Live Q&A - How To Scale Your Video Business

I blew away the clouds I was standing under Traded all my rainy days for a little summer I fly so high right now that I might not come back down Listen to my own big cherry on the top Sweet. Everything around me is looking up it's like this what you make it I celebrate it I'm feeling like a brand new me for the very first time I'm a feeling like a brand new me Brand new brand new brand new brand new Glad n I just took a little visit and old me didn't know what I was listen seeing so clear got the 20 foreign.

What is going on, everyone? We are back for another live. What is going on? Today we're going to be talking about everything. Scaling your video business. How to get more leads, how to get more clients, how to grow, how to price yourself properly. All the fun stuff. We're live here, over here on Instagram on the left. And then I got LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. We're live over there. I got Evan Andrews and Ethan Seabach. All the ease here with me today. What's going on, guys?

How are you? What up, what up, what up?

What is up? How's everyone's week been?

Good.

Pretty good, man. Yeah. Started off kind of slow for me but has picked up. My phone has not stopped buzzing today. So it's either usually a buyer to put out or a good thing to have and today's good thing, so.

Yep, I love it. Well, we're going to wait for some questions to come in. If you guys have questions, you're joining with us live. Drop it down below. Let us know what questions you have around scaling your video business, what you're going through right now. We'll start the conversation and talk a little bit about some things that we have been getting, questions we've been getting on. On our coaching calls. And then from there we will kind of go off into any direction based on what you guys have questions on. So, Evan, what kind of things are you getting? What kind of questions are you getting? What are some of the things that you're.

I guess, in terms of. In terms of scaling. I. I guess most recent conversation I can remember is like when to know when to like, hire an editor. So, like what, like when do you know it's the right time to like, let go of some of that process in. In what you're currently doing? Yep. And the advice that I gave him was honestly, as soon as possible. But if that's not like a. An immediate thing that can happen, maybe it's a financial thing or something. Like that, um, it's just at. At when to notice that tipping point of, like, okay, I can't take on more work right now because of how bogged down I am. That is a perfect indicator of knowing that, yes, I need help. It should not be an indicator of I can't take on any more work. The work should be now. Hiring an editor, right? Yeah, that's what I told him. And he was like, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Well, and I think the thing is too, like, I know some people get stressed out about, like, oh, I don't know if I have the money to hire somebody, but there's always something that you're doing that you could hire out, right? So, like, if your hourly is, you know, you just take how much money you make every single year in your business, divide it by 365 or less than that, a little bit. You just divide it by your daily. And then you get to your hourly, right? And then figure out how much is your time worth. If your time is worth, say, $500 an hour, but you're doing something that you could pay someone $20 an hour to do, then you're losing money because you're doing something that's not worth your time. And so even if your hourly rate's like 100 bucks an hour or 50 bucks an hour, there's always little things you can do. Like, if you're an editor, you could hire somebody to organize your footage so then you can edit faster, right? Or if you are a business owner and you're spending a lot of your time editing and not on sales calls, then you can hire somebody to do the editing, right? But it's just. It's figuring out where. What level are you at? And, like, how can I figure out what can I afford to hire out? And then doing that, and then gradually buying back that time so you have time to work on the things that are actually important at the end of the day. You know what I mean? And I think a lot of people spend a lot of time being busy in their business but not actually making any money because they're not spending their time on the right things.

So I agree.

And if you guys are. If you guys relate to that, you feel like you're super busy in your video business or as a videographer, but you're not making more money. Drop a comment down below. Let us know. Let us know what you're going through. And we're happy to help. See if we can help you guys. Let me fix this cord here, too. But Ethan, any thoughts on that?

No. I mean, yeah, I go through time audits with people quite a bit. And, you know, usually if it's, you know, like a third to a half year week, because, like, you know, it's, you're spending 15, 20 hours a week editing content, then that's the easy way to buy back half your week or, you know, 30 a week right there. But the thing is, you got to make sure you're charging enough to be able to afford to pay somebody else.

Right.

And that kind of brings us into our next point, too. It's like you have people who are charging enough for them to get by and them to make money, but it's not enough for them to hire people. And so, like, we really need to be looking at your pricing and figuring out, like, do you have enough margin built into this, like you said, Ethan, to be like, I can hire this out and I can pay someone else to do it for me. Otherwise you're always going to be stuck in this loop of like, just having enough money to get by but not really being in a place where you can afford to hire somebody. Matty says I struggle with the editing part. Go ahead, Ethan.

Charge 600 bucks for the project, but it's going to cost you 400 to get it edited. It doesn't really make sense to outsource that, right?

Yep. Matty says I struggle with the editing part. I can't find the right app software to make things easier. Well, Matty, drop a comment. What kind of content are you making? Is it for your clients? Is it for yourself? And then we can give you some recommendations around apps and softwares to make things a little bit easier there, but around just the editing side and like hiring that out. Because you, you hired somebody a couple months ago, right?

Talking about me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've actually had an editor helping me with my stuff. Well, I would say probably about 85 to 90% of my own content and my client's content since last November. So almost a year that he's been working with me. And, you know, he's got his specialties. There's things that, you know, there's. There's parts of it that I give him here and there. Just when it's kind of. I know that I'm overloaded and he can handle it, but there's, you know, there's parts of. It's more on the long form side that, that, that I'm looking for a little bit, I guess, of a higher performance on. But, you know, he's a young kid. He's learning still in a lot of aspects of what he's doing, but he is a phenomenal short form editor. So I, I give him his, his kudos there. But I mean, he saves me, man. Honestly. Like 15 to 20 hours a week. Like 20 hours. A lot of 15 to 20 hours.

A week for sure.

Like, if I was still, if I was still editing client stuff, especially short form stuff, like, it would just take way too long. My own ads and things like that. It's like you just, you can't, you just literally can't do it and run the business at the same time.

Yeah, you need to be focusing on things that are going to actually make you money, not things that are just taking up your time. Maddie says. So you, you, you have wedding films, it looks like write, app or software. I mean, it really just depends. Right. So like there's lots of people who can edit wedding films for you.

Right.

And so it's just going in either Facebook groups or asking referrals, asking people, you know, who do you know, that is an editor that could take on this kind of work that has the quality level that you're looking for, Reaching out to them, asking them how much they would charge to do each project and each film, and then building that into your rates on the wedding, on the wedding side. So then you're making enough money to be able to pay that person and have enough margin. So then you can take money home too. Right. And then like, as far as softwares, Evan, what. What kind of softwares would you recommend?

Well, no, I was just going to say I think more to Maddie's point, like, I don't think there's any apps or software that's going to make your editing of wedding films any faster. Right.

Like, maybe for file transfer, but not.

Yeah. Or like organization. There might be stuff out there. I think everybody kind of gets their own workflow as they kind of navigate the waters of how they, how they edit. Like me, I'm very old school. Like, it's all done in file management, just in my os. Like, I just have like a framework that I work around and then I just label everything. If I do have an editor, labeling is very, very key. Going through the footage, combing through everything takes a long time. It's labor intensive and, and sometimes those things are hard, hard to hire out because like they, it's almost like they have to like really look through it and then understand what it is and then go back and label it. Whereas you shot it or you were like with it the whole time. So it's kind of, you know, faster if you do it in a sense, but at the same time, if you pass it off and didn't have to touch it again, you're saving a bunch of time anyway. But organization, I think for wedding films especially, because how much content comes out of a wedding, generally it's just going to be really in file management, but you're going to hire editors, not. There's not going to be any apps or software that make the editing side of wedding films any easier for you.

Yeah, yep.

A hundred percent. No, I think that's super valid. And then as far as like, pricing, Ethan, what kind of pricing should, should people be shooting for when it comes to their packages? Like, and maybe Evan chime in too, but like, what sort of, what sort of margins should people be shooting for when it comes to that?

So it's, you know, 70%. But obviously if you can, you know, get more than that, then that's great. But, you know, anything that goes into the cost of the project, right. You know, crew, location, gear, rental editors, like we're just talking about. And then find whatever.

You know, you.

Want to find 70% of. Or sorry, you want to find what 100 is going to be so we can find. Or, sorry, want to find what all those costs are going to be so we can find what the charge. Because we want to want the profit to be 70%, expenses to be 30%.

Yep.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And then also pricing based on the value you're going to provide, not pricing based on the deliverables that you're offering. Right. We're not, we're not selling people videos, we're selling them a solution. And so when you're selling somebody something, you need to be focused on what solution am I selling them. And so there's health, wealth and relationships. And Maddie obviously sells wedding films, so she sells based on the relationship aspect. And so when, you know, when I got married, when I was paying for a wedding film, I was thinking, hey, I can capture these memories forever and hold on to these forever. And that was the value for me. Right. And so it fell into the relationships bucket. But when we're creating content for businesses, you can charge even more because you're, you're falling into the make money wealth outcome.

Right?

And so if I can create content, I'm selling them on the idea that I can create content that's going to make them more money, not just content for content's sake. And so we need to be able to tie that piece together in the sales meeting and show them that otherwise people are not. They're never going to pay higher prices for your service, no matter how amazing the quality of your work is.

Right.

And so if you guys are suffering from that, like, how many people in the chat suffer from, like, having cheap clients drop, like me down below and let us know, and then let us know, like, what specifically you're suffering from. And then we're happy to kind of talk through that and, and help you guys through thinking through how to price higher and how to get those higher ticket clients. So drop me down in the chat if that's you, and then give us a little bit of context on what is going on and why you feel like people are not willing to charge more. But Evan, you. You went through this too in the beginning, right? Like, what, what kind of mindset shifts did you have throughout the process when you were like, charging more per se?

Yeah. So the one mindset shift that you have to go through is you have to believe in yourself that you can actually, one, get results, but two, that like, results at the end of the day are attainable. Right. Like, I had to go through this whole thing of like, like one, like, I had to learn that side of my, my own business, the videography side of things. It wasn't just the video. It was what happens after the video. And, and you have to really, like, sit with yourself and understand. That's where, like, learning strategy comes in. Because that's all that is after the video. It's what is the strategy that the video lives inside of. And there's tons of strategies out there with the videos that we create. I mean, it just really depends on the end goal. And to figure out what that is, you just reverse engineer it. What's the end goal? Work backwards and then you'll eventually get to, okay, the video's done, and then all of that in between is the strategy. But I had to just go through understanding and believing in myself that something like that was achievable and that there was people out there that I could convince that these things would work for them. Yeah, right. So, you know, it's, it's honestly, it's just really, like you said, it's a mindset shift in, in believing in yourself mostly because I think that's like the first main hurdle. It's not necessarily believing, like, if somebody can pay it or whatever, because nobody's going to pay it. If you don't believe in yourself that.

You can deliver, you. You can charge as Much as you think you deserve to charge at the end. So it is a self. It's kind of like a self fulfilling prophecy where like, if you don't believe it, you won't be able to charge it. But then the other side of that is like, just because you believe it doesn't mean you can charge it. You have to have the skills to have the confidence to do it. And that's what we teach our clients, obviously, is the skills of how to use that content to then get a result for a company. Because, like, I could fake it till I make it, but like, that strategy doesn't work very well because when you go to bed at night and you think to yourself and you're like, dude, I, I really don't know what I'm doing here. Like, how could I charge more? And so that's what we help our clients with, is build those skill levels so they can understand how to actually do that and go in with confidence. And like, confidence doesn't come from like hyping yourself up because that stuff wears off.

Right.

It's like you go to a hyped up seminar or a business seminar, you feel really good while you're there, but then when you get home, you're like, oh man.

Yeah. Well, that's why it's, that's why it's important to be in places like, you know, things that we offer.

Yep.

Our, our communities and all of those things. Because, you know, my current coach right now, he says, like, if you're not confident in doing something, but you see that either I'm doing it or somebody else here is doing it. Borrow the confidence.

Yep.

Right. Like, it's not the same thing as faking it till you make it. It's. It's coming to terms and understanding that.

It is because you've invested in yourself to learn something. And that's very different. Like, there's a huge kind of hip, like you're kind of a hypocrite if you ask clients to pay you, but you're not willing to pay yourself or invest in yourself. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So it really does come down to like, understanding and, and investing yourself. And then that gives you the confidence to be able to charge more. Like, I've paid over $250,000 in my own self education. So like, I feel very confident knowing I can charge our clients a certain amount of money for the expertise that I've invested in myself, my team, my company.

Right. Whereas if you don't do that, there's.

A misalignment of who you are and who you want to be.

You know, I would agree.

Which is huge. Corbin says me, and he says, I am a wedding videographer who typically charges around $2,000 for videos. The clients are typically looking for something around 800 or the cheapest option. And then he says, I would love to talk about how to increase my profits in weddings and also increasing my audience as a content creator. Yeah, absolutely. Corbin. So couple things there and Evan and Ethan, feel free to chime in, but wedding, it just comes down to like, do you want to stay in wedding videography? Right. And there's nothing wrong with it if you do. But a lot of our clients don't like doing that just because they have to work weekends. You're, you're charging based on a relationship outcome. So it's harder to justify or anchor your price higher because there's no real ROI for the couple outside of a relationship.

Right.

And like that can be done for sure. But when you're creating content for businesses on retainer, there's more consistency, there's not as much stress. You don't deal with bridezillas as much. Which, you know, like, I get it is a lot. There's a lot going on on that day. So I get it. But like you're dealing with a business that, you know, them paying you $5,000 a month is not that big of a deal to them.

Right.

It really doesn't matter. It's not a huge deal. It, it's not like a make or break type outcome for them. Right. Evan, you want to maybe elaborate on that?

Well, I was going to say for Corbin is also too, if you're shooting weddings.

Yeah.

You can only shoot four weddings in a month.

Yeah.

Like, so if you, if, if you were landing two thousand dollar videos for your weddings, great. But you're capped at making $8,000 a month.

Yep.

Because of what this, the situation that you chose. Now either you can up your prices from there. Right. But to answer his kind of question, the way that he's got it here, I mean, it's learning sales.

Yeah.

The, I don't want to, I guess for lack of a better word, it's kind of like the art of persuasion. But like you can, you can get somebody to pay your price, you know how to speak to them in terms of, of getting them to understand why your price is the way that it's priced and what that emotional tie will be like for them. For like weddings for example, it comes.

Down to building a gap. Right. And that's all sales is, I think a lot of people hear sales and they're like, like, oh, God, that's scary. I don't like sales.

Right.

But sales, all it is is building a gap from where they are to where they want to be and then showing them how your product or service is going to fill that gap. That's it. That is literally all sales is. And so if they want their wedding documented, dive into on the call. Like, what would that mean for them if they were able to have something that was captured and they could replay it anytime they wanted, they could show their grandchildren. Grandchildren. They could. I can't even speak today, dude. They could, they could show their family members who couldn't come to the wedding. Right? What is that worth to them? And for businesses, it's like, okay, how many people are you reaching right now? How many do you want to reach? How much money are you making now? How much do you want to be making in your business? And if the gap is like 250k, then we charge exorbitantly lower than that amount of money to get them that amount of money. Right. So with businesses, it's easier because there's a make money outcome. With weddings, it's a little bit harder because it is more so based around a relationship outcome and it's just not as scalable. That's why we prefer doing retainers for businesses, because there's 33 million businesses in the world or in just the United States who need content like this.

Right. And for Corbin's thing there about, you know, the people want the cheapest option, Right. Like if I was talking to a, if I was doing wedding or whatever and I was talking to somebody, I would ask them, did you pick all of the cheapest options for every other aspect of your wedding?

Yeah.

You know, and then that gets them to really think like, well, no, I actually sprung for this and I sprung for that and I sprung. So why, why are we cheaping out on this particular aspect? Yeah, right.

Either that or also saying, hey, Evan, are you looking for the cheapest option or are you looking for the option that's going to represent your wedding and your family and your relationship in the best way possible?

Right.

Which one are you looking for? And then you make them decide between the two and they're like, well, no, I don't want the cheapest option. You're like, oh, okay, gotcha. So you're looking for. And then you reframe that way of thinking into the value based pricing instead of price based and cost based thinking. Right. And so you really want to make sure that you are, you're reframing them in that way. But yeah, Corbin, hopefully that makes sense. If you have any questions on that, let us know. And if you're, if anyone else is watching this too. Who else deals with cheap clients and people who just like don't want to pay? Give us your situation. We'll show you how you can reframe it and how you can make more money. And we'll do it for free because we love you guys.

So.

But that's really what it comes down to is just really focusing on the gap and how you can make them more money.

Right.

And just showing them that, that difference.

There, you know, 100%.

Yeah, for sure. When have you dealt with cheap clients, Evan? What's some things you've dealt with in the past?

Dude, I still, I still deal with cheap client or cheap prospects. I don't sign on cheap clients, but I still deal with cheap prospects, you know, from time to time. But you know, I, I've just learned to maximize my time the most that I can in, in the qualification. Yep. You know, time of when I'm talking to a prospect and not to say that I like disqualify or qualify them like within one to two questions, but like if I know that somebody just isn't at the place where they can, you know, work with me, I don't try and like, I think what a lot of people do, especially when they're might be newer to charging, you know, higher amounts of money for their, for their services, is they do everything they can to try and sway the other person where it's just not feasibly possible for them right now. Unless you're somebody that maybe offers financing or something for your services, that that is a viable option if somebody's interested in exploring that. But there's just only so much that you can do. And if they're severely unqualified from a financial standpoint, you just can't hold onto that for too long. Cause you'll frustrate yourself. Yeah. But just learning how to, to, to get off of a prospect when it's. When they are not financially qualified whatsoever and trying not to force that in because that'll allow you more time to focus on the ones that are actually financially qualified and you can kind of deal with them. But you know, it's, it's providing value to those that say no right away based on price or not based on price. But like if they're financially not qualified, just providing them more Value over time kind of nurtures them into understanding why your prices come from a certain frame.

Right?

And that's what I've experienced. The best thing is just like, yeah, hey, I might not be the best fit for you right now simply just due to where you're at right now. But, you know, here's this, here's this, and here's this, and this may explain more on how we can potentially work together in the future. And I've had so many times where people, you know, because depending on the platform, you can see who's checking you out, right? So like, I know when people are looking at me. I know when people are sticking around who have said no straight up. And then it's like six months later they come back and they're like, oh man, dude, I need, I need to help. Like, you've been, you've been, you've been giving me all the content, yada, yada yada, like it's time for us to do something together. And I've had that happen. So it's, it's a little bit of a time, it's a longer time horizon in some aspects. But if that's what needs to happen for that person to become financially qualified, then that's just what be needs to, to happen.

100%. Yeah. And Maddie says, definitely me, I charge for weddings more for weddings than I have for business content because I'm fairly new to business, charging significantly less than videographers in the area. Now what I would warn you of, Maddie, is like, I wouldn't charge less than other people because yes, that is a strategy, but it's never the right strategy. Like it'll always just be a race to the bottom of who can be the cheapest. What you really want to focus on is how can I develop my skill sets so I know how to use content to get business as a result and picking a vertical or picking a niche that you can get results for. So let's say you want to get results for med spas. You would get training or develop your skills on how you can get med spas, more leads or more calls or more clients. And then you get a couple of free to case study type clients and then you show them that you can do that work. And then now you can say, hey, we help med medical companies or med spas or you know, medical businesses get more clients using our short form video funnel, whatever it may be, right? Or short form video system. I'm just making something up. But now you have a unique mechanism and people can't compare you to all the other videographers in the area. They can simply just compare you. Like they can't compare you to anybody because you have a unique mechanism, if that makes sense. And now that you have a unique mechanism, you can charge significantly higher because you're actually promising them some sort of result in their business that's going to ultimately lead to them making more money. So hopefully that makes sense. But super important you choose the right niche, because if you choose people who are broke, you're just going to be frustrated and it's going to just be a lot of work and it's going to be exhausting.

I'm going to be right back, fellas. I'm sorry. I got to let my dog in.

You're good. Absolutely. NGB9 says barbers and construction contractors that want videos but stop replying when they hear the prices for some Instagram content. No more than 500 for a few clips, and get you throughout the week. Ethan, you want to maybe talk about how we can reframe some of this?

I'd say first thing, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be given prices over messages, whether it's, yeah, dm, Instagram, text message, all that stuff. So that's probably. That's probably the first thing, but like we were talking about a minute ago is, you know, figuring out what are they looking to achieve with the content. What's the goal outcome here?

More.

More clients or, you know, some people purely just want a more. Just a bigger social media following. Yeah, right. More followers, you know, do you want more business, more appointments and figuring out what the goal is versus just like, hey, do you want social media content?

Yeah, because we're not selling social media content. We're selling what the social media content does for their business. Remember that.

It's just a vehicle at the end of the day.

And also, barbers are probably not the best market because they're charging, what, 25 bucks a haircut? Like, they're going to need a lot of haircuts to pay for even 500 for a few sweats.

The analogy I use on every onboarding call the coffee shop.

Like, I'm going to get my haircut later today. It's like, you know, I don't pay more than 40 bucks a haircut. So, like, it's going to be hard for a barber to use my content to make more money.

Right.

Construction contractors, on the other hand, construction companies, 100%, because construction companies, their deal sizes could be a hundred, 200, $300,000.

Right.

And so, like, because of that, they have a lot more money. If you get them one more client, it could be a hundred thousand dollars for their business.

Right.

It's a lot easier to do that. But remember, to sell the result of what your content does, not what your actual con.

Not.

Don't actually sell your content because the content is not what's going to actually make them more money. You're selling the result of what that content does. So just remember that.

Yep. That's why case studies are so, so important.

Yep. Hey, here's a bunch of people that I've done work for that are just like your business that I got results for. Watch these. And then it just becomes way easier to sell them over the phone or just sell them on zoom.

Right?

Because having a niche in case studies are like non negotiables.

It's just so underrated. And people are like, well, I don't want a niche. I don't want a niche. I want to feel, I want to be open. It's like, yes, but when you serve everyone, you serve nobody. Like, nobody knows who you're talking to. I heard a really good analogy the other day, and it was like, let's say you're in a crowded restaurant, right? And a server drops a plate. Everyone kind of looks around, right? Not. Not that big of a reaction. Because it's pretty normal. People drop things, right? They just kind of look around. But then if a kid wanders through that same restaurant and says, mom, maybe all the moms will look up. Maybe one of them will stand up or a couple of them will stand up. So it's a more. It's more of a reaction. They take more action because it's more specific. Mom.

Right?

Now if someone says Ethan or Evan, immediately you look up and you're like, who's talking to me? Right. So the more specific you can be in your content, in your funnel, you in your systems, then the better reaction you're going to get from the market because of that.

Right?

So think through that frame. When people are like, I don't want to. I don't want to pick a niche, it's like, yes, but that is what makes this work at the end of the day.

Right.

One, to Evan's point as well, is you don't want to get everybody's attention by dropping a plate because your offer may not be for everybody.

Your offer isn't for everybody. Yeah, 100%. Our offer is not for everybody offer. Our offer is only for people who are videographers and video business. Owners who want to grow. Like, there's some people who don't want to grow. That's not the people we want to work with. Right. We're working with people who want to make more money, want to grow, want to make more impact and all of those things. And so you got to be very specific about who you're talking to and who you're calling out. So cool. A couple more questions, and then we'll wrap up Instagram. I see some people on there. If you guys have any questions around getting more clients, pricing packages, anything there, let us know. Otherwise, we're gonna wrap up here. And I hope this was helpful for everybody. Let me see, any other questions? Any other thoughts, guys, on your end?

No thoughts. Finish the week off strong, everybody. Anybody watching you guys? I'm booking sales calls over here, so I'm like, over here in my DMs, like, doing stuff, but. But no, dude. Just super blessed to be here and be doing what we're doing and 100 making an impact here. So awesome.

I love it. If you guys want to learn more and talk with someone on our team about potentially scaling your video business, you can go to masterfilmmaker.com or you can go to the link below this video if you're on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn. And we would love to chat with you guys and help you guys out. So if you have any questions, let us know and we will see everybody in the next live next week. See you guys.

For the very first time around, where I'm meant to be.