"I can't wait to scale my business in 2025" 🤨
Eric Deeran and Evan argue filmmakers shouldn't wait until 2025 to scale. They break down the math: two $5k/month retainer clients gets you to $100k/year, which requires about 100 leads at a 20% close rate. They cover retainer structures, free shoots as proof-of-work, and building systems so you work on the business instead of in it.
Chapters
I'm feeling like a brand new me I blew away the clouds I was standing under.
What is going on, everyone? Happy Thursday. What is going on? Today we're going to talk about everyone's favorite concept and everybody's favorite thing to say this time of year, which is, I just want to take a break until 2025. Yeah. Like, and this is something I heard on a podcast the other day. We're going to just start off super. Let's go. So this is just something because I. Dude, like, everyone I know who's successful does not take the holidays off. Right? And. And so let me get my camera fixed real, real quick here, guys. Good. But we're live on Instagram, we're live on Facebook, we're live on YouTube, we're live on all the places. So if you guys are here, drop a comment down below, let us know where you're calling in from, and we'll do some Q and A here as well on, like, how to scale your video business, how to set yourself up for success in 2025. We're going to go through all that, but I want to first start by just talking about some limiting mindsets, limiting beliefs that people have when it comes to scaling, right? So we see people all the time who are like, you know what, Eric? I want to scale my business in 2025. I'm going to get started on January 1st. Right. It's like all the people who go to the gym and are like, man, I'm going to get in shape on January 1st. It's like, I mean, Evan, maybe you want to talk about this, but, like, there's a reason that people drop off by February and, like, look back at this past year, too, and ask yourself, like, like, I'll give you this rule. Like, you can take a break if you ask yourself and be honest with yourself about this year and say, are you truly happy and proud with the way the year went?
Yeah.
Are you truly happy and proud with the way 2024 when.
If that's.
Yes, take a vacation. Absolutely. But I'd say most people are not. Right. Myself included. I think there's always things that could go better, right? I think there's always new levels of growth and by taking an entire month off to be. Be with family, right? Like, you can be with family. You're not going to be with family eight hours a day for 30 days straight. I highly, highly doubt that.
But I would need a vacation from that alone. No, I was gonna say I would need a vacation from that alone.
Right.
So yeah, but yeah, no, I, I totally agree, dude.
Like, it's.
I think people just get complacent on like, when things are going well, right? Or not facing the fact that things aren't going the way that they actually want to and, and putting, you know, whatever energy into whatever excuse that they actually want to, to kind of, you know, make whatever goal it is that they.
Because if you don't look at it, it's not as bad, right?
100.
Look at it. If you don't look at the numbers, if you don't, if you don't look at how the last year went, then it's not as bad. It makes you feel better about yourself or it protects your ego and like, but like, that's not what's going to help you grow, right? And I think a lot of people are stuck in that. Like, I'm going to get started when 2025 starts. It's literally just a day. Like January 1st is literally just a day. Day of the month, right?
Yeah.
Why don't you start today? Why don't you start by growing today? There are businesses that want to spend money before the end of 2024 to get it off their balance sheet to do a tax write off. Right. So like, why don't you start today? And drop a comment down below, guys. Let us know where you're calling in from and any questions you have. We'd love to answer those and answer anything you guys got. But yeah, I mean, Evan, like what? I guess why do you think people try to take the entire month of December off? Like, why do you think they, they do that?
Well, I think we, I think you and I both hear it all the time, even of like, you know, like students in the program. Like, they are. I always get the question is, should I turn my ads off when we get closer to Christmas? And I'm. And my answer is always just no. Right. Because that thing has to be running the entire way through.
Right?
Because if you go away, if you take your face off of, if you take that impression away from somebody, there's somebody else that's going to get inevitably fed in there and that's the person that's working. They're out working you. Right?
They're outstanding for a reason.
Yeah.
It's people. If you take the time off there, your competitors will like, they will be working and they will be taking your clients and they will be like, as, like, I know that sounds really intense, but that's just the truth. Like, if you're not willing to put in the work and do, like, do the hard things. In the time when other people are not, someone else will and they will take your clients and they will, they will be further ahead. Right?
Yeah.
And I mean, what are we going to, what else are you going to do for 30 days? Like, we're not just going to go and sit and like, do nothing and be on our phone. Like, why? What are we gonna do? Come on.
Right. No, I, I agree.
You know, I agree.
You got, you got, you always have to be working or like, you preach all the time, you know, buying the time back to do the next thing. Yeah, right. And, and I saw a Dan Martell reel the other day about his buy your time back book or whatever he was talking about. And he was like, if you buy your time back and then sit around and do nothing, like you're, you didn't, you didn't read. You didn't understand what I was saying in the book.
Yeah, well, and the other side too is like, it's, you know, why don't you focus on putting systems in place so you can Crush it in 2025? Right?
Yeah.
Because if you are slower right now, that's great because now you have the opportunity to actually work on the business as opposed to in it. And most of you guys are working in the business and you're stuck and you're struggling because you're doing all the editing, all the shooting, all the, all the client interfacing. Right. It's like, why don't you start now that you actually have a second to breathe instead of just going back into like worker B mode in January where you're back in, in the trenches again. Why don't you put yourself in a position where you can start to get out of that, start to put SOPs in place, start hiring people, start offloading tasks where you don't have to actually do the work. You can hire a VA or an editor or a shooter or someone like that to actually grow your business. Right. Like 100. I don't think people think about that. It's like, why would you just continue to do the things that you're doing when it's not getting you the result? Like, you can't be busy and broke. I said this in one of my YouTube videos. Like, you cannot be. And if you are busy and broke. Yeah. You're not working on the right things. Right. Yeah. It's like, I could be really busy digging holes in my backyard, but is that going to grow my business? No. But I could be exhausted at the end of an eight, eight or nine hour day digging holes. But that's not going to actually get me closer to my goals. So, like, if you guys look back at 20, 24 and you say I didn't hit the income level that I wanted to hit, it's fundamentally because you're not working on the right things. And I think a lot of people don't want to accept that, but that's the truth.
I would agree.
If you were working on the right things, then you would be growing.
Yeah.
The only things you really need to be working on, leads, marketing, taking calls, closing clients. That's it. And then we hire out all the other stuff. If you guys are live with us, drop a comment down below. Question if you're on Instagram, I'm looking over here. Let's see. Good evening. And comment. Commenting from Nigeria. My question is, is it advisable to take a loan to start off your video business? I can't tell you that you need to take a loan. What I would say is you need to, you need to invest in it. Right. If you really want this to work. Like, people invest in their businesses to make them successful. The notion that people are. That you're just going to like get clients without putting in any work or like grow your business without making investments, like, it's crazy. So, like, I would say if you're really serious about it, yes, you should take out a loan to just start off your video business.
That's what I did.
That's what Evan did. I mean, I put my stuff on.
I've gotten another job in the last four years because it's like I'm. Yep. I figured it out and I know how to, I know how to navigate the water.
Yep.
Yeah.
It's like if you're. And that's just. I think that's what kind of pisses me off sometimes, man, is like, people think that you can get to these levels of growth without investing in yourself and investing in learning new things from people ahead of you. And it doesn't matter if you join our program or someone else's. It really doesn't. But like the fact that you think you can get further ahead without putting in either time money, both blood, sweat and tears, like, you're just not going to get there.
Right.
And like, if you have an ego about it and think you know everything, then great, like, keep doing what you're doing, but it's obviously not working.
Right. Yeah. Yep.
So like, I just, that's just what kind of pisses me off sometimes when it's like, I see people who are, like, they have an ego about it, but they're also not where they want to be. It's like, you can't be broke and have an ego. Like, it just doesn't work. Just not how it works. Like. Like, if you're. If you're perfectly fine with where you're at, more power to you.
That's great.
But, like, most people are not.
Yeah.
You know, that's just what I said. Talks about that a lot is leaving your ego at the door. Yeah. Like, it doesn't serve anybody. Like, I. There is a ton of shit. I don't know. There's a ton of stuff I want to learn. There's people doing $100 million a year. I want to get to that point.
Right.
Like, I'm not going to have an ego about it when the person I'm learning from knows more than me. Like, it makes no sense. What are we doing here? And I think a lot of people like creatives especially, and I'm picking on you guys for a second. Like, some of you guys think you know everything and you don't. And you need help. And, like, everyone needs help. I need help. Like, everyone needs help based on where you're at. But, like, the longer. The quicker you can drop the ego, the quicker you can actually get the help that you need and take the steps that you need to get to get there. Right. What do you see block people a lot, Evan?
I think it's. I mean, if I could sum it up into, like, a simplified word, I think it's like the fear of making a decision or taking an action simply just because they can't foresee the outcome. And it's the, you know, it's the. I. I can't see the far thing in front of me, but, you know, even for some people, it's like, I can't even see, like, the next step.
Right.
And, and, and when you join, you know, things like master filmmaker or getting another code, whatever it is, you have to understand that you did that for a reason. And if you're not sure if what they're telling you is the right thing, then you might need to obviously recalibrate what maybe decisions you made. But they're.
They're. The other side is like, you don't know. If you thought that was the right move, you would have made it already, and you would have already been true.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it's like we're giving you guys advice for a reason because we've done it 500 times and we've seen other people do it and we know it works. And like, when people question it or try not to take the advice or try to, like, manipulate it or not do the work that we tell them to do, then, like, that's why they don't always get the results that they want. Right. It's like, if you, if it doesn't make sense just yet, it will make sense once you take the action. But the reason we're telling you to do something is because we can see the actual consumer constraint of your business and what's actually holding you back. And I think a lot of people don't realize it's like, if it's like somebody who's like editing and shooting all the time, and they're like, my business won't scale past 5k a month. And then we ask them, like, how many leads are you generating? How many calls are you taking? And they're like, I maybe take one call a month. It's like, well, no shit, we need to get more leads and more calls. Like, yeah, but they're like, oh, but I don't like doing that.
Yeah, no, I get it.
Okay, but then don't grow the business.
Like, yep. I can't tell you how many of those DMS I get of people who are just like, oh, that sounds like boring, or I don't want to do that. And I'm like, okay, then go get a job. You don't really want it.
Yeah, go work for someone else and get a job. Like, if all you want to do is shoot and edit, that's fine. You should be a videographer or an editor for another company.
That's just.
That's just is what it is.
I'm not just knowing make a potentially more than kind of what that market cap.
Yeah.
Is or that, that skill set.
Yep. You have to do the marketing, sales. Those are the two biggest important functions of a business. Like, if you were not doing those things, you were not. You're not generating new leads and generating new calls, then there's literally no way you're going to make more money because you're not having more conversations with people who want to work with you. Right.
Yeah.
And if you're tired of cold DMing and, and relying on referrals and doing like, you know, partners with other agencies and all these things that, like, they work, but they aren't scalable. Like, those are good things on the back end. Then you need to put an inbound system in place to where you have, like, leads coming in every single month and leads coming in and calls and obviously those turning into bookings on your calendar. Right. I see you guys on Instagram. What questions do you have around scaling your video business? What is. Let's drop some numbers down below. What do you guys want to get to in 2025? Like how much money do you want to make in 2025 in your video business? Drop a comment down below, let us know. Away for some comments here. If you guys are on Instagram, let us know. How much money do you want to make in 2025? I'm gonna wait till we get some comments here. Let's see how much money do you want to make in 2025 and what do you feel like is holding you back? Let's see. 200k in 2025. 400k, 500k. Nice. Okay, cool. If you're on YouTube, drop some comments down below as well. How much money do you want to make in 2025? And I want to see where you guys are at, what you want to do. But I mean that's fundamentally the biggest thing is like starting in the new year is not going to get you there. Putting yourself in a place where you can actually take the action steps now because there is going to be a lag period of where you are to where you want to be. So it's like it's going to take, you're typically not going to see, there's like a 30 day rule. You're not going to see the fruits of your labor for marketing until about 30 days in to actually like launching the campaign. So like if you start now, then January 5th you're going to start seeing the fruits of that labor or estimated around that point. Right. It's December 5th. So like if you wait till January, then it's going to be February. If you wait till February, it's going to be March and then so on and so forth. And then like people fall into the same habits over and over and over again and they just say, hey, I'm going to start in, in January. And then they end up in the same space that they are right now.
Yep, 100%.
So let's look at some comments here. Half a mil would be awesome. Absolutely, Felix. 100%. 100K. I love it. Sweet. We got 50K over here. 2025. And then what I want you guys to do as well, like as a, as a thought exercise, right. So like Cameron here, like if you want to make 100k, actually reverse engineer the numbers, like actually do the math because if there's anything I've learned scaling my business and other people's businesses, it's just a math game. Like how many leads do you need? How many calls do you need? How many clients do you need? So number one, figure out what do you want to charge? Do you want to charge retainers? If that's the case, let's just use 5k a month retainers, right? So let's do some math here. 5k a month. Let's say you get 5k a month retainers and you want to make 100k. I think that's. Is that a year, Cameron, or is that monthly? Drop a comment down below because I'll do the math for either one. Let's see. So I'm gonna assume it's a year. So you literally need two clients paying you 5k a month every single month for 20, 25 to make a hundred k. So let's do 5k times two. That's 10k a month.
Yep.
$10,000 a month times 12, that's 120k a year.
Yep.
So Cameron, that's knowing that if you know that you need two clients paying you $5,000 a month. Sorry guys, my camera's buzzing out here. If you know you need two clients paying you 5k a month, you then it's how do you get two clients paying you 5k a Month? Well, to get two clients, I probably need to take maybe 10 sales calls because I close 20%. So then how do I get 10 sales calls? Well, to get 10 sales calls, I probably need about a hundred leads. Okay, great. So then if I need 100 leads, how do I get a hundred leads? Well, I could run ads, I could call people, I could dm, I could reach out, right? There's a lot of things I can do to get, get to a hundred leads, but then at a hundred leads, like let's say you pay for them, right? So let's say you pay, I don't know, 20 bucks a lead. So 20 times a hundred, that's $2,000 you pay for in leads to make a hundred thousand dollars a year, right there, simple math. And then Felix, for you, right, Half a million, it's 500,000. And this is where, like, don't get into like, I hope I, I hit this. Actually do the math and reverse engineer the actions you need to take today to get there. So if you want to hit half a million, same thing, right? So it's like, it's, it's. How many leads do I need? How much do I Want to charge how many calls is it going to take me to get there and then just reverse engineering that. Evan, Ethan, maybe you guys want to talk about that? I'm not going to ramble for too long. Yeah, no, I was going to say, yeah. 500 a year. Put you. I guess we're using the number of 5,000amonth. That's. What is that monthly? Let's do the math. 500k a year divided by 12 is going to be $41,000 a month divided by 5k, it's 8 clients. Penny, 5k. You need 8 clients paying you a month.
That's it. Yeah.
And when you break it down, it doesn't seem as crazy. You just have to pay more and have less clients. Yeah. Or you could do 10k a month and you need four clients.
That's it.
Right. So then it's just like, I think a lot of times people don't take enough action. They don't realize how many roadblocks are going to be in their way. They don't take enough action to where they actually get that amount of volume.
Right.
Because you need volume to be successful. Like you need to if you want to get a hunt. Like if you want to get two clients, you need to get 100 leads. And if you know that's the math, but then you only reach out to 10 people the entire year, you're like, shoot man, I'm not at 100k a year. It's like, well, no shit. And of course you're not because you literally didn't have enough leads. Right. So I think knowing the math is a very freeing thing for people because they can actually understand what that looks like. Evan, any thoughts you have on like people who are stuck in the one off game trying to get into retainers and why would they want to go into that versus just doing like big one off.
In terms of like why they're stuck there?
Well, for people who are like, I'm doing a lot of one offs, I've never done retainers before.
I think they don't, they don't understand the retainer model and how it's, you know, value based based on the problems that you solve there. People that, that I see that are doing one off stuff is, it's very much the, the waiter at the restaurant analogy.
Yeah, right.
It's people who are approaching them, they're, they're pitching a price and some people are okay at pitching high, you know, one off price packages but, or I can't say packages but, you know, one off you know, one off pricing and, and some of those people do okay in that realm, but it's not a consistent thing and it's very ebb and flow.
Yeah.
Which is why they, a lot of people are intrigued by their retainer model. I think they just don't understand how to really craft the offer that is the retainer.
Yeah. Well, let's just ask yourself, how can I be valuable to a business every single month?
Yeah.
How do I provide value to a business every month? What do they need? Well, they probably need a certain amount of videos. They probably need some content to do this every month. Right. Whatever their problems may be, how can we just split it up? So we're creating content for them every month and they pay us every month because if I can get one client and then they pay me for two years, I'd much rather do that than get one client who pays me once and I have to keep resetting and getting a new client every single time. So like that's the whole purpose of the model. Let's see. Caleb Knight. I'm building, building a production company. Sorry Ethan, I just completely blocked you out down there. Sorry Ethan, you're gone. It's just your hat. Just rep the brand. I'm building a production company, working with businesses and non profits to grow my portfolio. I'm offering free shoots for local businesses. Would you recommend other strategies for starting out? So Caleb, couple things there and I'll have Evan and Ethan chime in a little bit. You have the right idea with the free shoots.
Right.
If you don't have any clients and you have no proof that you are who you say you are, 100 you want to do a free shoot. But where a lot of people go wrong is they're doing a free shoot and they don't actually know what type of content to shoot for the business that's going to get them a result. And so you need to be shooting content like case studies or short form content with, with CTAs at the end of them. So then you can actually get them a result with that free video. And then you can get a case study with the client talking about the result. And now instead of a portfolio, you have a collection of case studies of other people that you've helped grow. And those are far, far more valuable than like, look at this pretty thing I shot for this business down the street. Like I would much rather care about how you helped, you know, a home service company, 3x their lead flow using this specific one type of video. Right. That's Going to get you a lot more sales because it's a lot easier to show the actual ROI of the packages that you have. Evan, Ethan, anything else you'd add to that?
Other. We may have mentioned this before, but if you're gonna offer free stuff, make sure they're capable of actually paying you the high ticket retainer that you're trying to get out of it. If not, you're just wasting your time with people who have no money.
Yeah, yeah. Don't shoot for broke people or broke businesses. Yeah. So hopefully that helps. Caleb, Instagram william harris.info I've always done one offs and hoping to get into retainers. In your example of a client on a 5k a month retainer, how would that work? How much work will you do or what should you do for that said client? So it's going to depend. Right. But Evan, maybe you want to talk about like what would go into a 5k retainer?
Just.
I know it's very, very.
Yeah, no, that's very. It's kind of a loaded question. But it honestly depends on the strategy that you're running. Right. So like you mentioned a series of, you know, short form content that runs organically. Maybe that's coupled with you know, a few pieces of content that are ran as ads. Right. And then those are put up and out and then you can offer stack from there in terms of, you know, like a brand film or maybe a, like a FAQ videos or something like that to kind of bolster the package a little bit more. But it really honestly just depends on the again the results that, that, that they're trying to achieve. Right. So if it's clarity around the websites then FAQ videos might be a big part of that. If it's, if it's leads, you know, the ads might be a part of that. If it's you know, making their social profiles, you know, bolstering that micro content might be more of the, of the main piece of it. It just kind of depends. So it's kind of a hard question to answer but again, just think about the result that you're trying to get, the problem that you're trying to solve and then just reverse engineer that through the types of types of video content that you're releasing.
For sure. And we have example packages as well. William27 video retainer so if you just DM US retainer, my automation should send that over to you and that'd give you an example of some packages. But we work with our clients one on one to actually Build out packages that are going to make sense based on what you want to offer your client. Right. But the whole idea is we have deliverables in there that we're delivering every month, so they continue to pay us every single month. It's kind of like them paying a full time person, but you're not full time.
Right.
They're. They're contracting you as a company to work with them over and over and over again so you get consistent revenue. So Caleb says that absolutely helps. Thank you. Absolutely. You got it, Felix. Going to pitch my first retainer next month using the MF template. Felix, we love you. You're an awesome client. We're excited to help you crush it.
Dude.
It's going to be great. We'll get the, the Legion set up as well. So you have consistent calls and consistent leads coming in, which is gonna be great. Sweet. Let's see that. Thanks for the answer, fellas. I'm certain I'll certainly reach out for that info. For sure. Absolutely. You got it. Any other questions, guys, before we have to run in like 2 minutes here? Theme of this call is just don't wait till 2025, guys. If you want to grow your business, you can make the decision today to grow your business. You don't have to wait and, like, just be smart with your time. Just be smart with your time. Time block. Right? So I. I do that every single day. I time block exactly what I'm going to be doing at every single hour of every single day so you can get it done. Right. And like, people who are not. Not where they want to be typically are just, like, winging it every single day. They don't have an actual, like, schedule that they're set to. And I used to do that too. And I was like, me too. What do I do every day? I'm just kind of do what I feel like, right? Because, like. But business is not based on what you feel like. It's. It's based on what is required.
The worst question you can always ask yourself as a business owner or somebody transitioning as a business owner is, what should I be doing right now? If you find yourself asking yourself that, then that means you're not taking the proper, necessary precautionary steps to know what you need to be doing. And that just goes into the planning aspect and all of that.
Yeah. And the worst thing is not knowing what to do and working on the wrong thing for the entire next year. Because you work on the wrong thing for the entire entirety of 2025. You're going to be in the exact same spot you're in right now, but you're just going to be more tired. Yep.
100.
Cool. All right, guys, last call for questions before we wrap up here. Let's see. Going once and twice. Hold on. Agree with all the points you guys are covering? Absolutely. Felix. You got it. Winners take action and they make decisions quickly. Losers do not. I'm not calling anybody a loser, but I am saying that people who are not as successful as they want, they go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and they don't make a decision either. So don't be that person. Also, if you want our help scaling your video business, you can go. It should be a link down below if you're on YouTube to book a call with our team. If you're on Instagram, either just DM me the word info or go to the link in our bio. So either DM me the word info or go to the link in our bio and we can help you guys out. So with that being said, we will see you guys in the next one. And everybody have a good weekend. We'll see you next Thursday. Peace out. Peace.
If life is what you make it I'mma celebrate it I'm feeling like a brand new me for the very first time I'm never I meant to be I'mma tell everybody I'm feeling like a brand new me Brand new, brand new Cloud 9 I just took a little visit and the old me didn't know what I was missing Seeing so clear got that 2020 vision it was in me all along All I had to do was listen to that heartbeat down the side of my chest the little voice in the back of my head saying one day you'll be living the dream you'll see.
