How Ben Closed A $15K Video Retainer

What's going on guys? I'm here with one of our clients, Ben, who actually just closed a 15k retainer. What's going on, Ben?

How are you? How are you doing, Eric? I'm doing well, man, I'm doing well.

I guess maybe for anybody who doesn't know you, a little bit of background on yourself. Do you mind just giving us a little bit of background on kind of what you do and, and your journey up to this point?

Yeah. So my name is Ben and I own video strategy and production company and it's kind of a full service production company where I at this point kind of wear all the hats and, and so, you know, I've, I've been doing this for about 10 years. Largely work with agencies and, and businesses as well as like independent producers or creative directors or I get brought in on projects in various capacities. Whether it's doing everything or just editing or shooting or doing motion graphics, that kind of thing. And so wearing one hat or wearing multiple hats, like I doing everything, do what needs to be done more or less. And so I discovered Master Filmmaker. I don't know, you know, it was about nine months ago and it was at a point in time. It's kind of interesting where I was running into, try or trying to figure out like where, where I wanted to grow my business, you know, and I wasn't sure exactly how like I had glimpse, I've had glimpses of being put on kind of like contract positions with companies.

Yeah.

And that was kind of my glimpse of like this, this is, I need like two or three of these.

Gotcha.

And then it's not going to be really. And so I discovered Master filmmaker and it kind of hit all, you know, all of my like pain points in terms of scaling up my business. And it was, you know, that, that was, it was kind of ticking all those boxes that you know, I had. And so that's kind of how I got here. And so, you know, I work, I do brand films, print promo videos, social media, you know, kind of everything, you know, all the different video types and so.

And have you been a one man band kind of this entire 10 years? Has it always been that way or.

Yeah, yeah, more or less. And what, what I found is I bring people on or I, I hire contract, you know, on a contract basis.

Right.

As needed.

Right. So you're kind of, you're kind of in that tech, you're, you were in that technician role and now you're trying to move more into the business owner. Like I want to Hire people under me. I want to start to buy my time back and not have to worry about a lot of the things that you're. You're currently doing. It sounds like.

Yeah, that's what I'm moving towards because I. I'm getting kind of, like, maxed out by my time.

Right.

And I. And I found, like, if I can just. For even little tasks, like just delegate or farm it out. Yeah, it just buys you back all this time.

Well, I think it's interesting because a lot of people want to hold on to the creative side a lot of times, like, I want to do everything, but unfortunately, that's the thing that keeps you bottlenecked this entire time. You can't physically do everything. And if you want to grow something that's bigger than yourself, you want to support your clients in a better way, you have to be able to have other people in the business with you to start building that business with you.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I guess, like, how did you come across us and then what was kind of like the biggest issue prior to joining? I know we talked about it a little bit with, like, buying back your time, but I guess was there anything that kind of stood out about us in our program as opposed to maybe some of the other programs out there?

Yeah, I mean, I think it was. I. I found you guys on social media. Okay. I mean, you guys have a really strong presence. And again, it was just I. I was at a point where, you know, and we've talked about it, where my. My business was, referrals in which. Which has been. It's worked out really well. But there. There are those, like, you know, it's. It's like that up and down, you know, instead of just like. Like that. And so that was my. That's my goal, is to just have consistent, you know, recurring, you know, clients in revenue and, you know, from speaking to Hakeem. And it was just hitting all those points where it's like, I'm bought, you know, a little bit bottlenecked, where I can only take on so much work.

Right.

And it's not always consistent. By and large, it's consistent, but it was just like, look, looking to valleys.

In the business, it sounds like where maybe you have a couple months where it's a little bit drier and then you have, like, a bunch stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, that's the beautiful thing about having more consistent retainers, because you can start to stack those on top of each other and really build consistency to where you can hire more people, because you Know, hey, I know, you know, there's $20,000 coming in next month or there's, you know, $50,000 coming in next month. You can start to really build that consistency within the business instead of having kind of these like hit or miss. Because previously it sounds like you did a lot of like hiring contractors when you had a job, right? Yeah, that was kind of what it was. Now we're starting to build that where it's, we have consistency every single month and we don't have to worry about as much of the consistency, which is great.

Yeah.

Has there been anything like, particularly helpful within the program so far? I know we're still going through it. I know we're still working through stuff, but is there anything that's been particularly helpful so far for you?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like, where do I start with this? It's. Because there's so much, it's such a dense and it's such a, you know. Okay. So like, first off, which I think is important is having the mindset and having this mindset shift in terms of, and you speak to it a lot. It's going from the technician to the business owner and really like embracing that shift. And I'm. And it's, it didn't, it's not happening overnight for me necessarily, but that's, that's not really why I got into this program. It's. It's more of like a long term investment for me and it's where I, where I see myself wanting to take my business. Not, not necessarily in one month, but it's like one year, you know, it's like six months, one year, three years, five years. It's like, it's a long dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's like understanding that mindset shift was, was a really. And embracing that was, was really great for me. And it's, and it's still a work in progress. But then it's also the sales process and really understanding kind of that, the steps in that process instead of, you know, hey, you know, get talking to a client, having them say, gosh, you know, we just don't have, we don't have the money right now, you know, or can you work for half your rate or just, you know, every objection under the sun, you know, but now I have some tools to handle that, you know, and having that roadmap kind of set for you is, is, is great. And then, you know, the implementing the systems you guys have, like the CRM and implementing ads in the AI bots that you have. I didn't know about that stuff. I didn't, you know, and, and so that's going to be really invaluable, I think, moving forward in terms of, you know, building this thing.

I'm really excited, dude too, because, like, I feel like we're just on the cusp for you and we're really about to push this thing forward. I know we're talking on another call as well. You're like, hey, I really feel like I'm, I'm right on the edge here of really pushing this thing up. I can see where I'm going, I guess. Like, where do you see that going in the next couple of years? And like, what gets you excited about that specifically?

I think, you know, and this, this goes towards kind of working gig to gig and having, having you guys as like the support to being, working, creating these relationships with these businesses. And that's kind of like versus working, like working with a ad agency where I don't interface with the actual client. And so I'm just like, I'm a contractor to them. And so it's shifting away from that to being an actual business owner and developing these relationships and in going through this, you know, this sales sequence to like, earn people's trust, having stuff, having material to back it up and then, you know, having these, these retainers and, and having a proper, like how to properly price yourself with all this stuff. And so because of that, like, I, I feel like I'm really soundly building this foundation where you can, where you can reasonably and realistically scale this thing and get up into Those higher, like 40,000amonth, 50 up to 100amonth. You know, it's. And I'm seeing like that's it. That's realistic. Yeah, that can happen.

Yeah.

And I think it can happen really fast too, when you like dial in your sales, dial in your ads and then, and then. But then I think it's also like having the infrastructure to handle that, the people, the operations. Because.

Yeah, because like, you probably like one person can't do 100k a month. You need a team of people under you who you can, who can support you on that. Because you're going to run out of, you know, you have maybe 8, 10 working hours a day. All of us do. If we're lucky, we have to sleep. Right. So we have to buy other people's 24 hours to then bring them into the organization so we can support more clients and really push that thing as far as you want it to go.

Yeah, 100%. I agree with you 100%.

I love it. Ben. Well, last question. I'll let you get back to closing deals here. I guess if anybody is maybe watching this and they're on the fence about just even booking a call to see if this is the right fit for them, I guess. What advice would you give them specifically?

I think maybe it's. It's not for everyone, but. But I think if. If you are in this industry and you want to grow your business and you're willing to put in the work because it. There is work to it. There's. There's no question. And you. You have to work hard at it. You have to hustle, and you have to. You know, it is. It's so worth it. It's so worth it. It's just in terms of the. The kind of. The fundamentals you learn all the way up to kind of the more advanced kind of things, and just. It's. It's such a densely. You know, there's so much material in this program that, you know, and I'm still. I'm still diving into it. You know, I. And. And I'm so thankful for it. And I say, you know, it's. It's such a good investment. And, you know, it's like people that are hesitant because of the. The price or whatever their. Whatever their roadblock is, like, you have to invest in yourself, and you have to invest in these things. I think if you want to move forward, because, you know, I could have. I could stay where I'm at right now and be okay, but, like. But that's, you know, it's like, are.

You willing to settle for being just okay where you're at?

Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of people who join this program want to get to that next level, and you said it perfectly, too. It requires work. It requires you committing to yourself. And at the end of the day, too, I always say, it's like, if you expect clients to invest a lot of money in you, you have to be willing to invest a lot of money in you. At the end of the day.

Yes.

How could you expect anyone else to do that for you?

Yeah, I agree 100%.

Well, Ben, I appreciate your time today, man. I can't wait to continue to help you crush it. And I'm very excited for the future.

Really exciting. Thank you, Eric. And thank you to the whole team.

Absolutely, man.