Filmmaker to Millionaire: He Turned $75 Shoots Into a Real Estate Media Empire

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vipul Bindra (00:04):
John, thank you for coming.
It's always a pleasure talkingto you and I know you're a busy
man, so thank you for takingtime out of your day to come
here.

John Ruz (00:12):
Of course, my friend.
Thank you so much for having me.

So it's funny enough.
This podcast is so new, barelyout.
Like I was telling you I've hadso many people request for you
to be here because I've had likeeveryone come on and then when
they're about to leave, they'relike, well, you gotta have john
on here.
So it's like, yes, yes, butwe're saving him.
So you know, it's the secondlast episode of the season and
um, like, first of all, why, howdo you think you have this cult

(00:34):
following in the?
In the orlando filmmakerdatabase, I guess?
Um, I don't know, what do youthink I feel like?

John Ruz (00:42):
um, I'm very transparent and I I like
business.
Um, and I feel like thisindustry lacks about that, lacks
about talking about you know,being transparent, being in
business, how to make yourbusiness profitable.
It's very important that no onetalks about exactly and what's
crazy is we met at the first.

So, david, you're right, a friend had started
filmmaker meetup and we metliterally the first filmmaker
meetup ever.
Uh, and I had no idea what thatwas going to spawn into.
And years later now here we are.
Um, I want to know.
Obviously, let's go back then.
Right, where was your businessthen?
What type of revenue were youdoing?
Did you have any employees orcontractors?

(01:25):
Tell me more.
If you remember, I think it waslike 2023, two years ago, I
think.
Two years ago.
Yeah, two and a half years ago,roughly.

John Ruz (01:34):
It's kind of the same as of right now.
Team-wise we have scaled.
Right now we have expanded toTexas new market for JRP.
So, going back a little bit, Ico-own two businesses with Brian
, my business partner.
So one is JRP and the other oneis Big Wave Productions.
Jrp focuses more onarchitectural photography,

(01:54):
videography, 3d tours,matterport tours, all that.

So everything to do with real estate essentially
right.

John Ruz (02:02):
Yes, and Big Wave is mostly commercials advertising
conferences and all that.

So back when I met you so about two, two and a
half years ago did you have bothof them or you were only doing
so.
You still had both.

John Ruz (02:16):
We still had both.

Okay, and at that time, what type of revenue were
you pulling in?

John Ruz (02:23):
We were making around.
Let's say we have been from thestart.
We have been pulling sixfigures throughout.
When I started, by myself, ofcourse, I was hitting close to
five figures, but when Briancame in as a 50% partner, we

(02:43):
scaled the business and startedpulling in six-figure figures.

Which is really good.
Yeah.
Now I want to know, two yearslater, how much have you scaled?
Are you pulling like higher sixfigures?
Have you reached seven figures?
Where are you at right now?

John Ruz (02:54):
We haven't hit six figures.
We're very close.
This year might be the yearthat we hit six.
You mean seven figures?
Right, Seven figures.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry, Because I was likeyou're already six figures.

I know that.
So are you at high six figuresright now.
High six figures, high sixfigures.

John Ruz (03:07):
That's pretty good I mean.

That's incredible, especially with the real estate
.
I don't know if people know I'mhoping because you know our
audience is filmmakers but realestate is one of the lowest
money-making markets, like youknow, where you make the lowest
money for the most amount ofwork and you have.
You and your business partnerhave figured out a way to scale
that business and make itprofitable, which is an

(03:29):
incredible feat.
You know, in a market, like Isaid, that's saturated, that's
low paying, plus you're doinghigh quality work and somehow
making that work.
How did you manage that?
I want to know the beginning ofit, I guess.
How did you figure this formulaout?

John Ruz (03:42):
Yeah, so when I started it was just myself
charging $75 a shoot.
Crazy, right yeah $75 forshooting, delivering everything
that's crazy, that's crazy yeah.
And now we are charging up to,you know, a real estate shoot,
architectural shoot.

It can be up to $5,000, $7,000, $14,000 shoot,
which is crazy to think aboutand remember.
For commercial, okay, but likefor real estate to be able to
pull that numbers is very youknow, you're in the high end of
that market, correct, butOrlando has properties that can
match that right, yeah, soProperties and agents and

(04:26):
businesses that need that typeof quality.

John Ruz (04:27):
You know we have in Connor the low tier end of real
estate agents that might nothave the budget to hire us, you
know.
But there's the other side ofit, that they see the value in
the investment right.
So they tend to go towards usbecause we do like to target
those people and tailor ourbusiness and our vision to what
they want.

Yeah, and to be real in real estate, any
successful agent knows that'show you're selling a property.
Most people aren't just showingup, they're going through
pictures, they're going throughthe Matterport tours.
That's somebody who bought ahome two, two and a half months
ago.
Basically, that is what you doyou browse and then you pick
your favorites and then you gosee them in real life, right and

(05:07):
with your agent, but you're notgonna go right if the photos
don't make the great impressionright and if the tour you know,
then you do the 3d tour.
You can't imagine living there.
And the best one is video andone of the reasons I gravitated
towards this house.
This was one of the few thathad a video, and as soon as
there was a video, I was like oh, now I can you know, because to
me that's the biggest, most, uh, powerful one of them um, and

(05:30):
then that made me want to.
Oh, I definitely have to go seeit right you appreciated that.
Yeah, exactly yeah, because theyyou know, it makes you be able
to see the space even better.
Right, it makes you be able toto picture you know everything
in it.
Um, so what's your?
Uh, you would say a share of umratio of like video to
matterport to photos of whatyou're doing it's kind of crazy

(05:53):
we have, when it, let's say,2023, we were hitting mostly
photos.

John Ruz (05:58):
Now it's video with reels, you know, tiktok being in
place, reels being in place.
Our content it's 70 video, 30photos right now, which is, for
me, it's crazy.

Yeah, to think about that, yeah because they,
you, because, like you said,yeah, it was mostly photos, but
agents have woken up, they'rerealizing that, uh, you know
videos where the, where the playis, because now you can add
emotion, you can add music, youcan, you can, you can create the
environment that that makespeople want to live there right.
Because that's who they'retargeting right, Right and not
only that, you know video.

John Ruz (06:33):
One key thing that we have in our business and the
mentality of being in thebusiness of real estate is that
the assets that we provide notonly helps sell the health
faster but helps the brand ofthe agent right themselves,
their personal brand, theirbusiness.
They want to represent likethey want to show up on camera
and and the video right on thefinal edit.

(06:55):
We target those people thatappreciate the assets and the
investment.
You know, the other tier enddon't see that value.
Is that that why we?
We just grew, grew, grew out ofit?

yeah, exactly.
And then and that's smartbecause, like you said, at the
end of the day, um, you knowthose, you know, uh, they can
pay more because they're sellingmore and uh, you know, these
other agents just need to learnthat.
And until they're there, uh,you know, right, you, you just
have to cater the market.
That's good for business,because 75 dollars for shoot, I

(07:27):
can't imagine yeah it's veryhard.
So so tell me this, because itmust have taken some kind of uh,
you know something in you towant to do that.
So why, what?
Why what was so passionate thatyou were like I don't care if
it's 75, I just want to do it.
Um, what year was this, by theway, when you were doing this?

John Ruz (07:43):
2018, 2019.

Okay so you're charging $75 a box for a shoot
right Right, like most realestate.
By the way, this isn't unique.
I've met people who are likevery, very low budget.
It's like it makes no sense,but that's what they're doing,
right, the market is what it is.

John Ruz (07:59):
What it is, yeah.

So.
So what made you becausethere's some kind of push in you
what made you want to be stillokay with that rate?

John Ruz (08:05):
So you know one agent and one agent, clint, of ours.
She was fantastic, she wasworking as a real estate agent
and knew someone in themarketing team of one of the
biggest builders in the USNation One International and
she's like you guys might beinterested in working with this

(08:27):
builder, you know, and she wentinto the office, referred us.
We totally shot, shot for freefor that client.
Uh, because we knew thepotential.
I knew the potential brianwasn't part of of the equation.
Now, um, and he's a reallygreat piece of an important
piece of my development in thebusiness.

(08:47):
Um, and she's like, hey, let'sdo photos for them for free, you
know.
And I'm like, okay, yeah, sure,and I shot it, edited
everything for free.
And then the marketing directorsaw it and he's like, okay,
well, perfect, let's, let's keepyou rolling.
And I was shooting, you know.
And he's like, okay, well,perfect, let's keep you rolling.
And I was shooting, you know,two to three properties a week.
Now I'm shooting 10 a day.

Wow, 15 a day.
So it did help you doing it forfree, because you all of a
sudden went from two to three to10, 15 a day.
Right, then you can scale up.
So, even though the price islow, right, you can make it up
on the back end because you'redoing way more, right?

John Ruz (09:21):
yeah, okay, and then one key thing is that brian came
in, and brian is a veteran onthe industry not, so how did you
meet?
Him, so I worked for him crazypart I.
I was um I when I graduatedfull sail.
I graduated from full sail okayfilm and I I promised myself
that I will find something, umas fast possible.

(09:44):
So I started emailing peoplestudios every single day for a
year, boom, boom boom back andforth.
No one.
I you know.
I got some gigs here and thereand my email was hey, I'm an
intern, just graduated from fullsale.
I'm looking for opportunities.
Do you have something?
Please let me know.
Here's a link to my portfolio.

And the sad part is I'll tell you this I get a
ton of those because full sale,a lot of those emails, and then
most they go unread.
Or I try to be nice and Irespond hey, send me some links,
maybe your rates, I'll try andput you on a list.
If somebody calls out I cancall you, but out I can call you

(10:26):
, but the truth is and this isjust for people who are doing
that I'm telling you it's notworth it.
Maybe you'll get lucky.
You're better off going inperson, because here's the thing
I don't mind bringing peoplefor free, right?
I just need to know who you areright, and an email is just the
most terrible way to know whoyou are right and that's why
those get ignored.
Right, because I'm just like Idon't know your feel, you know
your, your tone.
How are you going to go with myclient?

(10:47):
Because last thing I want to dois I bring you in a shoot.
Let's say I'm charging theclient 15 grand for that
commercial right and you come infor free, but you say something
silly, or even if the silliestthing you'd say not you, but I'm
just saying when somebody's new, they could go.
I don't know how to set thislight up the client goes, goes.
Oh, I'm paying this much foramateurs even though it's okay
for you not to know, right, butif the client hears the
perception changes, it hurts thebusiness.

(11:08):
So I need to be able to vet thepeople Cause then I know, okay,
hey, you're not going to saysomething silly.
And if you do need to costcause, it's okay, whole
perception.
And these conversations need tobe had in person, not over
email.
So I highly recommend if you'regoing to reach out by email,
then just ask for coffee, right?

(11:29):
Just say hey, let's meet.
I would love to just pick yourbrain for a little bit and most
people will say yes, versus youknow, hire me.
Because then it's like here'smy portfolio.
It doesn't matter what yourportfolio is, right, I don't
know the person.
So I think that's far moreimportant.

John Ruz (11:46):
Anyway, tangent, but I want to tell people how to get
out of that rut.

Key point yeah just meet for coffee.
Get them to know you as aperson because, trust me you,
anyone will teach you.
I so many people on thosepodcasts will happily bring
anyone new and teach them rightwhat they won't do is just bring
a stranger on set so just don'tbe a stranger, go meet people
anyway.
So, yes, so you had, you hadthat experience, which I I hope
I wasn't one of the ones but Iapologize if I was?

(12:11):
Uh, because that happens, thathappens daily it's so crazy how
often that happens.
But yes, so you tried.

John Ruz (12:16):
Obviously couldn't find something I tried, you
couldn't find something.
And then brian replied back hey, which is awesome.
So, yeah, you never know, yeah,right he's like, hey, yeah,
perfect, let's, let's meet up atthis spot um dress.
Dress accordingly to theoccasion and you know what?
My first get?
What was for rolex 24 daytona,you know for the interior

(12:37):
designer yeah, it was great.
Wow, I'm like, oh my god, this,this is what I love to do.
You know, this is great.
This is an amazing opportunity.
So fast forward.
Um covet hit 2020.
Yeah, best brian's business.
Um was mostly into, you know,commercials and advertising and
conferences, which dried up.

Yeah, pretty much yeah so my business.

John Ruz (13:01):
At the time I was working for that builder,
pulling my hair out because Ididn't have a team.
I was working for myself.

You know I'm like 10, 15 shoes.
It's crazy yeah.

John Ruz (13:11):
I was working, I was pulling 12 hours days shooting,
plus then all night editing thenQCing and delivering, which is
just crazy.
I wasn't getting burned out.
The client was getting superannoyed of not hitting delivery
times.
You know, and real estate it's,it's a fast turnaround, it's 24
hours turnaround, so you haveto shoot and deliver in 24 hours

(13:33):
.

You know it's, that's what they expect, because
they want to put the listingout.

John Ruz (13:37):
Yeah, right, so um, he came in.
Well, I'm like, hey, brian, I'msorry, but I need so much help
right now.
He's like, oh my God, yes,perfect, this works great.
I don't I, you know I'm notdoing anything, let's do that.
And you know, he, he came in asa producer and helped me you
know, randomly run, randomlyclient and, and you know that

(13:57):
been some ideas.
And he's like hey, helping meedit, helping me just manage
things, helping me book stuff onthe calendar.
And I'm like, okay, cool, well,this is working.
I'm having a team player righthere, so this is great.

But that's incredible to think about.
Hold on a minute.
You started right.
You reached out to somebody whoresponded out of sea of emails
and he hired you.
He brought you on right.
He's more experienced and now,because of covid, tide have
turned.
Now he's coming in to partnerwith you because he his work
dried up.
So you never know people thathire you could end up working

(14:32):
with you, right, uh.
So now he's like oh, I, my workdried up, let's partner
together.
But because he's so experienced, he can come in and kind of
find efficiencies I'm missing inthe process right, he, he is a
veteran on producing.

John Ruz (14:45):
You know scaling the business, the business
developing, so he was a key,essential part to you know, jrp,
not only scaling, but you knowmaking profit, making numbers,
because if you're pulling 75bucks a shoot, yeah with edit
editors in place and payingmyself you're like pulling one
dollar profits exactly, which islike nothing in orlando.

Good luck, uh.
So.
So essentially, he came in, he.
So you were the talent at thattime, right?
He's now the the businessbrains, right?
So what do you guys do to scaleit or or to to make it better?

John Ruz (15:21):
right.
So this client really helped usvisualize the future of this
business.
So, it's like, okay, well, wehave to target home builders,
interior designers, architectsthat have bulk of business, have
15, 20 shoots at that time andwe're like, okay, well, we can
pull in a shooter contractorright here.

(15:41):
All of our shooters arecontractors.
None of them are employees.
The only two employees on ourtwo entities are Brian and I,
and that's it.
We, only we only.

So I do the same thing the contractor formula
even though I have people youknow who get a lot of work from
us.
But it worked for me, which isso funny.
When I started the company, Iwanted to replicate.
They had full-time employees,so I'm so glad I didn't.
This is the better format, butwhat made?

John Ruz (16:10):
you go with this format where you bring in
contractors versus employees.
We were running out of money sofast with employees.
We tried with one of our firstcontractors.
We put it on a W-2 basis.
We said no, no we can't.

It's so much Because you have to then the
overhead and all that, right,right, and you have to have the
current, yeah, recurring revenue, right, yeah, exactly we're
like maybe the contractor rateswill work and we we're targeting
contractors that not onlyspecify in real estate, but they
only they.

John Ruz (16:42):
They mostly do weddings on the weekends, so
they have the weekdays prettymuch open and that's where we
come in look at that.

We don't shoot for the weekends.
That's pretty smart.
So you basically went out andyou said hey, here's wedding
videographers who are freeduring the weekdays.
Come do real estate for us becontractors.
That's smart.
So what were you, or what areyou paying them?
On average, a shoot.

John Ruz (17:04):
So it can vary depending on the season.
We have slow season and highseason.
Our shooters can make from$2,500 a month to up to $10,000
a month.

That's pretty good for a contractor Right.
And then how were you able toup your rate?
Did you go back to that samebuilder and say I want to go
from 75 to I don't know, 150,200, whatever?
You upped your rate, did you goback to that same builder and
say I want to go from 75 to, Idon't know, 150, 200, whatever
you up to your rate to?
Um, how did you manage thatconversation?
Or did you just have to find awhole new client to up the rate?

John Ruz (17:33):
not really.
You know um with brian.
He's like okay, john, you haveto see the business through what
we're working for this is abuilder that's pulling billions
of dollars and probably doing asix you know budget a year for
marketing.
So you have to think about howmuch we're going to charge them,
how much we're going to pay ourcontractor, our editors, our

(17:55):
backend team, qc team, and thenwe have to figure out a number
that we can pull to the client,right.
So we find out that packagingour pricing with photo, video
matter, port work, great forprofits and for the client,
right?
So we we came in with the forthe client with several pricing
tiers and uh packages, and whatended up happening?

(18:17):
They're like okay, well, let'stake for every single home to
stick with this package, and forbigger shoots, for moto homes,
for you know, more involvedshoots, let's go custom, right?
Yeah so, and that's whathappened so.

So you were able to build packages that and your
real estate is a very goodmarket where you can do that.
So give us an example of yourcurrent packages so people, and
with some example pricing, sopeople can understand what
clients are paying and what thedeliverables are like you know
photos, video, whatever, so what?
What did packages look like?

John Ruz (18:48):
Some examples so we have three packages and we have
something that's called priceanchoring, right?
So we have our high tier listthat can cost up to 2,500 bucks
and includes photos, video,matterport tours, landing pages,
marketing kits and 2D floorplans.
Then we have our middle tier.

(19:09):
That can cost you $250,.
That includes photo video, acinematic tour and a floor plan,
but you take out the Matterporttour.
And then we have our lowesttier that can cost you $950, and
it only includes photo videoand drone.

That's it.
That's about it.
No, matterport, no, or floorplan, but that's smart.
So you were able to tier up,but it makes it easy for the
client to go.
This times this many properties, very easy for them to also get
the services that they want andthey don't have to worry about
any of the overhead.
So that makes absolute sense.
Now, how did you take a marketthat's used to cheap

(19:48):
photographers and have themaccept this rate or these tiers?
Did you have to do anything onthe business side, in your sales
side, or what did you do?
Or you just had to find thoseclients.

John Ruz (20:00):
The most important thing is to treat a client as a
partner, right?
You are their marketingextension, not you're a single
vendor, right?
So whenever we can make thatconnection with that client,
they just open up.
They're like hey guys, you knowwe have X amount of budget,
let's plan ahead, right, what wecan do with this, right?

(20:22):
So that way we find the rightqualified clients, right
qualified people and, you know,they become friends at the end
of the day.
We are friends with every singleclient that we have.
We have a close connection withthat person because we want
that not only for the businessbut as a relationship.

(20:44):
You know we want to treat themas partners, not just another
vendor.

No, absolutely.
So you're partnering with them,you're offering them a very
easy offer that they can accept.
Plus, they have scalability, sothey have a higher tier
property they can scale up tohire or even a custom price
point.
Then how does the pipelinematter, Like, do they reach out
to you or do you have a projectmanager?
How does that like?

(21:09):
Walk me through an example,timeline right, you reach out to
this person.
This person calls this personthis you know?

John Ruz (21:14):
you know what I mean, right?
So yeah, we have a prettysimple system.
Some, some people overlycomplicates these stuff and the
project managers are Brian and I.

Yeah, that complicates this stuff and the
project managers are brian and I.

John Ruz (21:27):
yeah, that's there you go because you are the
relationship builders.
So we want direct contact withthe client.
They want to speak directly tothe owners, to the both of us,
because we are their friends,their partners.
They understand us and weunderstand them right.
So we, if we try to put someonein place to replace us,
especially building thisrelationship for three, four
years, something might crackright so we don't want that with

(21:50):
our clients.
We want direct content with them.
So whenever they have a project, they email their call or like
hey guys, we have this projectcoming up, can you quote me for
it?
You know, and send a quote forthat, perfect.

So they reach out to you and they say, let's say
you've obviously signed them upso they have two new properties
coming up, whatever.
So they let you know.
Is it by email or how do theytypically contact you?

John Ruz (22:12):
email, I'm guessing, or phone, so we have a platform
um that's partnered with us.
It's called tonimo.
It's mostly a crm for realestate photographers um there's
other ones in there this hdphoto hub.
There's um, you know, ario,spiro, whatever.

So we we were on hd photo hub with transition to
tonimo for their built-in crmsystem that they have they can
either book themselves online oh, perfect, so they have like an
account right so they can justgo in and schedule it.
Perfect, so it's pretty fullyautomated.

John Ruz (22:45):
So we don't sometimes if they have a special project,
bulk project, like hey, we have15 houses coming up, of course
we want to target that online orover email Right, of course.
So when they have one-offshoots here and there, it's
better for them to bookthemselves, see the real-time
availability from all of ourshooters and book it.

Okay, that's awesome.
So they can just go in, theycan enter it, they can even
specify a specific shooter ifthey want to, if they like
someone better, obviously, andthey schedule it.
Then what happens?
Does the shooter get in,because they have probably on
the app platform too, right, sothe shooter gets a thing.

John Ruz (23:30):
Like you got to have, probably on the on the platform
too, right, so the shooter getsthe thing.
Like you gotta go shoot that.
So we have, um, all of ourcontractors have a jrp email,
right, gmail account, yeah,attached to it.
So, um, my assistant, genevirtual assistant, and myself
and brian manage pretty much theentire dashboard of the bulk of
the google calendar, right, soour contractors can mark
themselves off if they want towork or not, right, or if they
have another shoots coming in inthe schedule, right.
That schedule ties in into ouronline booking platform where

(23:54):
clients and which is great, theclient has a, you know, not
dedicated photographer orvideographer, but preferred
vendor or photographer orvideographer, so they can choose
, or the system automaticallychooses for them that partner
and they let them choose a timeand date for the shoot.
So when that shoot comes in, itpops into the Google schedule,

(24:17):
it sends an email confirmationto the client, of course, to the
shooter.
It sends a text message to theshooter and to the client and it
automatically notifies oureditors that there's a job
posting to the shooter and tothe client and it automatically
notifies our editors thatthere's a job posting in
progress that needs to be edited, so that's perfect.

So essentially you've automated to the point.
The client, once you onboardthem, has a platform access to
your crm software.
They can go in, right.
They can select everything.
The system automatically alertseveryone, both the contracted
shooter and the client, right,they meet up, uh, and then goes
plus.
At the same time the editorsknow, hey, this project is
coming up in the pipeline, right.

(24:52):
So that's perfect.
So the shooter shows up, theydo their thing.
How long is typical real estateshoot?
A couple hours at most.

John Ruz (24:59):
So it varies.
If you're doing photos only, itmight take 30 minutes.
If we're doing the whole, itmight take 30 minutes.
If we're doing the wholepackage, it might take three
hours.
Yes, three hours, okay perfect.

So let's assume they did photos and video, the
typical stuff, and then theyapplied it back to the same
platform.
Is there a different platformto send the footage back to it?

John Ruz (25:15):
So the platform is attached to Dropbox, which is
fantastic.
We pay for the business thingand we get, oh my God, unlimited
storage, pretty much.
So.
All of our shooters have adropbox account attached to the
jrp email and they get an emailwhere I don't recommend dropbox
for like big files.

I think it's good for real estate.
I've had a terrible experiencewith dropbox yeah, but again,
that's because we I'm sendingfiles at 100 gigabytes.

John Ruz (25:41):
200 gigabytes, it doesn't work for that.
For us it's like 20 megabytes.
Yeah, exactly, and that'sperfect for that.

So, yeah, so it integrates, so they just upload
it it uploads it.

John Ruz (25:52):
Well, each shooter has their own dedicated folder that
it's linked with our editors,our project managers that's Gene
, and our QC people, that'sMichelle and Eduardo, right, so
all of them are all tiedtogether into one folder and
everything is pretty much.
You know, notifications all theway.
So we have Slack built in,right, intuit Gmail baked in, so

(26:16):
we have, so they get a Slacknotification hey footage was
uploaded, right, or photos wereuploaded, so the editor is just
on it, they started.

And then what's the delivery?
Does that CRM are uploaded, sothe editor is just on it, they
start it and then what's?
The delivery.
Does that crm platform?

John Ruz (26:28):
handle delivery, so they just upload it back back in
back to the client so itdoesn't go to mls.

The client has to put it on mls, correct?
Okay, so your team just givesthe client the, the deliverables
, right, and then you're theagent most likely the client,
right.
So the agent will then do thewhole mls thing.
Okay, correct, that's perfect.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I want to talk more intonow your employees, or your
contractors.
Yeah, so, there are they anyanyone in america besides you

(26:51):
and brian?
Are they all internet well,shooters are.
But I'm saying your editors andyour virtual assistant and your
qc people, are they allus-based or are they
foreign-based?
Foreign-based?
Look at that all of them, andexactly why you're here.

John Ruz (27:05):
I want to I want to talk because I I have.

By the way, if for somebody doesn't know, um, all
my people are us based, exceptfor my animation team, which is
based out of india.
So it's okay, I'm all for.
You know, taking advantage ofskilled people, right, um, you
know, in in a different countryand getting them work.
So I want to know is how youcame up with that concept?
What is your?
Idea brian's idea and then howyou went about recruiting them.

(27:29):
Did you use a specific platform?

John Ruz (27:31):
yeah.
So the funny story is whenever,when I was editing the photos,
right, I got a message oninstagram from a vietnamese
editor right, hey, john, I can.
Oh, you know, I can edit yourphotos for 80 cents.
I'm like wait a minute.
Okay, well, I can.
That means I can send my photosto edit for this price and I

(27:53):
can have them ready in no time,in 12 hours eight hours and for
real estate.

It's not like you have a lot of photos, you're
like 20 photos right andsomething like that.
Right so the cost wouldn't bethat high.

John Ruz (28:03):
Yeah, right, so you're , you're pulling 25 bucks, you
know, off of a shoot, 30 bucksfor the editor.
Yeah, you know, um, and I'mlike, does that mean I need,
like I can alleviate myself fromediting?
And that changed the game,right?
So I've gone through severaleditors, because you have to
test right, and there's eitherFacebook groups that have a ton

(28:26):
of online editors that can workfor you.
It's become so popular now thatyou might get 30, 40, I get 40
DMs a day, 30 DMs a day fromeditors.
Hey, can I work for you?
Hey, can I work for you?

So you, can then go vet who's?
Because that's one of thehardest things I've found is and
I have US-based editors.
Even then, hardest thing for meis finding and you met my
leader and, but you know, andthen she has to handle all the
other editors.
It's a pain, because findingsomebody who can get your vision
, who can do it right and do itfast, is very difficult.

John Ruz (28:59):
You'd be amazed how many editors are not the right
fit.

So you have to go through a few right to get to to
the ones that work, and thenyou want to keep them.
You don't want them to go no soso you go, so you get now
obviously a lot of dms and a lotof people so you're just going
through their profiles, kind ofvetting them right maybe giving
them a project or two to testout right.

John Ruz (29:18):
So each project that we give to a new editor, it's a
test job and it's three photos.
So I've developed a systemwhere I know if on those three
photos it's it's shown that youcan prove to my to yourself that
.

So they have like what bad color or bad dynamic
range just three photos.

John Ruz (29:35):
I already know if it's a good or not good wonder if we
can leak the photos.

No, that's very smart, so that's good.
So you found three photos thatyou know very hard to edit.
Right, you send that to them.
You know, if they edit themgood, they're good and then they
, they pass the grp test.
That's, that's so good.

John Ruz (29:52):
And then um, you know, we have stocked with one editor
for three years now which her,her team is amazing and crazy
part.
They, they expanded because ofus, because of our bulk of
business, and we saw, we lovethat success for them right.
We know how important thisstuff is for them, so we might

(30:14):
get some photos and videos fromtheir office, Like hey, John,
thank you so much for being aclient.
Look what you guys made for usso great.
You can see them.

So you're supporting them and they're
expanding because you'reexpanding right, so that's
amazing.
So you partner with this andthey already have their in-house
editors right, they might have30 editors in there, yeah so
that's incredible, and they knowthe, the level of quality
you're expecting, so they do it.
And then how does your qcteamwork are they based out of?

John Ruz (30:40):
uh, you know, same country right, you said v
Vietnam was your first Yep, youlike Vietnamese people.

I love Vietnamese food.
By the way, a lot of people,and I didn't know this until I
discovered Vietnamese food.
Apparently there's a hugeVietnamese population in Orlando
.
We have literally a littleSaigon in downtown Orlando.

John Ruz (30:59):
Really, I didn't know that.

Oh my God, and we have incredible Vietnamese food
here in Orlando and a hugeVietnamese population and I had
no idea for the first few years.
I lived here until I discoveredit, so you got to go to little
Saigon in downtown, but I loveVietnamese food so it's pretty
cool.
So how did you find your QCpeople?
Same thing, and what are theychecking for?

(31:20):
What is the QC?
Quality control?

John Ruz (31:31):
What are they essentially checking?
To what is the the you?

know qc quality control.
What are they?

John Ruz (31:33):
essentially checking um to make sure that you know
before they they released Iguess the content.
Yeah, so our qc team, we foundthem through upwork, right?
Okay, so we have either um,upwork or fiverr that you know,
um that provide those virtualassistants.

We post a job in there and you just get get into
and do you still go throughupwork, or have you now moved
them off upwork, since you workright with them so much?

John Ruz (31:49):
one of our key thing is to move them out of out of
upwork right because of the fees, yeah, they take 15 off, 15, 15
of their cot and some fees fromus so it's like both of you
save basically by going,especially if it's a regular
thing.

I get it's a one-off thing, uh, but if it's
like a regular thing move themup, bring them into your system.
That's great.
So what are they checking for?
What's the qc that they'redoing?

John Ruz (32:12):
so michelle is one of our qc teams and she is mainly
looking for inconsistency incolor.
Are the verticals or straighten?
Um, if there's reflections onthe floors, if there's trash
outside, if there are cracks onyour driveway, stuff like that,
yeah, some, some key things thatmake our quality better than

(32:33):
the other.
It's like that.

It just make sure that the little details are
taken care of exactly how do youfind a qc person, because they
have to be very detail oriented.
But how do you test that?
It was easy for the, for theeditor, because, like you said,
you have three photos.
Do you have a method to testthe qc people?

John Ruz (32:49):
so same thing.

Three photos so your photos already hidden trash
and reflection.

John Ruz (32:54):
Look at that that's so smart three photos and as soon
as we edit it yeah we justwanted to see if she saw the
details in there.
Right, the little small details.
Of course we gave herinstructions because, no, a lot
of them don't followinstructions.

Yeah, so that's all you want, you, right?
You're you're happy toobviously train them like hey,
here's what you should belooking out for, and we do that
yeah and and, and she didobviously the person you ended
up going with right, and sowhat's the process then?
They catch this and then sendit back to the editor, I'm
guessing with notes like hey,this is wrong.

John Ruz (33:25):
So if it's a bigger mistake, like inconsistency in
coloring between photo and photo, we send them back to the
editor.
If it's something that they canpull off on Photoshop real
quick, they can do them.

They can do them so, but you know we have our
partner, our editing partner inVietnam.

John Ruz (33:40):
She's amazing.
She knows our quality, sheknows what we're looking for.
You know, there's some monthsthat from the bulk of business
that we give her someinconsistencies here and there,
but that's fine.

Yeah, exactly, we're human plus, like you said,
she has a team so right, younever know.
There may be inconsistencies,which is why quality control is
so important.
Right, by the way, for mycompany, none of my videos ever
go out.
I don't care if I was notinvolved, because there's a lot
of projects now where I'm notinvolved.
I will not release a video to aclient until I've seen it, so
unfortunately I don't have ateam.

(34:13):
I'm not as big as you I am theqc, but for me it's like my name
is on the company which I wantto talk to you about the name of
the company yeah, silly again.
I wish I picked a differentname, but now it's like it's
Bindra.

John Ruz (34:22):
Productions.
I am the Bindra.
Nothing leaves my you yeah.

Because I'm like my name can't be on it until.

John Ruz (34:30):
I'm saying yes.

Yeah, so how did you pick JRP?
Because you know that's yourname right.
John Ruse Productions.

John Ruz (34:36):
Yeah, Again in my opinion, we should name
companies after a name aftername, but, oh my god, I did it,
you did it, I did it so was itjust like me, like laziness, or
what?
Yeah, that's it I'm like okay,well, let's call it myself.
Uh, don't lose.
Production is easy.
Right too late to change now,right once you once you scale
and you're like I don't know ifyou've thought about it.

I've thought about many times.
I'm like, oh, I should havepicked a different name because
you know I wanted to be biggerthan me.
But it's like harder, becausenow I'm like over established,
it's hard to change it right.

John Ruz (35:04):
Have you thought of that too?
A lot, yeah, a lot.
And sometimes I'm thinking,what boards should I change the
jrp to like something right?
Yeah, I can change that like Ican change something to to that,
right, but it's so hard,exactly so yeah, I don't know
what you make out of it.

Maybe you know, uh , hire, uh, what do you call a
focus group?
To come with some, but youdon't know what you'd make out
of it.
Maybe you know, hire, what doyou?

John Ruz (35:24):
call it a focus group to come up with something, but
you don't need to.

That's what.
I'm saying Same thing happenedwith me.
Even though I want to, it'sjust like at this point.
We're established.
People don't care.
People call me Bindra.
They just call me by my lastname, because that's the name of
the company and different whereit wasn't my name.

(35:46):
But too late, right.
So, uh, you know, so you, you,you're one of the other people
that's going through that.
So, but hey, uh, you foundsuccess.
I love the.
The process.
It's fully automated.
Um, with you know, contractedus shooters, you're giving them
work, right.
Um, uh, then you havecontracted, uh, these, um the
remote foreign workers thatthey're getting work.
Everyone's happy, right.

John Ruz (36:04):
And at the end of the day, um, you're able to give
your clients a better product atthe end, which is what matters
at the end to them, right?
And the biggest part is that wetalk to them.
To the client it's like, hey,what do you guys need?
And we are very transparentwith our clients.
Hey, we are implementing new QCprocedures for your project to
guarantee that you guys aregetting the best quality in the

(36:26):
next project.
So just want to be transparentwith them.
Because, again, you are anextension of their business,
you're an extension of theirmarketing team, right?
They want to help them.

Exactly so this is my next thing I want to ask you
is basically how does this?
Now, obviously, the processworks, you figured it out, you
got the right people and you'redoing the management side, but
how do you?
The biggest thing, I think, iscustomer service to a business.
It's so crazy, but people don'trealize how important customer
service is because, you don'tknow right the client, obviously

(36:59):
, the process is good you makesure the photos are good, but
you don't know what the agentfeels, feels.
It's very important to knowwhere they are at feedback and
all that.
So how do you create thatfeedback, luke?
Do you do like a manual call in, check in or do you do like a
survey?
How do you know the agents arehappy with what they're getting
and their needs are matterwhatever?
Tell me that, because to methat's more important than the

(37:21):
whole process that we've talkedabout so far, even though
obviously the product is thething they're buying, right, but
it's the experience right.
So how do you manage that?

John Ruz (37:30):
Crazy part is that we did not implement that until
last year.

Oh, wow.

John Ruz (37:35):
Right, we just sent you photos and peace out.

Right, exactly.

John Ruz (37:40):
With our builder clients, bigger high-end VIP
clients we do have arelationship.
So we ask them stuff For ourreal estate agents.
We didn't have a system right.
It's easy to send an email, butif you're doing 20, 30 shoots a
day, it gets hard, yeah, andyou don't want to be spamming
them either?

Then they're like I don't want these many emails.
So what's the?

John Ruz (38:04):
process that you implemented.
So our platform offers afollow-up email now
automatically.
So we just hit the what's thisplatform?

again, it's called tonimo okay, I don't know this.
But hey, people in the realestate.
Okay, go ahead, tonimo.
So it has like a feedback loopin built into it.

John Ruz (38:20):
Okay, so it has a trigger built in when you
complete the actual project andsend the completed project.
It waits two days to send afollow up.
Like hey, just wanted to checkin.
Were the photos up to par foryour work quality?
If there's any changes, pleaselet me know.
You know we don't want them toattack them right away.
Asking questions.
So, two days is the perfect,you know threshold that we find.

Exactly.
That's awesome.
And then what I want to know iswhat's the take rate?
Because you know, not everyoneresponds.
And usually when they respondis when there's a problem, not
when they're happy.
So what did you find?
Do you have a percentage Likehow many?
What's the response rate tothose?
Emails A lot Actually, really.

John Ruz (38:59):
It's high, so much this looks fantastic.
That's really good because it'snot the common thing typically
people don't respond no, sothat's pretty good.
So you have a high.

But again, your, your clients are agents, so it's
right, different, uh.
But so they're responding.
And then you do get positive.
What's your ratio?
Positive to negative?

John Ruz (39:15):
um, if you have numbers again, you know, we, I
don't want to, I just don't wantto brag, but we do such a great
, my team does a great job andit's okay to brag.

Look, you came here from public demand.
You must be doing somethinggood.
So no, it's okay to brag.
So you're saying it's mostlypositive.

John Ruz (39:36):
Mostly positive and when you do get negative what is
it generally?

Is it QC or what are they finding negative?

John Ruz (39:43):
When we encounter negative feedback, we love that.
We really target the.
You know we help them.
We jump in right away.
We stopped everything and justhelp that client figure out what
happened right.
We have messed up of course.
We have missed shoots, we havemissed delivery, we have missed
deadlines, of course, and youknow, not because of technology,

(40:06):
because of us as well.
So we have to, you know, takeon that right.
So we have to make sure theclient knows that we are taking
care of them.
We're like, hey, we F up.
Sorry, we're going to fix itright away.

Exactly so.
You're just basically do youreach for a phone?
Do you reach for text Phone?
Just basically, are you, do youreach?

John Ruz (40:24):
for a phone.
Do you reach?

for text phone phone.
You're calling them rightimmediately.
You're like, hey, I apologize,let me fix the issue.

John Ruz (40:28):
And generally it's just that date timeline mix up
or it just didn't get done intime, or whatever yeah, that's a
typical thing I, I'm shy, I Idon't like, I'm an introvert I
don't like speaking to peopleright, and brian has taught me
to call them because I'm like,oh no, I messed up.
Let me send you a text messagereal quick.

No, no, no.

John Ruz (40:49):
Call them.
They want to hear you say I'mso sorry, I'm going to fix it
right now, right away, you knowno, I completely agree with you.

I'm an introvert too, and that was the struggle.
I didn't like, you know,talking to people, right.
I grew up a generation with text.
But the crazy thing is thenumber one thing, yeah, you have
to implement in your businessis call.
Like it's so funny, I'vechanged Again.
I don't call for like hi, helloto my friends, but I'm like
client.
No, I'm calling immediatelyBecause to me that conversation,

(41:19):
that one-to-one, is soimportant.
An email cannot get the toneright.
It's just, it's not possible,it is not and it's not fixable.
But, like you said, it's veryimportant to stop.
I'm like if something goeswrong, especially if it's rare
for me, I'm like no, no, no, westop.
We literally call and we'relike what's wrong?

(41:41):
Like how did we fix it?
It's funny the I've talkedabout this like two incidents I
can think of in last year thatwent wrong with me had nothing
to do with us, even thoughthey're blaming.
So one, literally, and this isI'm saying I do a lot of
productions.
Two, was I offered this clienta free?
You know we did a course forthis client and she wanted uh,
you know she had to choosebetween english and spanish.

(42:02):
She only had money to do oneversion.
So, me being kind, and obviouslyher market was more English
speaking, even though her nativeis Spanish, we went with
English version.
But I was like, shouldn't dothat.
I was like, oh, I'll be niceand I'll give you a free dubbed
version of Spanish until you canafford to get the Spanish
version made.
No, it didn't go through thetranslation.

(42:24):
She said okay, but you know youdon't know the language and,
funny enough, again, I hadEmmanuel with me in the meeting,
so somebody who speaks Spanish.
But point is she said I got it,you know.
I was like remember, this isfree and this is just dubbing,
it's not an edited nothing.
We're just putting Spanishaudio, your voice on it, right

(42:47):
until you know you're ready.
So we delivered the englishvideo amazing, love it.
And then the complaint I gotwas the spanish version is not
edited.
It doesn't match my lips,obviously it's dubbing if we're
not gonna match the lip, but butthe client doesn't get.
And then so I was like I'mtrying to do customer service,
you know.
Immediately I'm like let mecall you.
I'm trying to explain to youand even after I had the
conversation, I was like I don'tthink she gets it Because I'm
like ma'am, it's dubbing, yourlips are not going to match, you

(43:07):
know, because it's a differentlanguage, even though you're
saying the same thing when youtranslate.

John Ruz (43:12):
It's different, yeah.

So anyway, so that was my one, and then the other
one was a client.
We recorded a speech.
It went amazing.
Remember the live speech I'msaying with an audience, not
where we can stop, not a studiospeech.
His pocket got inside out andhe was unhappy with my crew for
that.
I'm like we were in the back ofthe room.
You're speaking to 300 people.

John Ruz (43:33):
We're not going to stop you in the middle of it or
that's not even our job anyway.

But I'm saying but then you still had to apologize
.
I was like, look, apologize.
Next time when we film yourspeech I will personally check
your pocket and your wardrobe tomake sure.
I mean, ideally I want awardrobe person there if that's
important, right, exactly.
But obviously clients don't getit.
So no, no, we don't need awardrobe.
I said, okay, don't worry aboutit, I will check it.
So you know you have to do that, even though it sounds silly.

(43:57):
At the end of the day I'm likecome on, I don't get complaints
here, I don't want to ruin myreputation over a pocket being
inside out.
And, funny enough, it wentthrough three of their team
members and nobody noticed itbecause it's a small thing, but
the first moment a clientmentioned it to them, the video
is off.
It's like we can't share itanymore and I'm like I get it,

(44:18):
but at the same time I don't.
It's a live speech, things arenot.
anyway, you get my point, I know.
So I've had two complaints,like I said, in the last two
years that I can think of, andthen both of them had nothing to
do with me.
Even then, I still had to calland apologize because at the end
day, that's what you can do andthat's what you need to do,
because customer service isimportant.

John Ruz (44:39):
It's the most important, it's the backbone.

Yeah, you know, even though you're like I don't
know how I can control a pocket.
But I'm gonna apologize and I'mgonna say next time we'll look
out for it you know, becausethat's all you can do.
Right, but it is the differencebetween being successful and
not being successful.
Right, right, 100 yeah, customerservice is one of our main
things that we strive for onboth businesses, on jrp and big

(45:03):
wave, you know and, like yousaid, the biggest thing is don't
email, don't text, hang up,call, talk to the client you
know, because you know there'snothing better than that you
know because you can immediatelyfigure out what they're
thinking, what they're goingthrough.
You can hear the emotions inthe voice.

John Ruz (45:21):
You can't get that through text or email.

So that's incredible, but it sounds like
you built an incredible realestate business.
Thank you, it's mostlyautomated.
Obviously, nobody can replaceyou having to go find the leads
and you know having to do, youknow customer service yourself
or whatever.
There's obviously things youand your business partner are
doing.
Now are you doing all the salestoo, or do you have a sales

(45:44):
team?
So Brian and I do the sales?
Okay, so you're basicallybringing in the business, You're
making sure everyone's happy,You've automated the middle
process, the grunt work,essentially, but those people
are happy too, because they'regetting paid more than they
would either in their country oras a freelancer in America
right.
Because it's like we talkedabout real estate industry

(46:05):
doesn't pay well and you'retrying to offer people higher
pay, so that's why they want towork with you, and then the
clients get a better product.
You know, everyone wins.
Kind of seems like at the end.

John Ruz (46:14):
We have heard feedback from our contractors that we
are one of the highest pay perproject contractor rates for
real estate that they haveworked for, so that tells us
something right, yeah, that'sincredible.

Now here's what I want to know what's, what type
of profit percentage are youaiming for?
What are you getting?
Let's be realistic to 2024,like, are you aiming for like 80
, 60, 40 roughly.
What are you at the end, afterall, expenses paid, not counting
taxes?
Uh, obviously, but what is your, your, your, your profit that
you're trying to pull?

John Ruz (46:47):
it's pretty high.

Um, we don't have that much of overhead, right, so
no but I mean, you still havepeople costs right contractor
costs yeah, so after you takeout your remote, because things
like that's your cost, rightright cost is contractors and
important employees, so you'reable to put what 80, 90 percent,
or is it lower?
no, it's low, it's 70, which ispretty high yeah like I said,
I'm at 20 so big, big, big up uh, so 70 is really good right and

(47:14):
you're doing seems likefinancially really well and
thank you, something that wentprobably really good for you.
Your real estate market wentcrazy in Orlando and it
literally went skyrocket.
So I'm guessing when that washappening.
You had plenty of work.
I'm guessing Plenty.
Yeah, it was more like catchingup to the amount of work.

John Ruz (47:37):
Yeah we, we are.
You know, since 2020 we havecapped um not lower 2000 shoots
a year for jrp.

That's crazy now here's what I want to know real
estate took a downturn, yeahthis year especially because you
know again what goes up mustcome down.
Yeah so how are you managingthat?
Did you?
Did you have to cut hours orlike, because, let's be real,
the real estate market is downright now yeah so obviously it's
not as down.
It's still high compared towhere we started, right, but

(48:08):
it's not where it was likepeaking, like where people were
willing to pay 30, 40, 50k abovelisting price, right.
Um, now you know, people caneven ask for a discount, like,
hey, I just I bought a home, umat the end of last year and, um,
like I said, I was able to askfor closing costs, which is you
couldn't have thought of thatever.
I was like, look, I'll pay your,you know, a decent price.

(48:28):
I think I paid good price forthe home, but I was like I need
more right, but you couldn'thave done that in the past,
right?
Not in orlando, right?
Yeah?
Yeah, they wouldn't have donethat in the past.

John Ruz (48:37):
Right, not in Orlando.
Right, yeah, not in Orlando.

Yeah, they wouldn't have even entertained
your offer and here I'm tryingto negotiate with them.
Even my real estate agent waslike even for this market, are
you sure, Are you sure?
No, I was like yeah, yeah, no,I want it, let's do it.
I was like, no, let's send it.
Because I, anyway, I knowenough people like you in real
estate.
I'm like I know where themarket's at, anyway, which is
crazy for Orlando, but how didthat affect your business?

(49:00):
How did it hurt your business?

John Ruz (49:02):
And yeah, kind of like that you know we have been
pretty smart on diversifying andwe don't throw all of our eggs
in one basket.
We don't just service realestate agents.
We service builders and builderskeep building.
Yeah right, they have so muchinventory right now and you know
, in covid they got so muchmarketing budget and they, they

(49:25):
are spending it throughout theyears now and you know, for us,
we we have been busy because ofbuilders, because of interior
designers and, um, you know,custom home builders, architects
and all that.
That's's so smart, real estate.

Yeah, you got to diversify.
You're absolutely right.
Here's the opposite of theadvantage of it.
Now that you say that, again,I'm not an expert like you are,
but here's what I noticedBecause, like you said, home
down.
But when I was buying, my agentwas like all these new homes,
you know, and showing me allthese communities.
Because here's what happenedwhen the demand went like this,
all these builders startedbuilding new communities and now

(50:01):
that, when they're ready, themarket is down, right, but
that's an advantage for youbecause now they have inventory
they need to sell, they need tomake photos, videos, obviously,
to sell this inventory.
So we have actually high demandand I guess I would have loved
to buy one of these new homes,but they all come with HOAs and
what are they called?

John Ruz (50:19):
CDDs and I was like, nah, I don't want to pay that.

So you know I got intrigued.
There were some really nicehomes down in Claremont.
I was amazed how many people,by the way, live in Claremont.
Half the people on my podcastso far have been from Claremont.
But really beautiful homes andI was like, oh, they look really
nice.
But then you know, you go.
How far is it from the airport?

John Ruz (50:39):
And I'm flying so much .

And then, on top of that, I was like I don't want
to pay this HOA.
I don't want to pay this CDDPlus.
Then where am I going to parkthe van?
You know like.
But they're beautiful homes,they're incredible and their
inventory is guess.
So you basically moved or youalready were diversified.

John Ruz (51:03):
So it wasn't like it doesn't hit us hard, yeah, that
hard.

So how much would you say?
Your business is down right nowfrom the peak, is it like-?
So, personally, we were up, soyou're up still.

John Ruz (51:13):
So you didn't suffer at all?
No, we.
This week alone we have 20shoots this week and it's
january.
It's the second week of january, you know it's like, oh my god
crazy business, yeah, exactlyand you know it's january.
Florida market it's crazy,especially with home builders.
They it doesn't stop.

(51:33):
We don't have breaks until the.
We are shooting up to the 31stof December, nonstop.

Look at that.
So you're basically killing itin terms of demand, and I'm
guessing most of it is becauseof repeat business, right?
You're trying to keep theagents, the builders, the
interior designers on board, soit's much easier I'm guessing,
cheaper, right?
Have you calculated yourcustomer acquisition costs or no
?

John Ruz (51:58):
Not really Okay, that's because.

I guess it's mostly boots on the ground,
handshaking Right.
Are you doing any kind of ads?
Oh, I know you are Cause I'veseen some now that you say that
I I sent corrected to my ownquestion.
But yeah, so when did youInstagram ads or any kind of
advertising?
Have you always been doing it,or is this new or so we we
started advertising on Google acouple months ago and we had

(52:24):
hits on our website.

John Ruz (52:25):
We were pulling numbers and but no, no
conversions.
It's crazy, no conversion atall.
You know we get non-qualifiedleads.
It's it's crazy.
And you know Google has been soweird that at at 3 am ona
random saturday, it just peaks30 000 views on the website and
then monday, three views andit's like, oh my god, I'm paying

(52:48):
three thousand dollars a monthfor exposure here, right?

yeah, I've had bad luck with google ads too.
They've been like I've not hadany um luck getting anything,
like you said, qualified leadsout of that right but then you
tried what instagram is.
Are you doing anything besidesinstagram or right now, no
instagram?

John Ruz (53:05):
so instagram is where you are at.

Yeah, how did?

John Ruz (53:07):
that go it.
It's been incredible.
We have pulled in an incredibleamount of numbers that already
have paid off for the entireworth of our ad spend through
the year right so and we'repulling between 50 and 100 a
post each.
Each reel that we have, that weknow it's going to be targeted

(53:30):
to a specific audience, let'ssay builders or real estate
agents, or architecturalphotography or something like
that right.

Plus, it can be hyper-local right, because
you're trying to target what,which I know we'll talk about
your expansion into othermarkets, but you're currently
marketing what?
Florida or Central Florida?
What's your main market Central?

John Ruz (53:47):
Florida.

Central Florida.
So it makes it easy because youcan hyper-local builders in
Central Florida put $100, you'dsay roughly in a post, something
like that, that's it.
And then what type of numbersare you pulling in roughly?

John Ruz (53:58):
We are getting.
You know, we just had 60 leadsfrom one video $100 for 60 leads
yeah, that is incredible,incredible, incredible numbers.
Yeah, and we have got-, do youhave?

any conversion rates yet or not yet, not yet.
I'm still, it's so yeah that wehaven't.

John Ruz (54:17):
Still, we we got some bookings over there.
We got some pretty amazingqualified clients.
Look at that very goodqualified clients that booked
that.
You weren't thinking, oh my god, this client.
I, I thought this client mightjust book one shoot.
No, she ended up booking fiveshoots through the entire month.

what's your lowest thing?
I'm guessing it's like somekind of photography package,
right?
What's roughly average there,the lowest of the totem pole?

John Ruz (54:43):
now I'm saying Lowest, it's photos only and it starts
at $175.

Okay.
So, just so you know, I'm justsaying $100 at your highest
spend $175 times five.
I'm saying if they were at thelowest level, $175 times five,
which is that one client you'realready like you know what, at
least what 10x-ing your, if notmore your, roi.

(55:07):
So it's like totally worth it.

John Ruz (55:09):
It's crazy.
And the crazy part is she wentand booked for our anchored
package, which has a retailprice of, you know, $1,200.

So look at that.

John Ruz (55:19):
So it was obviously way for our anchored package
which has a retail price of, youknow, 1200 bucks.
So look at that.

So it was obviously way more than the bare
minimum, but I would say, evenat the bare minimum it would
have been worth it, right?
But obviously you know mostpeople aren't going to pick, you
know.

John Ruz (55:28):
And you know, I met the client.
I drove to Ocala to make herand she's like oh, you are the
guy from the video.
I didn't know you were shootingmy house, thank you, and that
connection, yeah, I think, justmade a lifetime client.
You know exactly.

It's like oh, yeah , plus, now you're the guy they
saw and you are the guy who'sshowing up, right, just like uh.
I don't want to compare us touh attorneys, but you know the a
lot of the injury ones, theypurposefully, you know, put
their face on there because,right, you know it matches right
uh who they're gonna meet, um,until they pass you off.
Right, they're like, hey, newclient, sign the paper.

(56:02):
All right, see you, here's youractual attorney yeah uh, yeah,
it's a strange process, uh, butthat's incredible that it's
working for you.

John Ruz (56:10):
Yeah, and uh, that's more expansion, more leads,
right, you said more revenue,yeah and one tip yeah, real
quick, before we change um, ifyou are pulling ads through meta
or instagram, do it throughdesktop, not not do it through
the, through the app on thephone.
It will save you 30, right it'scrazy.

Yeah, 30 just by starting the pro.

John Ruz (56:33):
Uh, no, just just by throwing the ad on the desktop
instead of the app.

It's crazy.

John Ruz (56:39):
I never thought of that until I saw it.
I'm like, oh, because there'sprobably higher demand for
mobile right, yeah, that's agood tip.
Thank you, john.
Look at that, we're alreadylearning.

I may play with them.
I've even had Ben on thepodcast and he has such great
things to say that I mayactually test.
Uh, test my waters with.
Like I said, I tried a bunch ofthis stuff, but it was six
years ago and then, like sevenbusiness skyrocketed.
I stopped that behind.
I was like I don't need toworry about it.
But now I'm like, hey, I'mready to expand, I'm trying to
make it bigger than me.
It'd be so cool to experiment,uh.

(57:12):
But but here's the good, theinteresting aspect of it I'm the
behind the scenes guy.
You have to put your face on it.
You have to go in front of thecamera and make these ads.
What made you pick it to be youversus your partner?
And then, how is it being?

John Ruz (57:28):
in front of camera.
I haven't talked to Brian aboutwhy he doesn't like to be on
camera.
I feel like I don't know, it'ssomething that I don't know
right, and he's not camera shy,but I think he doesn't like to.
You know, just do that kind ofstuff.

(57:48):
You know, I feel like I havedeveloped this personality of
you know being on camera.
I love being on camera and, youknow, talk to people.
I've developed talking topeople and just being out of my
shell a little bit more throughthe years to really just speak
with that person in front of thecamera.
That's, that's viewing thevideo.

(58:08):
I just want to connect with you.
Yeah, right, so, um, I don'tknow, I don't know, I have
that's a good question somepeople do that where they create
a persona.

Have you done that ?

John Ruz (58:16):
yeah, he's my.
This is who I'm talking totheir name is shane.

You know they have five, five properties.
They need to right get photo.
Have you done that or no?

John Ruz (58:24):
not really.

No, you're just just saying like I'm talking to
whoever my client, whoever, yeah, yeah, okay uh, but you're
doing that one-on-oneconversation right?

John Ruz (58:31):
and um, I feel like if , if I'm the one speaking, um,
you know, if doing the face ofthe company, another that brian
does and brian does way morethan me on that in that aspect
um, but on social media per se,right?
Um, if I'm showing myself on onsocial media and then meet that
client about what happened, Ifeel like I'm making a greater

(58:54):
connection rather than showing,um, we can hire someone else, we
can hire a spokesperson for jrpor big wave to do that right,
yeah but in our mentality it'slike okay, what, what type of
client do you want to attractright?
and for us, having that directconnection with the client and
having them as a friend and yourpartner, it's way more

(59:16):
important rather than justscaling and building a bigger
brand and all that Right.

Then what made you going to go to Texas?

John Ruz (59:23):
Well, we have one of our clients, um, that served HQs
in Texas right In San Antonio,and for years we have been, you
know, thinking of expanding toto Texas right.
The Texas market real estatemarket's fantastic.
It's huge.
It's very similar to.
Florida and that client isgrowing rapidly very rapidly.

(59:47):
So the we have two clients, wehave our main builder client and
our staging a partner, um downin San Antonio, and they, they
were like hey guys, we're notdoing this kind of service that
we're doing providing photoswith staging on our HQ, on our

(01:00:07):
city.
Why don't you guys?
In two weeks they gave us twofreaking weeks to move
everything.

Vipul Bindra (01:00:15):
Wow, so you had to find new contractors.
Everything Right, and plus,what they want is virtually
stage photos, right?
No, no.
Actual stage photos.
Oh, actual stage photos,because that's the thing.
Right?
Virtual staging Right.
I don't like it, but that's thething.

John Ruz (01:00:27):
You up for that.
You know virtual staging can bea great asset to you.
Know someone that's needs tosell something fast.

Staging matters so much, because then they can see
that when they actually come intoo, instead of virtual.
There, it's right, it's just inthe photos, right?

John Ruz (01:00:46):
so, um, you know that that staging client really, um
you know, we we have beenworking for, for them for six
years.
We have been building arelationship so deeply that they
don't look elsewhere, andthat's what we want right,
that's so incredible.
In Texas.
We're like well, we have plansin the future to expand into

(01:01:07):
Texas, right, and this is such agreat opportunity to do it.
So I think it was June or Julylast year that we made that leap
, and now we have threecontractors, and we have one in
San Antonio, one in Austin, twoin Austin and then one in Dallas
.

Look at that.
So you're doing incredible.
You're expanding.
Do you need to?
Since this is such an automatedprocess, do you need to travel
or no?
You can, just no, so you don'teven need to actually go to
texas to make this happen, right?

John Ruz (01:01:39):
look at you.
Yeah, so we travel to texas toset up yeah, initially, yeah,
initially to train ourcontractors, meet them, have
dinner and lunch and just seewhere they're looking right,
exactly.

How do you find them?
Did you go to the groups?
Or indeed, indeed, oh, look,look at you.
Oh, my goodness, you'vebasically used everything You're
like.
I have Upwork, I have.

John Ruz (01:02:01):
Indeed, I have everything that's incredible.
The tools are there for you.
Yeah, I mean use them.

So seems like you're doing really good.
Thank you Then why theexpansion into or, when that
happened, to the commercial andthe other side of it?
Because you have that othercompany right you mentioned.
When did that came about andwhy that addition to real?

John Ruz (01:02:21):
estate.
So Meet Big Wave or Big WaveProduction.
Meet Big Wave is our IG.
Big Wave Productions came to bebecause Brian had Brian Adams
Photographics and then I hadJohn Bruce Productions.
So by the time that we workingtogether, I was working for him,
for his clients, he's working.

(01:02:42):
He was working for me for um, myclients and we're like you know
what, let's just do one entityand we both love the ocean, we
both love um the waves and youknow the water and all that.
So we we were like let's do bigwave.

Right.

John Ruz (01:02:58):
And a big wave came to be.
And what year was this sametime, or it was 2019.

Okay, sorry.

John Ruz (01:03:04):
Uh 2021.
2021.

That's when you yeah, so you're doing real
estate, obviously, but now you,you combine these two entities
to become one, right?

John Ruz (01:03:19):
And uh, uh, what type of work are you targeting in the
corporate and commercial world?
So we're doing mostly corporateshoots um interview style.

Uh we're doing interview b-roll, the typical
interview b-roll.

John Ruz (01:03:26):
We're doing mostly um seminars, um, you know,
conferences.
We have a manufacturer facility, um device, um provider in
sarasota that builds wheelchairsand, you know, lifts and
elevators for people withdisabilities.
So we we do around five shootsa year for them.

Amazing, we have one upcoming in Connecticut in
more than one of our largest one, that we have built with them
Awesome, so that's incredible.
And then let's first find outhow do you find these clients
for that?
Because obviously your realestate much easier automated

(01:04:11):
these clients actually beforethat.
What's your average rate thatyou're trying to target for
these type of projects?
Because it's going to be muchhigher right Per project that
you're going to charge for this.
So what range are you trying tohit?

John Ruz (01:04:23):
Oh, we are doing, you know, 10,000 plus.
Yeah, exactly.

So much higher, so much harder to find than a
simple Instagram ad, right?
So how are you finding theseclients?

John Ruz (01:04:33):
They are past clients from Brian B-A-P-G.
Right, they have been Brian.
As I said, brian has been sucha great partner that he pulled
in his past clients and it'slike, okay, let's rail them into
Big Wave and introduce them tothe company, to the new company.
It's like it's not Brian.
So he already had clients thathe brought in Okay.

So do you find any new clients, or is there any
process of finding new clients?

John Ruz (01:05:00):
We have found new clients through agencies.
We work a lot with agencies andmainly Google.
Either Google or referrals.
A lot comes from referrals fromboth businesses.
From the JRP and the Meet BigWave.
Big Wave Productions come fromreferrals, okay.

That's awesome.
So, essentially, you're youleaned into, you know your exit.
Past clients, clients you havenow, and I'm sure one of these
real estate agents probably, orthe bid builders go.
We need a commercial, we needsomething, and then you can be
like.
We have that service where wecan.
So you said about 10 K above iswhat you're targeting.
Talk about this new upcomingproduction.
What's the rough budget for itand what's the deliverables look

(01:05:39):
like?

John Ruz (01:05:40):
So we are delivering 90 videos.
Wow, that's a lot.

It's two weeks.
Two weeks of production, so 14days of shoot.

John Ruz (01:05:48):
We're doing 10 days of complete shooting, so 10 days
of shooting a whole load ofdeliverables, a whole lot.

What's the price range?
Roughly the whole productioncost.

John Ruz (01:06:03):
We build 160,000,.

I believe that's actually pretty good for that
amount of deliverables.
What type of videos are there?
That's a lot of videos.

John Ruz (01:06:12):
Lifestyle videos Lifestyle videos.

So what industry are they in?
Some kind of product orsomething Correct?
Okay, a product, a lot ofproduct shoots it's in their hq
or wherever you're filming.
Are you getting a studio we aredoing on location, on location,
and then what role in theseproductions do you and him play?
So are you like, like, is hethe dp?
Are you directing?

(01:06:36):
Like, how are you dividing yourtasks?

John Ruz (01:06:38):
It's great because with this client we have built
such a good relationship that weof course we have to pull the
team right, the crew to pullthis off, because it's a big
shoot, but Brian and I are I'mthe DP, brian is the director,
producer and lifestylephotographer right, okay?

awesome.
We might have other crewmembers.

John Ruz (01:06:58):
I'm the DP, Brian is the director, producer and
lifestyle photographer.
Okay, Awesome, we might haveother crew members that assist
with wardrobe talent producing,managing, railing people, you
know.

So what's the crew size?
Going to be roughly.

John Ruz (01:07:09):
We're thinking of being five, five.

Okay, just so people hear this.

John Ruz (01:07:14):
Let's summarize this what?

you just said so, five person crew yeah, 10 day
this.
Let's summarize this, what youjust said so, five-person crew
yeah, 10-day shoot, notincluding the client though,
yeah, of course.
So five-person crew, 10-dayshoot, right, $160,000 with 90
deliverables.
Right, and how long?

John Ruz (01:07:34):
are these deliverables 30 seconds long, 30-second
deliverable.

Yeah, okay, let that sink in.
I'm going to repeat myself,because to me, this is what
people need to hear Right, rightAgain.
Five person crew, 10 days ofproduction, $160,000, 90 30
second deliverables.
Right, dude, that's it.
Go sell that now I mean, that'swhat it's about, right?

(01:08:02):
And then, um, now, uh, whattype of profit margin?
Because you know it's typicallynot as high when you're doing
um such big productions.
However, right seems like youhave a small crew, so you should
be able to pull pretty goodprofit what profit margin are
you aiming for again?

John Ruz (01:08:18):
it's not been done yet , so so right.
Um, I'm not sure.
Brian is the total producer forthis one, so I'm not sure, 100
sure what the project butroughly in these type of
projects.

What do you aim?

John Ruz (01:08:29):
for he, he aims high he aims to high profit, so
that's why we keep our cost low,yeah so 50 to 70, you would say
, or probably which isincredible to pull that kind of
profit.

And I think it comes down to his relationship,
right?
It's why the client's trustingyou 100%.
So it's going to be with modelsand stuff, right, there's no
actual company interviews inthere right, nope, just models
yeah just models You're going todo, do it with them.
That's incredible.
Thank you, uh, and and this isobviously, I'm guessing years of
building relationship, right,four years with this client.

(01:09:01):
So that's that's incredible.
Yeah, um, what would you tellpeople?
Because a lot of people want,obviously, now that the people
hear this, because, people haveasked me.
It's like oh, how do you getthem like relationship?
I want to say something morethan that, so I would love to
hear uh, people hear this.
Obviously that's like a dreamgig for somebody.

John Ruz (01:09:18):
Yeah.

Because you know, at the end of the day, even with
editing, you're what Two, threeweeks into the whole thing,
right?
That's basically it, that's it,and you can make $160,000.
Let's assume after all costsyou pull in $100,000.
And I'm going low, sounds like,because you guys are pulling
way more profit than a typicalproduction.
Because you know most agencieswould come in and charge a 40%
production fee, so their profitwould be 40% and you can most

(01:09:40):
likely pull 60, 70% here.
So you can make $100,000,$120,000 in 10 days.
Maybe, let's add, because youknow you do spend time
pre-production, post-production.
So three weeks you can makethat's a huge profit.
Most people that are listeningto this are trying to make that
in a year.
What would you suggest to themRealistically, you know, because

(01:10:02):
let's be real it doesn't happenin a day.
It's years of building arelationship with client and
trust.
How would you say they start ortry to get gigs like this?

John Ruz (01:10:15):
I will say it's not luck, it's grind.
You have to grind as as much aspossible to you know, find this
true client, because you, youknow, one, yes, can change
everything right so I feel likesearching for that type of
client.
If you search for it, you willnever find it if it comes to you

(01:10:35):
, naturally right.
So you just have to grind andgrind and, just you know, level
up and change that mentality,because people think that we
cannot make a living doing thisstuff and we can't oh yeah, we
can make killer we can make akiller living two people sitting
right here and all the otherpeople have been here.

Everyone's making a killer yeah doing this.
So it's definitely doable.
I think you just have to thinkfrom a business mindset, right,
and you have to uh figure outefficiencies and sops correct
and uh get it, you know, right,because then you're not fighting
to make money, you're actuallyjust out there doing what you
love to do, right and I feellike when you change that
perspective and you show thatthe clients that you are not a

(01:11:16):
freelancer or someone that youknow potentially doesn't want to
build something bigger, orshows that you know stuff like
that, you know I feel like thatclient.

John Ruz (01:11:28):
When clients sees that , I feel like your mentality
changes and eventually you getway more, bigger business and
better business.

You know exactly, and uh, like I said, it's also
relationship building and trustbuilding, because that's
ultimately what leads them totrust you.
Right, you know, being able totell their brand image and how
they want it to be done.
Now, um, did you?
Uh?
How do you price a gig likethis?
I mean, uh, did you do it?
Oh, just deliverables dividedby per deliverable times, the
number of you know like simplemath, or did you have other

(01:12:01):
things?
you're going, oh, how much can Iprofit?
Like, how did you guys buildthis price?
I'm saying Right.

John Ruz (01:12:08):
Brian's method is profit vision.
It's like how much profit can Ipull from this shoot?
You know we don't cut corners.
We try to just work with thesame team, have the same rate.
We know what we're expecting to.
You know um, have expenses fromand just.
You know just calculate fromthat yeah, right.

So and then uh, did you.
So you said same team, are youflying your people in or you are
hiring local people there?

John Ruz (01:12:35):
we are hiring local if we need to.
Uh, brian is the the actualbrains of the operation, so he's
doing the producer right partof it.

So he's going to handle all that, that's pretty
cool so you just come in, you'relike I'm the dp uh, do you get
50 of the profit?

John Ruz (01:12:50):
that's incredible.
Where do I find partnershiplike that?
No, actually, um, you know, no,no, I'm not saying you do a lot
of work.
Yeah, he has inputs that I willgive him to him, but I don't
want to discount what you do I'mjust saying you put it yourself
there.

I was like uh, you're dp, you get half the
profit.
Let me meet brian I was likehuh john who no, no, uh, but
that's's incredible that you twohave built a business You're
partnering.
Then that's a second business.
That's not even like you knowone, like you have two
businesses Right and you'rekilling it in both.

(01:13:26):
Thank you and again, I thinkpeople can see that it's from
that business mindset.
It's not once have you saidthis is the camera I'm going to
use.
This is the camera I'm going touse.

John Ruz (01:13:36):
This is the settings I'm going to use.

I'm the DP, I'm going to have five people under
me, but that's what the mindsetpeople get when they get the DP.
You won't believe how manytimes I listen to it.
I'm the DP and I'm like whocares?

John Ruz (01:13:46):
Yeah, exactly right, and I was that person five years
ago.

So what brought about the change?
How can people change themindset?

John Ruz (01:13:53):
I think just thinking bigger.
You can think bigger and youcan think more of like a
business instead of a individualperson.
I don't, I don't mind if you'rean individual person.
You know some people absolutelylove one man crew, just a
freelancer, and I, I absolutelylove that.
I applaud to that.
Some days I'm like I just wishI just have my little camera and

(01:14:15):
that's it.
Right, that's my creative.
I never wish that.

I'm always wishing for bigger Cause.
You know, that's what I'mfinding.
I'm always like trying to, youknow, bring in more, and I have
clients all the way.
Cause to be real, I don't wantto say that, like I have clients
where it's just me doing someinterview and B-roll.
Here's the footage to you know$400,000, $500,000 shoot.
We have 50 people on set rightand everything in between.
So it varies.

(01:14:39):
It's a huge difference, but I'malways trying to reach the
higher number I'm like I want tobring more people.
I want to have better you knowcontent better sets better
everything, but obviously noteveryone's budget can scale.
Yeah, exactly.
So you have to obviously findor like.

(01:15:02):
They're like oh no, we justneed a couple interviews, right,
just need one man crew.
And it's like okay, well, theday is available, let's do it.
You know what I mean.

John Ruz (01:15:04):
But but I'm always trying to, you know, be like I
don't want, you know, I wantbigger sets, bigger crews,
because I think you makesomething better when you
collaborate yeah, um, I know.

Uh, it's not why I brought you here.
I want to talk more business,but I want to know what camera
are you planning to use for thisshoot.
Do you have anything in mind?
How do you go about like as adp because it sounds also
fashion oriented, where cameramatters, look matters.
How are you gonna pick yourcamera or what are you leaning
towards?
I want to know more gear, justso people can hear what type of

(01:15:29):
gear is used these type ofshoots to be honest, it's gonna
be the canon r5 canon r5 look atthat wow, that's it.

John Ruz (01:15:37):
We have a red komodo, yeah, but you're not planning to
use it nope, no.

Why is the canon r5 the better product?

John Ruz (01:15:43):
workflow.
Okay, and you're doing photostoo.

I'm guessing it's both photos and videos, so it's
going back and forth brian isdoing the photos, I'm doing the
video.

John Ruz (01:15:51):
Um, but workflow wise, it works for me, right, and it
works for the client and itworks for the looks that the
client are wanting.
They, they are in high tech.
They don't want the shiny stuffon set, they don't.
They don't want that, theydon't like that and they don't
care about that they just wantto have the assets available for
them to pull in and justdistribute.

(01:16:11):
That's it awesome.

So you're gonna use canon r5?
Are you gonna shoot in log orno?
Yeah, for sure, okay, I wasabout to just walk away from the
set if you had said no, but Imean, hey look, it works, it
works that's why we're havingthis conversation?
Because look at the end of theday, I want people to know um.
You know, obviously work isgood.

(01:16:34):
I've looked at it.
But I want people to know that'snot why you have work.
You work because of businesssense and looked at it.
But I want people to knowthat's not why you have work.
You work because of yourbusiness sense.
And that's just the truth.
You want to be on the commentsand just say I can make
something better?

John Ruz (01:16:46):
Yes, I already say sure, 100%, absolutely.

You know it doesn't matter, the client
doesn't care.
That's the truth.
The client cares about thepeople, the relationships, the
trust, and that's just what'smore important than your skill.
I'm not saying don't be good atyour craft.
It's very important, but that'snot what sells big projects.

John Ruz (01:17:06):
It's just the truth.

And that's what the point of this is for people
to hear the real truth, notsomething fake.
Let me come in.
I hate those courses that haveshown up all over.
I will help you scale yourbusiness.
I'm like look we'll help youscale it for free with no, no
incentive, yeah unless you havea real estate photo I don't know
what else is used to sell rightanyway.

(01:17:30):
Um, so I love that.
Thanks, like I said, forsharing this.
Uh, so you're gonna use canon r5, you're going to shoot and log
thank goodness, I mean hey, uh,and then, um, and, like I said,
you're going to give themdeliverables, clients going to
be happy.
How do you send, because that'sa lot of deliverables?
How do you get a sign off on it?

(01:17:51):
Do you use frameio or dropboxor what?
What?
Yeah, what's your process?

John Ruz (01:17:55):
dropbox and frameio um , and we started implementing
frameio with this client andthey absolutely love it, yeah
because it's for this, manydeliverables that I can't
imagine with.
Dropbox.
Again, like I said, Dropbox isgood, but when you start to
scale up, it just starts tobreak on you really fast and I'm
going to knock on wood, but I'mpretty sure that we are not

(01:18:16):
going to have too many revisions, because we already know what
the client wants yeah, becauseyou have an existing
relationship.
So they already know the look,they already know the result and
we know they're like okay, well, you know, this is the
tentative deliverables, andwe're like I'm pretty sure that
we know what you guys need.

You know exactly at this point and and here's the
the money question.
So let's say you've talked tothem, you've presented.
Do you present like a proposalor do you just say the number on
the phone?
How do you present the initialnumber?
Let's proposal proposal.
So you to do the proposal?
Uh, they can visually see it.
Are you on the phone with themor you just send it?

John Ruz (01:18:53):
because you've already had the, the conversation, yeah
it, yeah, it's pureconversation through email.
They're like hey, we have thisshoot.
They call it the massive shoot.
So, it's going to be the massiveshoot on March.
It's going to entail this, this, this.
It's going to be throughoutnine days, 10 days of shooting.
Do we need 90 approximatedeliverables?
Can you put something togetherand in your proposal, do you

(01:19:22):
fully break down or is this abig number?
No, you fully break down.
So how do you break it down?
By, like, what's your process?
It's going to be creative fee,photography fee, video fee,
video editing fee.
You know distributions and soall that.

Okay, perfect and then, once they obviously accept
it, how do you split thepayment?
Or do you not split it, likewhat's the payment schedule when
you get your payment?
50%?

John Ruz (01:19:37):
upfront 50% at delivery.
Okay, that's it.

That's simple.
And then do you give themobviously 80 grand, so you're
going to give them wire transfer, I'm guessing.

John Ruz (01:19:46):
Yeah, for sure.
And then before delivery that'sa huge amount.

Right, they have to do it before you give them
deliverables have built so agood relationship.

John Ruz (01:19:55):
But I I recommend before db deliver for most
clients, but if you have arelationship.

You don't care, you're just going to deliver
them and then they'll pay youwhenever they pay, you do they?
Pay normally on time.
Oh, for sure this guy yeahexactly what I'm saying bigger
amounts, the checks come faster.
Uh, I'm guessing wire transfer,though not a check for correct
yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, prettystandard, so pretty standard yep
, all right, so that'sincredible.
Now I want to know is thesecond biggest project you did?

(01:20:22):
So people can know you knowwhat the scale level is uh
what's the second biggestproject you've done for them
ever?
uh?
Price-wise or roughly it's been45 40 grand, so exactly see,
you can scale up because waymore, way more because because
you know, like they know, thethe shoot is massive, right, the
deliverables are high, so itdoesn't mean um, you know, if

(01:20:46):
you get a 10, 20, 30k client,that can't one day become 100
150 200k client because you knowyou scale with them right.
Uh, so what was the roughdeliverables in that 40k?

John Ruz (01:20:58):
um, we were delivering 10 videos, 15 videos, I think.
So pretty, pretty standard,same thing, same calculation,
roughly.
And this was local, nottraveling, so you didn't have to
travel.
No, there's no travel cost.

So that's pretty good, so people can have some
idea.
Uh, and then for your typicaluh, you know the typical
corporate stuff, which is whenmost videos end up being, which
is like talking head, you know,b-roll right, whatever needs to
be edited into brand video,testimony, whatever do you have
like a pricing structure thatyou aim for there.

John Ruz (01:21:30):
Like this is the range we want to be at, because
that's typical standard right,long production um from uh,
brian and I have talked I um ourday rate start at 1750, I
believe, and it goes up fromthat um it.
It depends, but, brian, I seeit depending on you, know who is

(01:21:51):
this company right?

like.
So you're doing value-basedpricing right, depending on the
company, if coca-cola calls therates higher.
Yeah if you know, joe schmocalls it's lower uh, what do you
aim for with edited?
Because you know that'sobviously your day rate.
That's how you're calculatingday rate, probably editing fee.
So what's your average?
You would say total for a smallto mid-sized company that
you're aiming for after editing.

John Ruz (01:22:14):
You know um nick, who is our editor that's based in
texas he does.

So you do have an american, us based correct
editor for this type of work.

John Ruz (01:22:24):
Yeah, okay for uh, me, uh for big wave, okay, um, he,
his day rate is 1200, around1200.
So if we're pulling, you know,a 40 grand shoot we might giving
him.
You know he he might ask 2000.

You know, make sense, yeah so so for a tip, do
you do like.
So what's your minimum?
Sounds like you add his 1200your 1750 the most bare minimum
shoot a client can get is 4kright, right.
Can they get anything lowerthan that?
anything, no right we don'tbudge it doesn't make sense
anyway, because your rates yeah,yeah so that's going to be you
shooting right and then himediting and the company,

(01:23:04):
obviously, I'm guessing, willpull profit from both right
correct companies to make moneytoo.
That's incredible, I mean.
And look, that knows people.
The scale 4k, 160.
Have you done anything biggerthan 160 or is this your biggest
project, biggest project?
So that's the scale Now betweenthe two companies.
What's your percentage Like?
Is JRP like 60, 70% of yourbusiness and this one like?

(01:23:26):
What's the divide between thetwo?

John Ruz (01:23:28):
It's 60, 40.
60, 40.
Jrp 40.

So JRP still is the primary moneymaker, but this
is getting there almost seemslike.

John Ruz (01:23:38):
Big wave pulls in bigger profits than JRP still is
a primary moneymaker, but thisis getting there.
Almost seems like Big wavepulls in bigger profits than JRP
though.
Oh, that's incredible.

So because you know real estate, I don't know
why I'm shocked.
That makes sense.
Yeah, real estate, yeah.

John Ruz (01:23:51):
Pulls in bigger profits than JRP.

So what's your game plan?
Are you trying to grow both,but do you have a certain focus?
And what are you two thinkingabout the future?

John Ruz (01:24:02):
I feel like JRP is going to scale through the
nation.
We'll be in different marketsin the next five years.
We really want to track withthis staging client that has
been partnered with us.
So I feel like if they expandwe will spend with them um test

(01:24:23):
the water, see what works what,what doesn't.
With jrp we're tending toexpand a lot into different
markets.
You know, girl, the the team umbigger and with big wave, I
think, just staying the samereally.
We want bigger clients.
You know this type of shootsthat we're doing for this type
of client in Connecticut.

(01:24:44):
You know, on March I feel likethat type of client.
That's what we really strivefor.

Exactly, and so that's incredible.
So your expansion plan with GRPis very simple and I think it
would work, because you'vetested the market You've
obviously done it here so nowall you have to do is just go to
these other markets and justexpand and, just as we know,
with the real estate market,it's down.
That means it's going to goback up, so it won't be that

(01:25:12):
long until it's going back up.
And then you'll be able toexpand even faster.
How do you plan on managing it,Because it seems like once it
becomes large enough, do youplan on like do you think you'll
lose?
Because here's my thing, Right.
Like me, for two years I've beentrying to find someone to you
know, because you know I'm afilmmaker first, but I had to

(01:25:33):
learn business because that'show you make money Right.
I had to learn business becausethat's how you make money right
and that's what your clientscare about.
But I try to be bringing bothtogether right.
The point is I've been tryingfor years to find somebody to go
do the sales so I can focus onthe creative and then the
production, being the producer,director, dp.
But I haven't been able toBecause, like I said, nobody's

(01:25:55):
passionate and driven enoughwhere I'm like I can let them do
your thing, because you knowthe people who are good, they're
already doing it Right, andpeople who are not good at it, I
don't think they need to behere Right.
So the point is, I haven't beenable to find a suitable I'm
saying replacement and obviously, and I'm happy to do it up

(01:26:17):
until then because it's not likeI'm burned out or anything.
I just want to do more of theproduction and save time.
So, on your side now, once thishappens I don't know if you
guys have even thought aboutthis yet how are you going to
manage it?
Because you're going to have toprobably bring regional manager
or something but, then how doyou keep that?
What makes you you is therelationships, the quality
control, the customer service,and then you have to let go, and

(01:26:38):
then that's when cracks happen.

John Ruz (01:26:40):
You know that's when scaling is really hard, really
hard, so have you two thoughtabout that.

How are you going to solve the problem in the next
five years, which sounds like along time.
It's not in business terms.

John Ruz (01:26:52):
So have you thought about that?
That thought has, you know,passed through my head, but, you
know, just doing what I'm doingright now seems to be working.
Um, and you know, just keep ourguys happy, it's the most
important thing, you know, it'sthe building.
Really, I'm stride, I strivefor building relationships.

(01:27:15):
So, um, that thought of hiring,you know, head managers might
come for sure.
Um, that's, that's an a greatidea and it potentially is going
to happen.

yeah, if you spend , yeah, let's say two, I don't
know, let's guess, right, thebigger markets.
You go to texas, you go tocalifornia, go to new york,
right, right, uh, I don't knowhow you manage that all by
yourself, right, it will beimpossible exactly yeah but then
have you thought, and thenagain, it's okay if you haven't,
because like I said it's faraway right now right you're only
going to your second market butI'm just saying, when you go,

(01:27:48):
five markets, six markets, right, I don't know how you can be
there and you can't, then youknow, how do you, how do you
manage the same thing you know,without you being able to do all
of it?

John Ruz (01:28:01):
I feel like not that all of our clients are, not that
I have preference from clientto client, but I feel like VIP
clients deserve a little bitextra right.
So if we have a VIP client,let's say, on another market, I
have to show up right.
So if we do some mistake orsomething like that, I do have

(01:28:23):
to show up right.
So if if we do some mistake orsomething that I, I do have to
show up that, what that?
What happened in in in austincouple weeks after we launch?
Um, you know, one of ourcontractors messed up.
I had to show up for the clientand I flew in back in, did the
shoot for the client, flew backout.
So I feel like that type ofcustomer service still need to

(01:28:45):
be there throughout no,absolutely and then that's
exactly what I expected youwould have done, right?

you're like oh, I'm on a plane, even though it
may not be profitable at thatpoint.

John Ruz (01:28:54):
Yeah, because you have to get a hotel.
Yeah, for sure to fly.

But then that's what you have to do, right,
right, and then you slowly fixit, I guess right okay um and um
.
Now talk about um somebody and Iknow I have more topics, man,
we got to talk about virtualassistants, okay, but but before
we get there, I do want to talk, like I want to give people
real advice.
So you figured out and I feltlike your partner brian was

(01:29:20):
sounds like after talking to youwas a key reason that you guys
are able to you, you know, like,do it faster, better together,
and pandemic was just the reasonthat that happened.
Right, but talk to somebodylike who's listening, maybe new,
you know, maybe they know.
Let's say that let's not talkabout craft, let's say they know
how to make a good video, causethat's like the number one
thing.
How do they, especially on theproduction side of it, like how

(01:29:43):
do they get higher payingclients?
How do they find success?
How do they grow?
Because you know when you'reand I'm sure you've been there
when you're you know not makingthat much money, you're just
worried about life.
How do I pay my bills, how do Ipay my mortgage, how do I pay
my rent or my food or whatever?
You can't worry about scalingand you know automation and all

(01:30:05):
that, but but that is what leadsthem to there.
So how does somebody from herego here, or what would you do?
Maybe they can try and copy itlike now, tomorrow, like you
lose everything, you have tostart from scratch.
Here's a brand new company, youknow rpg productions.
I don't know.
So how?
So how do you?
How do you?
You know how?
What would you do?

John Ruz (01:30:24):
Um, I feel like you have to find work for free.
I feel like you first you haveto build up a portfolio, uh,
build some sort of umcredibility in the industry, and
then we kind of use a methodthat maybe some people don't use

(01:30:44):
it, which is the DM method,instagram DM method where we I
actually record myself right andoffer something for them right,
something I can be a 50% off oran incentive here and there to
that client, and that's howtheir name on it Like oh man, I

(01:31:04):
love that.

Okay, personalized , yeah, that's my favorite way.
Uh, when I tell people how topromote, it's like, right, make
it custom, make it for them.
Yeah, so you record a video,you send it to them, incredible
through instagram, dm throughinstagram, and it works.
And it works because it's justfor them.

John Ruz (01:31:19):
Yeah, when you do the shoot, then you can build up up
to, let's say, five clients.
Right, those five clients arenow.
You know you, you build yourportfolio, you have a product to
sell, right, something to sellyeah then you can go to other
companies.
Hey, this is what I've done forthis five clients let's do that

(01:31:41):
let's do something for you yeah, and I feel like that.
It's a snowball effect boom,boom, boom.
Yeah, and you have that.

That's a proven strategy, right.
So if you're doing this toinstagram and you can do this in
person as well, right, boots onthe ground.
But essentially the idea is youoffer them something.
Maybe in the beginning, youoffer a free shoot, right, and
then you slowly maybe offer 50or whatever.
At the end of the day, youoffer a free shoot, right, and
then you slowly maybe offer 50%or whatever.
At the end of the day, youbuild a portfolio.
When you have the portfolio,you find their competitors or

(01:32:10):
similar industries and you go tothem and you're like look, this
is what I did for them.
This is the rate.
Do you want to do it?
It's a very simple offer,because at that point you're no
longer like, hey, look at myskill or what I can do right.
So, hey, I'm look at my skill orwhat I can do, right, right, so
you have to kill it, obviouslyon the first few right now.
Don't keep always doing workfor free.

John Ruz (01:32:27):
This is just so you can build a portfolio, right?

yeah, that's, that's fair, because then
somebody else is getting a goodvideo.
You're learning, you're gettingthat high-end content.

John Ruz (01:32:35):
Yeah, very smart um and you know good strategy.
That's a strategy in my advice.
Really, it's just to grindevery single day, like I, I did.
I I when, when I didn't thoughtof the instagram method that we
offer right now, I was doing it.
I was pulling it off off silo,I was going into the, you know,

(01:32:57):
sending message to the agent.
I was pulling, I was searchingtheir names, pulling into google
or facebook, searching forfurther emails, tapping their
emails and look, hey, xyc.
I see that you don't have avideo on xyc property.
Um, do you want to do that?
Do you want to do something forfree?
Do you want to?
I can do this for you right.

Look at that, add value for them, right?

John Ruz (01:33:19):
that was more interested in it than just right
you have to research thembefore offering something,
Exactly Because if you don'tknow them, you don't know what
they need.
Then they will never buy it.

And at the end of the day, look, here's the truth.
If you keep doing it over andover again, you may fail.
You may not find success.
But most businesses fail withinfirst year of business and then
the next is five years.
If you just make it past fiveyears, success is right there
right.
The reason most businessesdon't is because most people are

(01:33:52):
not.
It's not because they're notgood, it's because they just
stop trying right just don'tgive up, right, you know what I
mean.
Keep at it, keep at it.
You'll find success, hopefullysooner than five years.
Right, exactly, exactly,hopefully, not that, but I'm
saying that is, you know, theidea is, anyone can find success
.
As long as you know, you'retrying to be better Now, don't
keep doing the same thing forfive years.

John Ruz (01:34:13):
Nothing's going to change.

But the idea is to you know, just keep doing at it
, keep getting better at it andoffer people value, you know,
and then people want it.
Why wouldn't they want to helpyou or hire you or whatever?
Because, at the end of the day,here's the truth.
In the market that you're intalk about real estate, they
need videos, they need photos,they need Matterport.
There is no like, if and butsabout it.

(01:34:34):
The question is are you goingto be the person providing?
it for them, and then are yougoing to be able to scale it?
Because, again, sure, sure, youcan go find 100 clients at 50
bucks, but what's the point?
If you can't just survive or besane doing it.
You know, because I knewsomeone, I was like dude, what
shoot is this?
Oh yeah, this is my 10th shoothow much are you charging?
50 bucks.
I'm like, come on, you'retelling me you made 500 bucks

(01:34:58):
and I just walked in thismeeting and charged this client
because I hired someone.
You know they wanted to learnright I was like I'm happy to
bring you.
And, um, they came for theshoot.
Great guy, awesome guy.
And then, as soon as, like mostpeople you know we do a big
shoot and we hang out he's likeno, I have another real estate
shoot oh my god he's like howmany?
he's like oh, I did your halfday shoot, plus I have 10 real
estate shoots and I was like howmuch are you getting paid?

(01:35:19):
50 bucks.
I'm like you're telling me Ipaid you.
I, uh, you know.
And then also on my side, I'mlike I paid him.
I was like are you telling me Ipaid you for?
Five of your shoots I know, I'mnot, I obviously paid him for
the video, but what I'm sayingis oh my god so for him that
even that 250 that fell low tome was really high, right.
But then you have to look at theother mindset.

(01:35:40):
The grind is so crazy and thenI'm like I'm here charging this
client 10, 20 grand to make thisone video.
It just feels, you know, so, soweird.
I'm like holy crap, and he'sgonna work all day to make 500
from real estate on a normal daycrazy.

John Ruz (01:35:57):
Yeah, that's not sustainable I'm saying anywhere,
especially in orlando, goodluck living off of that, jesus
plus yeah I mean, you have toeat some point, so anyway.

So what I'm saying is yeah, you don't want to be,
you want to figure out a way toscale it in a way where it makes
sense, uh, but it also, youknow, doesn't burn you out,
right, and you can have a life,because at the end you know,
otherwise I don't know whyyou're doing it right, exactly
there's better ways to makemoney if you just want to work.

John Ruz (01:36:22):
12 14 hours.

You might as well go find a different job.
But that's incredible.
So what about the other side ofit?
So let's say they don't want todo real estate, they want to do
commercial and corporate video.
Would you do the same thing?
Uh, would your suggestion bejust find similar industries
make a video and then any othertips or tricks that you have
that you can think about.
I love that one where it's likeoh, do it on desktop, it's

(01:36:46):
cheaper.
Yeah, I think people candefinitely take advantage of
that, but what would?
What else?
Do you have any other tips ortricks?
You'd say.

John Ruz (01:36:55):
Just that, that mentality of you know you can
make it, you can just thrivedoing what you love.
You know it's nothing, it takeswork, but it truly does.
It's a feeling that just of Idon't know how to put it

(01:37:16):
together, but it's somethingthat I cannot explain right.
I'm so happy to do this for aliving and I wish someone
looking at this right now thatit's struggling and looking just
justgo through.

Or even if they're , you know they're 80k and
they're like how do I get to800k?
You know, whatever like that.

John Ruz (01:37:34):
It's that mindset talk to your clients.
Yeah, like they will help youget there too, like, you can
upsell products, you can upsellservices, you can upsell
everything to your client right,talk to them, you know, and in
the corp and commercial world.

I've said this over and over again your data is
hugely valuable because here'swhat you can do.
If they hire you and they saymake me a testimonial video, you
go get b-roll, you getinterviews.
Sure, you sell them forwhatever 3k, let's say right.
But now you own all that extrafootage.
Why can't you put together thatB-roll and make them a quick I

(01:38:10):
don't know teaser, social orsomething video?
And now you can go back hey, doyou want this?
It's going to be X or whateverprice.
You can keep using that contentand as you work with them more,
you have bigger and biggerlibrary.
Use the content to make moremoney, yep 100%.

John Ruz (01:38:25):
Yeah, do you want to chat about virtual assistants
now?

So this is the main thing I learned from you in
the beginning, and I'm doingsomething similar, so I did get
an assistant, but mine'sUS-based.
However, I feel like I'mspending too much money.
I hope she's not listening tothis, but you know what I mean.
I feel like I'm spending toomuch money.
I hope she's not listening tothis, but you know what I mean.
I feel like you're doing it thesmarter way Getting somebody
from Vietnam, I'm guessing again.
Is that your favorite country,or what?

(01:38:52):
So you know like they are greathardworking people, that's
awesome Because you know at theend of the day here's the thing
Like we've talked about, youonly have so many hours in the
day.
You need to do high-level tasksand a lot of the stuff we do is
just silly email stuff.
As you saw, literally walking,I'm like I need to respond to
these emails.
I'm like I don't have time forthat.

(01:39:13):
Point is, if somebody can comein, take that time off, fix your
calendar, get some meetingsdone, meetings scheduled, basic
responses to email.
It can be a game changer.
And you found the formula,which is virtual assistants,
which I think is perfect becauseit's not that expensive and a
lot of businesses can afford it.

(01:39:33):
So tell more about how did youthink of that, how did you go
about finding a good assistant,and you know again how it's been
able to help you.

John Ruz (01:39:41):
Yeah, so we hired our first virtual assistant, uh,
back in 2023, and it reallychanged the game on replying to
text messages, replying toemails, you know stuff, just
daunting tasks here and there.
And Jean may may make such agreat job on, you know,

(01:40:05):
providing customer service toour clients and all that.
So, um, she went in and changedthe game for us.
You know where did you find her?
Um, brian found her and hebrought her into both businesses
pretty much, but I'm prettysure he found her through Upwork
.

Upwork perfect Best platform.
A lot of people have mentionedto go find you know, report
employees or whatever.
So once you found her and then,how did you integrate her into
the business, because I know youwere mentioning that before
like you know, was able to do alot of things.
What are the things that avirtual assistant can do, so
daunting tasks?

John Ruz (01:40:43):
everyday, know was able to do a lot of things.
What are the things that avirtual assistant can do?
So daunting tasks, everydaytasks, replying to simple emails
, texts, you know, um, managingsocial media accounts pretty
much just the she can do.
She can manage my businesspretty much.
You know she knows the backendof everything.
She can book shoots for aclient.
If a client wants to shoot a,if the client wants to book a

(01:41:04):
shoot, right right there.
Right, if we, if we, get a textmessage or an email, she can
reply back.
Right, that's incredible.

So anything that you do think of this and that's
a lot right you do on socialmedia, text or email, they can
accomplish right which is like80 of our manual labor tasks
right that we have to do outsideof, obviously, shoot.
So that's incredible and andthey're not that expensive,
right.
So what?
What could somebodyrealistically let's say they
want to, they like the ideabecause I, I like the idea.

(01:41:33):
I think this is the one of thebest things I ever heard from
you.
I was like, oh, this soundslike a game changer, so I want
to get a virtual assistant.
Uh, what could I roughly getone for?
To do the type of tasks youknow that could help.

John Ruz (01:41:45):
You'll be surprised um .
You can find someone for threedollars an hour.

We pay gene five dollars an hour and roughly how
many hours do you think you use?

John Ruz (01:41:55):
she works full-time, full-time so that's what eight
hours roughly you say in a day,because obviously some days I'm
sure very varies.

So that's what, uh , five tens, I don't know I'm
doing math over here uh, I don'tknow, a couple thousand a month
you'd say yeah, yeah, I mean,that's not bad considering
that's a full-time employeedoing anything and everything
with email thing and, like yousaid, you could find somebody
cheaper.
That's obviously sounds like agood assistant.

(01:42:21):
You could find them for what?

John Ruz (01:42:22):
two, three dollars an hour probably right and it will
do a great job, like, forexample, our qc michelle right
um, we have a set uh 250 a weekfor her.
Uh, eduardo, it's 50 bucks aweek right, look at that.

So finding somebody for 50 bucks a week and
they are extremely happy, right?

John Ruz (01:42:43):
yeah, because that's like a lot of money when you
translate into to the, to thecurrent currency over there in
vietnam?

uh, do they?
Uh, does the time differenceplay into it or they're just
used to working american hours?

John Ruz (01:42:56):
they.
They are not trained, but whenwe hire them, we ask them if
they can work US time-based.
And they're like yeah, I'm allthat time so I can work.
That's perfect, yeah.

Because I don't think it's that vast.
It's not like yeah, so that'sincredible.
And then they're willing towork.
They love the pay because youknow, in their country that's a
lot of pay.
Correct Versus for us to thinkabout somebody for 50 to 250 a
week.
Correct is just yeah, that'snot right.
Like I said, I I feel ashamedwhen I'm bringing a pa for 250.

John Ruz (01:43:28):
I'm like can you?

please be a pa for 250 and I'm like uh I'm I'm
begging them.
I was like what, uh, in hereyou're like you don't know, work
the whole week for me.
But that could be a gamechanger, like I said, because,
like I said, most time I'm justtired of emails how do?
You do text messages, do youhave to have some kind of
platform, because I likeiMessage.
That's been my key.
I did try to do so here's myexperience For a few years I'd

(01:43:51):
used an app, so you know thebusiness phone was an app you
could access from computereverywhere.
But then I found that peoplelove the iMessage.
You know question mark, youknow all the response things
that you can do on iMessage, soI moved it back.

(01:44:12):
So it's on my phone direct.
That is my number.
I even I don't even have mypersonal number anymore.
It's just how it is.

John Ruz (01:44:14):
So yeah, I just did.

I was like well, if everyone just calls me here
and all I talk about is video,all my friends are video people.

John Ruz (01:44:19):
It's like what is business?

versus personal right.
I was like two, three peoplewho use my personal number.
Here's my business number Justcall it on that.
So that's what ended up with me.
I started the proper way withthe virtual phone thing.
It became my now real phonePlus.
Now I can do all the iMessagething.
That's what I was lacking, whyI was like I need to do this.
But the disadvantage would thatbe?

(01:44:45):
I can't just give my now textmessages to someone remotely
right.
So you probably am using, Iguess, in an app-based system.

John Ruz (01:44:48):
So we tried, uh, google voice, google voice.
Yeah, that's exactly what I wasusing google voice for a couple
uh years actually and it workedgreat.
But the um calling feature wasso bad, right it we.
We had lags or we will cut offor um.
You know, if we're sending atext message repeatedly to to

(01:45:09):
people, they will block us.
Because you know, if we'resending appointment reminders 30
a day- it's the exact samething.
It's the exact same template.
They will block you fromscamming right um, we switched
back to open phone and ourplatform isn't attached.
It has like a burner phone.
So it's an attached to openphone.

(01:45:31):
So it's great.
Tonamo is great on sending fortext reminders through a burner
phone that was yeah, they stopor block, it's not you anyway.

Yeah right.
So that's actually very smart,because you don't want to take
your business number and haveyour clients block you.
Oh my God.

John Ruz (01:45:46):
It was painful yeah.

So that is so.
But the negative of that is andagain, maybe you don't have
that issue Because, like I said,I have clients who have to, you
know, do the iMessage, thegroup chats all that.
You definitely can't do thatwith that right.
You can't, so this only works.
So maybe it's good to have twonumbers you know, so it's a,
it's good to to have a number.
Obviously that is through avirtual system, correct, and

(01:46:09):
which one did you say you use?

John Ruz (01:46:10):
now Open phone, open phone.

Okay, I've heard of that, is it a good system.

John Ruz (01:46:13):
It is how expensive, is it?

It's not that expensive.
Yeah, you can't even get aregular phone for that.

John Ruz (01:46:21):
And Gene is in, brian and myself are in, and that's it
.
We both three are top 10.
And what I absolutely loveabout Open Phone is that if a
client sends a message, you canactually have a conversation
with your vitro system andinternal team off of that
message.
Like how can I reply to this,or should we reply this?

this, this Should we say it yeah, whatever, so you
can have A-B testing betweenthe team.
It's like, hey, is this betteror this better?
That's pretty cool, yeah.

John Ruz (01:46:51):
Or you can just add Gene, Like.
Just reply to the text.

Okay, so she can respond or whatever, and it's
pretty amazing.

John Ruz (01:47:00):
It's very good and we have two lines.
We have the Florida and Texasline in there.

And then for emails, I'm guessing it's just
appointments, basic deliveryquestions, correct, anything
that we're not thinking of.
Because I want people to expand, because you know most people
go, I don't need an assistant.
I want people to know what allso anything else?

John Ruz (01:47:31):
you can think of out of the ordinary, of what we're
talking here, that people canuse an assistant for they can do
um, that we're not talkingabout following up on dm message
with your bistros virtualassistant.
So whenever I send a, a videomessage, I have a google sheet
that I created with eduardo umand we both are in there and I
just literally mark whomever I'mdming and he knows.
Okay, this person needs to befollow up and he actually
managed the conversation andquote-unquote sales.

Look at that so you can automate your responses
I just say one, and that's it 50bucks a week worth it, totally
worth it, yeah oh, my goodness.
And then, um, uh, because yeah,even one shoot, it's, yeah,
paid for and that's a cheapphoto shoot.
It's not even like and that's acheap photo shoot, it's not
even like an expensive shoot,and Eduardo does the photo
selection too overnight.

John Ruz (01:48:09):
So we kill two birds with one stone.

So for $50 a week.
He works what?
Eight hours a day, five days aweek.
Is that the schedule?
Is it more he?

John Ruz (01:48:18):
works four hours a day .

Four hours, that means so long.
Yeah, two hours for instagram,two hours for photo selection.
So four hours five times a week.
I'm guessing five days, correct, okay?

John Ruz (01:48:29):
that's again.
That's still pretty good, Imean uh and uh.

The question now I have is are these their real
names?
Are they actually called geneand eduardo, or these are made
up names?
I don't know so that's whatthey told you.

John Ruz (01:48:43):
Yeah, wow, yeah, and you've never been like, because
you know if you've been to ever.
Do you eat Vietnamese food orno?
I do, yeah, Okay, I'm justmaking sure.

It'd be funny.
You're like I have all theseVietnamese people in Manhattan.

John Ruz (01:48:58):
I mean, which is fine.
I mean you don't have to yeah,but uh, so anyway.

But I'm saying, when you go to these restaurants
, the names are, you know, Ican't say right, so I'm just
like uh uh, tran and yeah oryeah, stuff like that yeah,
exactly so.
So they probably have, I'mguessing real names, so they
came with their name youwouldn't make them you wouldn't
give them the names.
They already have the americanyeah, okay um, and then so when

(01:49:21):
you pay them another thing sofor american contractors, you
contractors you know we do W-2or W-9 for the contractors,
right.
And then you have to send themthe 1099 or whatever.
Right, again, not tax advice,this is just given.
So how do you handle that?
Like because it's aninternational Contractor?

John Ruz (01:49:40):
Yeah, do you have to still do 1099 or no?
Because they shouldn?
You have to still do 1099 or no?
Because they don't do.
They shouldn't have to paytaxes in america, right?
Yeah, it's a special document.
Uh, we use gusto as our payrollpartner and gusto takes
everything away from us.
It's like we send an invitationlink.
They just fill out theinformation and that's it okay
that's, and then it pays them.

And then right, so what if they have a legal name?

John Ruz (01:50:02):
they probably put it with that platform, you don't
even have to worry about it,right?

and what does this type of platform cost for
somebody who wants to use it?

John Ruz (01:50:10):
um, actually I'm not sure.
Okay, and that's.
I don't see those numbers.
Let me just look it up.
Right gusto?
You said gusto g-u-s-t-o.

I'm guessing correct, and is that just for
your international people, or isit for your local contractors?
So you're using that for allyour payroll but mostly
contractors.
You don't have to pay out whatthe taxes and stuff, right,
because that's them, becausethey're contractors correct.

John Ruz (01:50:32):
That's pretty cool, so they're able to even use, you
know, do international all ofour contractors send us their
invoices and we just enter thatinto the platform.

Yeah, yeah and then, uh, you don't even have to
worry about taxing.
I'm guessing the platform justtakes care of it.
That is incredible, becausethat's what my question was.
I don't have, obviously.
Uh, I wouldn't know, like, howwould you even handle vietnam?
You know taxes or anything?
Right or, and again, it doesn'thave to be that country.

John Ruz (01:50:57):
That's just who you're using like you said I have
people in india, so you can havepeople you know all over, yeah,
so it's just finding the rightpeople for you, yeah and um, you
know, at the end of the day,especially the tasks that don't
really need somebody to be local, I think that's incredible like
I said, I got a virtualassistant, but she's from us

(01:51:17):
based and I'm like I'm thinkingabout adding a couple more
virtual ones because I feel likethe costs are, you know, when
you're doing in american dollarsit's a it's a little, I but,
but my initial idea was.

Here's, like I said, where I screwed up um
again tiffany's great, nooffense but you know I was like,
oh, you could then take callsand I didn't want to have to
somebody, you know, with a, withan accent or whatever, right,
yeah, even though the owner hasa slight accent.
But you know, we'll just keepit that.
But then I realized quickly,because of my fiasco with the, I
was like, oh, they can't evencall and answer the phone anyway

(01:51:48):
.
So the whole thing didn'treally go to plan.
So I was like, oh, that's good,okay, you just handle emails
and stuff.
But then I'm like, uh, aninternational assistant works so
much better for that.
Yeah.

John Ruz (01:52:05):
Uh, and they can automate so much and save so
much time, and now all that timeI could go do other things?
Yeah, exactly, or?

be on more shoots or whatever.
Plus, then I don't have to missit, because so many times what
happens with my calendar is I'llmanually like uh, like later
today, literally after this, I'msupposed to meet a buddy to
discuss some, you know, futuregrowth stuff and I'm like, uh, I
almost forgot to add in thecalendar.
And then, then you know, jillwas like oh, after the podcast,
what do you have to do?
And I was like nothing.

(01:52:28):
And then I was like no.
I got to have a meeting.
So you know, like thatSometimes you miss things Right,
because you know it's mescheduling, because it wasn't
through an automated system.
This is me texting or calling,correct and going.
Oh, I need to add it, andusually yeah, usually I'll go in
the calendar and add it, butsometimes you know you forget.
You're human, right, and butthat could throw up everything.
I hate double bookings becauseI never want to cancel with

(01:52:50):
someone, right, because I doublebooked or whatever, because
that makes you lookunprofessional, right.
So, that happens to us all thetime before we had that platform
, and that's so good that you dohave the platform now because,
like you said, that's like theyeah, easiest way to look
unprofessional without beingunprofessional because you
didn't do it on purpose.
Yeah, yeah, it just happens, ohno so, um, so that's incredible

(01:53:13):
that you figured this wholeformula out and I feel like so
many people could take advantageof that.
Um, and and think of this way.
You don't have to be thissuccessful right to do it right,
even if you're making 80 100grand a year.
Think of this way.
If you can just take awaysomebody like eduardo half a day
, right, five days a week, 50bucks a week, I know you can

(01:53:35):
afford it.
Yeah, you spend more than thaton coffee, I know, and and again
, I don't want to go into thatstupid argument because you know
some people also take yeah,take it too far, like don't
drink coffee, but I knowfilmmakers drink coffee and they
will happily pay 10 bucks atStarbucks for it.
So I'm just saying and thiscould save so much more time for
us to have more meetings, moreoutreach, more whatever it's a

(01:53:55):
hack and you double triple yourrevenue because now you have
double triple the time for me.
Like I triple the time, yeah,for me, right, like I here's
what I'm bad at and I'm alreadyseeing the use of it I take, um,
I go on sets.
I'll usually even, despite mybeing crazy busy being director
I will still take some photos orsomething right or people will
send me if it's, if I'm doing aremote producer thing and I have

(01:54:18):
some photos, and I'll alwaysask, hey, send me some photos.
But then I never get to postingit because I'm so busy.
And then, you know, I move fromproject to project to project
to project and it's like, um,then you look at your social
media like I didn't postanything and then it'd be so
cool to just be able to go tosomeone like there you go there,
just make posts.
You know it doesn't, becauseit's not like I'm trying to make

(01:54:38):
revenue from it.
I just want to be able to sharewhat we're up to, and it'd be
so cool to have somebody, likeyou said virtual, and it's a lot
easier.
I don't feel at all weird aboutsharing my business instagram
with someone and meta has nowthe photo scheduler for
instagram.

John Ruz (01:54:54):
Yeah, so they can even do that.
It's free, does?

it schedule video or no?

John Ruz (01:54:58):
yeah, videos, video, everything.
That's what I'm saying.

That'd be so cool they can and that's the platform
.
So I like uh which I knowfacebook is old but still it's
good for you know ceos and stuffthat I deal with, but facebook,
instagram can do that way, donethrough meta right, and then I
think it's just linkedin right.
So it shouldn't be that hardand I know they have a managing
tool, correct.
So if somebody was doing thatthey could just go in one day.

John Ruz (01:55:21):
That's their task schedule for the whole week,
Gene might have already theentire year booked out with
social media posts.

Dude this is a hack.
This is genuinely a hack.
People, if you learn anythingtoday it's just hire virtual
assistants, because I'm tellingyou like I said, we've talked
about this before and even justlistening to you a little bit, I
was like my wheels were turningand I was like this is
incredible yeah if somebodycould just do these basic things

(01:55:49):
for me.
Like I said, ideally I'd likesomebody to take the phone over
to right and I don't know how todo that without having multiple
numbers right, but once Ifigured that out, that's, like I
said, my big task it would likechange everything.
Yeah, because because so muchtime I'm spending on all this
stuff that it's like hurting mybusiness, right?
Not that I'm hurting forrevenue, but I could definitely

(01:56:10):
be doing better or spending moretime with family or whatever.

John Ruz (01:56:13):
Yeah, the worst thing that we can do is leave a client
hanging.
Yeah Right, it's like okay, shetexted us at 9am and we haven't
responded.

At 3pm it's am and we haven't responded at 3 pm.
It's like, um, I have to tellthis story, this worst thing
I've done, and I'll say itpublicly.
So here's what happened andthis is a recent one, so I I
partnered with the chambersright so as being, uh, you know,
of indian origin.
Indian american chamber ofcommerce locally here is one of
my partners, okay so we do theirannual gala and, uh, I did this

(01:56:41):
air last.
What september?
I would say um.
So I did their annual gala,like always, you know.
And um, you know, I just do itto be to be partners because you
know we are technicallysponsoring majority of the cost.
They pay us some but you know,at the end I'm saying I'm not
doing that to make money, right,so we just want the businesses
there to see our content, yeahand, and you know, help the

(01:57:04):
chamber.
So anyway, so I make the videosand, like they do, one of their
board members introduced me tosomebody for marketing or
whatever at.
Orlando Health.
So which is a very good contactlocally Right.
So they're like hey, thisperson said hi and I was like,
oh yeah, we'd love to talk, youknow, because my whole thing is,
once I show up up on set,they're not going anywhere.

(01:57:24):
but you have to first type showon set, right, because you know
they don't know what I can dountil I show up on set.
That's just correct yeahbecause you're just another
video person in their mind.
Uh, until you, like you said,we build that relationship, so
anyway, so he introduced me,vorn lead, because that's one of
their surgeons you know, likeuh point is, it's a very good
lead, plus I'm having direct, soI shake hands.
He even forwards me their numberand he never says so I know

(01:57:47):
it's legit because he's like,hey, this is, this is someone
important, right, you know,catch up.
So as a business owner, I'msaying at least I should just
connect, say hi, follow up, andguess what happens, because I'm
so busy I just go from thatshoot to fly to another shoot,
to something, something,something and something.
And it gets stopped, point isyeah, and it's like, and then he
reaches out a few weeks later.
He's like, hey, have youreached out?

(01:58:08):
And I was like, oh, oops, sorry.
And now I'm like then my braingoes, ah, this may be too late.
And now, four months, sixmonths later, I go, crap, I
should have reached out.
And now it's too late.
That would be awkward.
It's like what are you againright?
So I never reached out.
So I'm saying that was a goodlead, right, that was wasted
because you know I'm busy andyou know anyway, and and that

(01:58:32):
could have been so easy becauseit was in my text, right,
because somebody could havefollowed up and all we had to
say was nice meeting you.
You know, let's chat, orsomething like it wasn't point
is a huge lead lost because ofmy being busy.
Who thought you'd be losing?
business, because you havebusiness anyway, it's crazy, but

(01:58:53):
and these are the type of leadsthat matter, because at the end
day, like you, I'm trying tofind or like I have a few and
I'm trying to find more of theseclients that just bring repeat
business right we keep doingbigger and better productions
for them.
They're happy, they make money.
We make money.
At the end of the day, we'renot chasing clients all day,
every day.
Right, that's what we want.
Like you have the one you'retalking about in Connecticut,

(01:59:13):
yeah, and it could have been oneof them, who knows, we'll never
find out and it Mexicala, but Idon't know if you can
reintroduce to reintroduce, Idon't know, and one year later
that would be weird.
But at the end of the day, Itake it as full responsibility
as an owner because, again, it'smy company.
But I can't keep doing that.

(01:59:33):
If I kept doing that, I'm goingto, for sure you know, go out
of business.

John Ruz (01:59:37):
Right.

Meeting new people , building the relationships is
very important, is veryimportant, and I think, as we
talked about virtual assistants,is, I think, the perfect,
perfect example of what you cando to get there.
Anyway, like I said, you haveso many amazing hacks that you
figured out.
You're so young.
How old are you?

(01:59:57):
28.
Dude, at 28,.
You have figured out formulafor success in two different
avenues of video.
You have figured out automation.
You have figured out formulafor success in two different
avenues of video.
You have figured out automation.
You have figured out you knowrevenue and how to expand, how
to scale.
What do you attribute to?
You're definitely, you know,like I said, not normal.

(02:00:17):
So what makes you different,you would say, than you know
other people around you?

John Ruz (02:00:23):
The people I surround myself to.
It's just that, just findingtrue valuable assets, the people
that you it's not what you know, it's who you know, right.
So I feel like the people thatsurround you and the information
.
I'm a good listener.
When it's time for me to listen, I listen and just analyze

(02:00:45):
everything and you know that'swhat makes me me pretty much
yeah.

And, like I say, you're killing it so before we
go.
Before we wrap up, like I said,I could talk to you for so long
.
And, like I said, your requestto people want to listen to this
.
I'm hoping you know this gets a.
Not that I care, but I mean Ido want more people to get value
.
A lot of people listen and getvalue out of this.
I want to know, before we go,any other hacks immediately that
you can think of, or just ideasto share with people that they

(02:01:15):
could implement, you know, justto help them either be efficient
or find more business orsomething else.

John Ruz (02:01:26):
Can you think of something on top of your head?
Um, don't over complicate stuffpretty much, uh, because you
can think automations, virtualassistants yeah you know
platforms to schedule crm peopleand blah blah.
All these stuff might seem likea huge headache, but when you
implement all these stuff, I canbe surfing while my business is
working.

Yes, right, that is so smart and I want people to
know yes this does sounddaunting.
Uh, I was talking to a buddy ofmine been on the podcast but he
was like I have nothing likethis he didn't even have a
contract, wow, um, doesn't endmaking over six figures, and you
know.
and then the crazy thing isthat's okay, you know, at the
end of the day, look, youfigured out what a lot of people
haven't you know.

(02:02:04):
And then the crazy thing isthat's okay, you know, at the
end of the day, look, youfigured out what a lot of people
haven't.
You know, build good products.
You got your craft right.
You figured out the businessside of it.
All this can happen.
All you have to do and I knowthis is a thing with
entrepreneurs, especially newbusiness owners don't want to
spend money Like, so they wantto take everything, but spend
money go hire the professionalsmoney, like.
So they want to take everythingbut spend money.

(02:02:24):
Go hire the professionalsbecause, like you said, you can
hire somebody to come andautomate for you.
You cannot hire somebody toautomate sales for you, correct?
I mean, I'm talking relationshiprelationship you have to do
relationship, you have tounderstand how to vet people and
hire them at the top level, andif you can't do that, you
cannot scale.
But guess what?
You can hire people to do taxes, accounting, payroll, like

(02:02:45):
we've talked about.
We gave you gave names of thesoftware to use.
You know, use quickbooks, Imean like there's so many
different ways to simplify thesethings correct.
And if you don't want to do ityourself, hire somebody to do in
vietnam yeah, to do it and theywill happily do it and you go
out and do the other stuff, butremember, there's no like tell
me if I'm wrong.
There's no way to replace theother aspect of it you have to

(02:03:09):
go out and do the relationshipbuilding.
There's no way to automate thatright.
Am I missing it?
Nope no, okay, no so, yeah,that's the key thing that you
need to be good at.

John Ruz (02:03:17):
The rest can be figured out I wish we can just
clone ourselves and just, oh,that'd be, that'd be great.

But then I'm like wouldn't my clone want to listen
to me?
Because I wouldn't want to.
Right, have you ever thoughtabout that?
Yeah, because what makes you aleader is you know you go, do
things right.

John Ruz (02:03:32):
There's no way your clone will be a follower because
your clone will be a leader andyou cannot have too many
leaders.

That's true, because I'm like I don't need me
, I need um.
You know what you have virtual.
I need a gene and I need aneduardo yeah because I feel like
they can help me so much more,and at the end of the day, I can
then focus on relationshipbuilding.
Better videos, better craftbetter you know sales, so that's

(02:03:59):
incredible.
Thank you, john.
Thank you, uh.
This has been incredible.
I learned so much I hope peoplelistening did too amazing and
uh, like I said, you're welcomeback anytime.
Thank, you before we go tellpeople where they can follow you
, your instagram or whatever, Idon't know yeah, so instagram
for jrp is meet jrp, big wave ismeet big wave.

John Ruz (02:04:21):
That's it.

And then youtube for, uh, both companies, it's
the exact same thing do you posta lot on youtube?
What are you posting type ofcontent on?

John Ruz (02:04:29):
youtube I'm posting for jrp big wave is still a work
in progress.
Uh, for youtube I'm posting youknow, walk through like very
high and walk through videos ofmulti-million dollar homes so
the good ones, you know, thehigh end, right, and I'm posting
a little bit of bts.

I really want to follow david's advice, oh yeah,
through videos of multi-milliondollar homes.
So the good ones, you know, thehigh-end ones is the ones you
share, and I'm posting a littlebit of BTS.

John Ruz (02:04:46):
I really want to follow David's advice.

Oh yeah, that's a smart, smart thing.
Yeah, become like amicro-influencer, essentially
because, then you're already theleader in the space, but people
need to know that right.

John Ruz (02:04:56):
Right.

And they can, once you do all the vlogging and BTS
stuff that's pretty cool.
I'm going to go find it andthen see your progress.
Like I said, I don't know if Ican do that.
This is the best I can do.
Share free, valuableinformation, though it's a very
smart move.
At the end of the day, you helpother people, plus you gain an
audience.

John Ruz (02:05:16):
I love helping people.

I could talk to you for hours.
I love all these little things.
Like I I said, there's thefilmmaker in me yeah, who would
love to talk about cameras andstuff, but the other side of me
just loves the the business like, especially the automation,
because I love when you build,uh like standard operating
procedures, sops, where then youknow, then things just happen.
Right, you like?
you go to a team member whoeveryou're like, okay, this is what

(02:05:40):
I want you to do, right, andthen it, then it gets done.
That's it.
It's like, wow, right, likethis is like holy moly.

John Ruz (02:05:46):
You record it once.

Yeah, and then it's forever.

John Ruz (02:05:49):
Exactly, you don't have to repeat that again, and
again, and again.

Exactly, and then and do the same thing, which is
what we're doing for clients.

John Ruz (02:05:55):
Right.

Make them courses or the same thing.
Just do it for yourself andit'll be a game changer.
Game changer, like I said, thishas been incredible.
We love to have you back inseason two, uh, but I'm excited.
But and good luck to yourcompany I can't wait to see your
expansions and hopefully thisyear we'll try and find a way to
collaborate, like I said,looking forward to it.
You see my van it's ready to go, let's roll it impressive.
Yeah, oh, thank you, but, likeyou know, let's, let's go.
Uh, you know, uh, like I said,let's just kill it this year,

(02:06:25):
let's go and uh like I said,we'll follow up uh later in the
next season.

John Ruz (02:06:29):
Thank you, thank you.

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