Live Q&A - How To Get More Clients As A Video Agency - Master Filmmaker

There ain't nothing like this right here Got me see things crystal clear so high I can find the moments gonna spill There's a fire underneath my feet Got me rolling like a river deep Let it flow cause I know that my soul lift me up Got your thing coming and it's all I need Everything I want it's in front of me Stuck it up and I'm down Sun is shining over me I got a good ain't coming Just wait and see It's a good good. Sara. When you see it gonna make you good page is gonna if you know what I mean. Got a good day coming and it's all I need Everything I want is in front of me sun is shining over me I got a good thing coming Just wait and see it's a good. Sleep so high I can feel my feet Got me rolling like a river deep Let it flow cuz I know my soul. Of me sun is shining over me I got a good thing coming See it's a good good. Sure if you know what I mean when you see it going to make you believe. It. Foreign.

What is going on guys? Welcome back to another live. We are a bit earlier today had a quick change in travel plans so apologize for the movement here. I got Ethan here. What's going on, Ethan?

How we doing?

I'm good man. How's your week been so far?

It's good. I got my coffee. We're ready to roll.

Yeah, dude, this is earlier than we're used to over here. So we're like we're. We're still waking up over here. What's going on guys? I see some people on the live here. If you have any questions, drop a comment down below and we are happy to answer them. But while we wait on that we're gonna go over some wins and pull up these wins from this week. We got Randall with a 24k documentary shoot it looks like for an Austin based production company. 3 days work, 24k which is awesome to see. We got Julian, I just recorded a case study with him. 216k added to his video business. We got Ben over here, closed a 44k deal paid in full in 30 days. And then we got Kyle over here with. He added 50k to his video business. So some super awesome wins. If you guys have wins, drop them down below. We would love to see them. And drop any questions you have down below. We know you're on the live so don't be shy. Drop those down below and we are happy to answer those Questions. But Ethan, what. Let's, let's just talk. Like, what, what kind of things are coming up for clients and for you? And like, what are some things you're working on with clients right now? What are you guys working through?

Let's see, yesterday we were going over some outbound, you know, just messaging.

You.

Know, keeping it simple, trying to, you know, the first gate, like, you know, we say it all the time. Don't, don't propose on the first date. Yeah. And just keep it, keep it simple. You know, don't need to over complicate it.

Yeah, that's good. Because what I think a lot of people do is like, because a lot of video business owners will try to run ads to get clients, but it doesn't work and they don't know why it doesn't work. And one of the reasons it doesn't work is really because they're, they're trying to marry somebody on the first date. So that's one of the reasons that it's not like, it's not converting, they're not getting leads. Whereas what you really want to have is some sort of lead magnet or some sort of something that you can offer them that shows the value that you provide, whether it's a lead magnet, a vsl, something like that, to where you can show them the value of what it is that you're offering. So then you can get the lead and then turn that lead into someone who is interested in booking a call and then that call into somebody who's interested in then working with you. And I think a big mistake, kind of piggybacking off of what you said is like people try to get people to just buy from them in the ad, whereas you just want to sell the next step in the process. You don't want to just, you don't want to sell like on the ad, you don't want to sell them working with you as a client in the ad. You just want to sell them on clicking the ad, right, or clicking the promo or whatever it is. And then once they click, they get to a page that page is selling them on, entering their information, right? And then that next page where there's usually a vsl, value, video, whatever, and then a calendar to book a call, that's then selling them on, just booking a call. And then on the call, you're selling them on actually getting on a call with you and then obviously moving forward on the service. But you're only selling that next step as opposed to selling like in the ad, selling them Becoming a client. Right. And so you want to. I think that's a really big distinction a lot of people struggle with is like they, they think that if they just run an ad, it's going to get them a client where you have to have just selling the next step in the process. You know what I mean?

Yep. Well, it's only 30 to 60 seconds that they've seen you or heard anything about you.

Right. And so there's different categories, which everyone knows this, I'm sure, but it's like there's top of funnel and there's middle funnel, there's bottom of funnel. And I was talking to one of our clients about this the other day, and it's like he was running a case study ad or he was running a case study as a top of funnel ad. And he was like, why is it not converting? Why is this not working? And it was because the biggest thing that we have is like the biggest issue he was having was that he basically was running a bottom of funnel ad on a top of funnel placement. And so he was running something that really should have just been converting at middle funnel, bottom funnel, and he was trying to run that as an ad. To your point, it's like these people don't know who you are, so you have to run the right type of ad to get them interested in working with you and your video business. And so typically that ad is going to be calling out some pain points and we have a whole structure of that in the actual program that we give to our clients. But you can't just run like. Another common thing is like, you can't run a case study, but you also can't run like just your portfolio. Like we've had, we've had people come in thinking like, oh, I can just run, you know, my reel. My reel as an ad doesn't work because people don't care about that. We're selling results, we're solving problems. We are not just creating content for the sake of creating content. So that's why running a reel as an ad doesn't work, you know?

Yep. 100.

Yeah. And then that's, that's one of the biggest things with this. Let's see, see if we have any comments here. A couple questions I'm getting over on Facebook. Someone just asked, why go after big companies or why not go after big companies instead of small companies? This is a really good one. So a lot of people want to go after the big sexy Fortune 500 brands, like those types of companies. The problem is, is that can work, but the problem is, is like you have to wait a long time. There's a long sales cycle, takes forever to get the deal done. Yes, those are typically larger projects and larger budgets, but the problem is, is that it takes forever to get them done. There's a ton of decision makers. There's. It's more boardroom sales, which takes a lot longer as opposed to just working with small to medium sized businesses to where that can fill in your revenue gaps. And I know you worked with Ben on this to help him close that 44k deal that we talked about in.

The, what I was also going to mention yesterday, we had kind of a similar call review that we went through where it was a larger, larger company. And you know, there's just so many decision makers and hoops and red tape that you have to go through.

Yeah, the.

So Jay, one of our clients, he was on a call with the marketing manager and basically the marketing manager told him that the owner or, you know, whoever was next in line wouldn't get on a call without a proposal.

Okay, got it.

Sometimes.

So this was a larger, this was a larger company.

Yeah, yeah. There's like a, you know, a president, a CEO, marketing teams, a C suite.

And like you can close deals with those types of companies, but we prefer establishing a baseline of like 20, 30, 40, 50k a month in revenue with just small to medium sized businesses. Because they're paying you typically anywhere between like, you know, 2K to 10K a month. They're paying you consistently. And then like if you want to hit 50k, if your retainer is 10k, you just need five small to medium sized business clients paying you 10k a month. Right. And they're consistent. There's typically one to two decision makers. There's not like a whole marketing team. There's not a ton of hoops to jump through. And it's a lot easier to then close those deals because you don't have to continuously jump through those hoops. You can get the deal done, get the cash in the bank account, start funding the business and not have to worry about, you know, these big up and down months where like you need to wait six months to close a deal with somebody. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

It's huge. And so like, let's see if I have anything else on Facebook. We got. Greetings. What is going on? Top Row Studios. If you have any questions, let us know. Put them in the chat here. Risar. Yeah, so that, that's a different module. That's a Different, a, A different portal. So if you have any questions, ping us in Slack. Your, your account manager will help you with that. But that should be kajabi. So that is going to be in your, in your program there. Let's see, Any other questions? See if I have anything over here. Let's see. High ticket. Why should I charge higher ticket rather than lower ticket? Great question. So what we want to do is like, I see a lot of people charging a thousand, $2,000 a video. And the problem with that is if you just do the math, it's really difficult to get to the goals that you want to get to. Right. So if you want to hit 50k a month and you're charging a thousand dollars a client, you're going to need 50 clients to get to 50k a month, which sounds absolutely terrible, dude. Like, and typically they're bad clients. Right. Like, can you talk about that a little bit, Ethan? Like, why. Why are lower ticket clients worse than higher ticket clients?

Yeah, a lot of them. You know, it's just the, you know, a lot of people here have probably gone through it as well, where, you know, like nitpicking revisions or want it back the next day and just really, just like not letting you be the expert.

Yeah. At the craft.

And you know, they want to see.

More as a, they want to see more as a freelancer. Contractor, right?

Yep, yep. Yeah, exactly. Versus people who pay you five, ten grand a month, hands off, let you do your thing.

They're paying for your expertise, right?

Yeah, Yep, exactly.

And I think that's a big mindset shift a lot of people need to switch over into is like, you are not. You are the doctor, you are the person who prescribes a solution. You are not the person who just takes order. Like, think of a waiter versus a doctor. A waiter takes your order. A doctor is somebody who's going to actually prescribe, understand the problem and prescribe the right solution. Like, you wouldn't tell the doctor what surgery you want. Right. I know we always go back to the Dr. Analogies, but it's like you wouldn't tell the doctor what surgery you want. They would laugh at you. They'd be like, no, that's not what we do. And so like a lot of content agencies, video business owners, and like video production companies are just like taking orders from their clients instead of actually prescribing the right solution for the problem, you know?

Yep. Yep. Well, that's why we have the diagnosis part in the sales process of the sales.

And if you haven't watched that. Go back to one of our other lives. We break down the entire sales process completely for free. It's what we've used to close over 5 million in video deals. So definitely go back and look through that. But yeah, 100. It's like you have to, you have to become the person who is going to diagnose the problem, not the person who just takes orders because then they don't look at you in the same light. Drop some questions down below, guys. We're happy to answer them. I'm pulling some up from Facebook here. Let's see. I know we're on YouTube as well. So if you have any questions on YouTube, drop those down below. And we are happy to answer those. I have a hard cut off in about 15 minutes. I gotta, gotta get out of here. I'm traveling but I'm happy to answer anything before then. Let's see, Let's see, let's see, let's see. Why not shoot weddings and music videos? I like shooting those, but I am hesitant to start shooting businesses. Yeah, that's a good question for that one. Like we rather target businesses because they have the money to pay you and it's a make money outcome for them. So like if I'm going to target a business and create content for them on a monthly basis for anywhere between 2 and 10k, like I'm going to help them make more money and so they're going to keep paying me if I do my job correctly. Whereas like with weddings you only shoot those once. You also have to work weekends a ton, which I absolutely hate working weekends. And like if you miss a shot, like I'm sure we've all been there. Like I've shot a lot of weddings in the past too. It's like you miss a shot, you're done, dude. Like you are absolutely done. And it's just really tough to. It's tough to recover from that. And then with like music videos. Music videos are cool, but the problem is, is that target market, you're not making the money. So it's hard for them to have a higher budget. You know what I mean? Like, what have you seen? Because you've worked with a lot of our clients, like 400 of them. Ethan, like what, what are some of the things you see the people who come from the music video space, like what are some of the things they struggle with?

I would say biggest thing is charging more is definitely because they're just used to, you know, one even just like the mindset of, you know, being an Order taker too right to them, hey, I want a music video. I want it to look like this. Much different than, you know, diagnosing a business's problems as well. And like you were talking about, there's nothing as big of a make money outcome. Kind of same thing with weddings as well. I say with weddings as well. It's depending on where you live. Weddings aren't all year round either.

No, it's. There's a season for it for sure. And so with businesses you can really establish that baseline of revenue every single month and you don't have to worry about where that next paycheck or bill is coming from. And that's where a lot of our clients will use it to like cover the overhead, cover the payroll, 20, 30, 40, 50K a month in content retainers. And then if you want to do those larger projects, you can, if you want to do the passion projects, you can. Like you're building an actual business. And like we're not trying to build necessarily a, like we're not trying to build an artsy business. We're trying to build a business that makes us money. So then we have the freedom to create the art and create the things that we want to create at the end of the day. And I think that's where people kind of get it mixed up sometimes. It's like we are here to provide a result to our clients and the business doesn't care about the art sometimes like it cares about the results you get for the clients. And that's the biggest thing. Let's see here. Is it better to pitch services as social media management or commercial video creation? I have a couple social media men. Yeah, so like we want to do, we don't want to do social media management because like you said, it's only 300 bucks a month. Our typical clients are charging anywhere between 2510k per month. I've seen clients even charge as much as 15k a month. I know Matthew ended up closing that 15k a month a couple months ago with one of his clients. And that was like a year long contract. So that was like, it was like $169,000 for a year. This was like 15k a month. So like I've seen them as high as that. What you don't want to do is just pitch it as social media management because it's not seen as valuable. What you do want to do is say it's a hybrid. So you'd want to say like, hey, this is a, a content retainer is what we like to call it. And so the content retainer is where you're going to create the content. Maybe you will also post it for them, depending on what you're, what you're, you're wanting to do. Some of our clients post it for their clients and some of them don't. But like you want to, you want to call it something different. Like a content retainer is usually what our clients call it. And then you charge anywhere between 2510k per month for that. And that's where you're creating the content and maybe also distributing the content for them as well. Let me know if that makes sense. Top Row Studios. And let me know if you have any other questions on this as well. I see some other people on the Live. Guys, don't be shy. Drop some questions. Drop them down below. Yeah, content retainer does sound better. Absolutely. Yeah. So we just want to, we want to call it more of a content retainer because then it provides more value to them and they can't put it in the same category because when you say like social media management, they have a connotation in their brain around like, oh, that's 300 bucks a month. So if you say social media management and then you try to pitch 2k a month, they're not going to do it. It's going to be really difficult. So cool. Let's see what other questions we have. Guys, I got 10 minutes here. Let's pull some up. Let's see what are some other things you're working through this week and last week, Ethan, on your end.

Oh, biggest things. Let's see. Yesterday we went through some financial objections. We went like through the, the business partner objection like I was telling you about with the, the company with all the red tape.

And what kind of financial objections were people getting?

So it was with Juan who joined about, about a month ago.

Oh, he's the one. Yeah, he got those case studies, I remember. Yeah.

And he does a lot of drone content. He was the one that got, what was it, like 11 million views on a video content.

Yeah, he does those FPV fly through videos for real estate agents. We just updated his pricing. So he's doing, I think he's doing somewhere around. We upped his prices to like 10k to 20k for his average package. But what was, what kind of financial advice objections was he getting?

So it was more so not like he didn't have the money. It was more so of a kind of logistical money issue. Like, hey, I just Paid my rent, just pay my bills, you know, I'll get paid in a couple weeks here, can we just do it then? And so instead of kind of letting him slip out and drift into the abyss, he did a good job of getting a deposit to, you know, get some form of commitment. On the call. It was only 100 bucks, but still transformation.

Yeah, so like, if you guys have a client who's like, hey, dude, I wanna, I wanna move forward on this. I 1000% want to do this. We do what we call a deposit close, which we have a full outline of that in our program and what we teach our clients, but we do what we call a deposit close. And essentially what we do there is. Well, if they want to move forward, we isolate it. We say, hey, is there anything else like that might be holding you back from doing this? No, I 1000% want to do it. I'm just worried about X. And if it's a logistical thing, what we do is we take down a deposit to get some form of commitment and then we schedule that calendar commitment. If there's no other way to get the deal done on the call. That way you have some form of commitment and then you're able to get them, get them on later as opposed to just being like, okay, cool, I'll take your word for it. And then we'll, you know, we'll reconvene then. Let's see. Bear, Wade, what's going on? Bear just popped on. How can I generate leads for ongoing video retainers? Yeah, so you'd want to use something like an inbound system. We have some videos on it on the channel for free that you can check out. But typically you'd want to run some, some sort of ad is what we do. And then we'll, we'll craft the ad, build out that ad, build an offer into the ad, and then have them click a link, enter their information, they go into our CRM, then they book a call with us, and then on the call we have a full sales process which if you want to go to one of our other videos, we have a, a breakdown, like a 30,000 foot view of our sales process on one of our other lives a couple days back or a couple weeks back. And then from there you just take a certain amount of calls. Let's say you take 10 calls, you close three of them on content retainers, and then you just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, and that becomes a machine as opposed to relying on referrals. Word of Mouth cold calls, which are super inconsistent. We have a machine where they are seeing some sort of ad on Meta, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google. We're targeting small to medium sized businesses. They're then clicking on that ad that's crafted within like a script that we give our clients. And then they end, they end up going into our system. Name, email, phone number, we grab their lead information, they go into a CRM, they get a bunch of follow up emails to nurture them if they don't book a call right away, but then a percentage of those people will book a call right away and then we end up taking the call and then a percentage of those calls end up closing on a content retainer. So I know that was a lot, but we have videos on the channel that breaks that down. If you have any questions on that, let me know. But that's like the 30,000 foot view. Not to just go like psycho too in depth with you, but like that's how we do it. So that's a lot of our clients and the 415 clients that we've had so far that they're using a system like that. So yeah, absolutely, dude, you got it. If you have anything else on that or any questions or follow up questions, let me know. Happy to answer them. Let's see, what do we have on Facebook here? I'm like, I'm like rapid firing these questions, dude. I'm like, I'm looking at the time, trying to, I gotta, I gotta run to the airport in like literally 10 minutes. So I'm, I'm trying to, trying to get through these. Let's see, when is the best time to get a case study? That's a really good question. Okay, so I talked to one of our clients about this the other day, but when is the best time to get a case study? A lot. Number one, most video business owners are not getting case studies. So if you're not getting case studies, Ethan's shaking his head over there. He's like, what, what are you guys doing out here, man?

A lot of people have light bulb moments in terms of what their content does.

It's funny because like we know this because we've been doing it for so long. But like if you guys are not getting case studies, like as a video agency, as a video business owner, you are getting results for your clients. Like if you're not getting case studies with them, then like what are we doing? Right? Because like every client you've worked with, I promise you got some sort of result after working with You. And so we want to highlight that result. So if you have clients, go back to them and say, hey, I'd love to talk about like what result we got from the content that we created for you. And then from there they'll typically say, hey, we got X, Y, Z result. And then if you go to one of my YouTube videos, I have one on case studies and I give you the case study script as well. You can just check that out and you can go back and get a case study with your clients and then turn those into assets that make you money. Because like, if clients are going to come and work with you, they're going to want to see the other types of results that you were able to get for your clients. And so if you're not getting those, get the case studies. That's number one. Number two is the best time to get the case studies when they are the most excited about the result. So like if you come in and you get an amazing result for them, they go up this peak, they get super excited. You want to get that case study right then and there. So you knock that out, you say, hey, I'd love to highlight you as a client. When can we talk? Like when can we do a client highlight? You get that case study at the peak. The problem is is most people wait until they get back down because once somebody gets a result, they have a high and then they start to flow back down to the bottom. You want to get that case study at the top, not at the bottom, and you want to make sure you get it up there. So hopefully that answers your question for the people on Facebook here. I'll check out your other videos. Absolutely. Yeah. Bear, if you have anything else, let me know. Let's see what else, what else, what else, what else?

Testimonials also give you a lot of leverage on the sales process as well.

Yes. Because if I'm going you as a video agency owner and there's two video businesses, right? One of them has a ton of results for their clients and a ton of case studies. Let's say they have a hundred case studies and the other one doesn't have any case studies, they just have beautiful looking work. Which one are we going to go with? Yep, the one that has the case studies because everybody who's hiring you, they're hiring you because they have a perceived likelihood that you're going to get them a result, right. They, they think you can get them some sort of result. And the more people that look like them that you can document in a Case study that got a result, the easier it's going to be to close them. Like, the. And the higher you can charge, too. Like, people don't understand this. Like, you could charge literally way more simply because you have a bunch of case studies. Right. Which is huge. What else, guys? What other questions do we have here? Let's see. Anything else that comes to mind on those, Ethan, as far as case studies.

No.

Yeah, just.

Yeah, it gives you a lot of leverage in the sales. Sales process, you know, making sure that they check them out before you hop on the call.

Prior to the sales call.

Yeah, prior to the call. And especially if you have, like, metrics and numbers as well.

Go over.

And one thing I tell our clients to do as well is send the questions before the case study, because they may not know these numbers off the top of their head, and then that puts you at a disadvantage.

Yeah, well, and another little ninja hack to case studies as well is you want to. You like, for the headline and for the intro, you want to have how we got client result in time frame. So you want to have result in time frame. So, hey, here's how we helped this client get. Like, with Juan, it was. I helped him craft this on the coaching call yesterday, the private coaching call, but it was like how we helped this realtor get 12 million views in two days, which is actually what he did. Right. So when I say 12 million. Excuse me, 12 million views in two days, that gives you a time frame instead of just saying, like, 12 million views. And, like, how long was that time frame? Well, I don't know. Right. But when I say 12 million views in two days, that gives me a specific time frame. And then other realtors or other businesses that want 12 million views in two days, they're going to watch that and say, hey, that could happen for me as well, you know. Let's see. What other questions do we have, guys? We got some good ones today. Let me go over to Facebook here. And then we gotta wrap it up here. I'm gonna be late for my flight. Let's see. How do you not get overwhelmed in business with all the things that you need to do? That's a good question. So we want to focus on what we call the constraints of the business. And so what a lot of people do is they get really busy doing stuff that doesn't matter. And, like, I'm pretty blunt. I'm pretty blunt as, like, a coach, and Ethan is too. So, like, we're just going to tell it to you how it is. But what A lot of people do is they focus on their fancy portfolios and, like, how good their reel looks and how good their content looks. And they don't focus on the results they're getting for the clients. But they also don't look at, like, what is the actual constraint of the business. Because if you think of business as like a pipe, right? You will make money when you have, like, when water can flow through the pipe, right? So your business is a pipe. You will make money when it can flow through. But, like, what happens is in this pipe, you have blockages at different stages. And so, like, the block up here might be you don't have any leads. The block down here is you have leads, but you don't have sales calls. The block down here is you have clients, but you're not charging enough. And so the, the, the reason, and not to, like, toot our horn, but just the reason that a lot of people should get help in general is so you can have somebody looking at the constraint of the business from the outside and say, like, hey, this is actually what's going on. Because a lot of people will spend a ton of time working on the wrong thing. And it's like, if, if your constraint is getting more leads, then, like, you need to focus on getting more leads. You don't need to make your portfolio better, because is your portfolio going to get you more leads? No. So, like, focus on the constraint. Once you remove the constraint, water starts to flow, leads start to flow, business starts to flow, money starts to flow. Right. And then it starts to actually flow through here. So, like, that's where a lot of people get hung up, is they're focusing on the wrong thing and that's why their business doesn't grow. And like, if your business, if you've been working really hard for the past couple years, but your business hasn't grown by like 30 to 40% every single year, which is the average, then you're physically not working on the right things. Right. And I think that's a frustrating thing for a lot of people, you know? Yeah. So that's, that's the, that's the biggest thing there. But it's. It just comes down to, like, really focusing on the right constraint of the business and really focusing on the right things there. Because once you remove that stuff starts to flow from there. Last question here, and I gotta run, guys. No past clients want to be on video for a case study. Yeah. So if you can't get a video. Video for a case study, I would just get a written testimonial, that's going to be the next best thing. But typically for the video for the case study, we just do something like Riverside. We hop on here like this with them, and I, I intro them, and we just typically have a really natural conversation, and that works really well. So if you're not, if you can't do that, that's completely fine. But try to get a written case study. But the biggest thing I want to leave you guys with is, like, focus on alleviating the constraint of your business. And like, if you're not getting, I mean, on average, if you're not taking five to 10 sales calls a week for your business, your biggest constraint is leads and calls, period, hands down. So you should be focusing all of your attention on getting more leads and more calls. Thanks. Absolutely. You got it. All right, guys, that's. It's a quick one today. If you have any questions, let us know. Save it for the next live. And if you want to learn more about what we do, you can schedule a call with our team@masterfilmmaker.com we'd love to talk to you, see if we can help more one on one. And yeah, that's it, guys. We'll, we'll catch you in the, in the next live here and hope everybody has a good rest of their week.

Sam, That day. There ain't nothing like this right here. Come and see things.