How This Filmmaker Added $183K In Video Retainers & Left Fulltime Job

What's going on, guys? I'm here with one of my clients, Scott, who actually left his full time job. And you said What? Closed about 183k so far since you've been with us?

183K in closed deals? Yes.

I love it, man. Well, dude, for anybody who doesn't know you, do you mind just giving us a little bit of background on yourself, kind of your background, how you got started and what that looks like for you?

Absolutely. So I am your. I'm an artist first and foremost. Like many filmmakers, we just want to create amazing art and get paid to do it. And there's a hunger that most filmmakers have where they're willing to work very hard to make art, to make videos for people that are artistic. So I've been an artist first and foremost and that's always been the motivation. But the problem with being an artist, just like the starving artist mentality, is if you put your art in the forefront and you never focus on business, you're going to be hungry and you're going to starve while you do your art. And so I've, I've been struggling to build my business for many years focusing on just making beautiful videos. Right.

And your stuff's beautiful, dude. Like, I can, I mean, you've worked with some big brands and some big people and you've created awesome stuff, which I think is sometimes a fallacy people fall into, like, oh, if my work gets better, I'm going to make more money, you know?

Yeah, it's, you know, it's just one of those things that just because you're making beautiful work and you have a crazy portfolio, I mean, there's levels to how much if you're doing good. I live in California, very expensive to live here, so. So the barrier of survival is not 100 GS is not what it used to be. You can't barely survive off 100 GS. So yeah, it's, you know, I've been, I've been creating videos for years and I love it. But coming into master filmmaker was because I needed a system to break beyond the traditional filmmaking kind of role. Where there's a dp, there's people who are camera operators, there's a director you find your niche with, working with agencies, they give you a cut. But the amount of work you do for the amount of money, even if it's a lot of money, it's not worth it sometimes.

Yeah. How'd you find us in the first place?

I found you guys from ads. I'VE seen you for years.

Okay.

And it was one of those things that always sparked my interest because I'm not just I'm an artist, but I'm also a business minded individual. I like metrics, I like numbers, I like running a business. I've ran multiple businesses in the past. I had a clothing company for 10 years. So I understand business and I understand money. But I've always tried to find a way to make art for money because working just for money is a waste of your life because it's a man made paper, but we need it. And if you understand as artists you need resources to make your art. Even if you want to make a short film or something, you're going to need to have at least 20,000 as a budget to do something respectable. You need resources to create art. So if you don't ever put thought into resources, you're never going to make really great art. I mean, you still can, but it's easier when you have resources.

Well, it's kind of like the, you know, the person trying to make a short film working a full time corporate job. It's like, wouldn't you rather get retainers with businesses? Which I know is not always the most sexy thing in the world. At least be doing content and creating content within your industry and then take that money and put it into passion projects from there rather than working a full time job and like having to do it on the side, you know what I mean? Some people who are just like, oh, I don't want to do content for businesses, it's like, yeah, but I know that may not be the end goal for everybody, but you can take that money and do what you really want to do with it at the end of the day.

Well, the funny thing is, even in the commercial filmmaking game, most of those people pay their bills with interviews. I've done interviews with like the Heart association and I almost fell asleep on set. Like this isn't sexy anyway unless you're shooting movies all the time. And I know guys who are DPs that are like super amazing DPs, like making cinematic masterpieces. They're on set for 30 days doing a feature. But the amount of money they truly make is not much money. They might make, you know, I don't know, 12 to 20 grand to be the DP of this 30 day project. And it sucked the whole month out of their life. Now that's a pretty fun situation making a movie, but it's just still not that much money, you know, when it comes down to it?

Yeah, 100%, I guess. Like, why did you decide to go with us over maybe some of the other programs out there? Because obviously there's other people, other programs. I, I just annoyed you enough and you're like, fine, I'll do it.

Pretty much. I mean, what, what grabbed my attention is, is testimonials like this where I saw other people who had found success and I honestly looked at their work, I researched them right after and I was like, these guys are doing stuff that isn't even close to mine. Why am I not selling a bunch of stuff? I'm. And that's a key thing to learn about. The most talented person doesn't always get the most money. And it's about who's the best salesperson.

Who can market the best, who can get in front of the most people. And then obviously you need to have a good product at the end of the day too. But just having a lot of people have that fallacy where it's like, well, if I have a good enough product, I'm going to make money and people are just going to come to me. Which is not necessarily the case.

No, it's, it's just it, it happens sometimes, you know, if you have a strong portfolio, the work will come to you, you know, But I'd say usually that's only happens it when you're at the top of the game and you're doing stuff.

Also, why leave it up to chance too? It's like, that's great. If that comes in, that can be icing on the cake. But why not build a system that can bring you that predictably at the end of the day, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it's exactly. I, I was not getting enough leads and people to my website. I had built a website, I had SEO, I optimized for SEO. And that's a very long term game. Praying that people would come in my door and say, hey, I'm curious about doing a brand video or doing this. And then I had agencies that I was working with that would funnel me a lot of work. But those are the people that get all the money. So they'll have, they have you do all the creative work and actually make the product a reality. But they're charging triple, giving you a small piece of the pie. And then you're the one that's the talent that's actually creating it. So it's just a matter of you're hiring editors now.

So it's like that's. That was you before, right? You're Hiring editors for your team. It's like you were an editor for someone else's team which like you can kind of, it's kind of full circle now, which is funny, you know.

Yeah. The most, the biggest paid people are the sales people who are closing the deals and you know, business owner, the.

Person who owns the system. The person who owns the business.

Yeah.

And at the end of the day too, it's like I didn't want to be the 90 year old DP on set. Like was, I bet, was I the best DP in the world? Absolutely not. But like I saw that path and I was like, I don't want to be 90 years old or 85 years old or 70 years old or whatever and still be going on these 30 day projects and like working my ass off and not having any time. Freedom. Yeah, I think that's the other side of it too.

You know, my, my, my, my light bulb went off when I saw my heroes. The heroes, the guys that I'm like, that's like me like three years in the future and I'm seeing them struggle making money and I thought to myself, if that's me three years in the future and, and I'm struggling already. I was like, these are my heroes, these are the guys that I look up to. I said I've maybe don't want to be what where my hero is. I want to kind of be smarter than, than those people. Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I, yeah, that made me jump in with y' all and at least check it out and have a conversation and see what, you know, what is this? M, I, I also have always wanted to run ads myself. I've always had the itch to like, yeah, like explore it. Even if it didn't work. I always wanted to be like, let me see what it's like to, to, to sell a product on the Internet where I have an offer that leads to a page. So your guys system obviously was all about that. Building a system of bringing in someone to at least have a conversation and then walking me, helping me close these deals and get jobs that I set the price for and I set all the parameters, you know, for sure.

Was there anything throughout the program? Because obviously you're still going through it. But like that was super helpful for you. Like what did you kind of get the most value from within the funnel?

I would just say that this is not easy. It is not easy to do this. And you guys, the coaching is probably the reason why I didn't fall off and give up. You Know, I've tried to do this before where I just go on YouTube and learn how to create a funnel. It's just the hard part is that you hit these roadblocks and you guys made it very easy to get a question answered with your coaching teams. So if you have a question, you know, there's always a resource there to help answer the question and keep the steps moving forward that way to get you one step closer. Because as you remember, I did not find success out the gate. Right. They start with the program and they start closing deals for me. I did not close a deal for months and months.

And I think it's because everyone has, at the end of the day, everyone has their own journey too.

You know.

And obviously, obviously you're rocking and rolling 183k now. But yeah, I mean sometimes it does take, you know, a couple months to find your footing and figure out like, hey, what's working, what's not working.

Yeah.

And it does take.

I also, I also had that, I had a full time job. So I was just basically any spare time I had, I was trying to put it in the system. But I didn't have all the time in the world because I had a legitimate, I was the head of marketing of a large multi million dollar company. Yep. And they needed me to execute like I'm the graphic artist for their whole brand. Doing billboards, doing all types of packaging.

Yep.

And, and it was one of those things that I just, I, I, you know, I couldn't grow as fast.

Balancing your time. Yeah. And sometimes it does that. You got to replace that and then, and then you can finally leave, I guess. How did it feel to leave the job finally and kind of be done with it?

I mean, felt amazing. I'm the type of guy that never has liked, had a boss. I.

You sound like me, dude.

I can't stand it. I think I, yeah, I think I'd rather die than have.

I think I have a problem with authority myself too.

I'm like, I, I just don't like doing things that aren't in align with my, you know, I'm working for someone else's dream and I feel like I'm wasting my time on earth. Like even if you're building your own business, you're trying to build your own thing that is your own creation. Something about building someone else's creation. Some people are fine with it. Me, I've always, I feel like it's a waste of my life, you know.

That's how I felt too because I had A couple normal jobs, nothing crazy. I was like server at a country club. I worked in a media department for a little while, like earlier on. And like, yeah, it does feel like it's like, why am I doing this stuff? Like, what is the, what's the point? You know? So I definitely resonate with that too. Kind of a weird question, but I guess, like, where do you feel like you might have been if you hadn't taken the leap, taken the jump and kind of dove into the program?

Well, I had a plan because I really hated this job and I was going to quit regardless. But I would have been scrambling to just get as many gigs as I can and I could have. I have plenty of opportunities. So many people hit me up to edit for them, film for them. I could have filled my schedule with these random gigs. But my vision is much farther. It's about building my own brand and my own channels and sharing my love for creating videos and how they can help build whatever business you want. So if you. We live in a time where videos are such a dominant way to communicate. I love the communication channel of video. And like I said, my vision is much bigger than even just launching a brand and making other people's content. It's about. So to answer your question, I would have been just scrambling to scrape by. But the hard part about that is that it's a never ending cycle. You have to just keep getting gigs, keep getting gigs, and then the people who are getting paid the most are the ones giving you the gigs. Yep, you're getting a couple GS per project. But like I said, it just doesn't add up to give you any extra time, you know, where I need a certain tier to survive and to pay my bills, I would be working non stop, you know, and it, you know the deal with filmmakers, we buy so much damn gear, I would end up just buying so much gear. It's just like an addiction where I work to pay for gear and the cycle.

I think Ryan puts one of our clients, Ryan put something in the group. He's like gear buyers anonymous or something like that. And it's like, like, what did you buy today?

We all got gear acquisition syndrome. Because it's cool, man. It's super.

It is cool. It's like, oh, this cool new piece. And like I love it too. But it's. I always like, in some of my, my content I'll talk about like, don't buy gear because it's not getting, it's not going to get you more clients. But like you know, I get it, everyone has that itch they want to scratch, but it's like get the clients first and then buy the gear with the clients payments that are coming in, you know.

Well also what, what I, what my goal is and what other filmmakers might get from this is that, you know, my goal is to create margin in my schedule so I can do creative work because I love making videos. Most of us grabbed a camera not so we could just do corporate videos and pay our bills. Right. But I never had time to create because I was working so many hours with all these jobs for other people. So the point of creating these higher paying situations with retainers is that you can literally, you have margin to now create your fun project and you have finances to hire people.

We need to have time to be creative. You can't be creative when you're busy. You have to be bored. Like to be creative at the end of the day you have to have that dead space where you can just sit and just think about what you want.

Yeah, just play around. So yeah, that's one beautiful thing about the situation of the system you guys have built is that it gives you an ability to have stability because you're creating retainers and then also a system to get new clients because people are always falling off potentially. But it's just an incredible system to kind of break away from the rat race of the typical filmmaking like, like the path for filmmakers.

I love it, man. Last question, I guess if anybody's maybe on the fence about just booking a call and speaking with us, what advice would you give them coming from your perspective?

I would tell them this. You know, first and foremost, your guys service is not cheap, but it is worth every penny. And if you, there's that saying by Einstein. It's like if you want to change, you need to change, right? You can't get a different result from doing the same thing. If anybody has ever wanted to kind of try a different path to get clients, your system works. And you guys walk hand in hand with people who have no idea what they're getting into. So if you don't want to do it, I'm telling you, like, like I said, it completely changed the entire trajectory of my mindset of business and how to market a video gig. Because I was always doing the same thing, reaching out to people, agencies, getting these gigs. And it's just if, if you're on the fence and you don't want to book a call, it's, it's no, it's just a little bit of time to figure it out. But once again, it isn't easy. But if you. If you put in the work, you can be successful. And you had a great quote that I really like. It was, it was like you said, at some point you say, how can you make this. It's not how can you make this work? Right. How can you make this work for me?

So it's not, will it work? It's how can I make it work? It's kind of like it's going to the gym and being like, oh, will this diet meal plan and exercise plan work for me? It's like, well, of course it's going to. It works for people. Right? So it can work for you. It's how can I make this work?

Yeah.

And that's the mindset you have to have coming in is like, how can I make this work for me? Because if you don't want something to work, you can make anything not work.

Of course. And when you said that, it clicked, because it's like, look, this system works for you. It's worked for many others. It may be very uncomfortable for me to do some of this stuff. I'm like, I don't know if I want to do that. Well, just how do you make it work for you? And you have to follow the formula. And that is, once again, hard to do. But it's no different than a diet plan. It will work 100% if you put in the work, if you put in the time to follow the steps 100%.

Well, Scott, I appreciate your time, man. I can't wait to see where you are in a couple months from now. And appreciate your time, dude.

Absolutely. Thank you, my man.

Yes, sir.