Scaling Your Video Agency LIVE Q&A

What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another live. We are here, we're doing a live Q and A answering any questions you have around scaling your video agency. If my camera cuts out, bear with me. This cord is not good. And we haven't done a live in a while. How many? It's been like a month, Ethan, hasn't it?

Yeah, been maybe a month, maybe two.

About a month. Yeah. Craziness. So if you're just joining us, let us know where you're calling in from. We got Instagram over here, so you can comment any questions you have over there. We got Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, all the channels over here. We're just going to be chatting about scaling your agency. Any questions you guys have around doing that and then we'll be diving into anything you have so you'll listen to us rant today. Let's see, we got Casey, photo. I'm Joe French, AG Lopez, visuals by Luke. Hop on in, guys. We're gonna talk about anything around Legion. Getting more clients, getting more calls, getting more higher priced retainers. We've worked with 700 agencies up to this point. So we're just here answering any questions you have. What do you use for your video call setup? I need to set up for my zoom calls for agency clients. It's just an R6. And then I have a road, something. Mike, the. The filmmakers are going to crucify me, bro. I don't know. All my gear all the time. I got the NTB8, I think it is, and then I built the slat wall and then there's these kind of cool lights that go inside of there as well. So that's what I'm using. That's my setup. Let's see what other questions we.

Let's.

Let's get started with some things. Let's get people in here. There we go. Okay, cool. Ethan, what are some things that you're seeing this week with clients? What are some things that are popping up? Sales retainers. What are you seeing?

I'd say speed to lead is the biggest thing.

What does that mean for people who don't know?

So when you've got inbound leads coming in, like a lot of our clients do through ads, just reaching out as soon as you humanly possibly can. You know, under 10, 15 is ideal. But you know, if you're on a shoot or something, obviously just make sure you reach out to them as soon as you possibly can.

How many times have we. This focus is going crazy. How many times have we looked at people's Accounts and they're like, I haven't called the leads. And then they call the leads and they book so many appointments and calls from it. It's like ridiculous. Joe French, we're taking any questions, so feel free to comment. Anything you have. Go ahead, Ethan. Yep.

No, I was gonna say, yeah, it's. You just gotta call them, you know.

Yeah.

Phone call. Just that human, that human touch, that human element.

Well, I think a lot of times people think, oh, well, they reached out to the ad. They just didn't book an appointment. They must not be interested. It's like, no, people are just super busy. Like, people just are inundated with tons of ads, tons of things. They're super busy. You have to call them, you have to reach out to them, you gotta nurture them. You gotta do a bit of that process right when they're coming from ads. So that's huge. And I can't tell you, like, that could be the difference between getting a 20k deal and not getting a 20k deal. Right. It just, it just depends. Yep.

Give me two seconds to be right back here.

You're good. I know you gotta run for a sec. I'm taking any questions you guys have, but yeah, Joe French, if you have anything, any questions for me. Ethan's gotta let somebody into the office here. Let's see, how do I take him off? Can I remove him? I can.

Cool.

Yeah. Guys, we're answering any questions around scaling your agency. We've helped, we've worked with almost 800 people. I think at this point, helping them scale their agency, get more clients, get more leads, all that fun stuff. Let's see. Sparkhouse says. Oh, cool. I have, I have a Christmas paper up here. Let's go. I love it. I haven't done a live stream forever, guys. I feel like it's been a minute. It's so much fun. And they finally. Streamyard finally fixed the vertical placement for Instagram, which is great. But Sparkhouse says we've implemented text messages and dispute the lead process. Have seen great results. Do you. Have you guys tested or implemented the blue text services? They claim way better. Yeah, we're using Link right now. So we use Link for all of our text messages for imessage. Definitely gets a better response rate because it's not the green bubble. And if anybody doesn't know what he's talking about, basically it just means that essentially, like if somebody comes in and you get a text message from a normal CRM, it's going to be green, but you can buy basically Other programs that do blue text messages for you and kind of like hack your way into it. I guess hack is a wrong way of saying it, but basically like you can, you can get the blue imessage. We have seen big results from that. So like all of our pre call confirmation texts, all of our text messages there are all in imessage essentially. So if you book a call with us, it'll come through as imessage? Good question. But yeah, it's just. People just trust it a lot more. Nobody trusts androids. Don't. Don't get an Android because then you're, you're, nobody's going to trust you. And then apparently I've heard, obviously I don't date, but like I've heard from dating people. People don't like people with green. Is that true, Ethan? If you got green message then it's not good.

Some red flags.

Yeah.

He's like, I can't go on record and say this, but yes. Yeah. What else did Sparkhouse say? Does it come from a full seven digit? Yeah, yeah it does. Yeah, let's say that too.

With the phone number, make sure you get like a local area code and not just like a.

Something across the country. For sure. When you get a message to say company name logo. Yeah, it does, yeah, absolutely. Well, no, I'm sorry. So you can do the share contact thing like you can normally do on iPhone, but you cannot enable it. We haven't enabled it yet. So I don't have any data on that yet. But like you can basically have it just come from a normal message and it just looks like a normal iPhone message essentially. So good questions. Let me know if you have anything else on that too. Get people joining on Instagram. Guys, if you're tuning in, we are answering questions live. Ethan, you see this little wallpaper? We got this Christmas wallpaper up here on the. Can you see the vertical placement?

Yeah, I can see it on the left hand side.

Yeah, yeah, it's fun. Sweet. We'll check it out. Absolutely. Joe French says I run Saint Street Studio and Art. Bro, I'm gonna tell you a bad story. I'm going on tangents. When I was like super young, I thought it was Arkansas instead of Arkansas. Just horrible. It just goes to show you like how, how illiterate I was. But I run Saint Studio in Arkansas. We have good organic reach at 22K. We had a good organic reach at 22K. Monthly retainers, where to start? Actually actual lead chasing and wish list. Wish list client lists. Any tips on starting Points, actual lead chasing. I would just run ads, man. I would set up an inbound system. I would say, hey, here's who. Like, I would be curious, like, who, who are the types of clients that are the 22k and monthly retainers? Like, what kinds of businesses are they? Is what I would want to know. And if that's the case, then why don't we launch ads? Because you have enough revenue at this point, why don't we launch ads to get more of those types of people? So that's what we help our clients do. It's like, why don't we just say, hey, if you're a medical company and you need a system to get more patients in the door, like, we're going to help come in, install our video system, click the link below, schedule, call with us, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I mean, that's going to be the easiest way. I hate the word, like, lead chasing. I don't like that because then you're like, you're looking desperate, you're chasing them. Like, I would run targeted ads and let people come to you. That's like one of the main things that we do. And it just puts you in a much better frame than like, I got to chase these people or I got to find these people. And then, you know, you just, you're in like a lower status frame when you do that. So. But yeah, let me know, like, what kind of clients are they? I'd love to know. But yeah, that's huge, man. Like, the, the way a lead comes in, the intent behind how they come in and work with you is everything. Because, like, if you reached out to them, you're looking desperate, you cold called, you messaged, whatever. Like, they're always going to have the upper hand on you because they didn't reach out to you, you reached out to them. So. Agreed. We never gone after clients because it's natural. That's great. I mean, that obviously means that you do a good job if you have natural growth up to 22k a month, which is awesome, but now it's like, that's only going to get you so far. At the end of the day, you're going to need to start pouring some gas on the fire and you're at a good point where, where you have the money to do it. So I would definitely say, like, this is a great point for you to. Number one, I would look at what's the cost of your retainers and I'd love to know that if you could put it in the chat, like how much are they? Because we could probably up the prices a little bit. And then number two, just implementing an inbound system to get ads working. And you have to make sure that obviously messaging is right, the campaigns are set up. Like, that's all stuff that we do with our clients, obviously, but like just making sure those are set up so you can actually get qualified leads. That's the biggest thing. Let's see. Yeah, I'd love to know how much you're actually getting on each retainer and how many clients that is, because that'll also tell me some things around, like average lifetime value and then how much much they each are. So I thought the same thing. Yeah, exactly. Let's see. We're taking any and all questions, guys. So if you're tuning in live, we will answer them. I have a good amount at 2 to 4k. Pretty solid 8k. Nice. So why don't we get more at the 8k? Because like, the biggest thing when you're scaling is. I was talking to a company a couple weeks ago, they do about 180k a month in their agency, but they have 90 clients a month. No, thank you. Jeez, I'm good. Like, no. So like, I would say, why don't we look at who is the type of person, who is the 8K retainer and how do we go attract more of those types of people? Right? And like, maybe it's a type of person. We do an analysis, we figure out what, what is the kind of, like, what is the, the Persona of that type of company and then how do we go find more of them? That's it. Right. And then we run ads to find those people. Because if you were doing 8k a month retainers, Ethan's my math guy. How many retainers do I need at 8k a month, Ethan, to hit 100k a month?

About 12.

12?

Yeah.

And then how many would I need if it was 2k a month?

50.

50. Would you rather take 50 clients or 12? What's going on with this focus today, man? It keeps focusing on my mic.

For me, clients are better clients typically too. What are the. The clients that pay more are typically better clients.

They require less work. It's less money of their total income. Because the person, I'd be curious, like the person who's doing. Who's paying you 8k a month, right? Like, how much are they making? What kind of business are they? Says, woof. I love it. Yeah, I'd be curious because like, typically the people who are paying you the 8 to 10 to 15 to 20k a month range. Those people are already making either a million a month, half a million a month. It's such a low percentage of their income that to them it really doesn't matter. Right. So, like, they're not breathing down your neck. Hey, did you get this done? Hey, I need this done. Hey, you're like, we're putting our trust in you. Like, you better perform. It's like, I don't want those types of clients. They're just, they're too much work. Right, sure. It's growing big box retail store here, not many outside of them in Walmart. Okay, cool. So then I would look at. Okay, that's 8k there. So then if you can't go get more of those types of clients, then why don't we try to target something like medical companies or law firms or, you know, some sort of adjacent industry where there are enough of those people and there's a big enough tam for us to scale. Right. That's what I would look at. If you can't go find more of this. So. And then what are the people paying you? 2 to 4k a month, Joe? What does that look like? I'm curious. Let's see. I'll wait for him to reply. But yeah, more clients at higher prices. We don't want just more clients at 2 to 4k a month. It's a lot of work. It's not worth it, to be honest with you. But yeah, Joe, I'm curious, like, what are the other people, the 2 to 4k? I just think it's a weird. It's a, it's a, it's a vast spread where I think you could probably consolidate and just go find more 8k a month clients. Be easier. Let me see, what else do we have? Let's see. Yeah, Ethan. So speed to lead. What else is coming up on client calls this week since you take so many of them.

Yeah. That, you know, profit margins is a big part of it on packages. Making sure we're taking home a healthy amount. And then like as we hire on people, also making sure we adjust the pricing on that too.

I see. Okay. And so what are, what are profit margins that people should be shooting for when they're doing these packages?

70 typically, you know, but obviously, you know, the higher the better. But 70 is where I like to keep them at. And that's as we bring on shooters, editors, CSMs, you know, whoever we bring on. Just making sure we stay around that mark as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. So Joe says he's working with an influencer, a fencing company, non profit. He's taking work from other agencies, ad agencies. I see the problem, Joe. So, like the, the biggest thing that I see kind of looking. I don't have the full context, obviously, because I'm not talking to you. I'm just looking at the chat. But, like, the biggest problem I'm seeing with your. Your clientele is they're not all the same. And so, like, there's different. There's different. There's different fulfillment structures. There's like, there's one where every fulfillment is the same and then there's one where everything's custom. The everything custom is insanely hard to scale because everything is custom and every client is different. And so when you hit 10 clients, it feels like you have a hundred clients because each one needs something different. Where it would be easier to just vertically scale into a niche to where it's like, hey, we're only working with medical companies. We charge 8k a month. We do these things. My team knows exactly what to do. Every time I onboard a new medical company and it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? It's like Hassan from Content Factory atx, one of the clients that we work with, like, they only work with like, medical and like, like larger brands, right? So then it's just like the same thing every single time. And they hit 230k last month, I believe. So it's like, it's. You want to think about it as like a conveyor belt. So it's like if I can, if I'm poor, If I pour 100 new clients in which, like, you might have to pour like 50, you know, 20 to 50 new clients in to hit like 200k a month. It's like, would I rather have 20 to 50 all different types of clients, or would I rather have 20 to 50 of one type of client? It's like the one type of client's going to be much easier If I have 20 to 50 of that. Right? Much, much easier. So don't make it so hard on yourself. That's 10,000% true. Love it. I love the 10,000%. I was also on staff at Capitol Records a few years ago, so good doing. Yeah, you're too. You're too thin, man. Here's my camera again. Hold on, guys. You're spread too thin, in my opinion. Give me a sec. This is the only downside to using a nice camera on live streams is sometimes it just doesn't work. One sec here. Come on. There we go. Yeah, so, like, you're spread too thin. And so, like, you need one type of client, one type of avatar, and you can ride that to multiple millions a year with one type of person. That's it. Like literally just one. Keep it simple. Don't overcomplicate it. And then the agency stuff, like, it just gets so. I don't know how you do that, man. Like, it just gets so spread between, like, all these different things that it's just easier to stick with one. Like simple, simple, simple skills. Always focus on something simple. Hopefully that helps. Let's see what other questions. I see some people joining. If you're just joining, we are answering any questions around scaling your agency. Thanks for the input. Absolutely, dude, you got it. And we got a couple minutes here and then we're going to wrap up, guys. What other questions do we have? Let's see, let's see, let's see. So speed, delete. Ethan, you said margins. I'm just gonna keep prompting you, bro. What else? What if you work in clients.

I'd say another. Oh, one big one is, well, it's not new information, but from a hermosi bam fam book meeting. From a meeting. Whenever you get off a triage call, discovery call, whatever it is, there has to be something on the calendar next.

How often do you see people not do that?

I don't know, 30% of the time, you know, it's not.

It makes a difference because then you're just chasing them after that. So, like, if you're not. If you don't have a meeting booked, you're just chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing. And you put yourself in a position where, like, you just. You look desperate, right? Whereas if you have that next meeting, you have that next thing booked, you, it's a lot easier to obviously close them and then just keep the conversation going. So that's the biggest thing to people.

When they tell me they had a call, is when's the next one?

What are, what are some other things that people. I'm just checking to make sure our live stream's good. What are some other things that people are not doing in sales, calls that you feel like is affecting them? Closing more deals?

I would say not digging deep enough in the discovery, just kind of scratching the surface on things and not really taking the time to go through, like, we call them chunk down questions, right? Like, how long has that been going on? What else have you tried? You know, things like that to get to like, that second and third layer on top of just like the initial question that you ask?

Yeah, yeah. So just diving a bit deeper into what the actual issue is and then expanding the gap. Yeah, because I was talking to one of our clients about this too. Hold on, guys, this camera's killing me today. I was talking to one of our clients about this today too, and he was like, how do I build a gap? And I said, well, you just build a gap by asking them questions that lead to your solution. So like, if you help them with getting more leads through video content, you just ask them a simple question like, how are you getting more leads? Or how are you getting leads from video content right now? Oh, we're not. And then they're like, oh, shoot. And then they build that gap, right? It's like, should I be getting leads from video content or should I be running ads or should I have these systems in place? And so like by, by doing that, you're just like, well, do you have this? They're like, no. Do you have this? No. Do you have this? No. And like, you're just like building that gap of like, no, no, no, I don't have any of that stuff. Shoot, should I have that stuff? And then like, it kind of builds that gap in their mind to be like, well, based on what you told me, I think that we could help with X, Y and Z. Right. And you build that gap that way. So I think that's the biggest thing is like you just have to know and ask questions around the problems that you solve. Not just random questions. I think people just get so caught. Caught up with that a lot of times. So, yep, I see some people, more people joining. So if you have questions. We have about five minutes here left on this live and we're going to be answering any questions you have around scaling your video agency, what to put in your packages, all that fun stuff. And then if you haven't checked out our YouTube channel, we have a bunch of free content on there as well. Let's see what else. Yeah, so speed to lead, building that gap. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I know Joe and them just closed. What was it? I'm trying to pull it up. Just close an 85k six month package, which is huge. Let's maybe just scroll through the winds channel for a second.

Dude.

Let's see. Share my screen. Here we go. Look at that. Christmas theme, baby. Oh my gosh. I love that. Looks good. How do I move this? Hold on. Apparently I don't know how to use Stream yard.

Hold on.

There we go. Cool. So yeah, Joe signed that, the six month 85k package, dude, that was huge. Do you know what kind of client this was?

Something kind of home service business.

Okay, cool. Do you know what kind or was it. Because I know they were working with. Maybe it was this roofing client actually that they. They were working with. Yeah. That's sick. That's great.

Yeah.

Adam Meyer got three new leads over the weekend from ads. And this one was from ads as well. Oliver has four new leads. Looks like Matt collected 22k this month, halfway to his 50k goal, which is huge. And then, dude, Mitch, I want to talk about Mitch for a second, dude. Went from $450 retain or 450 real estate shoots where he was doing like four to five of them a day. And then he got to. He closed 45k in retainers, which is huge. And so I think he closed like a 30k and a 15k which was awesome because he wanted to kind of hedge with like slow season and, and with this he's. He's starting to just go all in on retainers and just ditch real estate in general just because it's. He's tired of kind of the high volume game, you know, which is huge. But those are our wins. Couple of our wins, guys. We can keep scrolling. Yeah, you can see he closed 15k, 30k. But we're gonna kind of end it here with any questions you guys may have before we jump off. Let's see, any other questions. Going once, going twice, let's see. All right, guys, well, we are back for lives. If you have any questions for us, tune in. We're doing them every Thursday at 2pm Eastern. So if you have any questions for me or for our team, let us know. And if you want to learn more about how we can help with your video or creative agency scaling it, go ahead and click the link below. Click the link in our bio. We'd be happy to help and see if we can help get you scaled up. So that being said, in the next month.

All right, that. Love this life. Yeah love this life life. 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 rapies see you on the way up only looking down remember seeing where we came from you ain't gotta wear it up never gonna slow back down there's no stopping now we can't take us down there's no reason to feel fight the sp cuz I love this life Everything's all right and there's no reason to stop believing. Love this life and the future's bright and there's no reason to fight the feeling yeah, love this life, yeah love this life, yeah love this life. I love this life. I won't wait around for the cur. Life is not a race, it's on big show I can see right now that the truth is told. Feels like ready? Love this life. To stop believing, Yeah, love this life, yeah love this life, yeah love this life, yeah love this life. Life, yeah love this life, yeah love this life. Cuz I love this life. Everything's all right and there's no reason to fight the love is life. Everything's all right is you just right it feels all right, Yeah love this life, 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, mama seeing where we came from. You ain't got a way up Never going to slow back down down. There's no reason to fight the sp Cuz I love this life. Everything's all right and there's no reason to stop believing 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.