Eric Deeran (Master Filmmaker) addresses two coaching questions: (1) how to hold yourself when meeting high-revenue clients who seem intimidating, and (2) how to handle rejection as a business owner. He argues that creators should present themselves as the content expert (clients may run big businesses but lack content-creation expertise), prescribe solutions rather than taking orders, and separate personal self-worth from sales outcomes. He also gives a practical input-focused approach to rejection (keep taking calls) and cites typical close-rate expectations.
Questions this video answers
Eric Deeran — Master Filmmaker.
About 30–40% close rate (implying ~60–70% will say no).
Chapters
What's going on, guys? In today's video, I want to make it super brief, but something that I talked to one of our coaching clients about on our coaching call today. So it's kind of top of mind, but he asked some mindset questions around what do I do when I feel like I walk into a room with a really established business owner and I just don't really know how to handle that? You know, they are doing tens of millions of dollars a year and I don't really understand how to hold myself or carry myself in a way that's not a freelancer to where they still respect me. That was kind of his first question, which I'll address. And then his second question was more of the kind of like, how do I face rejection, how do I deal with rejection and how do I handle that as a business owner? And I think that's hard and something that a lot of us have to go through if you're running a business, because the bigger you get, the more rejection you get at the end of the day. And for this specific individual, I was talking to him about the walking to the room and he works with law firms and he works with lawyers and law firms doing tens of millions of dollars a year. And he goes in and he's like, how do I hold my own with these guys who have these big egos and, and I don't really know how to like handle it. And I just feel like, you know, they're looking down on me and I don't know how to actually like hold my own in those conversations. And what I told him was those guys may be doing tens of millions of dollars a year in their law firm, but they don't actually know how to create content. They don't know how to, you know, create content that actually gets them results. They just know how to run a business. And running a business and being a content creator and understanding content and content strategy and how to actually get clients results with content are two completely separate things. And I think a lot of times we get that mixed up. I told him, I said, when you go into this meeting, you have confidence because you have more expertise than they do in this specific area. They don't have any expertise in the area of content creation or videography or filmmaking or creating content that gets them leads and traffic. All they know is how to run a business. They don't actually understand how to create content. And as someone who runs a multiple seven figure business, I am fortunate to come from the background of content. So I understand that But I also know a lot of my friends who have no idea how to create content that works. And they run multiple seven figure businesses and they know what they're doing on that side, but they don't actually know how to create content that gets them results. That's what they hire them. I said, when you go into these meetings, you have to understand that you are the expert in your specific area of expertise. They are not like, if you were going to go in there and argue about law, then I might be concerned. But with these specific people, they have no idea what's going on. They don't know how to do the content. They don't know how to create the content. So go in there with authority knowing that you are the expert. And I think that's a big thing that a lot of people get mixed up is they go in and they're more of an order taker. They just take the order from the client. They're just like, okay, whatever you say, whatever you want, what videos do you want? Instead of asking the client, you know, what are the main problems? What's the main goal? And then how do we reverse engineer, engineer our way into that goal based on the, you know, based on the goal that you said you wanted to get to. And then they don't prescribe content, they're more of just a waiter instead of becoming a doctor or an expert on content. So they can prescribe the client the right solution based on the problems that they have. And if you can go in with that framing and say, hey, I'm going to go in and prescribe you a specific solution, then they're going to respect you because they don't know what they're talking about there, right? But if you go in, you're like, oh, you know, these guys have a big ego and you let them take frame of the conversation, then they're going to take that away from you. It's going to be really difficult to get that back. And they're not going to respect you. And for someone to buy something from you, they have to look up to you or respect you in one area of whatever it is that you're selling or, right? If you don't look up to the person that's creating your content, then like you're not going to pay them a lot of money because you don't actually look up to them. If you don't look up to a coach who's doing more than you, right? Then you're not going to hire them because you're like, why would you hire anybody who's doing less than you. And so it's the same concept here. They're looking up to you. So you have to bring that energy to the conversation. And the second point he had that I'll touch on shortly was more so around how do I face rejection and how do I not get like, how do I not get in that mindset? And I told him, I said, look man, like I'll be honest with you. Our team and our company and our businesses probably face more rejection on a daily basis than you will an entire couple of months. I said, that's just the game when you get to a higher level. And I don't say that to be like an ego brag or whatever. I just say that to say like you will face more rejection the higher up you go. Because if you're booking, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 calls a day, you know, you're probably only gonna close 30 to 40% of those. So the other 60% of those calls statistically are gonna tell you no. Those clients are going to tell you no, they're not going to work with you. You're going to face rejection. I said, you have to separate it from yourself personally. And you can't take it personally. And for a very long time I did take it personally. And every time I closed the deal, I attached that to my, my personal self worth. And that was really difficult because if, you know, I wasn't closing deals or I wasn't getting retainers, then I felt really crappy about myself and shitty about myself. And you know, when I was, I felt really good. It was just up and down rollercoaster all the time. It's a really terrible way to run a business and to run your life. So I would say keep consistent to the inputs and focus on the inputs and make the inputs the goal, not the outputs because the outputs will come. If you, if, you know, you take 10 calls, you close one call, right? Worst case scenario, then all you should be focusing on is how do I keep taking ten calls? Ten calls, ten calls, ten calls, ten calls. And then the, the, the clients and the retainers and the money will come from that. But if you take like five calls and then you're like, oh man, everybody said no and they just give up, then you're not even going to get to the 10 calls to close the one deal. And so you have to put yourself in a perspective where your personal self worth is not tied to things getting done or deals getting done. And you don't put yourself in that situation because it's just tough mentally if you're going to keep doing that. I said, you also have to realize that as you grow, rejection is a part of the game. And that's just a part of what we have to deal with. Right? And, you know, that's what we're here for. That's what our community is here for. That's what we're here for. Lean on us. Running a business is not easy. You're going to face rejection because you have to hold your own. You know, there's going to be setbacks, there's going to be obstacles, there's going to be valleys. But the peaks and the winds and those things make it all worth it. But you know, I'd be lying if I said that you're winning all the time in business, because you're just not. So hopefully that helps one of you guys out there listening to this. I know it certainly helped this gentleman that was on our coaching call. And if you want to learn more about what we do at Master Filmmaker, feel free to click the link below, book call their team, or just keep enjoying these free YouTube videos. We'll see you in the next one.
