Live Q&A - Scaling Your Video Business

Yeah, yeah, let's go. You ain't gotta ask me we can hit the road got room in the back seat Boys from the back street come so far just singing over rap beats See you on the way up only looking down remember seeing where we came from you ain't gotta way up never gonna slow back. Foreign.

What is going on? Guys, we are back for another live. We are live with our Christmas theme here. We got our wrapping paper, we're ready to go. We're ready to help you guys scale your video agency, creative agency, whatever you need. We're here for the next 20 ish minutes answering any questions you guys have around, scaling your agency, getting more clients, getting more leads, sales, growing your team, getting better margins is a big thing. We've talked to a lot of clients with or about this past week and I think some of the things that most people are struggling with is like growing with consistency, not just focusing on one off projects. But we'll get into all that. For now, I'm letting everybody join. I'm looking over here at Instagram. We got Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and everything on this side. Ethan, what's going on? How are you?

Good, good. I like the Christmas theme.

Yeah, I, I didn't have it. I had it enabled last time. I just think I had the wrong setting for us last time. But we're, we're rocking and rolling. I think we can change it. What do we got? We got. There we go. Let's go. Dude, it's so busy. I'm like staring at all these little hats and stuff. Charlotte going crazy looking at this. My daughter. Cool, guys. Well, we're jumping on while we get everybody in. If you have any questions, drop them down below. We're going to be answering those. But Ethan, how's the week been? How's everything been going?

Good, good. Like you said, margins have been a big thing. You know, scaling just past, you know, one or two, maybe three clients, you know, bringing on team members, things like that, and then just trying to keep the margins as healthy as we possibly can.

Yeah. Where do you think people go wrong on margins? Like what, what are the things that they just like they, they don't price high enough, so then there's not enough money or like what, what specifically you think?

Yeah, I'd say. Yeah.

Not.

Yeah, not charging enough to. Where we're stuck in that kind of, that weird middle ground where, you know, we just don't have enough to pay somebody to get out today of everything.

Yeah.

You still have to do everything and you don't have enough money to pay somebody to do like editing or ads management, you know, things like that, to where it's only enough for, you know, one person to do everything.

Yeah, I think they price it as if they are the ones doing it. Right. It's like, I'm the owner, so, like I'm just gonna price it at what I think I need. But you have to think about it in terms of like pricing it to where you can hire other people, not just for you specifically. We have a question here from the collective. What do you believe is the biggest thing video production companies need to do to keep top of mind moving 2026. That's a great question. And it's get your clients actual results. So you can't just deliver video anymore. Nobody wants that. AI is replacing agencies that just create content. You have to be somebody who creates the content with the marketing side in mind, like creating ads for them, running those ads, creating sales assets, creating VSLs. Like, you have to be more of an agency that actually does things that help people grow. And I think that's the biggest thing that people struggle with is they're not actually creating content that helps people grow. They're just creating content that, that they want to create and then handing it off to the client at the end of the day, which just doesn't. It doesn't fly anymore. It doesn't work. That is, I think, the biggest thing. I'm moving us around here. Hopefully that answers your question. But that's. I mean, you have to be creating and distributing content that actually gets them results. Otherwise why are they going to pay you? They just, you know, get a Sora subscription or an AI subscription to create the content that they want to create. Like, that's ultimately what it comes down to.

Yep. Yeah. You can't just sell the flight there. You have to sell the vacation.

Yeah, you have to. You have to get them tangible results and then get case studies with them. Like get documented proof that you helped this type of person do this thing. And like have that on your website so you can document it so you can actually show other clients that might want to work with you the results that you're able to get. Right. You have to be specific. Good question. That's. That's huge. What else we have, guys? We're here on Instagram. If you're tuning in on Instagram, ask us any questions you have, and we're going to be answering those for you guys. Let me see what else I have here. Yeah, I mean, going off of that last One too. Like the landscape really has changed. We have to be in a place where like we were talking to somebody earlier today who had like they were doing $2 million a year in their video business back in 2018, 2019. But every single year they've seen that decline. Like it's just been going down and down and down because like back in 2018, 2019, 2020, like video was the hot thing, like I need to have video. And like the trend was going up. Now the trend is using AI to do it. So you have to find a way to attach yourself to that trend while still getting clients, like results. Right. And I think if you don't do that, you're going to have a really rough 2026. It's going to be difficult. You know, what are you doing with clients coming to us like that? Like, what are some of the offers that you've seen when somebody's coming to you like that, you're like, hey, this isn't going to fly. We got to make some changes here.

Yeah. So especially with AI, I mean, it's definitely the way that I see it is like it's a tool to be used, not a replacement. Right. Because like you're saying a lot of content can be created with AI, but you don't want to see it as a replacement. More of a tool that you can use to help you get to that end result faster.

Yeah. Because you can use it to save on your costs, increase your margins. Right. Because then you don't have to hire someone to do XY thing, XYZ things or go on that shoot or whatever it may be you have. You can use AI to kind of like automate a lot of that stuff to make it a little bit easier for you, which is ultimately going to help your margins in the, the, in the long run. So.

Yep. Yeah. Write a, write a script, analyze a sales call. Yeah. There's a lot of things that it can do faster than a person can for sure.

Do you believe video marketing companies or video companies, do you believe video companies to offer almost full service marketing approach like SEO websites, graphic design, print marketing or is just video? I think just video and incorporating ads is enough from what we've seen over the 700 clients we've worked with now, can you offer SEO and website and graph design and all that stuff? Yes, but it just becomes more of a distraction and it's a little like you don't have to have it. In my opinion, it's not needed. You know, I think when people try to add Too much. It gets super complex. And that's where also margins start to take a hit. Because you're, like, doing all these things for the client instead of, like, focusing on the. The one or two things that you're really good at for them.

Yep. One similar. Similar to picking a niche too, which. Which we talk about a lot. You can't serve everybody, you know, serve everybody. Right. You've got to pick. Pick a lane or, you know, a bucket of business that you work with. Same thing with your deliverables.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, good question again. I mean, that's. That's the ultimate thing is like, you have to just pick one or two things and be really good at it and then systematize it. That's huge. Let's see, what other questions do we have? How do we scale past 50k a month beyond just relying on referrals and cold calls? Yeah, so, like, if you're just doing, like, if you're doing 50k a month. And I think they're. What they're saying is like, most of their stuff has come from referrals, word of mouth, like, and that's gotten them to 50k a month. But they are trying to get past that and break into, like, other. Other amounts of money, like 100, 200, 300k a month. For me, it's like, you have to be focusing on getting a consistent system for leads because that's ultimately the only bottleneck that you have in the business right now. Assuming you do a good job on fulfillment, assuming you do a good job for your clients, they're happy and you do good work. Like, the only problem you should be solving for is, how do I get more leads and more people to talk to that are qualified? And like, referrals are inconsistent. You can't build a system off of that. Word of mouth is inconsistent. You can't build a system off of that. You need, like, either an ad system or do cold outreach, but cold outreach doesn't work that well. I would just be focusing on getting an inbound ad system. It's the easiest thing you can do with, like, one person, basically. So hopefully that helps. That is, that's one of the main things is, like, the reason you're usually not at the revenue level you want is simply because you don't have enough leads to get there or enough qualified conversations every single week, month, day. And it's like the easiest, excuse me, litmus test for this is like, if you look at 20, 25, like, how many calls did you book in 2025. It's like for a lot of people it's maybe like 40, 50, 100. It's like, what if you could book that every week you would pull all of 2025's revenue into seven day period. It's like for a lot of people, like, holy. That's a lot. Like, I don't know if I can do that. It's like, yeah, that's what scaling is at the end of the day. Like you're just compressing time into a shorter period of time. That's it. And so like what if you could do your entire revenue for this year in one week or one month? It's like how many leads would you need? How many calls would you need? How many people would you need to talk to? It's like that should be the goal. And I think too many people going into 2026 are going to be like, this year is going to be different. They're going to be super motivated in January, in February, then they're going to kind of just fall back into the same things they did in March, April, May. And then before you know it, they're back at the end of 2026 and it's exactly where it was before. For it's just math, guys. Like you just have to look at how many calls do you need to hit your revenue target and like you should be able to predict that with certainty. And if you can't, then you don't know your numbers and you need to track better. Ultimately that's what it comes out to.

Yep. One, like with your referrals and you know, cold calls and things like that versus like an inbound system. Like you're saying it's repeatable.

I know I can get 100 leads a week or 100 leads a day or 100 leads a month. It's like you guys gotta know your numbers and like if you're watching this, put it in the chat, like how many calls do you need? Or how many leads do you need to hit your target? And if you don't know that, then it's like just take how much money did you do in 2025? How many calls did you book? And then basically just divide that by that and then that'll tell you what your caught, what your cash per call is per call.

Yep. You don't have control over referrals either.

Yeah man, exactly. So, but yeah, I think the, the biggest takeaway is like you have to know your numbers, you have to track. Most people don't. That's the problem. You have to know how many calls it takes to hit your revenue targets. And you need to know that very, very clearly, with certainty. Otherwise you're just going to end back in the same, same position you were this year. At the end of this year, if it's not where you want to be.

Just, just equation at the end of the day.

Yeah.

Someone said, are restaurants a good niche to target? No. What's the next question? No, they're cheap. They sell something for a low amount of money, it's not worth it. Don't work with them. Sell to people who sell a high ticket service.

Yep.

What's the easiest way to measure results from the videos we produce so clients can see the impact? Run ads with, with the videos. So like literally take the video, run an ad, measure how many leads it got. Did it get a good cost per call? Did it get a cost per lead? Good cost per lead. That means it worked. If it didn't, then it didn't. Let's see, what other questions do we have? Guys, I see Vision Media, Rob Walsh on here, Leon, Brian, David, Tinoko, Josh M. Sterling, Frank Gavin, drop some questions you guys have in the chat here. But yeah, it just comes down to that. It comes down to knowing your numbers and knowing how many calls you need to predict your revenue. And you should be able to basically see the future of what you, what you want to make and understand that because you know your numbers. So yep. Cool. Guys, we're going to wrap up here in just a couple minutes. What other questions do we have around scaling our agency, scaling our business, getting more leads, getting more calls, getting more clients. Otherwise we gotta get back to client work over here and keep it rolling. I'm gonna wait a couple seconds here, see if there's any other questions. I see you guys on Instagram over here. You're hiding. People are watching. They just don't want to ask questions. They're scared, they're worried. What questions do you guys have? Let's drop them down below. Let's see. Yeah, don't target restaurants. No good. They sell something for, I mean their average order value is maybe like a hundred bucks, 120 bucks, 200 bucks if somebody goes out for a nice dinner. Not worth it. What if Rob Nichols says what if the client is massive like SpaceX or Facebook? Done tons of motion design stuff for these companies, but there isn't metrics of the stuff I produced that is more difficult. I will, I will, I will agree with you. When you're working with Fortune 500 companies, they sometimes don't want to give you visibility into, into those numbers. I would tell you to try to talk to your point of contact at those companies, see if they're willing to give you anything on those. If there isn't any metrics, then I think the biggest thing you can use when you're targeting small to medium sized businesses is saying that you've worked with those companies and having the name recognition when you're, when you're marketing to other people. It's like, hey, we've worked with some of the largest companies like SpaceX and Facebook and XYZ and, and it's like we're taking those same strategies and applying it to your type of business. Ideally, you're working with a client that will give you visibility into those things because then you can actually make case studies, show results, talk about what you were able to do for them, et cetera.

Right.

It's a lot easier. Coach Coachella Valley Creative says, I was trying to sign dealerships and met with GMs and owners, but no luck. Got close. My contract scared them off. I'd be more specific about, like, I don't know what your sales process was on that. So like there could be something within the sales process that you didn't do that scared them off or didn't get them over the line. So cool guys, what other questions? Otherwise we're gonna wrap up here. We need to get back to client work. It's a busy end of year for our clients. We don't believe in slow season because we have retainers and consistent work ads and leads. Like people are spending money before the end of the year. So like, if you're thinking it's slow season, it is not. Do not subscribe to that theory. You just need more leads and more calls and that's what we're here to help with. So go check out my free stuff on YouTube. Tons of stuff on there. With that being said, guys, if you want to learn more about how we can help scale your agency, click the link below. Schedule call with our team. Otherwise we're going to see you in the next one. And I hope everyone has a good holiday season. And we will talk to you in a bit. See you guys.

There's no reason to fight this. Feel it. Because I love this life and there's no reason to stop believing.