Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Get All the Answers with Ryan Koral of Studio Sherpas
88 Plays3 years ago
Today Jake and I got to sit down with Ryan Koral, the head of Studio Sherpas.
Studio Sherpas is advertised as "Everything You Need to Grow Your Video Business" and they are not kidding. Ryan has dedicated a sizeable chunk of his career to helping video production folk become more successful and happy in running their companies.
Ryan hosts a podcast which has over 420,000 downloads!
In addition to just kicking back and telling us how he got started, and what Studio Sherpas is all about, Ryan shares a number of quick grab gems of useful information that make it easy to understand why the Sherpas are so popular.
For instance, here are just a few things you may not have thought of:
- How making a personal video to go along with a pitch can help seal the deal
- How you can actually charge your clients to just put together their production plan (no shooting necessary, and yes, this works!)
- Assorted ways to add value to get those jobs you REALLY want with out shortchanging yourself or cutting your budget
Tune in, you owe to yourself!
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:04
Speaker
See ya, bro.
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
And we're back on crossing the axis the biz side of video production. I'm Max Kaiser, the CEO of Pipeline Video Production Software. We make software to help you do your budgeting, do your project management, and generally just get your act together to be successful in video production. I'm joined with my partner, Jake Rorda.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey, I'm Jake, Operations and Customer Success at Pipeline.
Meet Ryan Coral of Studio Sherpas
00:00:33
Speaker
So we're joined today in the studio by Ryan Coral of Studio Sherpas. Ryan, welcome to the show. Gentlemen, thank you so much for having me. This is super fun.
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, if you haven't checked out his stuff at studio sherpas.com, there couldn't be anything more sort of symbiotic with what we're doing and trying to encourage folks to do in terms of growing your video production business. Ryan does a podcast with over 450,000 downloads and
00:01:06
Speaker
It is a fabulous podcast. He's done it for five years. It covers all the aspects of how to grow and scale your business. He talks to entrepreneurs, he talks to successful video production people, he talks to all different types of folks. It's an incredible podcast and we thought it would be great to have him on the show and sort of
00:01:27
Speaker
talk about maybe the sort of top things that you might want to be doing to try to go to that next level and also to sort of introduce you to the idea of his podcast, his workshops, so forth, but there's no one that knows it better. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan's Journey into Video Production
00:01:42
Speaker
Can you give us a little background about how you got started and all this stuff?
00:01:46
Speaker
Well, I started my own video production business. I was working at a small Christian college here near Detroit, Michigan. And I was hosting a lot of events and doing lots of marketing type stuff for the college. And I really had fallen in love with video. This is back in the early 2000s. I'm not sure either one of you were born yet. Just kidding.
00:02:09
Speaker
But I had somehow convinced the college to buy me a video camera and a computer. And this was when Apple, they started using FireWire 400 cables that could connect to your video camera and your computer. And you could pull the files from your video camera directly onto your computer and edit them.
00:02:30
Speaker
And that was super cool. And I just fell in love with shooting and editing and creating little promo pieces for the college and all of the fun stuff that we were doing there. And eventually I just, I could not get this thing out of my head or like, how do I just do video full time? I'm doing all this other marketing stuff, but I really just want to do video. And, uh,
00:02:53
Speaker
wife and I were just we were in a spot we were brand newly married we had like no debt and uh and it was just like uh it was a it seemed like a pretty small risk like hey let me just try this and see if I can make it into a business and uh that was 17 years ago today you know it's not just me uh in the studio I've got
00:03:12
Speaker
A couple of filmmakers. I've got an operations person. We've got a project manager. We work with a number of different virtual assistants and lots of other contractors, shooters, editors, copywriters, marketers, you know, you name it. I've got a consultant. I've got my own coach. We've kind of been through a lot of stuff over 17 years. We have this cool production space in the Metro Detroit area. It's about 5,800 square feet.
00:03:38
Speaker
uh we've got a psych wall and you know just all the fun stuff that I think 17 years ago I never would have dreamed of having like my own studio and you know offices and a conference you know just like what like what do you need a conference room for but you know as as we've kind of evolved and had
00:03:55
Speaker
bigger dreams and visions for what we want to be and who we want to work with and the kind of stuff that we want to be doing. It just made sense to, I don't know, be where we're at today. So super grateful, super thankful to have been able to, you know, we've done lots of cool projects over the years, and I'm just really thankful to today still be running the production company, but
00:04:16
Speaker
you know, five years ago started this thing called Studio Sherpas.
The Mission of Studio Sherpas
00:04:20
Speaker
I've always loved the business side of what we do. I love the creative aspect and creating stuff and creating emotions for the people that, you know, watch the work that we do, but really figuring out how
00:04:34
Speaker
how to get people to hire us and how to get people to pay us more money. And that kind of stuff has been pretty fascinating. And then also like how to get out of the day to day parts of the work, like the hiring and firing accounting taxes, you know, just all the daily.
00:04:50
Speaker
grind stuff I was not crazy about. And so I've really just tried to figure out how can I do that. And then five years ago, creating Studio Sherpas as a place and a resource for other videographers that have the same kind of vision. They don't want to be the only one in the business or they don't want to do all of the parts of the job or they want to make more money or they want to be more profitable.
00:05:11
Speaker
And that's really what Studio Sherpas is, is a place where I share the mistakes that I've made over 17 years and a lot of the stuff that I've learned that actually has worked over the course of 17 years in our business. So when people come to Studio Sherpas and they're checking you out and they're like,
00:05:29
Speaker
God damn, I need some help here. What's the big thing? What do you often see that they're just like, this is the thing that I'm struggling with and I'm having trouble getting past it?
Frustrations in the Video Production Industry
00:05:45
Speaker
Well, I try to ask everybody that kind of comes into our ecosystem, like, what are you frustrated with? What are you struggling with in your business? And most people say that they want more clients. They're not crazy about the kind of work that they're doing. So they want more clients, they want better clients, and they want better work.
00:06:07
Speaker
And so, you know, part of that is like, okay, well, charge more. That's like a easy, you know, solution. I would say that most of us don't value our skill set, you know? And we just buy into this lie that like, well, like you're not at the spot where you want to be. You don't have the kind of gear that you really want. You're
00:06:26
Speaker
you don't have a 5,800 square foot studio yet, so you really shouldn't be charging as much as that guy. And I think that's a bunch of blarky and kind of overcoming that mindset because really at the end of the day, it's like, what is the value that you are bringing to your clients or your potential clients?
00:06:45
Speaker
And what is that video going to do? How is that going to help them? And if it's going to help save them time or if it's going to help make them money or if it's going to become a treasured heirloom for their families, it's hard to put a price tag on some of those things. So when you start thinking like that, it's like, oh, OK, well, maybe maybe it is worth a little bit more than than when I'm charging in. In a lot of cases, it's actually worth a lot more. But I would say that the
00:07:12
Speaker
For me, there's just a lot of people that get into this work because it kind of fell into their lap. They shot a friend's wedding because they had a cool camera and then they're like, oh, I could actually do this. Or they worked in corporate America and they needed somebody to put together a little highlight reel and it's like, oh, I can do that. And then somebody else finds out that you did that video and then it just kind of snowballs into this thing. It's like, oh man, I really like
00:07:35
Speaker
You know, doing this creative outlet, this is cool. And then before you know it, people are paying you $500, $1,000, $2,000. And you're like, Oh my gosh, this is like, this is a legit business. And then a year or two down the road, you're like, I actually don't like the kind of jobs I'm getting hired for. This is not, and I'm definitely not making as much money as I want. So.
00:07:54
Speaker
I want better clients and I want to make more money. That's where that I think a lot of times comes from. But at the end of the day, I don't think we're asking the right question. We're not asking like what it is that we really want. And we don't really know. We just want something different. And so there's just a lot of frustration around that. So until we start asking that question, it's like what in two years, you know, two years from now, what kind of work do I want to be doing? Like what kind of clients do I want to have? What kind of
00:08:23
Speaker
projects, what kind of shooting and editing and what are we delivering? What does my role look like? What does my job look like? Am I in the field all the time? Am I always shooting? Am I always editing? We don't really think past like the next month because we're just trying to shoot or edit or deliver enough stuff so that we're making it by, but we don't really think about what does the future look like. So I think that's a great place for people to start is like, what
00:08:49
Speaker
In two years, where do I want to be? What I want to be doing? What kind of stuff do I want to be working on? When you go back in the way back machine to 17 years ago, first of all, I just got to know what was your gear kit? What was your gear kit? It was not mine. It was there you go. Yeah, I was going to a small church that actually had a couple of creative people on staff. And one of the guys had a cannon. Oh, man, what was it?
00:09:18
Speaker
Oh, the big one, maybe that that was at the mother church. They had the one that we went to. I think they had a GL two. It was. So I was able to borrow that. Somebody else had a wireless mic. So I was able to borrow that. The first big like interview job that I got, it was for 20. It was for twenty five hundred dollars. I'd never been paid twenty five hundred dollars before. This was like insane. And so I think.
00:09:47
Speaker
I bought a Sennheiser wireless pack. No, no, it was just one. But for the majority of the videos, it was two people on camera, and I had to have them sit close to each other so that they both get picked up on the mic. So I begged, borrowed, and steeled for the first, you know, probably the first year and a half of me like in the business. And as it
00:10:10
Speaker
I was just going to say as I was getting hired for every job, I'm like, okay, there's $200 more. I can buy one of those key light things. And here's another 150 and I can get that light. And so it was just like this long process of getting, upgrading my gear and getting it to a spot where I felt a little bit more confident than
00:10:30
Speaker
But I remember the nights before shoots as like this, like drive all over town and pick up things from everybody. And like, it was cool. I would hang out with them for like 10 to 15 minutes, actually network. This is a funny thing. I actually encourage people to do this because like.
00:10:47
Speaker
you can actually be networking or meeting with people. Hey, what do you shoot next week? Well, I'm free, you know, if you need me to drop in and you know, and you do a lot of free work and you just kind of make yourself available. But yeah, I remember the running around town and borrowing, borrowing, borrowing, particularly like lights, right? Like it was always like that air flex light package was like,
00:11:07
Speaker
I don't know. It was like two or three grand. And that was like really far out there. And it was just really tough to, I'm just amazed. $2,500 for like an interview. I remember getting my first 5,000 for a corporate and I must've worked on that for about like six weeks. Cause I was so excited about getting that much money. Like, Oh, well the $2,500 job, which I thought I'm like, Oh yeah, we'll shoot. Like what? Maybe that's like what? Three days. I think we ended up, it was like six days of production full days. And then,
00:11:36
Speaker
It was post-production hell. Like, like literally like this guy, I mean, God bless him. Cause he hired me and he gave me $2,500, but he was a control freak and the font. And the, I mean, it was like, I exported, I compressed, rendered, exported, burnt to DVD more time. Like you couldn't even put videos online to have people review them back in the day. Like you had to like burn them to a DVD so they could review them.
00:12:02
Speaker
I spent, so I think I made like $2 and 25 cents an hour when it was all said and done on that project. So $2,500 to me seemed like a lot. This guy may be in the back of his mind. He knew it was a lot bigger and he's like, wow, I can't believe this guy's going to do it for two weeks. So what would you, what would you go back 17 years ago and tell yourself like, Hey man, I know, I kind of know what I would tell myself. What would you tell yourself?
Advice for Younger Selves
00:12:25
Speaker
Hey man, um, this is,
00:12:28
Speaker
this is what you want to kind of keep in mind. This is going to help you get from here to there a little faster and be in a little better shape when you get there. What would you tell yourself? I would tell myself to ask more questions and ask better questions. So sitting down with this guy, you know, ask the client. You mean with the client? Yeah, sorry. I just, you know, he was like, well, here's what I want to create. I'm like, Oh yeah, I can do that. And I'm like,
00:12:54
Speaker
Right. Can I do that? I think I could do that. And, you know, not having a script or like, hey, these are the must have questions, like how soon does he need it? Like, what does the final format look like? What does the revision process look like? Or even having a revision process? I don't have a revision process. It was like, I guess I would just
00:13:14
Speaker
keep editing until the client said, we're done, you know? And that's that, oh my gosh, like I burned so much time working for free for clients. Cause I didn't tell them like, you only get two revisions. And if you want more, you can pay for them. And you know, today people are like, well, of course. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a few hundred bucks an hour for revisions. Yeah, sure. But like back then I would have never even thought to like bring that up or talk about what is the, what do you, what do you, you know, what do you want?
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it's it's and when you say, you know, when you say that for so many of your folks that come and meet with you, really, at the core, it almost sounds like you're a bit of a psychologist for them to say, you know, you you are worth this. And you have this this value you're bringing to the table and a skill and a craft that they don't frankly have. And you take it for granted because you like it. And you take it for granted because like the rest of us, you kind of slipped into it.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, because we all did. Right. I mean, for the most part, sure. There's some people that go to like full sale or some school or something like that. That's true. But I would say that's definitely the minority that so many of us came from like graphic design backgrounds or, you know, just or just had a love of film.
00:14:27
Speaker
or came into it from being a grip or a gaffer or something like that. I've seen a lot of that switch over, but ultimately there is this like psychological guilt that comes with doing something you actually like to do.
00:14:41
Speaker
That's so weird. It is. It's so weird. And it's so unfortunate because so many people, there would probably be so many more people in this industry doing this work because they, they wouldn't feel, you know, devastated or they wouldn't feel like, yeah, this is like, I'm never going to get there. I mean, I remember for the longest time, I,
00:15:01
Speaker
comparison, you know, like, I was always looking at other people's stuff and like, yeah, but when I get there, then then I can charge $10,000. But you know, in the meantime, I'll charge a 10th of that. And yeah, let's talk about that the comparison thing, like looking at other people's webs, I used to do that too, man, I used to like, just focus in and just get so like, some days, I'd be like, Oh, we're better than all those guys. And then sometimes we go, we
00:15:27
Speaker
And sometimes I think it was positive. I think it was positive if I was looking so far up the line, like I'm talking about to the guys who are making Super Bowl ads. In that case, I think it was helpful for me to be like, what are they bringing to the table? It lifted my creativity. But when it got around my peers, it was like nickel and diamond and not helping anybody.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it was the same for me for a long time. And there was a period of time for a long time where I just stopped looking at other people's work. And similar to you, like, you know, I would watch like real highly produced stuff, stuff that's like, you know, probably cost six and seven figures. And I'm like, Oh, wow, that's really cool. Like, how do they do that? But looking at people that are, you know, in my area that are charging around the same, maybe even a little bit less than me. And like, you know, some of those guys, their work, like, it's
00:16:17
Speaker
better than ours and they're charging not as much as we are charging. So one of the things that
00:16:25
Speaker
I kind of believe is that people don't really hire you because of your work, you know, because you, they don't, it's like, you go to the store, you buy a pack of gum, you get the pack of gum right there. Like you can test it, taste it and know like, okay, this is good. But when somebody hires you to do a creative project for them, they're not going to get it right away. There's no like, you know, so there's like this trust that they are putting in you, right? So when you're,
00:16:53
Speaker
pitching yourself or putting yourself out there, people are hiring you because of the confidence that they feel in you with being able to do this job for them. If they don't feel confident that you can do it, they're not going to give you the job. They can look at your website and look at your work and be like, okay, yeah, it looks good. And the majority of people
00:17:17
Speaker
that aren't in the creative world don't really know the difference between a red and a Canon GL1. Okay, maybe there is a difference there. Cause you know, we're SD versus, you know, whatever 20K. But, you know, creatively, like most people just can't tell the difference. Like, oh, did they use a $30 light or 3000? I don't know. It looks lit. It looks fine. It looks good.
00:17:36
Speaker
So, you know, what I would say, like, if I graded my own work, I'd be like, Oh man, this is probably like a six out of 10, but a client, and then the people that they show it to, it's going to be a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. Like to them, it doesn't really matter. So they need to know that you can do the job and
00:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, sure. You're not going to be able to make it look like your favorite filmmaker, but can it serve the purpose that your client needs? Probably. And if you don't believe in yourself and what you're able to do, then people aren't going to ever
00:18:10
Speaker
pay you more than what you feel like you're worth. And at that point, you're not feeling like you're worth that much, right? Cause you're comparing yourself to all these other people that charge maybe twice as much as you, maybe more than that. And for you, you're like, well, you can hire me at a fraction of the cost and you'll get it. I'll do good, but it's going to be a fraction of like how good it would be if you really hired those guys over there. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Jake, you're being awfully quiet there. I'm loving this. Inspiring me to go start up another production company. So Max, you asked Ryan what he would tell his younger self. What would you tell your younger self?
00:18:53
Speaker
Oh, man, keep it stick to the simple shit. I mean, like, honestly, like, and by that, I mean, like, when I started, I started because I looked around and I saw these horrible commercials on our local television stations. And I was like.
00:19:11
Speaker
I may not be the best, but I think I can make something better than that. And I love this field so much. I love doing the work. Like it's my dream has been since fifth grade to do this. And I have a lot of other things I could do in life. And I know this is not going to be a path to make a lot of money. I already knew that, thank God.
00:19:32
Speaker
But I just saw those ads on TV and I was so like unimpressed. And at the time, most of our work was the internet was fairly nascent and there wasn't that much that we were doing for the net. So most of it was local commercials. If you started yourself up as a business, you were kind of basically going into making local commercials.
00:19:53
Speaker
And in our town of 100,000 here in Bellingham, I just said, man, I could do better than that. And I want to make something better for these small businesses. I truly wanted to make something cooler than what they were having right then. I was like, I think I can tell their story. My family was a small business family. I was like, I think I can really like, they deserve better than that. And I can do it. And I can make it for them. And so what I would say to myself is never lose sight of that.
00:20:21
Speaker
through the 15 years and growing from the first year of a couple grand you made to making almost two mil a year, the times where I strayed and got in trouble was when I just lost sight of just saying, let's go a little further. Let's make it a little better. Let's just make it a little better for the client and never lose track of that as you get
00:20:44
Speaker
distracted with running a bigger business and like all the different strategy that, you know, you come up with and let's go this way, let's go that way, you know, let's do this to increase revenue and all this kind of stuff that I just, I sometimes lost that thread, you know, and like, and I think keep coming back to that simple thing that, that got you excited in the beginning. And in fact, it invigorated my team whenever I went back to that to say, Hey guys,
00:21:10
Speaker
gals team, let's just try to make the best damn thing we can. And that always, I don't know, it's simple, it's stupid, but it worked and it really helped give us a focus and a vision. But I can't agree with Ryan more that like,
00:21:29
Speaker
Just and I also wish I would have known what I was worth. I will say that sometimes for me, it was having someone come into the company from outside that knew what we were worth. And we talk about this in our how to pick a salesperson video when you get to that size. And sometimes that individual, because they're not you, I still struggle with the idea of what we're worth. And sometimes someone from the outside is the guy that can look in and be like,
00:21:57
Speaker
Dude, you are worth so much more than this. And that's one of the heart of a great biz dev. They don't always have to be a salesperson, but an EP, whatever you want to call them. But sometimes it is something from outside, just because it can be so hard to find that value in yourself. So I guess I'd say meet that guy sooner.
00:22:19
Speaker
It's not really possible, but I'm just glad I did because Chris Donaldson really focused on that so well for us and was able to, because it's exactly what Ryan's saying. It's like knowing how they're going to use it and what they're going to do with it and then saying, okay, what's it really going to do for them? And then thinking,
00:22:39
Speaker
about that. And then, of course, you know, Jake, you and I have the method of saying what do you really need, which I also think is really critical. It's like just that idea of what do you need. But so you talked a lot about the early years. How did you go from there to the next level? And what is the next level? Like, is that the creative next level? Is that the financial next level? Max, can you elaborate on what you mean when you say taking it to the next level?
00:23:07
Speaker
Well, I'd actually like Ryan to hit us up on that.
Defining 'Next Level' for Business
00:23:10
Speaker
I'm just kind of curious. Yeah. I know when, when we hit the next level, but what about you? Well, I think, I think this kind of comes down to definition and you know, the, the name of my podcast is grow your video business. And so people can think like, oh, that just means like charge more or, um, you know, hire more people. Uh, quite frankly, like.
00:23:33
Speaker
Last year, we had our worst year ever, financially, revenue-wise. Our team shrunk. And this year, we are going to have our most, not our biggest revenue year. We've hit a million dollars before. We're going to be just under a million dollars, but this will be our most profitable year. And this is the smallest staff that we've ever had for the longest time. So in that
00:23:59
Speaker
attributes. It's one of the reasons why we're going to be so profitable this year. But when I think about going to the next level for me, it's not necessarily like having this massive client like Nike hire us to do a thing. We've worked with big agencies and have had
00:24:20
Speaker
you know, a taste of like what that kind of work looks like. And I don't want that. I want to be done with work at five o'clock or maybe at four o'clock and go hang out with my family and have free time and not get a phone call from the account person at 10pm that says like, Oh gosh, we just looked at the cut. We need another version. And can you get on that right now? Or can you get like, no, thanks. That's not the life that I'm trying to create. So next level for me,
00:24:46
Speaker
is in June this year, I took three weeks off and my team ran the business and we got inquiries. People were talked to. We made money. I wasn't there. Nobody reached out to me. I didn't talk to anybody from my team for three weeks. That for me is next level. And then I come back and I'm like, all right, like, you know, I've, I've had so much time to think about my business to work on my business mentally, you know, taking notes and just,
00:25:12
Speaker
you know, thinking I'm on a bus ride with my son's eighth grade class to Washington, DC. And when I'm not getting like paper airplanes thrown at me, I'm thinking like, yeah, what, what is the next thing that, you know, we want to do in the business? How can we be more efficient? Because if we're more efficient, then we're going to make more money, right? If we're charging the same amount and then sometimes because we're so efficient, we can actually probably charge a little bit more because we're getting the stuff to our clients faster. And they're like, wow, this is really worth, this is way better than the, you know, the other company that we work with. So next level for me, I think it was,
00:25:41
Speaker
I mean, it's always been this mindset of like, well, what, what do I really want? And in my ultimate goal is to be a true business owner where the business does not revolve around me. Like my, the company can run. They don't need me. I will bring in like sales just because I love what we do. Uh, but just more like because of the networks that I have, um,
00:26:05
Speaker
and the business wouldn't be dependent on those extra sales. That would just be like icing on the cake. That is my dream and goal for this business. That for me right now is next level. But I remember 16 years ago, next level for me was like, man, if I could just get somebody that can edit for me so that I have more of my time, that was next level. And when I found somebody that could take some of that load off, that was massive. That was a massive win for me.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah. And don't you think like one of the great joys of when you've been doing it for a while is like, is actually just working with your team members, right? Like it's just like that very team itself and seeing them grow and get excited about what they're doing and giving them an opportunity that you may not have had. I certainly didn't like to get to work with a larger organization or anything. So that,
00:27:00
Speaker
I don't know that can be super fulfilling as well, you know, and, and, and just kind of speaks to that idea of like having a real, a real business, like you say. I mean, I think our business is always going to be, I think the challenges of the video production business world are the vicissitudes of the work. It's just tough, you know, to know, you know, to
00:27:22
Speaker
to know where you're going to be exactly financially in three months time outside of what you're producing right now. It's always just a little tough to know that no matter what you can do. But finding things that give you some solid ground to build upon and part of that is just honestly
00:27:44
Speaker
being around and having those great customer service that keeps those same good old folks coming back and being a part of it. But yeah, next level for me was when we started turning it off being all about me. I'll totally agree with you on that. I was the director and I had my editor and I had my VFX guy, but I still was the director and the writer of everything.
00:28:12
Speaker
One day, that just becomes untenable. One day, that just becomes too much and you simply cannot grow anymore. A lot of it was being just willing to step back and say, you know what? I think this young guy could be a really great director and we've worked with him now for six months a year and let's just turn him loose and let him
00:28:36
Speaker
do his thing, and it was terrifying at first to do that. My clients didn't like it, actually. They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we want to work with you, Max. And I'm sitting here thinking, this guy's actually going to make you a better video than I am. And that was really terrifying and tough, and it wasn't without its pitfalls, but it was the opening of just this door to a whole other level.
00:29:00
Speaker
like just a whole nother level. When you started saying other people can direct, other people can have a lot of creative say, it just stepping out of the director's chair and into the business owner's chair, that I'd say was like the single biggest leap that I personally made and probably the most fulfilling one as well. And I know you talk in your,
00:29:26
Speaker
I know, do you have a specific workshop about doing that? Is that right about being able to step back and out? Man, I got all sorts of workshops. That's probably my favorite. We do have a course called the Video Business Academy that kind of teaches, essentially, if you can break your business into the different parts and look at what are the parts that run the business, that's a good exercise to go through because then you can start
00:29:54
Speaker
thinking like, well, what, what is my sweet spot? What thing do I love the most? What thing am I the best at? Um, am I the best filmmaker or editor in the world? Probably not. So what that means is that there's probably other people out there or there's other people out there that could be trained to be maybe as good as me, maybe close enough to good as me. You know, again, my six out of 10 grading myself as our clients, like nine or 10 out of 10.
00:30:18
Speaker
So somebody that I'm training, maybe there are a five out of 10, but in our client's eyes, they're like an eight or a nine. And like for our clients, like our clients, like that's all we need. We need an eight out of 10 on this. It doesn't need to be Spielberg. It needs to be Ryan Berg. I don't know. But we do, we do have a workshop. Like one of the things that, you know, as you, as you think about like, well, what am I worth and what should I charge? I want to charge more.
00:30:44
Speaker
Obviously, if we could pick our own work, choose our own clients, that's the dream case scenario. But a lot of it, I think, starts in the phone call, like the Zoom call where we have with a client where they're inquiring about video. They're asking you all these different questions. They're probably talking to two or three other companies as well as trying to figure out who's the cheapest, who's the middle price, who's the most expensive. We're probably going to go with the middle price. And if you can change that conversation, I really feel like getting off of that
00:31:14
Speaker
call with a potential client in knowing what their budget is or where they're at in the buying process is one of the most helpful things when it comes to creating a proposal or deciding, you know what, they're not ready for a proposal. So why would I waste my time? So within like 10 minutes on a call,
00:31:31
Speaker
There are these questions, kind of this format that we go through to really vet out who we're talking to. What do they need? What problems do they have? And what is their budget? And by the time we get off the call, I've got their budget or I know if they're gonna be a good fit for us or not. So I'm not wasting my time spending
00:31:50
Speaker
spending it with people that just aren't ready to hire us. We're kind of guiding them along. Hey, here's what you might need. In the meantime, as you're trying to figure out what your budget is, here's some resources. So we have a whole workshop that kind of takes people through the process that I've been using for years that has been super helpful. It's benefited a lot of other people. It's the workshop. If you want access to it, it's totally free. Just go to studio sherpas.com slash budget.
00:32:14
Speaker
And it's like a 40, 45 minute workshop that kind of takes you through our process. Take it, make it your own, but you really- The process of that phone call. The process of that phone call, right? Asking better questions. Ask really better questions. I mean, I think that that's so, absolutely. I mean,
00:32:35
Speaker
It's amazing how in the early days you'd come off the call and be like, I don't really actually know what the hell we're because you didn't have a system. You didn't have a set out group of, you know, in our software, in our pipeline software, we actually have at the very top page, like the.
00:32:54
Speaker
Basically what I imagined a person ought to be asking on the phone with the client and for each project you can just go through and just say, you know, this that you know the other and fill that in and we really built that in there just exactly along those same lines to try to like,
00:33:11
Speaker
get that going, share it with the team so everyone kind of stays on target because often the things that come out of that call, that's when the client is the most clear-minded also before things have gotten more muddy and they really will tell you kind of exactly what they need it for which is often like that critical element like what they're using it for and how it's going to be distributed and so forth.
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, that that's, that's amazing and I imagine that I am at you know I know that the more you are able to listen to them and give them back the, the fact that you did listen that you have ideas that match up with theirs. You know here's a nugget that I just always loved was.
00:33:59
Speaker
I was amazed by if I could find a video in our portfolio that we had done that pretty much matched exactly the thing that they were talking about. If I showed them that, it would help close the deal like nobody's business. Often, I would spend more time hunting down videos because we did like 700 videos. We did this huge library, but I'd be like,
00:34:21
Speaker
I know we did one back in 2008 that was just like this. And maybe it doesn't look super cool and all that, but it's exactly what this lawyer guy is talking about. And they would see it and they'd be like, oh, well, these guys know what we're talking about. And it spoke much louder in many ways. The examples in the proposal, the examples that we would give would speak so loudly to them. And oh, they get it. They get what we're after, you know?
00:34:48
Speaker
And I also learned later that you didn't even have to produce it. You could just go find something on YouTube and say, I think this is what you're talking about and show that to them. And you might say, well, look, we don't have the budget for the helicopters and all that. But I get where you're headed with that. And they know you can make video. They're not too worried about that. They just want to know that you get their idea.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's brilliant. We use that same. If we don't have the video itself, we'll say, like, no, we do know that there's this emotive, there is this one that we want to share with them. And we tell the client, like, we did this one. No, just kidding. We don't see it.
00:35:26
Speaker
but it's really, it's about hearing them. And it's about saying like the concept in this video is what we're kind of like saying, we think this is related. Is this what you're saying? And then the client at that point say like, no, no, no, no, that's not even close. Then you're like, Oh, okay. Well, let's, let's keep digging and you know, really figure out like what it, what it is that you actually want.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah. And often those videos can be ones that your, your company is aspirational towards anyway. Like if it's one that you're like, that's something we want to make. Like you would always kind of meet up and be like, what do we want to make? And we'd see something and we'd be like, well, we want to make something like that. And then when it clicked with the client, we'd show them that maybe sometimes even get the budget up a lot higher. Cause they would look at it and be like,
00:36:03
Speaker
Well, that looks really, really what we want. We're like, well, that's cool, but that's not in the $10,000 budget. That's like a $25,000. Well, that's okay if we can get that. And that can make things suddenly a lot more exciting. Yep. Love that. So that's really cool. I mean, I think that's
00:36:22
Speaker
It's just, it's so awesome to think about the process coming from the very first call and everything that happens on that call. I'm curious, you know, we're the, we talk about being the biz side. We just, we kind of want to talk about the numbers. Our software is very based on the financials. We have a really cool budgeter and I'm just curious, what are the biggest mistakes you see folks make around the numbers?
Budgeting Errors in Video Production
00:36:48
Speaker
And I, beyond not charging enough really, but just like,
00:36:52
Speaker
What are the things that you see time and again where when you're evaluating a new prospect for or you work a lot of coaching folks, and what do you see and what they're doing financially that often issue themselves in the foot. Nobody, nobody budgets enough time for pre production.
00:37:10
Speaker
Um, I mean, that's just like, uh, you just assume like, okay, well this is our day rate. And so if this is our day rate and we think it's going to take this much time to edit, okay, that's probably going to be that much time. And we can't add more because they said it needed to be $5,000. So we can't add anything on top of that. So I guess we'll just find time to do it.
00:37:28
Speaker
and you do it and you're basically working for free. If you're working for free, I've got some jobs I'd love to hire you for. So if you don't mind working for free. So pre-production, we're so, so many of us are at fault for just giving away that part, which that's the brains. That's the magic.
00:37:45
Speaker
creative. I mean, is that what you're really saying is creative or just like it could be, I mean, both ends, right? I mean, just planning, there's a lot of creative movement in that. It's like, okay, how are we going to get that shot at that time, you know, in that place and with all those people and how do we get the right, you know, there's like so much
00:38:03
Speaker
to that plus the creative like, okay, what is the idea? What is the concept here? What we do, we do today, we do a workshop. If somebody says they want to hire us for this $15,000, $20,000 video, we say, okay, before we do that, you're going to hire us for a $2,500 workshop. We're going to sit with you and your team for two hours talking through our process for how we create great videos and really dialing and making sure we understand what it is that you need.
00:38:28
Speaker
and then getting alignment from your team for everybody to say after that meeting like, yeah, those are the goals. These are the things that maybe that, you know, it's a, we definitely need to do a couple of interviews and we should have Bob and Tina. They need to be in the video. And then we go, we put together a blueprint.
00:38:43
Speaker
So we're basically getting paid to do all this amazing production work. That is cool. We present this PDF to them and say, is this, this is all that we think we heard. Here's a, here's a sample video that we did. Here's a sample video that we've seen online that we think is in line. Like how does all of this look and sound clients, like nine times out of 10, they're like, oh yeah, that's for sure. There might be a little bit of feedback. Like, ah, not that we don't like that vibe of that song that you guys are
00:39:07
Speaker
you know, kind of thinking might be the inspiration for this piece, maybe something a little less upbeat, and then we make any revisions to that PDF, they look at it, they sign off on it, then we give them the proposal.
Charging for Pre-Production Workshops
00:39:18
Speaker
In that blueprint, there is a couple of proposals like, hey, we think, you know, here's the $25,000 version, here's the $15,000 version, we're not doing the helicopter, we're not doing this, so which one do you want? And they look at that
00:39:31
Speaker
blueprint and they're like, let's do option one. Let's do that 25 K. We turn around, we send them a formal proposal for that 25,000. They sign it. Then we get into the planning or production, but this workshop they're paying for. Is that right? This workshop is $2,500 workshop. We also tell them, Hey, if you don't love the workshop after we leave, we'll give you your 2,500 bucks back. But
00:39:52
Speaker
Nobody's ever asked for their money back and 95% of the people have hired us to actually do the production, post the workshop. The 5% who haven't, they ran into budgeting issues and just other stuff on their end. How long have you been doing this? We started doing this workshop four or five years ago and it changed our business.
00:40:13
Speaker
man I mean that is really cool people are you listening to this you need to take this and you and run with it because this does take some cajons I will say I mean this you must have been a little like the first time you put it out there oh yeah oh yeah here you go we got this idea man maybe you
00:40:30
Speaker
kind of want to try that. Well, where I got it from is a consultant that I was using who he charges $2,500 for his consulting and he wanted video work. And so I turned to him and I said, well, like to build the plan, it's going to be $2,500. And he's like, sounds good.
00:40:50
Speaker
And I'm like, this is a guy who charges $2,500 for like a half day of work. So he's used to paying $2,500 for like a meeting. And I'm like, holy crap, like somebody's going to pay me. And it was a two hour thing. And we did the thing. He's like, this is amazing. This is the coolest thing. And he gave us this testimony. I was like, Oh my gosh, not only did we get paid to just sit in a room and brainstorm and think, and then we built this blueprint, but now we've got a guy who's like promoting what we just did. So at that point I was like, okay, I've got all the confidence in the world. We can sell this thing.
00:41:17
Speaker
Now I know why you have 4,500 downloads, man, or $450,000, because you come up with great ideas. I'm just now thinking, shit, I wish I would have. I mean, we learned how to charge for credit, but I love the way you've sort of packaged it and made it really clear. And also, I think by doing that,
00:41:34
Speaker
Again, coming back to it, you have codified the value of it. You have made it very clear by the document that comes in the end, by all those aspects of saying, you have basically just raised, thrown your stake in the ground to say, look, look, look, look, we do production. But first and foremost, we're going to get your message right and get the messaging right and help you do that as a company. Because I cannot tell you how many times we went in, and that was job number one.
00:42:03
Speaker
we were not getting paid for it. Or if we were, it was just part of the overall job and hence even then it just kind of got
00:42:12
Speaker
sort of just jammed in to the big 40 or $50,000 budget of the project. And then no one ever really saw it as a different entity. And it was only if you got the job. Boom. Exactly. That's only if you got the job. And so I just, I love this. I mean, that's, that's incredible, but it is, it isn't so imperative that document at the end, right? The, the, the handoff that the conversation they're like,
00:42:40
Speaker
that's gotta be such a big part of it, but that is so cool. That is great and great advice for everyone out there. So that's cool. So going back to the financial side of that. So when you do that, do you also put together, so you give them sort of three options of what they might do? Is that sort of how it works?
00:43:09
Speaker
two or three typically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we know, I mean, psychologically our brains navigate to that middle package. Um, but we've done like this most recent one that we just did. Uh, guys are working on it this week. I just saw it this morning. Uh, we've got two options for them and really it's like, here's the base package. And then if you want us to go to additional cities, here's what it costs for each additional city. So
00:43:32
Speaker
There wasn't really, we could have created another option, like another package option, but we're just going to let them kind of decide how big of a package we end up doing with them. Let me ask you this. When you really want the job, there were those jobs that you just
00:43:47
Speaker
Man, I really want this one. I just want this one. I want this one. I want this one. It's going to be fun. It's going to lift the team up. I was always looking for stuff that was going to get the team jazzed. It's going to expand our craft. It's going to expand our audience. It's going to open up this client. Maybe it's some whole new health chain or something like that that you're getting in bed with. What do you try to do to make that? Is there anything special? Is there any special sauce that you put on top to try to really make that happen? What would it be?
00:44:18
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think doing a personal video, you know, we always try to get our clients on the phone to walk them through the blueprints.
Personalized Videos for Client Engagement
00:44:27
Speaker
And then if we're just doing a proposal, no blueprint, we want it. We want to get them on the phone. If we're, if we know that we're not going to be able to do that. And even if we are,
00:44:35
Speaker
We'll try to create a little video and essentially a video like this where I'm, you know, on camera, like, Hey, you know, client, uh, you are like our ideal client. Like here's why this is what we love about you guys being very specific. Uh, love meeting with your team. Love what this project is about. Love what it will mean for our team to be a part of something like this. So just being genuine and, uh, sharing your excitement. I do not.
00:44:59
Speaker
recommend out of the gate saying like, well, because we love you guys so much, uh, we want to discount, you know, 20%, 50%. We'll do whatever it takes to get this job. What we do instead is we tell them we would love to add some massive value to this package. So that could look different depending on the project, the client, whatever, uh, that could mean we're going to give you an additional edit or we're going to shoot an additional day or additional couple of days or we're, you know, uh,
00:45:29
Speaker
there are so many different ways to add value, depending on what your client values, what they need, as you kind of ask a lot of good questions in the discovery phase, knowing that while they, man, they talked about having all this stuff for social, but that really isn't the proposal that they're asking for. So if we just said, Hey, we'd love to put together three 15 second videos, if you do go with this package, we just sent, there's a huge, the biggest wedding, we used to,
00:45:57
Speaker
the majority of what we used to film was weddings for the longest time until about 10 years ago. We just sent, so now we do one to two a year. Typically they're like $25,000 or so. We just sent a proposal for a wedding that was our largest ever, I think at 31 or $32,000.
00:46:16
Speaker
but we're working with a coordinator and the coordinator who reached out because we did a siblings wedding and they said, Hey, we'd love to get some behind the scenes of our coordinator team working at that wedding. And they're like, how much is that going to cost? And we told them, we said, Hey, if we get this job with the sibling client here, we're just, we're going to do those and it's free for free. I mean, they probably would cost us 300, $200, you know, our cost on those, you know, but for them, they're like, Oh my gosh, that's awesome. So they're going to, you know, they're going to push the client like, Hey, you should really hire these guys. You know, they're, you, you,
00:46:46
Speaker
So figuring out how you can add value and just trying to get creative there versus like, what, what can we do maybe in this specific project to kind of go above and beyond. And maybe it is in that specific for that specific edit or whatever, but I think just using some of your creative brain.
00:47:02
Speaker
juice on how can we add extra value to really show them that you heard them and that you really want the gig and that you value your time. So you're not going to discount. I think that's respectable. Respectful.
00:47:18
Speaker
So that's the way we would go about doing something like that. I love the idea of making a little video. I never thought of that. That's really clever and it's so easy to do the way we're all set up these days. I think that's super cool because what you're doing is, I mean, I love the value add, but I also just love the
00:47:34
Speaker
just being really straight up with them and just saying you represent the values that we represent and I think that means more to your client than you know. This is their business, this is their baby, this is what they have chosen to do with their life and so when you really hone in on the full 360 of what their
00:47:55
Speaker
organization is all about and you get under the hood of that, it gets them excited and you suddenly, again, you get seen as that coveted partner as opposed to a vendor, again, which you're doing with your workshop with the client. Well, I think we should probably wrap up, which is unfortunate because I could do this
00:48:17
Speaker
all day because this has just been one of the greatest guests of all time because we just distilled. Now you don't have to go listen to all those other 250 podcasts that Studio Sherpas has because you just heard all the good stuff. But no, I encourage you to go put that one on your list and start listening to Ryan because this is obviously some amazing stuff. And it is listening to these kind of things, meeting these kinds of folks in our business that
00:48:47
Speaker
So many of us don't network enough with our own folk, and that's hopefully with podcasts and everything we're starting to change that we either feel in competition with our peers or something but I just have always noticed it, and we can't.
00:49:02
Speaker
always get out these days so this podcast are just a great way so do please studio sherpas.com and of course I'm sure it can be found on all the usual Apple and Spotify and so forth but Ryan thank you so much and I look forward to talking to you again and Jake thank you for that one question that you threw out there while you sat there doing your taxes.
00:49:29
Speaker
Exactly. I was just absorbing. I liked everything you guys were saying. You're on the hook for more questions next time we have Ryan until I do that right now. Sounds good. Also, don't forget to go to videopipeline.io and give our software a whirl. I think you will like it. We often take all the stuff to heart that we're talking about here. It's all coded in, so go ahead and check it out. Videopipeline.io. You won't be sorry.
00:49:58
Speaker
All right, thanks very much. We'll see you on the next time.