Scaling Your Creative Business - Live Q&A

Yeah, I'm feeling like a brand new me. I blew away the clouds I was standing under shadow Traded all my rainy days for a little summer I fly so high right now that I might not come back down? Dancing to my own big cherry on the top Sweet. Everything around me is looking up? 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 meant to be I'mma tell everybody I'm feeling like a brand new me Brand new, brand new, Brand new brand new Cloud 9 I just took a little visit and an old me didn't know what I was listen Seeing so clear got that 2020 vision it was in me all along? All I had to do was listen to that heartbeat Found the side of my chest the little voice in the back of my head Saying one day you'll living a dream you'll see I'm feeling like a brand new me for the very first time I r where I'm meant to be? I'mma tell everybody I'm feeling like a brand new Brand new Brand new Feeling like a brand new. I'm feeling like a brand new. 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 weigh it up Never gonna slow back down? There's no stopping now they can't take us down? There's no reason to fight this feeling? Cause I love this light? Everything's all right? And there's no reason to stop believing? Cause I love this light? And the future's bright and there's no reason to fight this feeling, yeah, love this life yeah? Love this love life yeah? Love this life, yeah love this life. I. Can't see it now that the truth is told? Feels like letting go? Love this life, yeah feels all right and there's no reason to stop believing this life and the future's bright and there's no reason to fight this feeling, yeah, love this life, yeah love this life yeah love this life, yeah, love this life.

What is going on, guys? We are back with another live. I got Evan from my team here. The other Evan. Evan. It's Natroy, right? That's how I say it. You're muted. I think.

That's right. Yep. Evan never wrote. Yes, sir.

I love it. If you're ever considering working with us, you're probably going to be talking with Evan. So, Evan, dude, it's awesome to have you. Today we're going to be doing some questions around how to scale your creative business. Some limiting mindsets, just different things that keep people stuck. And I'd love to hear from you guys in the comments. So if you have questions, concerns, things you're battling with, that's what we're here for. On this call. We're live on Instagram over here on the left, and then I got YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn over here to the right. So if you have questions, drop them down below. We would love to answer them. And for the first couple minutes of this, we'll just kind of start riffing on some stuff, start talking about some stuff that we see and then we are happy to see some questions from you guys. But Evan, anything that you see, because you talked to, I think you've talked to hundreds of video business owners, videographers up to this point. Like, what are some, like, common mindsets that keep people stuck that you've seen so far?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things, right? I mean, probably thousands at this point. I probably speak to hundreds a day. You know, things, you know, just limiting mindsets, beliefs that they can charge, you know, well, more than they know they deserve.

Yeah.

The biggest thing I see, you know, charging day rates, understanding that, you know, in efforts to put yourself in a position to charge and command the rates that, you know, that you can deliver upon, it's really about how you, you're getting in front of the client. Right. So that's one of the biggest things that I see, just limiting beliefs, you know, beyond like just pricing, I'd say, like, that's the most common.

Why do you think people price themselves so low? Like, and, and if you're here watching this, drop some comments down below, let us know, like, why, why do you guys price yourself the way you currently are? And I guess why not price higher? But Evan, I guess, like, what do you. Why do you think people price themselves so low?

I think it has a lot to do with the initial touch point of how you're getting in front of the client. So a lot of the time it's like, you know, generally word of mouth referrals and that stuff's beautiful, right? You know, cultivating relationships, utilizing your network, but at the same time it kind of holds people back a lot of the time. So, yeah, I would say that that initial touch point of how you're actually engaging in that conversation is, I think.

So it's almost like they feel like they need to bend to the whim of the client because they don't have a lot of opportunities coming in in the first place is. Sounds like what you're saying.

Precisely. Yep, absolutely. Like not a lot of incoming opportunities relying on the same connections and not really expanding beyond their existing network, which is fine, but it's, it's going to be very difficult to scale to the likes of, you know, 10, 20, 30 grand a month within your business with that, you know, method, if you will.

Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's, it's, it's, it's the, it's also the mindset of like referrals and like word of mouth are, they're kind of lay downs most of the time. So they're really easy to close. And so like it's, you know, you're used to that, but you're not used to actually having to like, you know, market yourself or sell yourself or like help the. And we can talk about the sales process a little bit because obviously you're an expert there. But it's like, it's, we need to make sure that we are properly building a gap of where that client is, where they want to be and helping them understand the difference in that gap so then we can then fill our product or service that's going to help them fill that gap. Right. But I think a lot of times people are used to the lay downs, the referrals, the ones that are super easy to close and they're not necessarily, you know, focused on how do I get better at my sales process, how do I overcome objections. Right. How do I follow some sort of process that's going to help me actually close this client and turn them into a long term retainer. Right. For my business. So I think that's, that's a key thing there as well. But I guess like within the pricing stuff, what do you see? Why do you think most people are charging day rates and what's, what are some of the hesitations people have from going from like day rates to retainers from what you've seen?

Yeah, just really setting the expectation from the forefront of the conversation. Right. Like without a proven, repeatable, predictable sales process from A to Z, setting that expectation from the forefront at the inception of the initial touch point, that's massive. Right. So like really understanding, like rather than, you know, I talk to a lot of people, it's like, yeah, I've never even, you know, hopped on a sales call or like hopped on any.

You're Sending proposals. Yeah.

Like formal zoom meeting. And with that strategy, like, it's going to be very difficult to get in front of the clients that can actually pay and have the budgets and see that value proposition effectively. Right. So that's, that's another big thing as well within just having the sales process ironed out.

So, and so within the sales process, like, let's say that you have people who say, you know, maybe now's not the right time. Like, and maybe you have a client who comes to you and they're, they're, you know, they have a lot of clients who are coming to them saying, hey, now's the right, not the right time. I want to wait till xyz. Like, how do you typically handle that if a client comes to you and you get to the end of the sales meeting and they're saying like, hey, sure.

I mean, yeah, simply just really, you know, approach it with a level head, stay calm, coin collected, really understand. Like, hey, like, how do you mean by that? Exactly. Like, help me understand what your timeline looks like as to actually solving the problem that you came here for. Right. Effectively solved. Because what it comes down to ultimately, at the end of the day is, you know, it's not, you know, time isn't, is usually, quite literally always not a real objection. It's like a priority problem. People value the things that, you know, they'll make time for the things that they value. So there's really a priority problem. So it's not necessarily like, oh, I don't have the time. It's like, it's not a priority for them to actually solve. So.

Right, that makes sense. So then if you have video clients coming to you saying, hey, you know, I don't have the time to do this project. I don't have the time to create these branding assets. I don't have the time for X, Y and Z. You'd want to conquer and figure out, like, what, what happened within the process that made them feel like this is not a priority for them right now. Right. And so you want to figure out what that is. Because if you don't, you know, no one has time for things that are useless for their business. Right. But if you really believe that something's going to help you and your business, then you make the time for it, like you said. Right. Which is super, super true. I'm just looking over at Instagram, if you guys are just, just now joining us. Drop any comments questions down below and we will get those answered. I know we have some people popping in here on YouTube. Ethan. What's up, dude?

How we doing, guys?

Hop off the sales coaching call.

Yes, sir.

What are some things you guys went over in that call?

Oh, man, what do we go over today? Some pricing objections, you know, people kind of laying out, you know, hey, I've got a thousand dollar budget, but you know, packages might be four, five, six grand a month and you know, kind of working backwards and you know, not showing your cards all at once and not saying, well, hey, you know, we can do a monthly payment plan with you and you know, I got X, Y and Z package.

Give me this project, I'll price it at whatever you say you want. It's like, no.

Exactly. And kind of letting them show their cards and saying, you know, hey, well, you know, what could you get started with towards, you know, 15,000 and we can, you know, work backwards on a.

You know, see if we can make something work. But, but first figuring out that tie down and saying, well, first, before we even talk about that, how do you feel about the process specifically? Do you feel like this is something that's actually going to help your business get to XYZ goal that you told me you wanted to get to.

Right.

Because if we don't do that, then nothing else matters. At the end of the day, Jesse says, guys, yeah, absolutely.

If they don't believe in it. Oh yeah. Saying, yeah, they don't believe in it, then, you know, we don't even need to address the price right now. It's more so about, you know, you know, because it could just be a lack of information about the process or the strategy. Yep.

Lack of clarification, lack of like understanding. Hey, I don't have the full budget, but I have something that I can put down towards the this.

Right.

Evan, since you talk to so many people every day, what are some other kind of limiting beliefs that people have around either growing their video business or just things that you've seen? And if you don't have anything right now, I can circle back to you, but like, is there anything else that you've seen that really kind of keeps people stuck and in that, like tiny mindset instead of expanding into a bigger mindset.

Yeah. You kind of touched upon it. Right. A lot of it is mindset just like, you know, really understanding how to make those strategic moves and being uncomfortable and being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because, you know, if there's one thing that's for certain, it's like it's very easy to remain the same.

Yeah.

Keep doing the same things even if it's not necessarily yielding you the exact results or progress that you're, you know, seeking, but I would say, really a mindset thing. At the end of the day, it's.

Easier to stay where you're at and, like, say, hey, I don't really want all that other stuff. It's easier for me to be like, hey, you know, I'm just not going to have the things I want because it's easier for me to be in this. This. This place that I'm already at, because there's no fear of failure there, because I'm already there.

Right.

But if I go and try something new and then for some reason I fall back down to where I was before, then I feel like a failure, or people feel like a failure when that's not the case. Like, in order to get out of the situation you're currently in, you have to change something about what you're doing right now. And for a lot of people, I think they're just scared of doing that, I think, and they're just worried about taking a leap or taking a step to do something different than what they've already done. So they're scared of that. So then because of that, they just stay the same. Right. And until the pain of being in the same spot is just so great, people are not going to make a change. Like, unless you're 400 pounds overweight and you can't walk down. Walk your daughter down the aisle at her wedding, like, you're not going to make the change to get in shape. And it's the same thing for a lot of people. They're okay with being like, hey, I don't want to make more money, when that's just BS in my opinion. Like, I just don't think that that's true. Like, everyone wants to make more money. It's just people give that up because they would rather not try and then mess up and look like a failure to other people or think that they look like a failure. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I just really think that people like, that is a limiting mindset I had to go through. And I think a lot of people go through where they're like, they don't. They don't project their goals. They don't say they want something bigger because they're just scared of, like, saying that and then not hitting it. You know what I mean?

Right? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Jesse says, what is your philosophy on implementation? Let's say that the sales call goes great. The client verbally agrees that you can solve their Problem. But getting them to take basic actions is like pulling teeth. Jesse, we don't know anything about that, man. Evan, you want to talk about that a little bit? So let's say someone says verbally, hey, man, I want to do this, I want to do this. I want to move forward in this project. But then you can't get them to, like, make a move. Like, you've. You've been with us two years. You've had a lot of people like this. Right. But what would you, what do you do in that situation?

Yeah, I mean, there, you just really want to call out the elephant in the room, have an open and honest conversation. Because if you're kind of like tiptoeing around some things, it's going to come up inevitably whether or not they're going to move forward or not. So just kind of pull back the price or the investment, whatever you're talking about, and be like, hey, like, understand, number one, get it tied down, get multiple time downs. Identify that what you've actually presented them, they actually believe in, like Ethan had mentioned, and that, you know, this actually can help them. So, number one, if that's not in place, don't proceed to, you know, trying to, you know, don't pass code, don't collect 200.

Stay where you're at.

Yeah.

So, yeah, get, get that first and foremost. And then if they're unwilling to, you know, move forward, take action, it's pulling teeth, really. Just have an open conversation and understand what's really coming up for them that's ultimately, you know, leading them to, you know, not want to take any sort of action to move forward. But I just, I'd say really just talk about it. Have a real conversation, be authentic, call it out.

Yep. And, and I think a lot of people like what you said, they don't want to say the reason that they don't want to move forward because they're embarrassed of it. And so your job on that sales meeting is to create a safe space to where they feel like they can tell you those things and they feel like they can share those things with you, so then you can overcome it. Because if you never let them share those things with you, it's almost impossible for them to or for you to overcome that because you don't know what's actually going on at the end of the day. And so like Evan said, it's like having an open, honest, clear conversation around where they are, where they want to go, if this is the right fit, and if for some reason something comes up you can address that. But a lot of times deals just die because people are too embarrassed, the prospect is too embarrassed to share with you the reason why they're not moving forward. And so you just need to be able to. You need to be able to sniff that out, provide a safe space for them to tell you that, and then you can then move forward. And then eventually, if they keep playing these games with you, Evan, I don't know what your take is on this or Ethan, but I would just be like, I would lean out. I'd be like, hey, maybe it's not the right fit anymore. Like, if. If I have to fight you to do basic things on this project, you say you want to do it, but you're not doing it, then maybe something's not. Not right here, and maybe it's not the right fit. I lean out. And then if they take that, you know, if they lean back in, great. If they take the lean out and they go with it, they were never going to buy from you anyways, and they're probably just going to waste your time.

I think the biggest tell is asking for a form of commitment, whether it's monetary or.

Pause it. Sign an agreement. Yeah, no. And if they're not willing to do that, then they say one thing, but their actions are speaking louder than those words. And you just don't want to. You don't want to mess around with that, because a lot of times people will just, like, waste your time forever, and you need to protect that time, you know, so hopefully that makes sense, Jesse. And then on that same note, I think the. You know, I had a client I was talking to yesterday about, like, charging higher prices and how he was just worried about raising his prices. And one of his biggest concerns, Ethan, was like, I'm going to lose clients. And what I told him, as I said, that's the point. Like, you need to lose clients. Like, not every single person is going to keep working with you when you raise your prices, but the goal is, is to keep the really good clients and then cut the bad ones. Because if there's anything we've kind of noticed, doing millions of dollars in sales for ourselves is like, the higher you price something, the better clients you typically get, they follow your directions better. Like, and a lot of times like that, that price ceiling that you have yourself at is just a limiting belief. Like, you think you can't charge more, but the minute that you try to charge more, you end up charging more. And people pay it. Are less people gonna pay it? Yes, but that's the point, like let's.

Say you're gonna scale too, is you're gonna have less clients, more cash, more time to bring on other clients too. And then you just stair step up.

And you really shouldn't be closing more than 40% on your calls. Like if you're closing above 40%, you're priced way too low. Like if you're closing 50, 60, 70%, you are priced way too low. And you probably could be charging more with less operational drag or operational issues because the more you price, the more margin you have, the less people you have to hire and the easier it is to scale from there. Yep.

Yeah.

If you guys are just joining us, drop some comments down below. Any questions you have, let us know where you're, where you're listening from first off. So like where are you calling in from or where are you listening in from? And then any questions you have around your video business, like pricing sales, how to get more leads, how to get more clients, how to manage those clients effectively. After almost 500 clients served individually, we probably have some sort of answer for you. So we're happy to help. And, and drop those questions down below. Let's see. Jesse has another question. He said knowing what to do, knowing how to do it and having the right mindset is still not what it takes to take action. How do you solve for this? That's a good one. How do you solve for knowing what to do, knowing how to do it? But maybe not having the right mindset is what I think I'm getting from that. Because like you could know everything to do. Like you could, you could, I could give you all the tools in the toolbox, but if you don't know how to use them and you don't have, or you don't have the right mindset around them, it's going to be really difficult to get any sort of outcome from that. And like Evan, you've talked to a lot of people too. Ethan, you've talked to a lot of clients. But it's like we could give you the best system in the world, we could teach you how to use it. But if you still think you're not worthy of getting higher ticket clients or you think people won't pay that much, it's going to be difficult for you to then close those deals, you know. And so I think most of the battle is your belief system and the mindset you have around being successful. And it sounds super woo woo and I, I know that I'm not a woo woo guy, but like it does come down to understanding, you know, hey, this is what you do. But also, I am deserving of this, and people will pay. And I think sometimes people just get in that loop, you know.

Yep, yep.

Yeah, 100%.

You just gotta jump in the deep end sometimes.

Yeah, you sometimes just have to make a. Make a jump. I mean, Evan, you don't have to go into specifics, but I know that, like, you've invested in yourself, right? And you've. You've taken leaps. We all have. But it's like, you know, you've taken leaps to invest in yourself and get better. Like, what. What are some of the thoughts that went through your head prior to doing that?

Yeah, plenty. Absolutely.

A lot. A lot of them.

Yeah, absolutely. It never gets easier. You know, you guys could say that just as well as I can never get teaser. But again, the cliche simply is, hey, like, the more uncomfortable you are, the more opportunity you have to grow. And the more opportunity you have to grow, the more opportunity you have to get better and perform at a higher level. So, like, we had, you know, preface prior. It's like, hey, if you want to stay the same, stay the same. But, you know, just know that you're going to run to the. The barriers and the, the roadblocks that are keeping you with those same internal thoughts. So it's kind of like, you know, at some point you have to be the one to look yourself in the mirror and. And make that uncomfortable call.

Yeah, I forget the exact same. But it's, you know, something to the effect of, you know, nothing great happens when you're comfortable. Right?

Yeah, it's true, man. I mean, Ethan and I have joined plenty of programs. I mean, it's funny. We've, like, Ethan and I have been doing this for a long time. Like, we've joined a lot of programs, a lot of. We've hired a lot of coaches, a lot of mentors. And it's funny because, like, we always make a joke. Like, every single time we join one of these programs, we always make 10-20x whatever we put in. Like, it's so funny. But then we look at some other people who might have been in that program who are still complaining. They're still struggling. They're complaining about stupid shit, excuse my language, half the time. Like, they. And they're. They're caught up in, like, the will this work for me versus how can I make this work for me? Mindset. And, like, the reason that Ethan and I have always been successful in all the programs we've Been in whether the program was good or not. Like, it's because we said, how can I make this work for me? And we've. We freaking did it. Like, we just made it work. Like, even if it was more work, we made it work for us as opposed to, like, us trying to find a way, oh, will it work? Like, at the end of the day, everything works right? And so, like, it just comes down to, like, how can you make it work for you? And I think a lot of people kind of get stuck in that loop of, like, I don't know. I think it's just like a. I think it's a poor mindset issue where it's like, you know, will this work for me? You know, I need the magic pill. Like, will this work? It's like, dude, nothing's a magic pill. You just have to make it work for you. And having that mindset going into programs, like, I've, I've. I've. It doesn't get easier, but that has helped me make it easier because I have confidence in myself and my team knowing that whatever we do or decide to make decisions on, we're gonna. We're gonna make it happen no matter what. And it's just, we're gonna make it work. And then, like, that puts the responsibility on you.

You know, there's even been, like, little tiny things, you know, not like getting a brand new sales process or, you know, like, I still remember back to when we learned the do you need a payment plan?

Question.

Huge light bulb moment from that first coach we hired. He was like, when someone asks you about one thing or ask you about payment plans, just say, do you need a payment plan? And then people are like. Half the time, they're like, no. I was just curious. We literally did like 30k in a day from just doing that one tiny little tweak. Like, it's the little hinges that swing the big doors oftentimes, you know, And I think, like, people are looking for this big regulation sometimes, and sometimes it's just a couple of shifts. Like, I had. We had one client, Roman, who closed that 124k video deal, and most of the reason he closed that was because he says he. We told him not to send a proposal, but go through it on a call. He's like, that one tiny shift literally made me $124,000.

Yep.

So it's like, oftentimes a lot of clients we work with, they come in, we overhaul a couple tiny things, roi them off those tiny things, and then once they get in then, you know, then we start working on the bigger things. But there's a lot of little things that can happen within your business that make a huge difference in the amount of money that you make. You know what I mean?

Yep. Yeah, just fine tuning things really makes a big difference.

It does, it does, man. Absolutely. Let's look at some questions here. I'm having some success with the video retainer packages, but my clients want proof that they work. It's forced me to learn metrics and now I feel further from my craft than ever. That's a good, that is a good point, David. Ethan, you want to maybe take this and I can piggyback off of your initial thoughts?

Yeah, no, I say so I say biggest thing, you know, with like the proof is, I think we talked about this. Was it Thursday, it was maybe last Tuesday. Of getting case studies y with your clients and, you know, going back and, you know, just sitting down and interviewing him, you know, hey, what kind of results did you get? Because a lot of people don't go back and ask. They deliver the work and, you know, sometimes you don't talk to your clients or, you know, to those, to those clients again and never really figure out unless they come out and tell you what the results were. A lot of people don't, don't really know what the impact was on the content. So that's one big thing is just going back and getting testimonials, even if it's just a written review on your, you know, your Google business page, you know, just having some sort of proof. But, you know, well, and at the.

At the end of the day, everyone needs, you need proof that you are who you say you are. And if you don't have that proof, you need to get that proof. And, and it's not fun all the time. But the other thing I would say, David, is like, we're on two different sides of the spectrum here. Like, you can be, I think you have to make a decision like, do you want to be the best DP videographer or video editor in the world and go work for another company? Or do you want to be the business owner who has time, freedom, can hire people under them and runs an actual business and businesses have offers and offers need proof that the offers work. And so like, I'm not, I'm never going to sugarcoat it for you guys. I'm always going to be straight up. Like, if you feel further from your craft, like, if all you care about is the craft, there is nothing wrong with that. But you should probably go work for someone else. Being a video business or videographer or video editor, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to run a business and you want to sell packages and sell retainers and hire a team and buy your time back, right Then you need to be a business owner. You have to learn the three different parts of any sort of business, which is marketing, sales, fulfillment. Those are the three things. That's the only three things. Marketing, sales, fulfillment. You have to learn how to get attention, you have to learn how to convert that tension into. Into money. And then you have to learn how to fulfill on the packages that you sold. And so there is nothing wrong with being in love with the craft. We are not. The caveat to that though is we are not here to help people get better at the craft. We're here to help you build businesses that provide for you and your family and make you money independent of your time. But if you want to be someone who trades 24 hours for a paycheck, there's literally nothing wrong with that. We need tons of people like that. Like that is the, that's more of an employee mindset or freelancer mindset. And again, there's nothing wrong with it. But like that is like you're not going to get rich that way. Like trading your time for money. You have to build an asset, you have to build systems, you have to build people under you, you have to build people to help you with those things. So hopefully that makes sense. I don't mean to be too blunt, but I just like to be honest about things. And I think you have to make that decision of like, do you want to be a business owner or do you just want to be someone who's a craftsman, who does the work? And we need both people. So like, there's no right or wrong answer there. No. Let's see. Tyler. I'm in real. I'm in the real estate niche and looking to be more creative and want to work with service based businesses. I have multiple video production companies that do videos for $500. How do you compete? Number one, why do you have multiple video production companies if all you're charging is 500 bucks? You should have one video production company, one business. Because one business is enough to make millions and millions of dollars. So you don't need. Go ahead, Ethan.

I think it might be competitors.

I have multiple video that do videos. Okay, I see what you're saying. So video production companies that do videos for 500 bucks. How do you compete? So it Just depends within the real estate niche if you are. I see in my area there are multiple. I gotcha. So in the real estate niche, if you're just doing home tours, you, you're going to be under 800 bucks to a thousand bucks each home tour. But what you want to be shooting for, I'm gonna move this so it doesn't keep blocking you. If you want to be doing more high ticket retainers, you'd want to do real estate branding packages. So like you'd want to. For those you can charge anywhere between like 2 to 6, 7 to $8,000 a month. We have multiple clients at all those price ranges, but two to $7,000 a month doing the branding content for the agent, social content for the agent, not just the home tours. And so what you do is you solve a bigger problem outside of just the listing videos and listing photos. You do the branding packages for the actual agent, you do monthly content for them, you do a brand video for them, you do testimonial videos for them. And that's how you get more of a recurring there as opposed to just doing the, the home tours, if that makes sense.

Yep. You can still bake that stuff in, into the, into the branding package. Retainer.

Yeah, you can do a branding package with like social content, brand film, testimonial content and then you know, some listing tours as well. But you want to, you want to bake all that in together, otherwise you're not going to be able to compete. Because I mean the real estate photography niche is definitely more of a commodity based market where they just need photos and as long as you're good enough, you're good. So that's the idea there. Let's see, I'm charging 600 to 1800 for mostly lifestyle home tours. The service based businesses want cheaper videos, so that comes down to proper pricing. So if you haven't gotten our 27 video retainers, there should be a link below this on YouTube. You can check that out. But charging more comes down to building a gap. And maybe Evan, you talk about this too, but like, if the problem that I'm solving for is not very big and I don't really care about it, I'm not going to have a high budget for that project. Right. I'm not going to be willing to pay a decent amount of money for that. But if you can expand the gap and expand the problem and solve a bigger problem, then you can make more money because you're solving a bigger problem. Like I steal this from one of my mentors but it's like, if you have a headache, your budget for a headache might be some Advil and going to CVS, that's like 20 bucks. But if you find out that headache is a brain tumor, then that brain tumor, the budget for that is a lot bigger because the problem's a lot bigger. And so in your sales calls, you want to uncover more of, like, what's going on? What's the problem? How long has that been going on? And expand that, make it very painful, make it very big, and then that can then turn into a bigger problem that you solve for a larger price point. Right. So, but, Evan, what are some things that you do to kind of expand the gap? Like, let's say. Let's say someone doesn't really want to talk about their problems on a call. Like, is there anything that you do within that to kind of get them to open up a bit more on the call?

Yeah, like, kind of like we touched upon before, like your job as the business owner or someone who's, you know, consulting to understand what's in front of you is to create a safe space. And simply how you do that is just have an authentic, you know, conversation, open and honest conversation. So if someone's being a little bit, you know, closed off, guards up, they're not really, like, you know, playing ball, if you will. Again, just call it out, be like, hey, like, you guys actually. Do you actually want to be here? Like, if not, it's not a problem at all. Right. We don't have to do this. So, you know, if you find that's. That's a problem you're consistently running into, you know, I definitely just call it out and, you know, just sit on the same side of the table as them because you're. You're there to help and solve a problem at the end of the day. So.

Yep.

Yeah.

100. Tyler says. Does your course go over expanding the gap? Yeah, so our main program, we go over an entire sales process. Ethan's one of our sales coaches. He drills with our clients every single day. And then we have multiple mock calls every single week within our community of clients that are working on those sales process. And that's how they close those multiple five figure, multiple six figure deals that you see in our case studies page, which, if you want to check that out, it's masterfieldmaker.com case studies. Little plug there. But that's how our clients are closing those bigger deals is by building a bigger gap. So if you want to make more money, you build a bigger Gap, you expand the problem on that call. You get really good at that, and then you get rewarded by people paying you more money because, like, the marketplace is paying people for the amount of problems that they solve and how big those problems are. And so if you're not solving a big problem, people are not going to pay you a lot of money, no matter how much you say, like, I deserve it or I'm worth more or, like, I should be getting paid this. If you're physically not making the money that you want to make, it's because you're not providing as much value as you should be. And so if you're not making a million dollars a year, it's because you're not providing a million dollars a year worth of value to the marketplace, you know?

Yep. Well, in addition to expanding the gap, you also have to sell an outcome, not just a product. Right. You know, you can't just sell a watch video or a of, you know, five Instagram reels. What is that video going to do for them?

Let's talk about that. Yeah, that's huge. I mean, Evan, what do you see as far as, like, because people will sell outcomes, and then they'll sell deliverables. Like, how do you go about selling the outcome on the call?

Yeah, yeah. This has been huge lately, and I've had had a lot of great conversations with a lot of smart business owners. Like, I was talking to, like, a few. I forget when it was specifically, but it's like, hey, like, we know we do the most excellent work, you know, in the area. We've been veterans, you know, well over a decade and a half, and it's like, I can't, you know, bring my mindset to that of, like, wanting to charge, like, 20 or 30k a month. And I would ask them, like, hey, why do you think that is? If, like, you see other people making far more, you know, income, closing way more deals within the video space, but they don't do nearly as good work as you do. And they say, hey, like, it simply just has to come down to, like, we just don't have the marketing in place. And, like, we're not communicating that value proposition effectively. We're not selling an outcome. We're not selling a result or just selling the aesthetically pleasing, you know, side of the creative work. And that's where you get yourself in trouble, and that's where you get to run to a wall, unfortunately.

So, dude, that's so huge. I want to talk about that for a second because I really like it's. I used to have that mindset too. I was like, dude, if I just make better work, if I just, if I just invest in better gear, if I just, you know, make a better product, then I'm going to make more money. Like, remember, product is one piece of the equation. Like product is one, one small piece of the equation. It is not the entire equation. And so like, you could have a really amazing product, you could have really high quality video, you could have a really great, like cinematic sequence, you know, within your actual projects. But the problem is, is if it doesn't actually make the client more money or solve a real problem for them, they will not pay for it. And I've seen really shitty videos that aren't very good, like be sold for lots and lots of money to clients because they actually get them results and get them leads and clients and calls and whatever it may be. Like, I hate to say it, but sometimes iPhone content will get people better results than the most cinematic piece in the world. So you have to find a way to combine both of those within your packages in a way where you're going to get your clients results and you can charge more money. Because like, if I could say, hey, I helped this, like we talk about it in almost every live. But it's like that chiropractor, one of our clients worked with that chiropractor. If I can help a chiropractor, he helped him make a million dollars off of a video. If I can help that chiropractor make a million dollars off of one video, right, I can charge a hundred thousand dollars for that video. Because typically you can charge about 10% of whatever your result you're getting for that client. And so if I have a case study saying I help someone make a million dollars with the video, then that's, I'm going to be able to charge a lot more for that than someone who just says I make really nice videos. Right? Because business owners at the end of the day are the ones who care about making more money. And business owners are the one, they're the ones who have the money to actually pay you at the end of the day. So if you want to make more money, as much as you might feel like you are further from your craft, we're here to make money. We're here to help clients make money. Businesses are meant to make money. That's it. So as much as people don't want to admit that that's what we're here to do, like, that's what businesses are for. Unless you're a non profit, which, like, I don't know about you, but I don't want to run a non profit. That's not my goal. David says to make more money, help other people make more. More money. Absolutely, dude. I mean, that's. That's it. Like, you get paid in proportion to the value you provide to the marketplace. And if you don't provide very much value, you don't make a lot of money. And like, a lot of people have potential to provide more value, but if you are physically not making the money that you want to make, it's because you are not providing the value that you need to be providing. And you need to get help providing more value to your clients, which is one of the things we help our clients with. Right. And whether you work with us or somebody else, it doesn't matter. Let's see. Instagram. That's how I feel right now. Everywhere vlogs, absolutely hard truths. I know, it's not fun to see. Yeah, no, absolutely. Is it better to call. We'll get back to that question there, actually.

Yep.

No 100 guys. I mean, it does. It's just you have to learn how to make your clients more money and have proof that you are who you say you are and get those case studies like Ethan said. You know, I want to kind of switch gears a little bit, and we'll wrap up here in just a few minutes, but I want to switch gears into focus. And this is something that I think a lot of creatives struggle with. But it's people who are changing niches all the time. It's people who are changing strategies all the time. It's people who are changing everything about their business all the time. I heard this really good analogy that I really love, and it's like if you were gonna cut down a tree, right, and you have an ax and you're gonna cut down a tree, like, if you hit that tree the first time, nothing probably will happen, right? But if I hit that tree a second time, maybe I'll see something happen. If I keep hitting that tree in the same spot every single time over and over and over again, eventually that tree will fall. And that tree represents money and making more money in your business. So if you keep hitting the same spot, you keep getting better and better and doing the same thing over and over and over again, doing shit that's really boring. That tree will fall. But what most people do is they hack that tree up 30ft up and down. Is that tree going to fall very fast if all you're doing, I'm hitting up here, I'm hitting down here, I'm hitting over here. I'm hitting like, is that going to fall very fast if I do that? No, of course not. And so, like, that is what focus is in your business. And I think a lot of people, they don't want to. As creatives, we don't want to be constrained to one small thing, but that is the thing that's going to make you successful. So you almost have to be anti creative, which sounds really bad, but you have to be like, anti creative in your business aspects to actually be successful in business, you know? And Ethan, you probably see this all the time too. It's like people who are scattered, they're doing this, they're doing this, they're doing this, they're changing things.

The shiny object syndrome, you know, it's like, oh, the new, you know, the new shiny thing, you know, this new.

The.

The new DJI Ronin 4 is going to help me make more money. Or the new, you know, Canon camera or the new red camera. This, this, that, and the other is going to help you make more money.

Your clients have. Clients have no idea what any of it is.

Clients don't care about the gear that you shoot with, period. They don't like, as long as you don't show up with an iPhone, which would be kind of weird, right? I've seen some people do it. As long as you don't show up with an iPhone on set, like, you're usually fine, you know?

Yep.

100. Any other limiting beliefs that you see, Evan, on your end?

I think we covered a strong basis of them mindset, doing differently, not doing the same things over and over again, expecting a different result. You know, that's huge as well. Yeah, I think we covered a solid basis.

And to use the ax analogy on that, like, you could be hitting the ax into the dirt underneath the tree and you could be like, hey, I'm really trying, I'm really pushing, I'm working so hard. But you're not working on the right thing because you're hitting the dirt, you're not hitting the tree, so the tree's never going to fall. And I think that's a scary reality for a lot of people, is like, you don't know if you're doing the wrong thing until you can get an outside perspective looking in and saying, hey, you're not doing the right thing. You're not swinging the ax in the right place. You need to swing it over here. And that's the value of mentorship. That's why we hire people to help us. Like, that's why we help. I mean, I hire people who are way above me to help me get to where I want to be because I don't know where I should be swinging the ax sometimes within my own business. And that's the value of having that. Right. And so, like, that's, that's. I think the other scary portion of it is like, you could be swinging the ax super hard, but you're not swinging in the right place and you're not going to see the results. Even if you swung like, if you swung that ax for 20 years at the dirt, that tree's never going to fall, bro. Like, and that's a hard truth I think a lot of people need to hear, you know?

Yep. I think one thing too that's not necessarily, like, probably it's not a limiting belief, more of a mindset thing. Well, I guess they're kind of one of the same is being kind of an order taker versus a, you know, more of a consultant. And you know, we talk, you know, we have the, the Dr. Analogies that we use all the time of, you know, being somebody who diagn issues versus just takes orders and lets the client self diagnose.

Yeah, no, it's true. You have to be. You have to be somebody who's solving a problem. It just comes back to solving problems if you're an order taker. Order takers don't get paid that much money. Consultants get paid a lot more money than. Than waiters do.

Right.

If you're a waiter at a restaurant, I can find anybody like you doesn't matter. And that's. That sounds bad. But I can find anybody and plug them in. Like to find someone who truly understands content and truly understands how content can help my business make more money. I want to pay that person a lot more money than somebody who just shows up with a camera and I have to tell them everything to do.

Yep.

Like, that's just the truth.

Right.

That's a perfect way of putting it. I've been hacking my tree with a giant ax. I feel like it's soon going to fall and be my favorite. Absolutely. I love that. Do you have multiple courses available or is it all in one course? We have a couple of different. So if you go below this video on YouTube, there's our 27 video retainers, like mini course, which is like a tiny, tiny Costco sample pack of what we do. And then our main program is the one we've had 500 one to one clients in, and that's our. That's our higher end program where you'd be talking to someone like Evan, Danny, Hakeem, someone on our team to actually help you figure out if that's the right fit for you. So if you want to learn more about that, there's a schedule, a demo call below. You can schedule a call. You might be talking to Evan or anybody else on our team, but then we have like little mini courses that give you like a tiny little nibble. But, you know, that's just a small piece of what we do overall, so hopefully that makes sense. Let's see if we have anything else, otherwise we'll wrap up. Guys, I think this is a really good call. DJ strategy says, what's up, Evan? What's going on? DJ strategy.

I think we may have spoke yesterday. How are you?

Oh, you spoke with. You spoke with him yesterday. Nice. Show up with a full iPhone, a full camera ring. Yeah, dude, I love. Yeah, I'm sure clients would love that. Let's see if I have anything else. Guys, last call for questions, if you have anything. And then we do these every Tuesdays and Thursdays. So if you have questions, hop on. We're happy to talk through stuff sometimes. We have Evan right now. We're booked out today, so, like everyone else is on calls right now. Evan was the only one who could sneak away. But we'll have, we'll have other people on here as well from our team. Drone. Drone Capone. I like that name, dude. Is it better to visit a business in person or call them on the phone to get their business? So both of those are outbound. I don't think there's anything wrong with outbound, but as you start to scale, outbound is not the way to do it because there's no intent, because you're reaching out to the business. And so when you're reaching out to the business, you are the one who needs something which puts you in a lower authority frame than them. So when you're reaching out without any sort of intent on their end, like they didn't fill out a form on your website or click on an ad, you are lower intent and you look more needy. So what we do is we set up an inbound system. If you want to learn more about that. If you're on Instagram, you can go to the link in our bio, but we set up an inbound system so people come to you, book on your calendar, and then you can then have that. That higher intent with them. But either one, if you are doing outbound, I mean, visiting them in person is going to have a higher conversion rate because you're actually there in person. But as you scale, it's going to be really difficult to scale that because you can't go to a million businesses a day in person. You can call more of them than if you went to them in person. And then as you do more, eventually you won't be able to call as many and you're going to need an inbound system where it filters the best leads, puts them on your calendar, and then you're able to only speak to the people who have the highest intent. Drone Capone. You got it. Thanks for answering for sure. Awesome, guys. Well, we gotta run. We are packed out the next couple days, so if you wanted to snag a slot on our calendar, there is a link below. You can schedule a call with our team and we'd be happy to speak with you. But boys, any other thoughts before we roll here?

No, that was a solid, solid call.

Awesome, guys. Well, if you have anything else, let us know. Guys, there's links below to a bunch of resources for you or resources on our YouTube channel. And and we will talk to you guys in a bit.

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