How Will Closed $29K In Video Retainers - Master Filmmaker Review

What's going on, guys? I'm here with one of our clients, Will, who closed over 29k in video retainers. What's going on, Will? How are you?

Nothing much, man. Sitting high and high in the sky right now. Feeling pretty good about some. Some retainer packages I just sold, so doing good. I love it.

And for anybody who doesn't know you, do you mind give us. Giving us some backstory on kind of you, your company, your production company, and just giving us a bit of the story there?

Yeah, absolutely. So we're 262 creative. We're out of. We're based in Bend, Oregon, Pacific Northwest to the core. We. I cut our teeth, really, doing mostly online video production in a couple of key industries. We kind of came to the program having served, like, the same clients for, like, the last five years, but we had done a lot of work really defining who we were and who we wanted to be and what we wanted to be doing. And we really just wanted to be doing more video rather than sort of all the ancillary stuff we were doing. And that's when a master filmmaker, when you guys kind of, you know, jumped into our world and we started up the program. Program.

And what kind of clients do you work with? I'm sure people would want to know.

So in the past, we. Our two big industries were the transformational education industry, and then it managed service providers, which is a really niche industry like you. You would not expect.

I was going to say I hadn't heard of it, honestly, before you came in.

Yeah, right. Very few people have because they're kind of like. They're kind of. They're. They're. They're. They. By definition, they're kind of like the ghosts in the machine. Like, you don't see them, you don't hear them. As long as all the technology works, it works well, and you. And they never get seen. Right. So I kind of got involved in that industry right when I started my business, because I had an uncle who worked at one, and he just started using me for a lot of different projects. And it's really technical industry, like, highly technical, highly nuanced. And that's why I think there's a lot of. Not a lot of video producers who are doing that industry is. Because it's a super technical industry. And when we started the program, I was like, well, this is kind of the industry that I know best. And so we'll start with that. Yep.

Yeah. And you're obviously now running ads. You have a funnel up and running you're targeting those people. Because I think some people might have a limiting belief around either they're in a small city or they're in a small place, or their niche is too, too small or they can't be targeted. Like, what's your experience been with targeting these people? On your.

What I've really learned with messaging or with ads is it's all about messaging. I mean, if you can get the right messaging, if you can speak back the things that your prospect is needing and telling you, right. That's gonna be your key to getting people to opt in and click and move on and actually trust you.

Like, talking to their pain points and.

Really understanding their really, just really. And, and what I've learned is like, I. I consistently am optimizing my ads, right? So based on. I started off my ads, when I ran them, I started targeting. I think I had like a 500,000 person, like, audience, which is smaller on the, on the, on the scale of. On meta. And my first set of ads flopped. But I had a couple of conversations, and then I just took those conversations and just essentially made new ads speaking right to the things that they were telling me. And then that was when my ads started killing. It was when I just started essentially repeating back to them what they said in a very particular formula.

That's what I was going to say. Because I think the people we see who have really good success versus the people who maybe sometimes don't see success right away is like taking, like you said, taking the sales calls you had and then taking that, and then reiterating the messaging and the pain points on the front end with the ads to make sure it's speaking to those people again. And always refining, refining, refining. And I think, I guess another question I think a lot of people would be asking is like, how important when it comes to, you know, targeting ads, funnels, getting something set up is having a niche, would you say?

I mean, it's been huge for me. I mean, these folks really are like, one of the first questions they always ask me is, do you have experience in this industry? And I say yes. And I can honestly say yes, because I've been in the industry for over six years where most other, you know, folks haven't. Yeah.

And that's kind of the advice I give people as well, is if somebody has the choice between someone who's very specialized in a specific field versus somebody who's not, they're always going to go with the more specialized person. And as far as getting ads to work, I've I, I almost never have people be like, oh, you know, target, we help businesses with video because it's just too broad of a message. When you can target that down into we help this type of industry solve this problem with content, then you get a lot more, you get better CPMs, you get better cost per clicks, you get better lead flow, you get better quality leads just because you're getting people who are opting in, who actually want the thing that you're, you're talking about because you're speaking directly to them.

Absolutely. And I think if you need to start a little more broad, like that's fine. But like always the moment that you have a conversation with a lawyer or an MSP or whoever it is, take that information and make new ads. Right? Take that and just repeat back to them what they're saying to you and those patterns that you're hearing in your conversations with them. And that's how you're going to win it. So at least that's how I've been winning at ads and getting really some killer cost per click in a very highly targeted industry.

And I was going to say, how does it feel because you had never run ads for your business before, right? Before this. How does it feel to kind of have. Because it is for me, when I first did it, I was like, oh my God, I have a volume knob that I can turn and I can just, I can crank this sucker and I can go, I can get as many clients as I want. Like, how does it feel to kind of have that now? And like, how does that, how does that affect things for you?

It feels really nice. It feels a little bit like a security blanket. I mean there's always the, there's always the balance between how much you spend and how much you're bringing in. Like I personally as a video producer, you know, a small, you know, two person shop, can't afford to spend 10 grand every month on ads. The nice thing about this funnel is that you don't have to. Right. Like, and this is, I think that's truth with all ads is that highly targeted creative reduces your ad spend a lot. There's a lot of people out there who will just say no, you just need to throw a bunch of money at. That's not the case. Right. You need to be really intentional with your messaging and that's really what's going to get that cost per lead down. So it's really nice for me to know that I have it. And then, you know, as we continue to build this, it's going to be really amazing to be able to. Okay, we're only spending $500 a month, and I'm getting what I need. When I needed to, I could spend three grand a month on ads. To have more conversations. That's really the biggest things for me is, like, I can turn up and down my conversations. I enjoy having conversations with people and the ability to just be like, okay, I want to have more conversations. Turn it up. Or oh, and, you know, I'm kind of a little struggling to keep up a little bit here and turn it down. That's really cool.

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess, like, kind of a weird question, but I'm sure my ads were just annoying the crap out of you before you joined, but I guess why did you kind of decide to maybe go with this program over maybe some of the other programs? Like, maybe it was nothing, but I guess what kind of went into that decision for you when you ended up making the jump?

Gosh, I have to think about that a little bit farther back. So for me, I mean, one of the big things was I knew. I knew we needed it, and I'm really thankful that we did it at the right time, because we needed this funnel when it actually was running to be able to continue with our business. I knew that I needed it. I knew it was unsustainable the way we were doing things before. We were serving a couple of key clients and. Sure. And I was like, gosh, what happens when these clients scale back or build out an internal team or just decide, hey, we just can't afford you right now? It's like, that is a quick, quick path to, you know, a failed business. Right. I knew that this was the right time. I think it really helped that you guys were doing it with other video producers. You had a lot of other folks who were in the program. And, you know, my wife and I just kind of talked about it and we invested it, and it's. It's great. I mean, it's a great funnel. I'm really happy to have it. And the team has been so great for just listening to me and having conversations with me and helping me to refine the process, refine the ads, just continue, you know, to take. To take the rein, you know, the bull by the horns and make it better, which I'm immensely grateful for.

Well, and I want to give you, obviously, 100% credit, because we're just the vehicle. You're the one who did the work. You're the one who iterated, who took the information, the Coaching and really implemented into your business and got the result right. So I think a lot of people sometimes think it's a magic pill, and it's absolutely not. It's something you have to go in, you have to do the work, you have to. You have to invest in yourself, and you have to. You have to push yourself to that place where you're like, hey, I want to make this work instead of, like, how. Instead of like, will it work for me? Because, like, I think a lot of people can get stuck in that mindset where it's like, you know, will it work versus how can I make it work? And it's just about that adaptation, taking the concepts and really implementing it into the business. At the end of the day, yeah.

I definitely say that that's true. And if you can do that and you can stay consistent, keep engaging, keep communicating, you'll break through. Keep adapting, and you will eventually break through. And you'll. And you'll. You'll. You'll actually get the. The signature on the dotted line.

Let's go. I love it. It's the best feeling.

Yeah.

And last question, I guess if maybe anybody's on the fence about just booking a call, speaking with our team, seeing if it's a good fit, I guess what, what advice would you give them, kind of knowing what you know now?

I would say it's definitely an investment. If you're really committed to growing your business and taking it into a position where you have that dial where you can turn it up and down, it's a great solution. See this as an opportunity to grow yourself as a business owner, as a salesperson, as just a client interactor. Right. And it's going to work for you if you can make the commitment. And the other thing I'll say is these guys have been great. Eric and team have been fantastic. I mean, I am so incredibly grateful to them and how patient they've been with me and, like, helping me to work through everything. I'm just incredibly grateful to them and everything they've done.

Well, I'm excited to see you at multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in deals closed. This is literally just the beginning. And we'll do another one of these case studies when we get there.

Sweet, man. Happy. Happy to. I'll be excited to do it when we do get there.

Let's go.