Jason Anderson

[00:01:44] Audra: you know, what I think is interesting is there comes a place if you make it, if you get, can launch your business and get any kind of momentum to it, where you’ve got it validated, you’ve got some customers and now it’s just a matter of scaling it.

[00:01:58] Or I, I guess you’d be growing it first. we find that at some point you’re pivoting. So where we start, where we end up is typically not the same place. No. it’s just enough to get us going. And I think that’s a great thing about being able to market a business online. You evolve with the trends, The, if your product is solid and what you’re delivering, meaning you’re getting your clients, the results, pivoting along the way as new technology comes, different systems, different funnels are built.

[00:02:28] Jason Anderson: It makes, you’re able to sustain a business online for quite some time. I think the biggest factor is if you’ve got an attitude of serving of finding, you know, what do your clients or potential clients really need. Right. So right. And then to provide a service.

[00:02:42] So rather than try to sell a particular service, provide a service, there’s a big difference, right? So you’re providing what they need now. Sometimes you have to sell them on the specifics, on how it actually is implemented. But if you keep a good pulse on what’s happening, that’s what I had to do.

[00:02:57] I mean, I knew that, animated, explainer videos, they were, the way to go. I could have gone a different direction as far as where it comes to income. I could have said, well, now we’re at a point where we can charge, we can start charging, we start at $10,000 just because of our experience.

[00:03:10] I did not go that route. I could’ve, and I probably could’ve done better. Who knows financially, but. My heart wasn’t into, you know, what can I charge most money for? Right. My heart was into how can I serve the best? And eventually that will turn into bigger revenue. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. So, yeah, I’m sure that there will be business coaches.

[00:03:29] If they’re listening to this, they’re like, no, you need to have a little bit more of a specific plan than that, but that’s my story. And that’s how it’s happened to,

[00:03:35] Audra: And I think today, if you’re a marketer or a service provider from, pre probably 2018. we had a different set of rules that we got to operate within, and we were able to market even today a little bit different than the people that have come in the last two or three years.

[00:03:53] They don’t know what it’s almost like. It was a evolution of a new generation coming into online marketing and running businesses, probably 2018, 19. And then, post COVID, we’ve seen a whole different landscape, but us that are fortunate enough to been around a long time. We know how much, leeway that we’ve got to experiment with.

[00:04:15] And then we’re also a little bit more grounded, right? We didn’t grow up in the industry, hearing all the hype of, get a product, get an audience and make a million dollars by the end of the year that wasn’t our generation of owning a business online. So we don’t get caught, for the most part, we don’t get caught up in.

[00:04:34] It’s a great marketing that’s available. We’re, we know what it takes. We know there’s a little bit more work to it and sticking to it. I feel like I shifted from the hair, to the tortoise. Which is weird, but, I was that hurry fast, you gotta get everything to market.

[00:04:49] Jason Anderson: And then once I realized, okay, wait a second, there’s a system here. There’s a process. if I slow down a little bit, I can actually get more momentum that it continues on its own. actually, you talk about how we started, Yeah. I’m sure that you and I were both, in business and doing something.

[00:05:03] Yeah. I wasn’t in business at the time, but before the internet even. So there’s been, yeah, of course. there’s kids that are gonna be listening to this right now. That’re like, I was born in two thousand and one, right. Or something like that. So, we were well into the internet.

[00:05:16] Well, not well into the internet, but we were certainly, that was available. So, how we actually communicate and how we do things for clients are still fundamentally the same. As before the internet even existed. Correct. Right. Correct. You know, before the internet existed, there was TV commercials and that’s kind of where my mentality was when I was creating those animated explainer videos.

[00:05:36] I was thinking to myself still, because I grew up, you know, I’m a seventies kid and I grew up watching television and cartoons and all that other stuff. So it naturally, for me, I’m like, I really like the explainer videos because they are, it’s something that almost any business can use. it’s a skill that not everybody knows how to do.

[00:05:53] And, and so that’s how I gravitated towards that. So, now. If you have any kind of experience, you can kind of get into business, anything online. Right. And so that’s why I’m still happy to be serving in the content arena because you know, there’s a lot of experts that are out there, but they, that bottleneck is getting their expertise out there and edited so that they can be showcased in a way that’s maybe not bragging.

[00:06:19] That’s not salesy. Sure. That kind of attracts people to their business, to their coaching, to whatever it is that they do. So that’s my main focus. And that’s what it’s been, especially since COVID, we actually took a big hit during COVID cuz everybody got scared. Did oh yeah.

[00:06:34] Big hit. Yeah. Took personal loans, to keep, employees, luckily I was able to take advantage of the, PPP loans, right? Yeah. The PPP loans. I was able to take advantage of that. And luckily that was, forgiven, but I also had some other loans on top of that from before. mm-hmm so, but you know, a lot of people, it was pretty scary at that point.

[00:06:53] And so I’m very happy to still be here. I’m very lucky to be here only because of, some dedicated employees that stuck around. Nice. and also the fact that I threw that line out there knowing that, listen, this there’s going to be an end to this.

[00:07:06] And, and there are people that are still going to need to, get their content across. Yeah. And if you’re an expert, you need to be an expert in whatever it is. You’re an expert at not necessarily video editing, video branding video. Creating content of any point, we were talking earlier about, or you were talking about pivoting.

[00:07:24] Yeah. You know, we’re making another pivot now, you know, cuz we were focused mainly on just the video editing part of it. But there’s a major component of, the clients that we’re doing our videos for. They’re like, this is great. I’m kind of now my bottleneck is posting and, and the strategy with how do, when do I post these on social and what do I post with it?

[00:07:42] And how do I make this work? How do I make this turn into clients? How do I make this turn into leads? So this is great. This video stuff is great, but at the end of the day, if it’s not gonna really help me right then is it worth even doing so, we’re kind of moving into that arena as well.

[00:07:57] Audra: I think that there’s different stages that we go through as a business. Right. And that’s kind of common knowledge. I’ve divided it down into six different stages. And I think as we transition through each one of ’em, it doesn’t matter what our widget is. Right. We have some kind of expertise or some kind of interest.

[00:08:14] We start with that. We decide we wanna launch a business behind it. We get a little bit of, you know, we get that up, we get it running. It’s definitely not a straight line, but as we work through what that looks like, where we start, where we end up are not ever gonna be the same thing, but it’s almost like we have to grow into that role as the business owner to be able to move to what’s next and pivot with technology or pivot with customer demand, especially if you’re on the service side of it and you get to a place.

[00:08:46] At least I have in a few of the different businesses where it became very project management, heavy. It’s like, okay. No matter what I do, I can only max out it so much. Mm-hmm but you can’t make that decision to evolve your business to what’s next until you hit that max out point. So is it burnout? Is it, you know, I can’t take on any more clients.

[00:09:09] My clients are suffering because I don’t have the bandwidth, so they’re not getting the results. What does that look like? And then I think also just fatigue from doing the same thing for so many years. You’ve got to, if you, know, you’re solid in your industry, I think that’s when you have to assess, all right, what else can I create?

[00:09:29] What’s the next evolution of my business of me as the entrepreneur. and then how do I start balancing that scale a little bit more where I’m not trading dollars for hours? I can scale on magnitude. And I think where people get lost is today. They just try to skip all of that and go straight to scaling.

[00:09:50] And they really can’t cuz they just don’t have that foundation to do it. They try and occasionally, you know, someone will slip through and get that success or they’ve been coached.

[00:09:58] Jason Anderson: I mean, there’s, a lot of stuff out there if you’re, listening to certain gurus or if you’re listening to certain motivational things, talking about, you have the ability to, if you can think it, you can believe it and it’ll happen now.

[00:10:10] Right. You know, the secret type of thing. Now, listen, I, right now I’m actually in a coaching program right now where we’re studying Bob Proctor. Nice talking about that. However, there is a sequence on how to, actually manifest that, there’s a big difference between wishing something to happen and then actually making something happen through, through the use of goals.

[00:10:29] So, I think what you’re talking about, and maybe I’m wrong, but what I, what my mind was kind of drifting off to was that there’s a lot of people that once they get into just a little bit of pain in their business or a little bit of monotony. They’re like, this is not for me.

[00:10:43] I don’t wanna do this. I did not sign up to be to turn into a job. I’m sorry, but it’s a job. And sometimes there’s gonna be some things that you’re gonna be doing that you need to really go through to understand and to work at. Right. And then maybe once, you know, yeah. I don’t like to do bookkeeping. I don’t like to do any of this stuff.

[00:11:00] Right. But there’s certain things where if it doesn’t make sense to hire a bookkeeper, then do the bookkeeping. because you can’t not do the bookkeeping. Right. Right. If you’re struggling with figuring out how to do a very specific thing, there’s ways to either you pay for somebody to do it for you or to teach you how to do it and do it with you.

[00:11:17] Right. Or you take the time and the monotony to go through and figure it out by course, go to YouTube. Right. Whatever it is, you know? Right. When I started off with video and I, and quite frankly, you might think that, Hey, I, maybe I got into the video editing business because I was a video editor, but that’s not the case.

[00:11:33] I was a business owner. And, back when I started the animated videos, it’s from a need, I was creating some software and I needed some video to explain, what it was. And I wanted something that was like bigger than me, right. Something that was more impressive. Right. And so I found a video editor on in India and I think I paid a couple hundred dollars, you know, and they had the American voiceover and I was like, so wowed by it.

[00:11:56] I was like, that’s great. And so then I was thinking to myself, my goodness, you know, if I can partner with somebody or bring some people in and know how to do this, I know how to do marketing. I know how to. I was just entrepreneurial. I was just thinking, you know, I know how to get these things going. So I built that around that idea of knowing that, this again, serving what do people want?

[00:12:17] I knew I wanted it. I knew that there would be other people that want it. And, how do we make it so it’s affordable and that’s what I worked on. And so I, created this business from a desire to serve, not from something that, because it’s naturally something that I did or was, already in.

[00:12:33] So you can, you can start from anywhere. You can start from anywhere. So think so knowing that don’t start with your first thought, think big man. Think about what do I really wanna do? What kind of impact do I wanna make? And then go for that because you know that you can do that. If you focus on going in that direction, you don’t have to have that background to be in that business.

[00:12:54] Audra: Well, I think if I’ve learned anything from owning multiple businesses, I’ve had to work through thinking too small. And it’s not until you get outside yourself and get out and start reading books and educating yourself. Not, so much following social media, cuz that’s not the right comparison. that is an illusion of a business for many, many people on there.

[00:13:18] So I’m talking about getting out and reading autobiographies of people from our past. One of the biggest ones that I read was this Amazon. And that, I think it was called Above the Clouds or something about the cloud, right? When, he came out with cloud computing and how it changed the industry, just thinking how big that idea was at that time.

[00:13:43] And I’m like, oh my goodness. I am thinking way too small. He completely redesigned Mark Benioff, completely redesigned an industry and not by himself, but it was really going against a grain of what was normal during that time and all the big fish and understanding that. And I think if anything, we play too small, we just don’t conceptually know how big we could dream, cuz we don’t know what we don’t know.

[00:14:09] So of course our thoughts don’t go there and you do have to get outside yourself and get some training to allow yourself to explore that. if we look at any business, especially over the last 10 years, if you have a good product to the right market, with the right message, you’re gonna do decent.

[00:14:25] You can actually build a really nice business from it. if you want to make some impact past that, then yeah. You gotta put the work in. I do tell my clients that they’re like, well, what’s the shortcuts. I’m like, there are no shortcuts. Either you do it or you pay somebody to do it. That’s it. We have not got to a place yet where all that’s automated.

[00:14:43] AI’s come a long way and we can write some great content. And with D A L L E, was it D A L L E 2 coming out, we’ll be able to create cool imagery, but it’s gonna be years before that’s ready,

[00:14:54] Jason Anderson: even then, you know, there’s, people ask me, you know, they’re like, well, you’re in video.

[00:14:58] So are you afraid of like these video apps and all this stuff? I’m like, no, because you still have to do it. Not only that, most of the time, you still have to have your story, you have to message and you still have to be an expert at something. Right. Right. And so you’re talking about what’s the shortcut?

[00:15:11] Well, there is no shortcut, you know, there isn’t for you to do what you’re doing. There, might be smarter ways of doing something, but you’re not gonna okay. For example, I’ve been studying how to make pizza a lot lately, right? I’ve been watching have you copious amount of YouTube videos and how to make Neapolitan pizza and I’ve been trying it.

[00:15:28] And I’ve been coming up with these and realizing that making pizza is a hell of a lot harder to do than people give credit for. And so even if these pizza chains and you just think, oh, it’s just pizza. You know, somebody just throws some dough together. And, the point that I’m making is that, you know, I wouldn’t be able to start a pizza store today.

[00:15:46] There’s no shortcut to that. I still have to go through it. Even everything I’ve learned, I don’t have that experience yet. I haven’t created enough pizzas to realize that, you know, what happened. I got system and I got this, how the temperature fluctuates with the yeast and the rising and all this other stuff that, so I can’t rush in and just get a store, unless if there was like a franchise, of course, here’s how I could get into.

[00:16:09] You still have to learn their system though. You have to learn their system. Uh, but it’s through a franchise it’s still gonna have, it’s still gonna be systematized. They’re still gonna have all their SOPs. They’re gonna have everything ready for you. It’s gonna be turnkey for you to right. You have to know which key to use and stuff, but they, when you open up each file, right.

[00:16:27] It’s there. Right. So right. You and I were talking about how you’ve been developing for it’s very similar to that. Yeah. Where if you could tap into, Hey, this is a proven thing you don’t have to necessarily, uh, it’s kinda like a recipe, right? Yep. I can cook a great pizza as long as I’ve got that recipe there.

[00:16:44] But if, you know, I know the recipe by heart, but I didn’t make that recipe. Right, right. But there’s different ways to make in different recipes. So I’ve learned different recipes and there’s one recipe that I’m extremely good at right now, but it’s only cuz I’ve done it several times. I’ve messed it up a couple times.

[00:17:01] but still that recipe still there. And I’m able to pull that out of the drawer, you know,

[00:17:04] Audra: and I think it comes back to our businesses the same way. The goal, is not to get to a place of automation where everything is automated. Cuz we lose that connection to our customers to begin with. But it’s to automate the things that don’t directly connect to the customer, meaning I can send you emails that are automated.

[00:17:24] I don’t need to person now the content that’s it. Within that email should be personal. Sure. But I don’t need to physically be the one hitting the button every single time that goes by. I can set up automations. So there’s lots of things that we can use as far as technology to help us scale faster.

[00:17:41] Especially if we’re a small business. essentially what that does is it just takes it off your plate. So you can focus on serving or talking to your customers or doing, phone calls with them or anything else. I think that’s that fine point. people buy coaching programs or buy courses, or try to fast track their business to get all these SOPs and checklists and franchise model thinking it was gonna get them away from the customer.

[00:18:13] And it doesn’t, they still have to put the work in. I’m gonna give you a quick story. I had a client a handful of years ago, probably seven years ago, eight years ago, that was launching a nutritional product. Super smart, spot on, product that was just coming out when keto was starting to get big. So timing was great, great ingredients.

[00:18:35] It was a solid product he’s like, yeah but how do you automate all this? I’m like, you can’t launch your brand without being the face. We don’t buy from faceless companies. You need to show up as the owner of this product and hawk it. He fought, it fought, it, fought it. And I was just responsible for building out the website, the launch part, and then building kind of the system for him.

[00:18:57] And then he was taking it from there. So it was like a three month, six month contract that we worked together. Once that was all finished, he fought, he was stuck on the four hour work week and he thought that’s all he had to work. The product will take care of itself, but he didn’t wanna run paid ads.

[00:19:15] and he didn’t wanna be the face of the company. I’m like, dude, this isn’t gonna go anywhere. You gotta put that work in. No, no, no. I don’t wanna put it in. It’ll be fine. Fast forward. A handful of months, fast forward a year, I sees working with a marketing agency out of New York, huge brand big dollars. You know what, buddy?

[00:19:35] You gotta start getting in front of the camera. It’s the only way they said all the exact same things as I did. Another fast forward another six months, another year, I see him everywhere talking about his product. Then sales started taking off. I mean, it’s challenging if you’re not gonna be the one on camera to promote your product.

[00:19:54] unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on what site you’re standing on, it is the best mechanism out there right now, because it allows people to connect to you. But if you’re not gonna do it, what would you suggest from a video standpoint? How do people promote online? If they’re a C type personality, that’s an introvert.

[00:20:15] Audra: What do you tell ’em?

[00:20:16] Jason Anderson: Well, Before it was like, just do PowerPoint presentations, right. And hide behind the camera. But that doesn’t work cuz nobody’s going to, it might work for like a webinar. Right. But it’s not gonna work to attract business through social media or through that or something because PowerPoints are not interesting, so I would say here’s honestly, you have to take a look at if you realize or if you know, Hey, listen, I’m truly not comfortable in front of the camera.

[00:20:40] Then, rather than talking to the camera, talk to somebody else like you and I, maybe there should be an interview. You need to have a sidekick or somebody where maybe you can have somebody ask you some questions about things, and then you answer to them personally. Right. And so now you’re not talking to you don’t feel like you’re talking to an audience, you’re talking to one person.

[00:20:57] Like it could be just you and I talking. Right. So that’s one thing that I’d say, do a recording like this and maybe, you know, have some Q and a, and create several videos from the conversation that you have. Okay. The nice thing is, is that because it’s not live like this, is not published live, we’re recording this on zoom.

[00:21:13] So, if you make a mistake, there’s no rule that says, man, we have to post this. And you know, whatever you said is that’s in stone. Delete it, edit it out, put it in, and then, maybe carve your story together. So that’s the one way to do it. The other way to do it is if you truly don’t wanna be the face of your company and you really want to build your brand, you can still have heroes inside of your company, hero employees or hero

[00:21:38] people that actually do have those a type personalities and, , maybe it’s a partner or maybe it’s somebody that you hire, right? Say, listen, I wanna hire somebody most of the time that people don’t have the money to do that, but this is a solution, you know? Yeah. This is a six figure solution.

[00:21:51] Jason Anderson: A six figure solution is to hire somebody to be the face. Right. Okay. And, it could be a famous actor. It could be somebody local in your, in your area. If you’re a local business that people recognize is a really strong thing, like think about this, who’s the brand behind

[00:22:06] the general insurance, like whoever the owner of that is now, obviously it’s a big, stockholder company, but there’s no owner of the general insurance. But as soon as I hear of general insurance, I think of the cartoon guy and Shaquille O’Neal. Right, right, right. So there is a face of the company.

[00:22:22] Jason Anderson: So the good news is, is no, you don’t have to be the face yourself, but you do have to pay somebody to be the face if, if that’s not the case. So it goes back to again, there’s no shortcut it does the only way through it is through it, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I would say that the, the easiest thing to do is the very first thing we talked about.

[00:22:40] If it’s just an employee, if it’s your, uh, wife or your husband or your significant other, or your kids, anything, or even a colleague, somebody who’s in business, like. You and I, we could do this together, you know? Right. We could do five of these say, listen, let me, let me talk to you about you and your business and everything.

[00:22:56] And let’s put this, clip it out. And then over the next year, now you’ve got 20, 30, 40, 50 videos that, that you can share just from our conversation that we probably spent a total of two hours doing, you know? Right. So that’s a really good investment, you know, and you can do that yourself on zoom. You can do it on.

[00:23:12] Yeah. Uh, you know, you can do it on your iPhone. You can do just do it, you know? So that would be my highest recommendation. Okay. All right. So let’s pivot, let’s talk about you. Where are you going next? So we know that you own a video agency. Would you call. Video service agency. Yeah. I would say video-centric content agency is where we going.

[00:23:35] Okay. We are we’re pivoting before it was, you know, it was, uh, animated explainers than it was the video buddy service, which is the you shoot, we edit type thing. Right. And now it’s gonna be more along the lines of, you know, we’re going to, um, we wanna help people build their brand through this video centric.

[00:23:54] Okay. Recording, where we are able to do these types of recordings, like what you and I are doing right here. Okay. Transcribe that, give that to writers to talk, you know, so from video, we’re able to cascade. Uh, a, a lot of different type of content and repurpose that through your website, through social, through even, you know, if it’s a local television, whatever it is, you still have to have this content.

[00:24:16] And for people to get to know your brand, whoever’s working on that content. They have to understand, you know, who you are, what your company’s about. And so how are you gonna get that to ’em without, you know, filling out a long form or doing all this stuff yourself, right? If you’ve got these interviews just, and we’re learning about your company, as long as we’re learning about your company, we might as well re record it, make that part of what we offer.

[00:24:38] So, listen, let me talk to you about what are you doing and for the next couple of months, so I can get to know you, but in the meantime, let’s take those conversations and turn the, turn that into snackable micro content that we can share. Right? Mm-hmm . So now we have an immediate relationship. I’ve got a new client, and then we’ve got more of ability to, um, uh, to offer other services.

[00:25:01] You know, maybe in two or three months, once we get to know you, you get to know us. What if, what if we don’t work together? Well, what if we’re like oil and water? Well then sure. Maybe just that few months of doing this interview learning and coming up with those videos was all that’s needed. But if you get a friend, you get somebody who really gets what, you know, your, your brand.

[00:25:19] Yeah. And, and you trust that, that we know what we’re doing with this content. It’s gonna be a natural progression for us. So that’s where our pivot is. We’re a video centric. Okay. Content department. Okay. And we’re starting off our, our basic, uh, I guess our, our entry level thing is going to be our, uh, our, our video buddy, um, virtual video director, um, recording sessions, where we get to know your business and start creating these snack videos and kind of go from there.

[00:25:47] How do you market your business currently? I. You don’t? No, no, I, uh, because you’ve been around so long or because you don’t need to, or no, no, I need to, um, do we all? Yeah, I got it. All right. Well, like I said, you know, uh, COVID almost put me out of business. Right. COVID almost bankrupted me. So there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s the struggle of, you know, because I’m doing so much, you know, there’s only so much I can do.

[00:26:12] Right. And so, um, you know, when we’re working in client stuff, it’s hard to build your own things. And then it’s also hard to, you know, somebody says, well, just hire somebody to, to, to do this part for you. I’m sorry, but there’s no money for me to do this because I’ve got payroll coming up. Right. So, um, and I’ve got loans that I’ve taken out to make sure that the payroll is, you know, all that other gets coming in.

[00:26:31] So, um, I’m not gonna sugarcoat anything because a lot of people, when they come on these podcasts, they’re like, oh man, look at this, you know, we’ve made last year, we did, you know, X dollars. We’re doing great. We’re killing it. I’m not killing it. I’ve got a vision that, uh, where I will be killing it. But, uh, right now I’m not doing any marketing now.

[00:26:50] I’m not struggling though, either. Um, right. Let me kind of, you know, let me rephrase this. When you say, what are you doing for customers? Most of my clients come when I like, when I need the cash flow. For some reason something happens. It’s like serendipity, right through referrals. You put the right energy out to the universe and the universe reward you when you’re confident in that.

[00:27:11] Right. It does. And so that’s, that’s where, that’s where it’s at now. Okay. Um, for the rest of 2022 though, we’re definitely, we’re gonna get very aggressive on growing that because, um, I’ve been like, like you were talking about earlier, I’m I’ve been thinking too small. My goals have been on the wrong, the small.

[00:27:28] Have been on small targets and that’s the larger targets. And so if we reach for the moon, if even if we don’t get to it, we’re certainly gonna get to the, to the horizon over there. So, um, that’s where I’m headed. Yeah. I think one of the challenges is, have you ever read the Michael Gerber’s book? Yes. Yep.

[00:27:44] Yep. Okay. So remember he talks about a manager and the entrepreneur and the technician. I think what happens at, for small businesses is they start out as the entrepreneur, but then we have to get in the weeds to build our business. Because again, without money, you’re not paying anybody, which means you’re bootstrapping it, which means you’re doing the work you’re doing the work.

[00:28:04] Some can dig in and transition into that role of being the technician, some can’t and the businesses never go anywhere. Right. Right. But if, and again, I’m talking, if there’s no funding. But because you spend so much time in technician mode, trying to build that business, then you move into the manager role where you’re managing that business.

[00:28:26] And maybe a few people behind there. It’s tough to move out of that spot, to go back to the entrepreneur where you get to dream and think big and get out of the weeds of technical stuff. I think that was one of the pivots for me in the agency. I had great paying clients. I mean, I, I think I told you I was charging between 25 and $40,000 a project.

[00:28:51] Yep. But then you get 10, 15 of these customers. You become the project manager of the job. They’re paying you a lot of money. They wanna deal with you. So they want you to swap out that image. They want you to change the font size. They want you to reposition some text or edit three words in a sentence.

[00:29:11] And then I realized I didn’t like any of that. So it, at some point it’s not, and believe me, money’s in my top three, it’s actually in my top two, but, and one, two go head to head. Um, I couldn’t do it. I was starting to hate it. I was like, oh my gosh, every time the phone I cringed, it was a job I had now 15 bosses.

[00:29:34] Bossing me around silly things. I’m like, guys, I don’t do the project management. Let me hand you off to a highly qualified project manager. They weren’t having it. They still ended up right back on my plate. Um, and that, wasn’t what I, that’s not the business model that I want. You know, what’s funny. So we were talking about earlier about, okay, so how do we, you know, we have to be the face of the brand.

[00:29:56] We have to have people where people want to do business with you, but then there is this, and I’m glad we’re talking about this because you have this, this, this danger of, well, what if they like you so much where they don’t wanna do, you know, uh, you need to learn how to, um, like say I will be more than happy to be your personal concierge in this.

[00:30:15] Right. But that is not even if, even if you’re selling the 20 or $40,000 mark, you can, or, you know, you can literally say. We’re giving you the value and I don’t know what you were giving them for 20, $40,000. But if you take a look at what other agencies charge, you know, other large, uh, like Coca-Cola and all, uh, 40 to 20 to $40,000 engagement is a very, very small engagement.

[00:30:38] Right? So it’s really your perception, right? So when somebody’s coming to you and saying, listen, I want you to be the one to do all of this, rather than your project manager then at, or your staff. Yeah. Or your staff at that point, you could say, I would be more than happy to be your personal concierge, but this is going to cost you X dollars, whatever you put that on you.

[00:30:56] Right. Five times that yeah. Or, or 10 or a hundred times that, okay. Right. So, um, you know, and because some people might be thinking that, you know, well, I, geez, man, she’s charging 20, $40,000. I only. 200 or 4,000, you know, so everything is, everything’s just relevant. A perception yeah. Where somebody could be listening and it could be a corporate client saying she’s only charging 20 or $40,000 on the, yeah, this was years ago.

[00:31:19] Let me qualify that right. This would’ve been, so I started in oh nine. So this would’ve been, you know, 2012 somewhere we’re there 2013. Yeah, it was some time ago, but it’s a very valid point of what you’re saying. It’s all depends on delivery and expectations from your client. No matter what we’re trying to do, regardless if you’re a service based business or not, we still get stuck in the weeds of that.

[00:31:46] And us as the owner though, we’ve gotta find time. We’re so busy trying to build the systems, create the foundation, make, you know, get some kind of repeatable process in there that if you don’t peel off and give yourself that time to think bigger, then you end up just going in circles and trying to become more and more efficient at your tasks.

[00:32:07] Let me make this interesting to whoever’s listening right now. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you go from what’s the end of the story we had these people they’re charging let’s let’s call it. Large dollars to your clients cause to them a 20 or $40,000 engagement is probably a significant amount of money, regardless of how small it might be for larger organizations.

[00:32:28] It’s still significant to some people. When, how did, how did you end up finally saying or solving that problem? Because I’m sure that a lot of people service, I, I stopped taking them on. I stopped taking on those clients. So all my projects or the majority of my projects were project based. We had a start and we had an end.

[00:32:46] Okay. Um, not my monthly, like social media management on all that SEO and stuff like that, that I used to do. But like most of my projects start in the finish. So by the time I got to the finish, I just didn’t, I just stopped. You just chose not to work with them anymore. Right. Which is kind of cool though, too.

[00:33:02] That’s actually, that’s smart. That’s, that’s a good, that’s actually a good ending to the story. Guess what, when that started happening, I started firing my clients, you know, I just, I wasn’t loving it. And if I can’t show up as my true, authentic self, authentic self, I don’t wanna do it. Yeah. Yeah. I just, yeah.

[00:33:20] Me either painful, who wants to, well, some people do. Yeah, but, well, here’s what, once we evolve to that place, you don’t want to that’s and, but we also have to consider this though, going back to what we talked about before earlier, sometimes you still have to, do you have to clean the floors? You do, you know, you have to know when you’re, you’re just overdoing.

[00:33:40] You’re saying I’m not doing this anymore or it’s necessary, you know, because even before let’s, you know, when I was. Long time ago, long she’s before the internet let’s put it that way. This was like 19, 19 94 or something like that. When I was in the car business, I remember, okay. The owner of the car dealership was up picking up cigarette butts on of, you know, the entrance, you know, um, you know, with the people were coming in yeah.

[00:34:04] With a, you know, a sweeper and all that other stuff. And I was, yeah, I was thinking to myself, man, why does this guy just, why doesn’t he have the Porter do this or something like that. Right. And you. And his answer was look, everybody’s busy and everybody’s doing a job making me money. I’m gonna go out and do this.

[00:34:17] And quite frankly, this is not that you know, this is I’m. It’s not, I am not above picking up cigarettes. No. Oh my goodness. No. If he had to do that eight hours a day, every single day, he would never grow his business or anything. But I was a lesson for me. I was like, wow, you know what? Don’t be afraid to do the dirty work, but just don’t make, make sure you’re not doing the dirty work all the time or doing it out of a, you know, 100% necessity all the time.

[00:34:37] Well, I think a lot of times they end up doing it out of fear of going after the bigger stuff. Remember playing smaller is easy, it’s uncomfortable and it’s annoying and, but it’s familiar. and you know what to expect. It’s like watching the same movie a second time, you know what to expect, you’re watching it because of the, of what you can expect coming from.

[00:35:00] It means you need control. Stepping out there to what I don’t know yet is going to force you to grow and challenge you. And you kind of, I mean, we do those heels, right? We, we gain all this knowledge. We get up to the top and then we are forced either that, or we plateau. We have to go back down and start back up the next hill to learn something new, to get our business to that next level.

[00:35:25] Otherwise, I mean, you can ride it, but it’s not going anywhere. And then you’re so far behind where that momentum had taken you. It’s tough to catch up. And a lot of businesses don’t make it. That’s where honestly, you know, I’m not in the consulting business, but that’s yeah. If you can afford it, that’s where consultants can really, really help out a lot.

[00:35:44] Yeah. Once you get to a certain point, you’re like, I’m getting to a plateau. Yeah. Rather than kind of going back down or, you know, then that’s at that point, if, if you can invest in your business, that’s, that’s, that’s the way to go. And, and like, you know, we were talking about. Before we got on this, this call, you’re like, you know, um, you know, talk about your business as much as you can.

[00:36:02] That’s what I, you know, when I’m talking to business owners or about doing their video editing and stuff, this is not because they can’t do it right. It’s because they don’t want, they they’re headed. They they’ve hit a plateau. That’s like my, my target client is somebody’s like, listen, I’ve got some content that I know that needs to be recorded or needs to be edited by somebody who understands storytelling.

[00:36:23] Somebody who understands graph motion, ground understands, marketing, this kind of stuff. And, um, and I’m, and I’m committed to this type of thing. And so rather than. Learning how to do video editing, which maybe if you’re, maybe if you have like one day AmeriPro or then guess what, then you should do it yourself.

[00:36:42] Maybe if it’s only gonna, if it’s a five hour project and it just, and it’s an important thing that you wanna get done. You’re like, you know what, this would be the most important use of my time right now, then do it go do that kind of stuff. Or, you know, start getting used to publishing some sort of video without editing or, or with minor editing and learn how to do some sort of, even as the CEO of the company, learn how to do some stuff.

[00:37:03] Yeah. So you can get to the point where you’re publishing stuff. Now, when you get to the point where publishing becomes the bottleneck, because you can’t do more, right. That’s when I want to talk to you, that’s what I can help you. Nine times out of 10, when I work with people who aren’t doing anything, but they want to, they become more of the pain in the ass client because they really don’t even know what to do or what to publish.

[00:37:24] And then, and they don’t know what to do when you’re gone. Or they don’t know what to do when I give them the video. Yeah. Okay. Which is, which has led me to this, well, maybe I need to offer this service where we’re also going to do the marketing for them. Once, once we create the, the video, now we create the blog post.

[00:37:39] Now we create the, the LinkedIn posts and the videos and all the stuff and build them a system building systems. Right. So, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re going towards that. But even then, um, you know, you still have to have a strategy. So now you’ve got the, you know, well, great. So you’re gonna post to my social media.

[00:37:58] Yes. Well, what’s our ultimate goal. I don’t know my goal is, do I want leads? Do I want sales, track people to my next webinar? What are you doing? Right. How are you having somebody, you know, help you with, with your content? Right. And so I guess what I’m saying is, is that, get out there, get your content out there.

[00:38:16] It’s okay to publish your own stuff. Mm-hmm but once it becomes a bottleneck, that’s when you wanna find somebody, an expert that can help you grow from, from where you’re at, not start. No. I think the other value with that of learning, at least the basics is so you don’t wanna do it. You don’t have the bandwidth, you have no interest in learning it, but learn enough that you can hire properly.

[00:38:38] Absolutely. I mean, probably 60% of my clients over the last 13 years have been clients that I had to go in and fix stuff. After the last marketing agency or SEO expert or social media manager was fired because people don’t know enough about what our industry is. They know what they’re trying to do from a very high level, but when they get into the weeds in it, you could almost tell anybody anything and they’re gonna believe it.

[00:39:07] Oh, okay. She said, she’s gonna get me on the front page of Google. That’s what I need. Here’s a $5,000. I mean, it’s just, you know, do yourself a favor. If you are going to hire out services, at least be able to have an educated conversation to say, yes, this is a good fit. And I believe they can get me the results based on not just what they said, but.

[00:39:29] Show me, show me how you’re getting results or instead of, oh, you know what? He came referred, or he had the highest ranking in search, or I see him all over social media. He must be great. Now that’s called retargeting, honey. stop buying into that, but they just, they don’t know. They unfortunately. And playing naive or playing ignorant to knowing is not Anex excuse.

[00:39:56] No, not I’ve actually, I’ve had a, um, a couple clients where they’ve come to us after somebody has been fired a video editor, say they say something like I found somebody on fiber and I couldn’t get ’em to ni I, you know, uh, they spent five bucks and I’m mad about it. Well, it’s, it’s a couple hundred by the time you figure it out, you know, but still it’s still relatively low and yeah.

[00:40:17] Or it’s could be on, you know, Upwork or something like that. Yeah. And so they’ve had, you know, they, they come to me and they say, you come highly recommended. And also like some of the things you’ve done and you gave me some examples and you know, we’ve talked. And I think that, you know what you’re talking about?

[00:40:31] Well, they would say, I need you to take this over because this other person didn’t know what they were doing. And then I would dig into, well, what did you have them do? Can you send me over what you gave them? Maybe I can finish it for them. Yeah. Or start over. And. Nine times outta 10, if not more it’s it’s their, it was, their instructions were so unclear that, you know, unless of that person couldn’t deliver it, you know, there’s no way that they could, or they were actually doing the work, but they didn’t realize that what they were asking that person do was so tedious and so long.

[00:41:03] And so, you know, it was really more of a bigger project than they, than they want. Right. It’s all comes down to that communication too. And in order for you to communicate to anybody, you know, um, sure. If you wanna hire, let’s not just video, let’s say if you wanna hire somebody, write some articles for you.

[00:41:22] I highly recommend you write a couple articles of your own first. Yeah. Find out how bad you suck at it. Cause you probably do right. but then also find out, you know? Okay, well, um, you know, at least I know, uh, you know, where my strengths are. Yeah, yeah. Right, exactly what it takes. Yep. and so, or maybe you could say, listen, if I wanna hire somebody to write articles for me, what if I were to do, um, I’m not a writer at all.

[00:41:45] What if I were just to get on video and just record it and talk about it and hand it to a writer and say, let’s go ahead and redo this, but there’s still collaboration, right? You can’t hire somebody without some sort of collaboration and knowing a little bit about what they’re doing. So, right. Yes. My top advice for when it comes to video content is yeah.

[00:42:01] Learn a little bit about video. Download, spend a couple hours playing with some apps and you know, that that can do these cool things that really don’t matter, you know, that make these animations, but you don’t really know what to do with them. And you’re like, but it’s cool to you because you’re like, I made that by myself.

[00:42:16] It’s fun, but you’ll realize after a couple hours, you’re like, boy, there’s what’s, you know, if I need to make this video professionally well, I just wanna make it effectively. Right. There you go. There you go. You know, rather than like fit the content into what. App allows me to do what if I just had a video buddy, which is why I named the, the service video.

[00:42:36] If you had a video, buddy, what would you have them? Right. Good marketing, you know, good branding. So yeah, that’s, that’s exactly why I did it that way. I’m like, think about, you know, what do you want them to do? And the, the clients that don’t know what they would want a video buddy to do, if they had one are not my clients, those are the people that I will fire.

[00:42:53] I’ll take their money once and see if I can work through it. But we’re not like you, we’re not going to renew. No, no. And, and you know, some clients just, well I’ve even had very well paid clients, uh, or that have paid me tremendously. Well, but that don’t listen to anything that I say. I’m like, so why’d you, why do you bring in top talent, top videographer and designers and developers and strategists like me, and then not listen to what any of us say.

[00:43:25] I mean, those are trust issues and that person has issues. I’m like stop wasting your money. Don’t bring in top talent, bring in order takers. You know what you want, you wanna instruct you wanna micromanage all the details, hire people that want to take orders, and then you’re gonna, it’s a win-win for every.

[00:43:43] But, you know, you do have that from an agency perspective. And I mean, we’re, we kind of got on agencies and delivering services, but you can really tie this to anything. If you’re an accountant, if you’re an attorney, if you’re a plumber, you’re still gonna deal with those kind of clients. You know, they think that they know what’s best.

[00:44:03] They want to drive the project. And if they would’ve just listened to you, they wouldn’t have to have you come out to make a second call or a third call or extra meetings because you tried to follow their direction since they’re writing a check, but you knew better in your heart that you’re the expert.

[00:44:21] And sometimes you just gotta push and if they won’t, then they may not be the right client for you. And then I think that, well, to just tie on to that, I think that’s where people get super frustrated. Have 10 of those clients. Yeah. Yeah. I, I can deal with one or two, um, that’s three or four either, right?

[00:44:40] because sometimes it just takes a while for that to click for them, you know? Right. Um, like for example, um, and this almost inevitably happens if you’re in any kind of service business, mm-hmm , if you’re offering any kind of service, you’re going to come across somebody who’s very impatient or maybe somebody who is like, Hey, listen, I just want this done.

[00:44:56] I want it done professionally. And I will. And they will pay you too, right. To do it. Yeah. And then, so even if you charge a lot of money, you need to establish this. Some, some sort of. What is your, what, what are the guidelines to the communication and the, and, and, and, and, um, collaboration. Right. Right. If I can’t get collaboration from a client, that’s another thing.

[00:45:16] Like, that’s where we’re, we’re definitely not gonna be a fit because I’m gonna burn my, my video editors and content people out. If they’re just working, if they’re doing. Mindless. I dunno, let’s try this right. Or if I say, Hey, listen, this is what the client wants. I know it’s it goes against everything and it’s really, it’s not gonna make this difference.

[00:45:38] They don’t mind doing that every so like yeah, the client, whatever we’ll do that, we understand that’s, that’s our bread and butter and so cool. Maybe they have a reason that we don’t need to know about. But then when that same client is still with us six months later, and they’re still doing the same things over and over and asking us to do meaningless changes or things that we know that they’re not, it’s not gonna move the needle for them.

[00:45:57] Right. Then it’s time to have the conversation you’re saying, listen, we’re not gonna do stuff. That’s not gonna do not gonna move the needle for you. So I need to know, you know, this is some of these things that you’re asking us to do is burning my guys out and I can’t. We can’t do that anymore because to do, to, to make this a little bit bluer or to make this a little bit bigger, or to do like to those little things, put a shadow to the font or, yeah.

[00:46:23] Yeah. So when it comes that, like when we’re first starting to work with somebody learning how to work with them. Yeah. Of course all those little things you’re gonna have no problem, every little thing, every detail you’re gonna know. And, and also if that client, if you’re working with a client that, that, that, you know, is really gonna be into the details in, in the weeds with you.

[00:46:39] Well, then you need to, as a business owner, as a agency, you, rather than fire them, it’s a good thing to say, okay, I need to be in a certain mindset with what we’re going to do with them and, and then create your boundaries from that. I can’t give you some examples because, um, it, it’s, it’s real hard to like come down to the details of everything, but it really boils down to, uh, having that.

[00:47:01] If you have a relationship with somebody where you can literally, within three months, 90 days, you can look at them and say, I can say, um, Audra, listen, we gotta stop doing this. This is dumb. And if you’re like, well, I know it’s dumb, but this is what I like. Well, at that point, it’s up to me say, well, okay, if we’re doing it, because that’s the way you like it, then we will create a process to continue to do this dumb thing, but just know, get it stupid.

[00:47:29] Okay. Yeah. Just know it’s not moving the needle and the whole reason why we’re doing this, or it might be at that point, I could say, listen, we, we can’t do this anymore. We’re not gonna be, uh, doing nothing. Creating transcripts for you because we’re a video editing agency, but I part of it, but here’s three sources I’m getting take care of it.

[00:47:47] Go to rev.com to have your TA or any of those, or, or have them done through AI. Cause that’s what we’re doing now, because until basically over the would say year not, we still need all our toand of pull is much bigger, affordable for one thing to, but now the AI has gotten so well, even though it’s part of it through almost doing everything, we have that client that is going to have the ability.

[00:48:22] I know you guys are doing the service hired you is because 90, I get it, but this is all I have. Most of my stuff is just getting my stuff transcribed, accurate and well. 90 96% accurate after about a month or two necessarily, we’re gonna be burned out on that type of claim. At the end of the sentence, we really learn the capitalization and the spelling.

[00:48:41] And so you have all these things that you can take this five minute video that gets transcribed in 10 minutes, but it’s still gonna take you for a five minute video. It takes you hour, you know, or 40 minutes. Well, not always, but you could, yeah, it could take you an hour to make sure that it’s right and then make sure that it’s showing up right on the video.

[00:48:58] So these are all the little things that, that, um, how I get my clients, cuz they start doing all this and they’re like, I’m tired of, I don’t wanna do this. You think I want to, no, I wanna be on the creative side. I wanna create, but I know it’s part of it. But if like, what I’m getting at is if all you’re using us for is for the captions and the burn, all this stuff in, and eventually we’re gonna have a conversation and we’re gonna say.

[00:49:22] This is not gonna happen anymore. You need to have a virtual assistant that’s going to do cause this really is, it’s kind of a mindless, not mindless. You still need, need to understand grammar. You need to understand, you know, the length of how it’s going. Your talent pool is much bigger and much more affordable doing things like that than using your top talent to do tests like that.

[00:49:41] Right. Right, right. Yeah. So even though it’s part of it, then, um, you know, it is so yeah, I guess what I was getting at is like, if we’re gonna have, if we have that client that is only going to do, listen, I only, I know you guys are doing the service, but the reason why I hired you is because, right, you’re a fractional video service.

[00:49:55] I get it. And, but this is all I have. And, and most of my stuff is just getting my stuff transcribed and, and published and. After about a month or two, we’re gonna be burnt out on that type of client. Yeah, we really are. Yeah. We, we, I wanna, I wanna partner with people I want to get in and become their video centric content department, right?

[00:50:16] Yeah. On a fractional basis, because most people can’t afford a six figure salary to build their own department. Right. Right. So I’m saying use mine, I’ve got salaried people. Um, I’m pretty smart at what I do. And I can be a good project manager, kinda like what you were talking about before. Yeah. Manage those kind of things.

[00:50:31] And that’s where the, you know, the pivot of what we’re doing right now. And, and we don’t know who’s gonna be a good client until they’re a good client. Yeah. You know, um, you know, but I’m willing to give everybody, um, you know, let’s, let’s kind of work through this, but let’s also. You’re gonna, you’re gonna hire people to do stuff, to help move the needle.

[00:50:49] So let’s do that. Right. Let’s move the needle. Right. Okay. So let’s pivot for a second. So talk to me about where you are going now. I know we briefly got into it, cuz we started talking about what our, each one of our pivots look like, but where are you at today with things? Well, where I’m at today is the, the majority of my business right now is the virtual video director where, okay, I’m the person that’s doing the, uh, the interviews.

[00:51:13] And then from like, like this right here. Yeah. Yeah. And then taking these conversations and turning them into social videos. Um, eventually I’m going to beginning, you know, away from that, where I’m gonna have, uh, talent, that’s going to be doing this, you know, I’m going to assign you to Billy or the Johnny or SI J or, you know, whoever Jill.

[00:51:36] Yeah. Yeah. Um, and they’re gonna be doing that type of stuff. So we’re stepping away, but I’m creating the process of doing this and then also working with, um, I guess, larger businesses that don’t necessarily want to, um, go all in on a department, but want to use somebody, uh, a fractional content service where we’re full service with.

[00:51:59] Video centric. We’re starting, you know, with video to create all of the content, the blog posts, the social media posts, the, uh, and the working concert with the marketing department on whatever the objectives are. Okay. And so we get, you know, the company messaging, all of this stuff from interviews, from their employees, from their.

[00:52:20] Uh, from, from their customers, um, you know, from sales people, whoever sales people, sea level people. Right. And so we’re able to capture, you know, video content from, from that, and then repurpose that all over. So that’s where I’m headed because that’s not where I’m at right now, as of what July of 20, 22.

[00:52:41] We’re not there yet, but check in with me in about 12 months and we will probably be, we’ll be rock and along going gangbuster. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I’ve got some pretty good systems when it comes to building that. So if I can help, please let me know. You’ll probably be involved. So I think so what else would you say about, I mean, you’ve been at this for a while.

[00:53:02] You’ve had ups, you’ve had downs, you are pivoting. You’ve had to pivot, I guess this would be the second time or maybe the third time where you’re developing a new service to add to what you are already doing. Um, How do your day start? Like, I mean, do you wake up thinking, oh my God, I love this. I’ve been at it for six years or is it, eh, I don’t really care for this anymore.

[00:53:25] How soon can I pivot out of it? I mean, how do you feel about what you’re doing? Um, man, uh, I was all over the board over the past several months. Yeah. Coming outta COVID because of the fact that COVID did hit us pretty hard when it comes to financials and then taking on jobs that we didn’t necessarily want to do.

[00:53:43] But we had to coming from a depressed state, but over the past, I would say 12 months because of this pivot and this planning and mindset of where we want to go. Um, I’m doing what I want to do versus what. Um, what I need to, you have to, to do. Right. Exactly. And you know, also the one thing we didn’t talk about, uh, before, but most of the conversations I have with the clients that I have now that have survived and gone through, um, most of we are not doing order taking anymore.

[00:54:14] We’re telling them what we’re gonna be creating. Good. We’re telling them what needs to get done. Now there’s certain things that, you know, obviously if they know that they need to have some stuff done. Sure. We’re there in the collaborative process, but I’m gonna ask them, well, why do you want that done before?

[00:54:27] I agree to do it good. You know, good. Because maybe it’s a dumb idea. I’m gonna tell you about that now at the end of the day, if you still, even, if, even if I think it’s a dumb idea and, and it’s still a worthy cause or something that needs to get done. Okay. You know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do that, but, and then we let the data tell, I, I think what we do is we give them our best guest or best direction based on experience and markets and previous customers.

[00:54:52] But at some point I’ve had to just say, you know what, let’s do it. I don’t agree with you. I’m putting it down in writing that. I think it’s a bad idea and you know, I may be wrong and let’s put it out to the market and let’s let the data tell us if they want it or not. And many times that moves the motion out of the situation does works and the bus math doesn’t lie.

[00:55:13] So that makes it so that when, when I do come to, to work, to do those jobs yeah. After I’ve had that conversation or we had that realization, then it is much easier to work on say, okay, well, at least now I still have the, I know what I wanna do. We’re working on what we wanna do. So, you know, honestly I think that, you know, as long.

[00:55:31] My job is to make my employees happy, not my clients. Um, and so good because you know, if they’re not happy and if they’re not creative and they’re not gonna be with me, then I don’t have anything. Right. Right. So a, I need to work on interesting stuff, but I also realize that I’m gonna be working through the drudgery cuz I’m working on business videos.

[00:55:48] Right. How interesting is working on HVAC videos? Oh, well I thought it’d be super boring, but you know what? I’ve learned a lot about HVAC and I bet so. I mean, you know, H HVAC right. So, um, but we can make it interesting though. And, and the nice thing is, is I, cuz I have these conversations very similar.

[00:56:07] Like what we’re having right now. I don’t think I would be as into HVAC if I wasn’t talking H. Contractors if I were talking to them personally, because now it’s about their business and their families and the people that they’re servicing and what they’re doing. And, and now it’s now it becomes interesting.

[00:56:21] So it’s, it’s, it’s funny how work can be work or can be, wow, this is, this is interesting. And, and to answer the, the short answer to your, to your question is, is that yeah, right now, um, because of my pivot, because of the change, because I’ve got goals and because they’re worthy goals and because I wanna work with the right clients.

[00:56:41] Yeah. I get up, um, before the alarm clock. Good, good. I mean, and I think as entrepreneurs, we all cycle through this, I mean, it doesn’t matter who you are. I imagine Elon Musk gets up, Elon Musk gets up some days thinking, oh my God, the rocket, I get the rocket to ours. Of course he does. Absolutely. So, I mean, we all are gonna struggle with that.

[00:57:04] The point I think the survivors through this whole thing is the ones that get back up and go back at it. Put on the armor, go back out and fight that fight. And others are like, it’s kicking my butt. I can’t do it. I got, I’m gonna go get a job. It’s gonna be much easier. You’re not gonna be happier, but you’ll trade, you know, different kinds of stress.

[00:57:25] Um, but this journey, that’s what this is about. It’s not about, I think so many people get in and say, okay, soon as I’m making a million bucks, everything will be fine. It’s not, it will be, you’re gonna have, it’s not, you’re gonna have, I made millions of dollars. It’s not about just about the money. You have different problems.

[00:57:40] I can, yes. I can write a check and the problem, most of them will go away, but there’s still problems that you have. You have to grow big enough to deal with the problems when they come up, more people, more employees, more clients, more customers, the problems get bigger, right? You only have three customers.

[00:57:58] How many problems you gonna have? You have 3000 customers. The odds are, you’re gonna have a lot more than that. You have to grow into dealing with that responsibility. Until you do, your business is not gonna grow. Unfortunately. Agreed. Yeah. So, okay. So you’re gonna pivot, we’re gonna see some big changes coming in the next 12 months.

[00:58:21] What else? You’re gonna see a lot more of me because okay, good. The stuff that I do for clients I don’t do for myself earlier asked, Hey, what are you doing for like, are you marketing you’re so what are you doing to get new clients? I’m like, they’re they just come out of like thin air. They literally do a friend of a friend, other client.

[00:58:38] Yeah. I mean, I’m not ranked, I’m not, I don’t put my own snackable micro content out there. I’m not talking about this, you know? Uh, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to, you know, you asked, Hey, would you like to be on a podcast? I’m like, let’s do it because we, I need more stuff of, uh, content for myself, snackable content.

[00:58:57] I need stackable content, agency owners, or even people that offer these kind of services. We need a little, um, Cohort where we do each other’s marketing. We know it needs to be done, but we either don’t take the time. Don’t figure it out. Don’t sit down and map it out. Or you map it out like me 35 times, but don’t actually follow through to do it.

[00:59:21] Mm-hmm but you asked me to do it. I can map out your whole marketing plan right now. Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it. and, and, and, and you come to me with all your video stuff because you, you know, that’s I haven’t done any video. Right. Well, but the other thing is, is I think that like agency owners, especially maybe worst the scarcity, um, uh, uh, when I say scarcity, I’m talking about like the competition mode.

[00:59:43] Yeah. Yeah. Comes into like, oh, I don’t want you to know my secret. It’s like, come on guys, dude. There’s there’s no secret. There is no secret. So I think, I think you’re right. There was, there was one client that I had, uh, grand rapids. He was a, um, Financial advisor. Okay. Okay. And this is when I first started doing this interview stuff and I was actually doing this for free, so I could have something to some, uh, to create.

[01:00:07] And then, so I create a sales page for financial advisors and, uh, so of course he agreed to do it. It was be an hour of his time. And, um, so after I did the, the snackable videos did a bang up job, by the way, the motion graphics on ’em the, the, the content, I mean, everything was just killer the, the headlines and then the instructions on what to do with them.

[01:00:27] And he was like completely blown away. So I had another zoom meeting with him and we talked, okay. And I said, Hey, listen, I’m thinking about doing this. You know, what if I were, you know, I, I can’t do this with, you know, if I wanna scale to one or 200 financial advisors each month, I can’t do it on my own.

[01:00:42] Right. What if we were to get, like, what if we were to get something together where. You know, we have like a group of four financial advisors where you guys team up and do exactly, you know, we all come up with the same questions and you guys ask the, you know, same thing I did with you. Right. Smart. So now to create this cohort, so that now guess what, now you are working with people with peers and you’re asking, you know, you’re talking shop and you’re talking very conversationally.

[01:01:12] You’re not, you’re not promoting your business. You’re talking to another business owner and you’re talking about, it’s not a commercial. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not a commercial. Right. Which is, which is how I promote what I’m doing. I’m like, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m your virtual video director. I’m gonna pull this from you and just gonna come across as very educational and not salesy.

[01:01:29] And, and, but, so I, I, I introduced the idea up to him. I said, what if we were to do this now, I, I have not implemented this. And it’s something that I should do, but why. I’ve just been too busy doing there’s I’ve got a million ideas that I can do, you know, there’s two, you got a million excuses. What, why do they I’ve got million excuses, a million ideas, right?

[01:01:48] Exactly. It’s just, we just haven’t done it. Yeah. And it just actually came to my mind as we were talking. Cause I remember like, yeah, cuz and he goes smart. That would be great because not only that, that would be networking and he, because he threw this out, he goes, what if we did it so that it wasn’t other financial advisors and I were to interview other business owners because I’m a financial guy.

[01:02:08] So of course I wanna know other peop I’m, another financial advisor is not gonna be my prospect. So why don’t I talk to somebody who could possibly be my prospect and team me up with them. And I was like, holy shit. Now that’s a great idea. And now. What what’s that doing? It’s taking, oh my gosh. Taking me out of like, having to deal with 200 people.

[01:02:28] Right, right. They send you the final interviews and then they, they send me the recordings. Now I have my team, we have our process set up where we know what we’re looking for. We have our certain things that we’re doing. We also know the questions because we supplied them the questions. Okay. So. All the questions are gonna be the same.

[01:02:49] So all the snacks are the video editors are not, you know, it’s gonna be like an assembly line to them because they’re gonna know, okay, they’re listening for the first question until it ends. And then they, they stop. And then they ask another question. Well, that’s a micro content video. So now I’ve got a built in process to make it so that I can do this at scale, not burn out my guys.

[01:03:09] So they’re kind, you know, they’re not learning. They, they might get bored because it’s the same question. Something. Yeah. Yeah. How, how should I set up my 401k plan and, you know, right. You know, you’re gonna listen to a hundred different answers right now. They’re all gonna be different and unique though.

[01:03:22] Right. Because they’re all answered and by different ways, somebody else, and they’re unique way. And not only that, so anyways, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s where. This is kind of pivoting back to, you know, where you ask, where you’re going. These are the kinds of things that we’re going to be doing, the types of workshops that we’re gonna be putting together as long as I can get my shit together too.

[01:03:40] So I can think that’s all of us. I mean, when I first started developing zindo and company, it was one website and then I got asked the questions. Okay. So, you know, the first one was the training site and then it was okay, well, I’ll come back to you after I build my website and I’m like, well, wait a second.

[01:04:02] So I gotta give you that solution. So let me build that for you. And then it was like, well, but can’t we just hire you. And I’m like, no, no, no. I don’t wanna do services anymore. Okay. Well, let me build zindo connect where you can hire somebody. So you’re not coming to me. So each one of them is an evolution.

[01:04:18] I mean, I’ve probably got like you 10 more, but I had to stop. It was kind of like, okay, this year, you, you have the ability to implement three new ideas, that’s it. And until your revenue hits a certain point with those, either you tested it, it didn’t work and you dumped it. You can’t bring in anything else until it succeeds or it doesn’t work.

[01:04:40] And you dumped the idea because I was doing the same thing. Oh my God. And then I could do this. And what if I do this? And I’ll add in AI and we could do coaching and none is too much. And then I didn’t get any of it off the plate, off the table. Yep. So. You definitely have to. I mean, but that’s the great part about us, right?

[01:04:57] That’s that piece of creativity, the rest of it is, you know, I kind of look at it like 80% of what we do for launching growing, scaling a business, 80% of it’s repeatable processes. They’re different at each stage, right? From launching to growing, to scaling, to automating all the processes are different and they evolve the other 20% is these, I got these ideas and that, or this is how I’m gonna talk to my customers, or this is a special offer.

[01:05:28] Um, but nail that 80% and then you get to spend more time in that fun place. But if you don’t, you end up spending all your time in the automation or in the building system stage. Yeah. And not launching stage, I’ve been in the build stage for a long time. And typically that’s my role with businesses, right?

[01:05:49] I’m the builder. I’m the how, I’m the one that is in the weeds doing what I’m doing. And it goes back to you get so comfortable. There’s always tasks to do new and improved and new technology and new tools. You’ll never run out of things to do. I’m guilty. I’m totally guilty of that. Yeah. That’s why I say all the marketing people need to get together and do somebody else’s.

[01:06:12] Yeah. So we, so we get out of our own way. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We should talk more about that. I know we’re running a lot of time though. there’s a lot to cover when you own a small business. Yeah. There’s people, there’s processes. There’s jobs. How do you scale? How do you, how do you get through the tough times?

[01:06:31] I mean, there is a lot to. Kind of digest through and you know, how do you find ways to not have to go back as low? So when you’re doing that climb that I was talking about with your expertise and your knowledge, once you pivot, I gotta learn something new. I gotta add a new service. I gotta put in a new product in the product line.

[01:06:51] How do you get quicker at that? So you don’t spend so much time down at the bottom, trying to learn that new skill or trying to I’ve been working on writing. So writing a video are probably my weakest skills out of everything that I’ve done online in all these years. You need me to build a website, I’ll have something up for you within four hours.

[01:07:12] You need social media done. I got it. I’ll research your customers. I’ll have everything done. You need strategy. You need to find more money, need your email campaign set up all that I can do in hours. Get me to have to write something it’s painful. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m actually using, uh, Jasper. Yep. AI tool.

[01:07:33] Yep. And it’s making, I’m a good editor. I could edit the hell outta anything, but writing it from scratch is a little bit tougher. So using a tool like that is actually helping me become a more effective writer. Believe it or not. No, because it kind of maps it out for me. I know what the content’s supposed to be.

[01:07:52] Right. Cause I’ve done this for so many years and you know what to reject. You’re like, okay, now that doesn’t make sense. Get rid of that paragraph. Let’s try something else. Oh, that sounds, you know what didn’t even think about that. So yeah. I think Jasper is a perfect, it’s a great thing. And the other thing is it’s, you know, as a service provider.

[01:08:07] Yeah. It’s not something you should like high say, well, this is what I’m using or that’s how I’m writing. No, it’s helping me be more effective in my job. Well, or, or I’m talking about the people that say, well, why would I hire you if I could just use Jasmine for myself? Oh, well, okay. Somebody still has to do it.

[01:08:22] yeah. So you still have to do it exactly. Right. Right. So you still have to read it. You still have to edit it. You still have to add pictures. I mean, there’s still more work. It just. It along. Yeah. AI is not gonna do 100% for you. And I, I think it’s a it’s it’s really far away from really being there’s fact checking there’s plagiarism.

[01:08:42] Yes. There’s MIS you know, re uh, not properly structured sentences. It’s just to get a, like a whole bunch on the table or here it is. It’s all the puzzle pieces. But you still have to build the puzzle yeah. Well, there’s also, it wouldn’t be able to put something together. Like what I was talking about before, about the idea of the cohort, getting the businesses together.

[01:09:03] Yeah. Have them interview each other, have them send me the long form video. And then, so my video content team can create, you know, 10 stackables from that. Yeah. Publish them now for, for Jasper to come up and explain all of that. They couldn’t, AI’s not gonna be able to take the ideas right. From your brain, but you can use Jasper to come up with ideas of how do I explain what I’m, you know, selling here.

[01:09:25] Right. You put in some bullet points to see what it says. So I’m really excited about that type of AI, for sure. Yeah. All right. So any last thoughts or, uh, words of wisdom to anybody out there in that same spot you’re at meaning they’ve been around a little while they’ve had to redevelop themselves a couple times.

[01:09:46] Yeah. What would you suggest? Well, um, uh, I would highly suggest going back to your goals and aiming. Yeah. Going back to, uh, aiming for something that scares you. Mm-hmm , you know, Bob Proctor talks about a B and C goals. Okay. And you, and a goal is something that you, you know, how to do. Right. Say for example, he uses the example of, uh, somebody said, Hey, I wanna buy a new Pontiac as, as a goal.

[01:10:11] And they asked him said, well, cool. So what do you drive now? He goes, Pontiac. He goes, okay. um, so when did you get that? P four years ago. He goes, okay. Um, so, and you wanna buy a new, did you buy it new and how long ago he goes? Yeah, I bought it new four years ago and he goes, okay, Pontiac’s a nice car, but. I mean it’s it’s it’s you already know how to do that.

[01:10:29] I mean, it’s sure it’s, you know, it’s kind of like a goal, so that’s an, a goal. The B goals are things that if, if I had the finances, I would do this. If I could do that, if this was in line, I would do that. You still know how to get there. Right? Those are B goals and they’re still okay. They could be great goals, but the sea goals are the, are the, the dreams.

[01:10:49] Those are the things that you don’t know how to get to. And it scares you. It’s like when, uh, when JFK said we’re gonna go to the moon in a decade, right. Didn’t know how he was gonna do it, but we damned we did it. You know why? Because we, we, we set that goal. We’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get to the moon.

[01:11:05] And so if you wanna get to the moon, or if you wanna change your business, if you wanna pivot, you need to get into something that you’re very uncomfortable with. You don’t know how you’re gonna do it. If you, if you’ve got a monetary get used to it. Yeah. Yeah. If you’ve got a monetary goal, say, you know what I wanna do, I need to make, I need to, I need to generate let’s just say 10 million next year.

[01:11:23] Yeah. Um, That might you might, why are you saying that? Is it because, is that really a B goal? Is that because you, you’ve kind of, if, if I can do X, Y, and Z, I know I can hit 10 million, right? If that 10 million is there, why don’t you say, okay. Um, my goal is to go a hundred million. I don’t know how I’m gonna get there, but you’re, you’re gonna change the way you think, right.

[01:11:43] What you offer and things like that. So that’s my biggest advice. All right. All right. Well, thank you so much. it’s been great chatting. I know we’re gonna do this again because absolutely. We can definitely help some people. Fast track there, or I hate to even use that word fast track work through getting the processes in place, the resources they need to, uh, keep their business on track and to actually do something that matters.

[01:12:11] Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, stop getting caught in the weeds of the stuff that you don’t know you, if anything, we should realize how fortunate we are to be doing what we’re doing at this time in the universe. Right. 10 years ago, we couldn’t market like this reaching people outside of your zip code is pretty challenging and very expensive.

[01:12:35] I mean, we have access to things that this generation just doesn’t appreciate because they don’t know what it was like before. And, you know, technology evolves and all that kind of good stuff, but. Everybody almost everything’s been figured out. There’s not a lot of original ideas. Yeah. So we don’t have to recreate the wheel every time we do this.

[01:12:58] And I think without looking past yourself, you always wanna go back and start all over. Well, okay. What’s step one. Somebody already did. Step one, go find it. Somebody already did step 42. Go find it. Yeah. You may have to learn it still. Yeah. But the steps already exist. That’s a smart way to do it for sure.

[01:13:16] Yeah.