just kind of get a bit more of like, where you were a year ago and where you are now and what that journey's been like and how you can share some of the lessons you've had with the listeners to this show.

Yeah. So I feel like it's come full circle because I found you by listening to this podcast and now I'm here on the podcast. So I was, you know, think like a lot of the people you work with, freelancer, looking to kind of build up more than just themselves into a video production company and not really knowing what to do. And I kind. I forget how I stumbled across your podcast, but literally the first episode I listened to it, I was like, it sounds like he's literally talking to me, like we're having a conversation. Because all the pain points you were touching on were all the exact things I was going through. So I went back, I listened to all the podcasts you had already done and then kept up with the weekly ones. I reached out right away, we had a nice conversation, and then ended up joining the group.

Do you know, I think actually you listen to an episode with Adam forgioni because Adam, I think, sent an email to his list and I think you'd done a course with Adam.

Yes.

And that's, I think, how you came across the podcast.

I had done Adam's course. He had like a two day workshop and I had done that maybe two years before. So he had sent me an email. You're right. And that's how I found your podcast, listen to that episode and went on from there. But yeah, Adam's awesome. He actually had some great advice in that workshop and a lot of stuff that I took right to the business. So having him kind of be the link was perfect.

Absolutely. So.

For a lot of people, the last six months have been pretty hectic and not necessarily in a good way. But I was just talking to one of our other colleagues in, in the video business accelerator and he was like, man, I'm just so busy. Like I was going to put a note in the group because I got too much work on. I think Derek last week was just saying how like, he's just hit 10 GS a month again from like being, being at nothing. We've got a guy in the, in Europe and Andrew who's got like seven editors working from just now. You and I had a conversation last week about the fact that you're kind of needing to find an operations person. Can you, can you share a bit about what you've been doing? Because, like, I see, I see and hear a lot of people out there going, I haven't had work for six months, the market's dead. And that's not the experience we're having. And I'd love to understand from you what is it you're doing differently that's having this different experience from everyone saying there's no work.

Yeah, it's been really interesting. I mean, going into it, you're originally like, oh, we might be out for a couple weeks and then a couple months and then whatever it is, and it's like, when are we ever going to be back to normal? So I think from the onset it was a matter of kind of taking stock of what was going on and seeing what was possible to keep going. Like, you knew right off the bat, I had a lot of travel shoots planned for this year and you knew right off the bat those were kind of dead. So then you start thinking, wait, is the sky falling? Is everything going to be shut down? But.

What really hits you with this is that people still need to get their message out there. They still need video content, they still need to communicate with their Customers and clients and potential customers, everybody around there. So it was really just a matter of, in the beginning, kind of what I did and what we talked about in the group was reach out to all my clients that I've worked with and just kind of offer my, you know, my help as. As a resource, if they had a question about how to set up their zoom or anything like that, just to kind of open that conversation, see how things were going with them. And from there, like you were saying with one of the other members in our group, it's been. I don't know if it's been busier than usual, but it's been at least as busy and maybe busier than it's ever been. I think one of the other things that kind of led to that was when you're going into the uncertainty of what the situation was, you kind of contract everything back in. So where I had been outsourcing a lot of stuff to my freelancers, I was like, you know what? I can do that work, a lot of that work myself. I'll bring that back in house. I'll take the money from it. And then that way I kind of insulate myself from any risk. And that worked for a while, but then when I realized, okay, this really isn't going to slow down like I thought it would, then you start going back out and using those freelancers that I. The team that I built up and kind of having that network and, you know, back to what you always preach in the group, it's about the relationships with your clients and kind of having that and knowing they know you're there for a resource for them, and you know that they're there as people who will come to you for work and no matter what, what's going on in the world.

Absolutely. And I want to talk a bit about the kind of. The different niches or niches that you work within. You know, I'm a bit of a stickler for getting people to focus on, like, a kind of vertical from a marketing perspective. And I know right at the beginning, you were pretty resistant to that, but I'd love to hear, you know, how that's worked out for you.

Yeah. So like you were saying in the. I listened to your podcast, I knew you were all about these niches, and I'm like, yeah, that's cool, but it's not for me. Like, I'm not going to focus on one thing. I do everything. Like, I work with people from all over the place. And so you brought it up, and you were kind of good about it where I was fighting back like, yeah, okay, that's fine, but I'm not going to just focus on health care. I don't want to be the healthcare video company. But when you kind of had us as part of the group, when you're first being introduced, one of the things that you have us do is review all of our business from the past year, every job that we've done. And maybe I didn't want to be a healthcare video company for some reason, um, but when I looked back at it, I already was. It's just not the message I was given across. Most of my work was in that field. It just was a matter of getting over the mental block of I don't know what it, you know what it was where it's like a thing where you don't want to be pigeonholed, but to the point you always make is just choosing a niche isn't pigeonholing yourself into, I can only work with healthcare companies, I can only work with universities or I can only work with public health organizations. That's just who I talk to in my marketing. And when we're looking for clients, but other clients will come across the website, we have other work that we've done in other organizations and we, we start new projects every day with different organizations that are in different fields. But that's just having that niche helps target who you're looking for and kind of give you an identity of. If you say, hey, Pat, what does Path eight do where, you know, before this group would say, you know, we're a video production company, we make videos. Whatever a company needs, we make those videos. We're now have a more succinct answer and, you know, it really kind of gives you a goal and a lane to go down that's much more clear than just the general. We do everything for everybody. Which really doesn't get you anywhere.

Well, I think I was sharing with you a couple of weeks ago that on one of the coaching calls.

You weren't on that call, but some of the people in the group were like looking for inspiration for how to build a website. And we used your website as the example and you've become the poster boy for like the converted, born again nature. And people were like, oh my God, his website's so clear and like, he's so succinct. And. And if you, if you're in public health care, you go to the public health care page. If you're in, in medical devices, you go to medical device page and if you're in corporate, you go to the corporate page. And the point of that is, is that if I'm in medical devices, I don't want to have to find the medical device information. I want to be taken in two steps to the medical device page, where you've got six videos demonstrating that you've got a legacy in medical devices. Because, you know, and everyone listening to this or watching this will know this, that when you go to speak to a new client and they, let's say they make a device that's like, to test, you know, your blood sugar for diabetics, and they'll be like, hey, we love your work. Have you ever shot a video on a product like this? People always want to see an example. And I think as creators, we sometimes get a bit offended by that. It's like, look, I can shoot anything. But I think we. What we need to understand is that the client just wants to mitigate risk. They want to be able to say, when I hired this company, I saw a video they made just like the one we want. That's why we hired them. And that's something, you know, the other process we go through is this Ask framework. I remember reviewing your interviews from your clients and, and that came up a lot. What other things have come up as a result of you being more focused on a niche? I mean, how is your business grown?

Yeah, I think that one of the things like you're saying is you have examples. So not like, if a company reaches out that is a medical device company or a healthcare company, chances are I'm going to have an example for exactly what they're looking for. And to your point, like, yes, it may be, you may be making the same video for two different companies or something very similar, and it may be the same for you, but for them, that's their video. The other company's video doesn't have any effect on them and that they know, okay, I want a video like this. So for you to kind of go out and be like, we need to reinvent the reel every project and, you know, come and do something. No, they want something that's close to the example of what you have. That's why they hired you. So I think that kind of having that niche and having those examples, also there's other benefits from it. Like when you work with one company, if you do a good job, a lot of times people stay in their industry, so people change jobs. Or they know people at other companies in the industry and they can refer you to them and they know, okay, they did a great job for this medical company. I also have a medical company. They can do a great job for me. And just from being in that space, you pick up a lot of the jargon. You pick up a lot of different things that affect that industry, specifically from doing interviews with the clients and talking to them and just the whole production process in general. And that's something I really like about video production from the onset, is you get to really dive deep and learn a company or an industry and then on one day, and then you go to do it in a different company another day. But by being in that space, you learn a lot that you help and you bring to your clients, which then makes you a resource. That's something other than here's just a general person who can make a video. You can give them input on their exact thing.

I remember one of the most fun parts of doing your audit was we discovered that there was a woman called Diana who had literally given you 60% of your jobs in the previous year across three different companies and across referrals. And what we were able to identify was that she had just gone out on her own as a consultant. And I think when you, when you go through that process, you start to realize, wow, there's like this one person who absolutely loves what we do who is recommending us to all these people, and she doesn't want anything in return because she just gets to. To kind of be better at what she does because of her association with you. How often have you found that to be the case with going down sort of three different verticals?

Yeah, I mean, I think that you mentioned that one client in particular, she went to a different company and then referred me to another company and then started her own company. So it's like, you know, if people know that you're reliable, I think that that's the number one thing is reliability. They know, okay, I'm going to get a really good product and I'm not, and that. And they're going to take a lot of the work. I think that's what it comes down to. People want to know something's going to be done well, and they also want to know that it's not going to be a huge burden on them. So, yeah, when you kind of do the, you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon type thing and track that back, one person can lead to a lot of work when it goes down that way. So, yeah, so, I mean, you, you've.

Had a pretty, pretty incredible year. You've had a baby you bought a beach house and you're, you're. You want to spend time with your daughter. And so you're now at a point where you're very much moving away from that freelancer who's doing stuff. And I think, you know, you've always been pretty good pat at delegating and bringing in help, but you're moving into a new phase of your business now, aren't you, where you've got a lot of solid foundations. Talk to me about what you're going through at the minute in terms of systems and scaling and those next growth stages of your business.

Yeah, so right before we started working together, I read the book E. Myth. And a lot of that book is about working on your business, not in your business. And like you with the niches and me reading that, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense for this lady with her pie company, the example in the book. But I need to do this work because the people are hiring me because I'm the one shooting and editing and doing everything, having my hands on everything. But to the group's point and what you kind of preach, if you put the systems in place, then other people can replicate what you were doing. Like, as big of an ego thing as it is to think that I'm like this editor who no one can replicate. People can definitely replicate what I was doing if they have the proper guidance and they know what they're looking for. So I think it was really about building out a really reliable team that I know I can count on to do the right things as far as carrying these projects along and what you were just talking about there with kind of as things are progressing more and the business is growing. So, like what you were saying before with that one client that led to X amount of work, you know, if you get lucky, you have a client like that. If you get really lucky, you have two. If you got even more lucky, you have three. But you get to a point where if you have three of those clients and they're branching out, you're not going to be able to do all that work. And you need to be able to manage the business. So in doing so, building out those systems is kind of something I'm working on now and bringing in sort of an operations type person to help with that, because it can't all be on me, I think, is the next step and something that's really important as far as maintaining the consistent quality and the consistent product while still growing the business and managing the relationships, which it really all boils down to.

Well, it's interesting you mentioned Michael E. Garber and the E. Myth. And behind you you've got David Jennings new book, Systemology, which, you know, David actually worked with Michael Garber to help launch one of Michael's books. And Michael Garber writes the forwards to Dave's book. And both of those books are all about, you know, you don't have a business unless it can work without you. And what's really exciting for me, as you know, a mentor in your life and as a coach, is that I'm observing someone who was very much a freelancer in the space of only 12 months transform to becoming a father, which is a pretty big deal. Congratulations. That's really grown up. But more so as your business is maturing, you are now building a business that can operate without you. And that first step is always with the editing. And I always say this to clients. Your client doesn't actually sit in the edit suite with you. So how do they even know it's you that's cutting it? You can have someone, you can, you can create a system for how you like things to be cut that can absolutely be systemized. 90% of the work can be done by the editor, and you can come in and review it. How is that impacted your business? Letting go of the editing? How has that changed your life?

Well, so I'd like to say I, you know, did that 100%, but there's still projects that I'm like, this is, this is what I'm taking. Like, I'm taking this from the get go. I said, I have an assistant editor that breaks down every single project, project. But, you know, the next step is getting it 100% where it's the other people taking it. That 90% of me coming in at the end. And what really helped me kind of be able to trust that is I, I, you, I have a wedding business as well. And, you know, two years ago I went and hired an editor for the wedding business. Taught her the, you know, the process that I did to take the edits on. And she did an awesome job taking that over. I come in and I do the last, you know, just last few tweaks and send it off and brings my work time from 20 hours down to, you know, an hour on the project, or not even on some, if she nails them. So having that in my head is kind of like, okay, this can work. There's a lot more variability to the projects when you're dealing with corporate video than there is to a wedding where they're all pretty similar.

But kind of knowing that. All right, if I explain this to my editor, who's an awesome editor, I explained this to them. They give me a cut, I give them feedback. It's basically the same as me doing it, just saving the time. And then I can come in at the end, do any tweaks I want, get it finished up, and the product does not suffer. Maybe is even better because there's two sets of eyes on it, and it frees up my time to work on other projects and work on the business. So as I continue to move forward, that's definitely something that will be huge to rely on kind of all the time. And like you were saying, they're not in the edit bay, but they are at the shoots. So being the face at a shoot and kind of being on that, I feel like is more important use of the time. And, you know, I'll get to the point where I don't need to be at every shoot or I don't need to be the shooter at the shoots. I can be there just as a producer. That's like the next kind of step. But I think because you build that relationship at those shoots, you spend a lot of time with these people, a lot of downtime, and you hang out and you get to know each other, and it's like. It's a lot of the fun of the business is getting to know the different people. But when it comes to editing, that's all behind the scenes. So if you're able to hand that off and give good feedback, I think that helps. And something that you introduced me to, which has really changed the way I do everything, is loom, where you can just kind of do a screen recording with, you know, you. You break something down really easy, gets the point across. There's nothing lost in translation where I used to be typing up notes and documents and spending all this time on that. Take five minutes, go through something and give my info, and everyone understands what it is.

Yeah, I love it. Loom is one of my favorite tools. I mean, we communicate through loom all the time, and it's in it because I'm in Australia, you're in Boston, and some people might be thinking, well, surely you can't have a coach that's in a different time zone. But actually, what works really well for us is that you'll send me a message at the end of your day. I'll pick that up at the beginning of my day, send you a response, and by the time you've woken up, the Next day it's there.

Talk to me about the experience of being part of the video business accelerator. How has that benefited your business in kind of genuinely real terms?

Yeah. So it's funny because I first joined the group and I thought, I'll get in here for a couple months, I'll learn every, I'll watch through all the tutorials, I'll take out what I can and then I'll get out of here. And I, you know, I watched a few tutorials, I got swamped in business and thought, I'm never gonna have time to watch any of this stuff. I should probably just leave the group. And I talked to you and I'm just glad that you kind of, you know, were like, no, the reason that you need this group is because you don't have time for the, for those tutorials. You need to free up your stuff. And the only way you're going to do that is by working with the coach, which is 100% true. And I think the big benefit of working with the group isn't from those tutorial videos and all that stuff. It's from meeting with the group every week and hearing what everyone else is going through, getting ideas off them. And, you know, the. I don't do nearly as many one to ones with you as I should, and that's on me. I never reach out to you for them, and when I do, you're always on it and they're super helpful. But the little I send you a note and you send me a loom back to kind of help fix a problem that I'm having, that's invaluable. And I feel like every couple of months, either from you or from somebody else in the group, a little tidbit gets dropped that, you know, like, adds, you know, pays for the year of being in the group and then some just having other people that are going through the same sort of problems and issues and things, and even now being in the group for a year and seeing people that are coming in and being in the position I was originally, it's really kind of enlightening because you go through things and you're like, yeah, I haven't really made many changes over the past year. Then when you see somebody else come in and they were in your shoes, you're like, oh, wow, maybe I actually have learned a lot. And I really made a little step there. And one more point, kind of going back to the niching you have. You coach video business, video production companies, there's hundreds of video, hundreds of thousands of business coaches out there. But for me, owning a video production company, I think, oh, I'll go to the guy who coaches video production companies. Yes, there's general coaches for everything, there's general video production. But if you have somebody who speaks directly to you, you're going to trust them more than you would just a general generalist.

Yeah, absolutely. And also this is what I do full time though. I mean like I. Some people say to me I was running a campaign recently, something was like, well, what have you done? And like, well, I've been in this industry 26 years. It's kind of pretty much I've done everything. I have nothing to prove anymore. And it's interesting because occasionally people will say, but how can you, you know, you don't run a video production company anymore. It's like, well I just did a pretty hefty project for Sony so I still do production but I made a choice to just focus on coaching because it is a full time occupation. But this is where I think, you know, building a business comes in. It's like I actually walk my own walk. I live in paradise in the sunshine coast in Australia. I probably work three to four days a week if I really condense what I do. It's just I choose to work more because I love it. But you know, I don't work Friday afternoons, I don't tend to work Wednesday afternoons and I get to choose how I spend my time. I just bought a huge photo printer, I'm getting back in stills and I think one of the things that I am very big on is what does success mean to you? Because success means different things to other people. And one of the things we do early on in the process is create a vision exercise for what does success look like to you? And I know that you and your wife just had a baby, you just bought a beach house, you want to spend time with your family. How important is, is that to you? How important is that approach? If you were saying, if someone was listening to saying, well, this guy doesn't run a video production business full time anymore, how can he possibly be of any value? What would you say to someone like that?

Yeah, I mean to that I would say you don't run a video production business anymore, but you did for so many years, that was super successful and you got to the point where now you can bring that insight to us and you don't run a production company, but you are a coach for production companies. So you know what we're looking for because you deal with all of us. And not only do we have you, and you're important, obviously you lead the group, but I think just as important are all the other people in the group. You know, that's everyone from around the world getting together in one spot, and we kind of bounce ideas off each other. And it's crazy to see how similar things are in Australia or London or wherever it is, Georgia, to, you know, what's going on in Boston, as far as working with companies and doing everything like that, that has to do with the video business. But to what you were saying about how your life is now and, you know, trying to spend time with my family, like, I think that a thing with a lot of people in this industry is they like doing the work. Like, I love doing this work. My wife makes fun of me all the time because she's like, oh, you just love working. Like, you just go work more. Like, you just love it so much. And yeah, I do love working, but I also really want to get to the point where I can spend time with my family more and, you know, kind of have that time. And as before, with the editing that I was using the wedding businesses, the, like, testing ground or the microcosm for how I want to run this business. I was filming, you know, 40 weddings a year, or 30 weddings, whatever it was, and every weekend was taken up. I had no time to hang with my wife on weekends, so that wasn't so fun. And now I have freelancers that do all that for me. I'm not going to film any weddings next year. And I still have the business coming in. The product's still great. The people I work with are awesome, and I'm able to do that. So why can't I bring that into this phase of the business as well?

Well, it's about choice, isn't it, Pat? I mean, you are a father now. That changes everything. But what was interesting was your daughter was born right at the beginning of COVID so you kind of got completely distracted. And I think the whole mindset we had in the group was, okay, whatever's going on out there doesn't impact us. Let's figure out what we can. We can. We can control. But I think what. What I find to be so rewarding about watching your journey is that you get to choose now. You get to choose how you spend your time. And I think that's what's exciting about the next phase of growth. And there's still a lot of work to do, of course, but, you know, another year from now, I wonder where we'll be, you know, you, you, you will be less on the tools. And I think to be, to be making income whilst you're not on the road is the biggest step. From that freelancer mindset to a business owner. What else do you think has been your biggest breakthrough? Going from that freelancer mindset to one of a business owner?

Yeah, I mean, to your point.

The running of the business stuff, seeing where we're going to be a year from now or whatever, this is the fun stuff. There's so many people out there have jobs who, they don't have a, you know, they do their job and somebody else tells them what to do or they go to the same place every day and hopefully it's a little better a year from now. But, like, as video production business owners or any business owners, like, we have the ability to choose our own path and kind of grow where we want to grow. So, you know, that to me is the most exciting thing about running a business and that there is really the biggest difference I've noticed from when I've made kind of the switch to a freelancer to a business owner where going on a shoot and coming together with an edit like that used to be the most exciting thing that I could think of is so fun. Like, I can't wait, can't wait to do this where now, like, figuring out how I'm going to build the business and maintaining those relationships and building new relationships and finding great talent to work with on the freelance side, like, that's the most exciting thing. So I think making that switch to. Yes, I still love doing the production work and I always love doing the production work and I'll always have my hands in it. But being able to kind of take that and be like, that's not the thing that's most exciting to me anymore. Like, growing the business is super exciting and there's so much to do with it. So I think that really has been the biggest mindset shift and working with this group and kind of having things come together over the last year or so.

Well, Pat, we will link to your websites beneath this@denleny.com thank you so much for sharing your story. It's just so exciting.

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's honored to be on here. Especially, you know, coming around from finding you from this and, you know, thinking the guests on the show were like these geniuses and they had everything figured out and now somehow I'm on it. I think it was either on your podcast or another one. They somebody said to fourth grader. Yeah, to a fourth grader, a fifth grader is a genius. And you can always teach somebody else, so there's always someone a step below you. So even though I don't think I have everything figured out or hardly anything figured out, there's somebody who was me a year ago who hopefully can listen to this and take a few things out of it. So yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for everything with the group. It's awesome. It's definitely a game changer. So really appreciate it.

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