Viral Instagram Ad Secrets to Skyrocket Your Production Company

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Vipul Bindra (00:04):
all right, look who we have here, mr ben, thank
you for coming what's going on,bro, how you doing I'm doing
great.
Thank you for for coming.
I know you're a busy man.
You live a little far away, sodriving here and coming to talk
with me, you know, and kind oflike we were talking.
The point of this is just, youknow, when I started my
production company, all thepeople that I thought were

(00:25):
successful didn't want to shareanything, and by the time I
found people who were successful, I'd already figured it out and
stumbled my way across to, Iwould say, somewhat of a little
success in video field.
So these are just conversationswhere I'm genuinely trying to
learn and then hopefully, youlearn something.
And if the people watchinglearn something, then hey, even
if they learn a little bit, and,worst case, they just have some
entertaining conversation,right.

(00:47):
So that's the point of this.

Ben Mangum (00:49):
So, again, like I said, thank you for coming.
How's things?

been man.

Ben Mangum (00:51):
I think your 2024 was amazing, right yeah, I mean,
it was my biggest year yet, soI can't complain.
Um no, there's always somethingto learn Bindra , from Vipul.

(01:17):
So I'm excited, dude.
Thanks for having me on I'mexcited.
other people can listen to itand find it maybe interesting,
maybe boring, I don't know no, Imean, dude, I love the format
that you're going for, becauseI've thought about doing a
podcast before, but I alwaysthought, like man, that sounds
exhausting, like trying to comeup with a main topic for an
episode like how to use mark howto do marketing on social media

(01:40):
, whatever, like you see it onsome of those business podcasts,
but I personally, I'm a big fanof the ones.
I have no agenda.
They're just bullshit andthey're just talking.
This is what this is.

Yeah now there's the agenda is to to just give be
informational if we can yeahbecause the truth is, um, uh,
you know I've been talking aboutthis for years, but that was my
main thing.
I'm a working professional.
I don't have courses or otherthings to sell to people, so
there is no revenue from this.
This is I'm doing this purelyout of fun, or, I guess, to want

(02:10):
to do it.
That's why it took a few yearsto start.
I'm just glad it has startedand that we're doing this, um,
and, like I said, I'm ready tolearn from you because I know
you're doing things that I triedsix years ago and didn't work.
For some reason, they areworking for you.
I don't know if the market haschanged or if you're doing
something great.
Either way, it's fantastic, soso bring it there.

(02:33):
Where I want to start is, um,instagram ads, right, yeah, so I
tried.
This is back in 2018, when Iwas like, okay, I'm no longer a
freelancer, I'm gonna go all inand I'm gonna be a big
production company.
Yeah, okay, at least that wasthe thought process.
So I tried ads.
I spent thousands and thousandson Google and Facebook and Meta
whatever and Instagram, and Ididn't really get return, and

(02:55):
all the leads that I would getwould be like can you do me a
music video, can you make me acommercial?
Okay, but I only have 200 bucks, or you know, they were not the
leads that I was looking for,so ultimately, I just called it
a total loss and moved on.
And I found success throughreferrals, and that's how I've
been running my business, whichis why I end up barely posting
anything on instagram becauseI'm like oh, my ceos are hanging

(03:17):
out at a golf course, not atinstagram however, which is
valid?
Yeah yeah, but but here's thecontrast two weeks ago, when we
last talking, you werementioning how you've been
running ads and you've closeddeals that are in the thousands,
which is incredible.
So talk more about that.

Ben Mangum (03:33):
Yeah, for sure, man, um, I, so I just have
experience with Instagram ads,not Facebook or Google, so
honestly, I don't really knowwhy those didn't work for you.
Um, but I just happened to fallinto it with, like in the past
year, in 2020, I mean, dude,really, since 2020, I've bought
in so many courses and coachingprograms which, like I'm, I
don't refer the most part.

(03:54):
I don't regret doing it all.
Um, I credit to where Icurrently am, like majority, the
majority because of that, know.
Um, so anyway, the, the guythat I fell upon did instagram
ads, like they call it like afollower funnel.
That's generally what peoplecall it, and do you want me to

(04:16):
basically just like go into this?

yeah, I mean.
Whatever you want to talk about, man, this is unscripted.
Whatever I mean, I just want togenuinely learn.
I mean sure, what?
How are you finding success and, according to you, what do you
think that is?

Ben Mangum (04:28):
for sure.
I think one way that I'mfinding success with instagram
ads just feedback from thepeople that I talk to is the
fact that I'm local.
People, from what I've heard,or people's perception is like
it's just this, like hugecompany in another state or
something like that.
So when you're targeting localbusinesses or you know, kind of
just like your everyday guy thathas a business type of deal,

(04:50):
they like the fact that I'mlocal.
So I think that's like a bigfactor.
Then you have I mean, the typeof strategy that I've been doing
has been working pretty wellfor me.
It's not that there's only oneway to do something, whether
it's marketing, growing a videobusiness or it's ads there, it
can.
You can make whatever methodwork.
I mean not that I've triedevery method, but you know

(05:11):
that's what you kind of.
You see other people havingsuccess with other stuff, but,
um, I, I just run, I runfollower ads.
So I target a local area like a15 mile radius Uh, so I'm not
like targeting the whole stateof Florida or even that really
big of an area, and then all Ido is I get traffic to my
Instagram page.

(05:32):
So the only call to action onthe ad is visit Instagram
profile and then I'll basicallyjust like walk through step by
step what generally you shoulddo so like.
Then you have your Instagrambio optimized.
You'd kind of be surprised that.
Yeah, like people's Instagram,but it's not clear on what they
do, or it's just like messy, ormaybe it's vague.

(05:54):
So, like you just want to likeclean up your profile, make sure
it looks good.
Um, whether you know you haveyour name or you also have your
production name, then make itclear on who you help and what
you offer.
Basically, I feel like I'vechanged my bio so many times
that I don't remember what itcurrently is, but I think it's.
I help service-based businessesget more clients on Instagram

(06:16):

That's very clear, though.
I mean.
It tells people what you do.

Ben Mangum (06:20):
Yeah, in the online space it's kind of douchey to do
that.

I get kind of jaded and tired of like I help
whatever, but at the same time,that's what you do yeah, it just
helps.

Ben Mangum (06:31):
You know um so, and then you can also have like a
keyword call to action in youruh in your bio.
So like dm me the word videoand I'll send you a free content
guide or something like that,so that's a way that you can get
more people to message you.
But overall, this strategy isyou target a local area, you get

(06:52):
more traffic to your Instagramprofile, then they follow you,
and then you message them, andthen you book a call and you
sell them.
That's the whole thing, really.

So it's like what we've done all the time.
It's just you're automating the, at least bringing the leads in
through Instagram, right?
Yeah?
Yeah, pretty much.
Are you doing any kind of A-Btesting, like, are you running?
Hey, I shot four differentthings and to see which one got
more response, no, are yourunning multiples at once or
just one?

Ben Mangum (07:19):
Last month I did multiples, but they were
different types of ads, so itwas like one was a follower ad
and the other ones were likeretargeting to get a message.
I actually didn't have goodsuccess with the messenger ones,
but I'm assuming it was becauseI didn't have, like, any social
proof within the retargetingone.

(07:40):
So that's kind of something youkind of just change one
variable, but I probably shouldyou know AB test and do it.

It'd be cool.

Ben Mangum (07:47):
Yeah, it's funny for me to like talk about ads and
I'm happy to but at the sametime I'm like okay, I know I
could be doing ads way better,or like maybe, but I'm still.

But whatever you're doing obviously is
working.
So, but what I'm?
Instantly my brain just goesbusiness, business.
It's like yeah it'd be cool torecord three different things
that ask the same call to actioncta but they're different, so
then you run them all three andsee which one gets more views
yeah and then you can kind ofhyper analyze that why that one
got more views.
Was it the title?

(08:15):
Was it how you were dressed?
Because, you know, sometimesI've seen on internet ads, even
though it looks stupid, but thelouder you are, people pay, pay
more attention.
So silly things like that couldactually be working.
And I would love to know from,instead of these online gurus,
somebody I know and trust, ifthat's actually true.
So it'd be cool.
I mean, I hear that from otherpeople.

Ben Mangum (08:36):
Yeah, I don't do any like crazy split testing like
that I probably should.
But the only caveat or notcaveat, but the only thing to
know for this type of adstrategy is when you do the
visit like visit profile ads,you have to post it as an
organic piece of content first,and then you go into meta

(08:56):
business suite and then launchit as an ad.
So it's not like the traditionalway where you go into ads
manager and then you create thead and you can add multiple ads
within that ad set.
That would be the more placewhere you can test the different
hooks and stuff like that.
But uh, yeah, so that's kind ofone thing to know.

It would kind of be weird if I posted three of
the same video organically andthen, yeah, I guess you could,
but I mean over a differentspace, I space, I guess, and
then and boost them at the sametime that's true also.

Ben Mangum (09:27):
Yeah, I mean somebody actually I, I'm was
wrong.
I was running two ads at thesame time but they were
completely different, likemessages.
I mean.
You know, they were differentvideos.
It wasn't like super yeah, itwasn't the.

So what are you saying in one of these?
So give us an example like whatwould you, what should you say?

Ben Mangum (09:44):
yeah look, you're a service-based business and I
know you're tired of spendinghours at networking events
passing out your business card,trying to grow your business.
You're great at what you do.
You just need more people tosell to every day.
If you want to learn how to dothis, give me a follow to learn

(10:07):
how my client, josh, landed 12new clients with only x amount
of ad spent.

So it's like I did .
That's almost word for word inmy ad.
I've heard it so many timesediting.
It sounds like I've listened tothis before.

Ben Mangum (10:12):
Yeah um, I do like a space where like look your
service, because no, I thinkthis is a pretty good.

I mean, I like what, what you just said, yeah
yeah, like, uh.

Ben Mangum (10:23):
Sometimes instagram will cut off that like first
half a second.
So sometimes, like, so you'reuh.
Or like, look, you're aservice-based business, so you
have that little space.
But, um, I don't know, I feelthe need to kind of break this
down.
I feel like it'd be valuableand we have a long time to talk.
So, yes, plenty of time Ibasically like do a market call

(10:43):
out and then I have um marketcall out, do be location
specific.
One thing I didn't say when Iwas talking about that.
I was like, look, you're aservice-based business here in
ocala, oh, california so likeyou're here you're yeah, you're
a service based business here inorlando, and I mean you can get
even more specific.
So that's one thing that will,uh, get more people to resonate

(11:07):
like, oh okay, orlando, thisisn't just some big ad or
whatever Um market call out.
Then you go right into the painpoint.
So I know you're tired ofspending hours at networking
events passing out your businesscard, trying to get your
business.
That's a pain point, um, andthen I kind of just resonated
with them, like you're good atwhat you do, you just need more

(11:27):
people to sell to every day.
Or I could say you've been inbusiness for five to 10 plus
years and you're successful, butthere's nothing more
frustrating than feeling likeyou hit a growth ceiling.
So I'm kind of resonating withthem and then you do ideal
outcome, um.
So if you want a predictable wayto grow your business without

(11:48):
having to rely on word of mouthin this type of ad strategy, I
would say give me a follow andcheck out some of my other
content to learn how.
Or if you're just running adsto a landing page, click the
link below and book a call so wecan do this.
Or you may have something thatyou're trying to give away for
free, like click the link belowto get a call so we can do this.
Or you may have something thatyou're trying to give away for
free, like click the link.
Click the link below to get afree training on my ad strategy

(12:09):
that you can implement yourself,or something like that.
So, um, and then you want toadd social proof in there.
That's huge, adding results andstuff like that so that's kind
of like a little rough breakdown, like market call out pain
point, ideal outcome.

I try to add a cta in the middle of the ad, like
follow, and then I do another.
So you're doing two cts, okay,and so so.
So let's so.
Which is amazing?
First of all, you breaking downthat, that's amazing.
But it's interesting that I didthe six years ago and I
remember doing it very similar,but I, I didn't, obviously.
But so I'm saying it's so crazyto think about that.
At least I was not doing thewrong thing.
So now they come to yourprofile, right?

(12:52):
What's the next step?
So they've come to your profile, they're following you.
Now how do you convert that toa call?
Cause?
That's the goal, right?

Ben Mangum (12:59):
Yep, that's the goal .
So the ideal situation isthey're going to watch your
other content and the idea is topost valuable content related
to what you're talking about.
I don't only post about thatstuff, like I post my life or I
post other types of stuff, justbecause I do it under my
personal brand or, you know, mypersonal page, whatever.
So I see that they followed meand then I will check out their

(13:24):
Instagram profile and I'll seethat they run a business.
A lot of times people it won'tbe obvious that they run a
business.
They may have a successful one,but they're using their
personal Instagram to follow you.
So the whole idea is to try andfind, like some type of
connection point that you canresonate with them and get them
to respond, because people areprobably somewhat used to like

(13:46):
people hitting them up and it'sjust spam or whatever.
Uh, people will copy and pastedthis message to a hundred people
, so you want to check out theirprofile and find something that
you can connect with.
So, um, maybe they have thesame type of dog as you do, or,
uh, they like to travel, orsomething like that.

(14:07):
So it's like, uh, they or theywent to a specific concert, or
So I would say, hey, first name, whatever their name is.
Um, I see, it depends.
I'm I'm trying to say multiplethings in one thing.
So either it's obvious thatthey run a business and then I'm
going to acknowledge that.
So let's say it's obvious theyrun a business.
So, hey, first name, I see yourun a tile business here in

(14:32):
Ocala.
Your work looks amazing.
How long have you been runningyour business?
And then they'll say five years, oh, cool, like, how's business
going?
Or something like that.

Like you're just having a conversation.

Ben Mangum (14:45):
Yeah, I just have a conversation with them and then,
basically after that, once Iget them to respond, in my case,
I ask them, like, so how areyou guys getting clients?
Are you mostly relying on wordof mouth?
And they'll say nine times outof ten they'll say yes and say,
oh, okay, cool.
Like, have you ever thoughtabout running local ads to get
clients from your social media?

(15:06):
Or have you ever thought aboutdoing video content to grow your
business?
And they'll say, oh, I'vethought about it, oh, cool.
Well, I'd love to get on aquick call with you to learn
more about your business andgive you a rundown on what I do
or I'm trying to, like think ofsomething specific that I
actually said, but it's yeah, Ijust say hey, I would love to
give you like a quick breakdownon a, on a call um, just to give

(15:29):
you a ton of value no salespitch, or whatever.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.
So you're I'm trying to be asspecific as possible to actually
give value compared to like ohyou just message people it, so
that's pretty cool.
So sounds like, run an ad, runit hyper, local, right and give
an exact example in the ad ofsuccess.
So they know, you know, like,give them a pain point, address

(15:52):
the local market, um, give anhyper, um you know, realistic
example of how you were able tobring success.
You know, you, you get them tofollow your profile.
That's at least one way you'redoing it.
And then the ones that come toyour profile, you kind of stalk
them.
I'm just kidding.
But then you essentially try tostart a conversation which is

(16:14):
genuine in a way, because theywouldn't have followed you if
you weren't interested in whatyou're doing.

Ben Mangum (16:18):
They followed you for a reason Exactly.

They weren't just following you because they
wanted to learn about videobusiness, because they clearly
don't do that.
No, and you told them in the adto follow you.
Exactly, so they follow throughand that means also that means
they're likely to buy, becausethey did follow through with the
call to action.

Ben Mangum (16:36):
Yeah, and it's a very low barrier to entry.
Call to action, like you're nottelling them to fill out a form
, which that can work too, butyou're only going to get people
who are like a very hot lead.

Like oh yeah, we need video right now.
Yeah, at that point you knowyou're going to close or there's
a high chance you can close.

Ben Mangum (16:52):
That is a much higher chance than this strategy
, but you can attract.
The cool thing is you canattract different levels of
interest, like super highinterest, medium interest, low
interest.

Sometimes you get people who just exactly follow
you, for whatever I did that, um, initially, for years, like my
website, there was no way todirect contact me without
filling out a huge form.
And what I found, though, thatthe leads that came in were
incredibly, um, ready to buy.
Because they took that effort,they were ready to buy, but the
here's the opposite side of it.
Ever since I stopped doing that, I do get a ton more leads, and
sure, a few of them are not,you know, I would say, good
leads, but we are closing peoplethat I know for a fact wouldn't

(17:30):
have filled out, yeah, thathuge form because they weren't
even sure about what they'relooking for, right, they're just
like, hey, I know I need video,and so they can't fill out a
form and they don't even knowwhat they want for sure.
So there's, there's strategiesto both, and uh.
So, so now you've reached out,you get on a call with them,
right, they're ready to buy, orthey're ready to at least hop on
a call with you.
What's your focus on the call?

Ben Mangum (17:53):
I mean, I just do a regular sales meeting with them.
I tell them like oh, I'll tellthem like, yeah, let's get on a
call.
I'll give you a quick breakdownon how it is, but like you do a
sales call, quick breakdown onhow it is, but like you do a
sales call like you just, oh,like cool, Tell me a little bit
about your business.

They tell you, and then you figure out the pain
point, the actual pain point forthem Exactly.

Ben Mangum (18:12):
So I've dabbled with a few different ways to do this
.
So, um, at first I was doingstraight into an hour long zoom
call, which works too.
Or some people, if they'resuper local to you, go right
into a coffee in-person meeting.
However, they're not qualifiedat all, so you could be wasting
a lot of your time by doing that.

(18:34):
So, and that's where that formcomes in, like you were talking
about, but by doing a 10 minutephone call you can qualify them
like oh yeah, we've been inbusiness five years, we've been
um, we're doing 50 000 a monthor whatever.
We want to get to 100 000 amonth.
So yeah, there's different waysthat I've experimented of what

(18:55):
works, because I don't use thediscovery form anymore either
because, like they came inthrough an ad, you message them
like it could just be a limitingbelief, but I'm not just going
to send a form over this longform over it, cause I'm kind of
on offense with these ads.
Um so, um, yeah, a lot of timesI will do like a 10 minute quick

(19:17):
phone call, like okay, theyweren't a dick, like all right,
they have a business.
I felt like I could help them.
So I give them a very briefrundown of what I offer.
So, like, I asked them abouttheir business, their goals,
pain points, just very briefly,and then I share a little bit.
Yeah, so, like, what I do is, um, you know, I teach my clients

(19:38):
how to do the exact thing thatgot you into my world.
So, um, you know, we create thecontent for you and then we
help you run local ads to helpyou get more customers.
So it's like super vague, but,um, you know, I'd love to you
know, typically, what I do is Imeet people in person.
That way you get a vibe for me,I get a vibe for you, that way
you like understand who youcould be working with.

(19:59):
Um, and then I can, you know,dive a little bit deeper into,
like, what you're looking toaccomplish with your business,
and I can share my exact processof how this works.
So I do a quick qualifier calland then I either do in person
or like a zoom call.

So, so what?
So let's look at a few examplesof um, uh, what would they say
that would make you not qualifythem?

Ben Mangum (20:21):
Mm, they, they want to start a business or they've.
I mean, this can kind of depend.
They maybe they just startedand their revenue is super low.
But, however, I just spoke tosomeone today that started three
months ago but they did like 50000 in revenue.

They're so they have the money to run ads.

Ben Mangum (20:39):
Yeah, yeah, like they're good at sales, they're
obviously like running abusiness.
It's not like they made acouple hundred or a few thousand
bucks because I wouldn't beable to pay a few thousand bucks
.

You know what I'm saying?
That wouldn't be their priority, obviously, especially when,
when they can't even pay theirbills yet.
Yeah, so that's a big one likerevenue.

Ben Mangum (20:57):
Um a big one would be like products.
Me personally, I don't do likeproduct-based businesses like
service-based businesses yeah, Idon't know.
I feel more confident that Icould help them compared to like
, oh, I want to.
I I don't even talk to peoplewho have products, so I can't
even.
But you know what I'm saying?

(21:17):
Yeah, I know I do both.

I mean, obviously, products are a lot easier.
To be honest, I love doingproduct videos because I don't
have to go to location.
Most of my shoots are travel oryou know whatever go in a
location.
However, just like you, Iprefer service-based businesses,
because here's the thing, aslong as they say what they do
which is my qualifier right likethey're like, oh, we're a good
plumber, I have to make surethey're a good plumber yeah but

(21:38):
outside of that, here's, here'sthe the issue that I find like
when somebody needs a plumber,they're googling, or they're
asking their friend like, who'sa good plumber?
they all say, yeah, we're a goodplumber, right, and it's a
website, or blah, blah, blah.
Then how do I know who I wantin my house fixing my pipes and
not causing a disaster?
And we've all seen onlinevideos where the whole house

(21:59):
flooded because they came to fixa tiny leak and they screwed up
.
So a video to me would beamazing, because now I can see
who the owner is, what theirbeliefs are, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, and I know it would workfor me, so I know it would work
for others.
So, which is why I think kindof probably why you prefer
service-based businesses too,because we just have to show
what they're already doing great, and video is the best tool to

(22:22):
do that yeah, I mean, they'rebasically outside of selling the
service, like you're sellingthe people and there's a lot of
trust involved.

Ben Mangum (22:29):
But yeah, like people are coming into your home
or, uh, it costs a lot of moneyto do the service, like they
don't want to just spend theirmoney with anybody.
So video allows you to createthat trust, create that
connection with people and yeah,that's what.

And yeah, because people, yeah, people people buy
from people who they know likeand trust exactly and if you
don't know them and they don'tlike you, they don't trust you.
Video is the best tool to buildthat um you know, virtually
essentially, um, so yeah, no,that's incredible.
So, okay, now you're at the uhand I know I mean we're hyper
focusing on this, but I thinkthis is a cool thing.

Ben Mangum (23:04):
Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm hoping If there's you
or people that actually want todo it that I actually told you
what to do compared to like.
Oh yeah, just run Instagramprofile ads.

It's like you wasted hundreds of dollars for
no reason on your time.
So okay, so now you met in plus.
I'm just helping.
Hopefully somebody canunderstand sales, because here's
the truth how much I am afilmmaker and I love the
creative process.
There's enough.
You know how you say brokeartists in this.
You have to be good at sales oryou'll never get anywhere, no

(23:36):
matter how good of an artist youare, and so and that's just how
it is because, again, like me,there's a million people who'll
say I'll, I'll come make a videofor you.
You don't want to be the guythat makes a video, you want to
be solving a problem right, yeahwhich I know we think very
alike.
So, um, so, coming to um, tothe meeting now, right, okay, so
they're ready, they'vecommitted.
You guys meet for coffee ortheir office or wherever you're

(23:59):
meeting.
How do you like to lead thatmeeting?

Ben Mangum (24:02):
well, I feel like we should also get very specific
yeah, no, let's get specific.
Okay down to it, yeah yeah, um,so you get in, you build a
little rapport.
So you just like, maybe you askthem where they're from.
I mean, you could build rapportover anything.
Oh yeah, this weather suckstoday it's raining, whatever.
Um, I don't know their car,where they're from.

(24:23):
So you build, like you don'tjust go right into business
right away, but you do that fora minute or so, and then I think
it's so important to set theframe for the meeting, like, you
set the agenda and basicallyall you do is like cool man.
So I have an hour set aside tomeet with you today.
I'd love to learn more aboutyour business and where you guys

(24:45):
are at.
So, typically, typically, theway I run these meetings is I
want to learn more about yourbusiness.
I'm going to ask you a ton ofquestions just to like get
really clear on what you want toaccomplish.
I'm going to ask you about youknow, revenue and where you're
at currently and where you'retrying to go to, and then, if I
feel like I can help you, I canshare a little bit more about
what I do and what our processis, and I can give you a quote

(25:08):
in this meeting today.
You know, does that sound fair.
Okay, so like whatever you're,yeah, like whatever your offer.
Maybe you do a second meeting,that's fine.
You got to go build a proposal.
But just tell them that likehey, you know I want to get a
clear understanding of whereyou're at.
I'm going to ask you a ton ofquestions.
I like saying I'm going to askyou about money.
I don't say that, but you knowI'm going to ask you about, you
know, revenue goals where you'reat currently.

(25:29):
That like helps me mentallybring up the money question
without like feelinguncomfortable so like I ask them
ahead of time like hey, is thiscool?
Like does that sound good?
And they say yes, they agree toit.
That does that sound good?
And they say yes, they agree toit.
Um, that was a huge gamechanger for me, because I
remember a couple meetings wherethey just walk all over you

(25:50):
like they're the ones asking youquestions.
They're talking so much aboutjust whatever, um, and then
basically at some point they'relike okay, well, how much is it?
and you just like you have nocontext or yeah yeah, or like
you just don't have anyauthority either, like you
didn't position yourself well.
So I think, like setting theframe is huge, and I think, like

(26:11):
I used to make that mistake too.
Do you do that as well?
No, yeah.

That's pretty great.
I always again not just like,but again very similar though I,
if I am having in-personmeetings, which, to be honest,
nowadays I'm just like, I likequalified leads, just oh yeah,
of course so they're alreadysold.
At this point I'm just tryingto figure out the pain point.
But, yes, if I'm having a coldoutreach or killed any kind of
person that I don't know thatwell, I am always setting the
agenda as in like hey, uh,thanks for meeting with me.

(26:37):
Just like you said, the.
So the goal today is to figureout exactly how video can help
in your business, and once Ifigure that out, I'll be able to
give you an investment amountthat you need and then we can go
from here is that, is that?
Does that sound good?
you know, I like how you saidyeah, exactly, yeah, that's nice
because if because my wholething is honesty I've learned

(26:57):
very quickly in this thing thatbecause, again, I had a sales
job before this, right, I had 15people or whatever under me and
I was a manager or whatever andI was like I don't want to do
this, I don't want to.
It was miserable life I don'twant to do.
Obviously I want to do sales,but I don't want to do it like
how traditionally it's done.
The whole point of this companywas to make my passion into my

(27:19):
work, right.
So if I'm going to be miserable, I don't want to do it.
So my whole strategy since thebeginning and it may not be the
best strategy has been just behonest.
So I genuinely go in a meetinggoing like I'm how can I help
this person?
And if I can't help this person, I will honestly be like look,
video isn't right.
Like you said, you need morerevenue or you need something

(27:40):
else first before video comes in, because every business does
need video.
It's just video may not be thesolution to the problem they
have currently yeah and as longas I approach it with honesty, I
feel like the person can seethrough that and we can have a,
like you said, honestconversation, because that's all
we need to get to where we needto be yeah we're not trying to

(28:01):
bs them with anything just justfor the sake of it.

Ben Mangum (28:05):
Right like we're busy too.
We're trying to have some trickquestions exactly.

Yeah, because our goal is the same that their goal
is, which is what the problemis.
It's just funny enough.
You think they're businessowners, uh, and I'm sure you've
noticed in your meetings.
Half the time they don't reallyknow what the core problem is.
No, because they'll say, ohyeah, we want to make more money
, and but you have to deep dive,like, okay, so why are you not
making money?
Is your product good?

(28:29):
Is your service good?
Like, where's the lack?
Is it just you don't have toomany employees, or are you
losing leads?
Are you not closing leads?
Like we have to narrow it downto the actual problem, to offer
a video.
Exactly, yeah, cause how manytimes have you gotten a call
where like, hey, I need a video,okay what video?
And they're like I don't knowwell that that could mean

(28:50):
anything I don't know I couldmake a movie about your business
for 10 million dollars.

Ben Mangum (28:54):
I don't know, what do you want like?

because that's like a wider.
It's like going to a restaurantsaying, go give me food what?

Ben Mangum (29:02):
what do you want, yeah?

what do you like?
Do you have any allergies?
right, like anyway that's funny,I think right, oh yeah, for
sure I think very similar, butobviously I'm not running ads,
um.
But, like I said, to be honestat this point, I don't even like
to do that much cold stuff.
Um, I like to meet with peoplethat either I have worked with
or that they've been referred toby somebody else because they

(29:23):
are.
I don't need to.
I don't like to sell myselfright, I know what I'm capable
of.
I've already made, the last sixyears, 500 million plus revenue
generated for the people whoworked with me.
I don't want to go and be like,yes, I can make you money,
because that's not what I'mselling.
I'm selling is great lookingvideos that hopefully solve a

(29:44):
business problem and my otherclients tell me that they work.
I've not had one client tell methey didn't work, so clearly
I'm doing something good, yeah,but I don't want to go in a
pitch.
You know, be like I'll make you10x revenue, because what if
they don't?
and then they're like well, youdidn't make it you know anyway,
but yeah, yeah, but when?
they come as a warm lead.
They already know what, whatyou do Right.

(30:04):
Then at that point I'm justtrying to figure out the pain
point and then can we do it.
And the biggest X factor, forme at least, is budget.
So sometimes they just don'thave the budget to make video
and I don't want to make a videothat's not matching their brand
level, like I've had where theyhave a, an, an app with
millions of followers, right,and I budgeted them.
They wanted like an overallvideo like 10 grand, which is

(30:26):
very low budget for a, for avideo, um, at that scale.
But then they were like oh, weonly have two, three grand and
anyone else would have been likesure, I want the two, three
grand, but I know I can'tjustice to the app with millions
of followers, it's not gonnamatch, right, the video is not
gonna be the quality that peopleexpect an app like that to be.
Then at that point you go heylook, it's not going to match

(30:47):
your brand's guidelines and Iknow for a fact nobody, anyone
can't do that.
Um, but here's, when you'reready, just give me a call back.

Ben Mangum (30:55):
Like you know that that's yeah, that always feels
good, yeah, anyway back to backto where we're outside my
tangent.
Yeah, I love it.

Uh, so so okay, so you've you're, you've set the
agenda and hopefully there's abuy-in.
Actually, let's go the otherway.
I want to know what if theydon't have a buy-in?
Have you had somebody go?

Ben Mangum (31:11):
I know that's not good or no, what they don't have
a buy.
Oh no, I never.
Okay, that would be what I wantto learn.
No, sir, no, I can't okay.
No, you've always had a buy-in,so that's great, of course yeah
, so they bought in.

Um, then you obviously, I'm guessing I don't
know, let me know if there'smore to in depth in here, but
I'm guessing you just run themeeting, which is what asking
about the revenue?
Exactly and um what else?
I mean what?
What are typically you tryingto find out?

Ben Mangum (31:38):
um, I would say I want to get clear on what they
offer because sometimes peoplecould like you can make
assumptions and that's not whatthey're focused on, or something
like.
Like someone, I was talking tosomeone today that have a tile
shop, but I just wanted to getclear that they wanted to focus
on installation like flooringinstallations and I assumed they
mostly did tile, but reallythey mostly do like vinyl plank

(32:02):
and wood flooring.
So you know if I just assumed oh, you want to get more showers,
then I start talking like that.
It kind of makes me look like adickhead, like you know you're
just making assumptions.
So I like to just get clear onwhat their offer is.
Ask them about their salesprocess.
So like, how are you like?
What does it look like?
Somebody finds your business?

(32:23):
You know, are you doing anin-person estimate?
Or you know, are people findingyou on Google and then they're
filling out a form.
So that can kind of just helpyou get a little creative on
what videos make sense to helpthem out.
So I'm just trying to think ofexamples that are different than
just asking them what theirgoals are and what their pain
points are, and what's the typeof typical videos that you are

(32:45):
selling out of these?
Yeah, just an example.

I know they're probably wide variety of them
but what?
Are the common ones mostly inlast year.

Ben Mangum (32:53):
I mostly did short form, I think.
I did about only three or fourbrand videos like video business
cards, which is crazy.
I used to do a lot of those.
Uh, so you're focusing more onwhat Instagram TikTok stuff like
that Like vertical contentessentially yeah, okay, I mean,
hey, it pays the bills, it paysthe bills.
Look, I was very againstvertical video.

for a long time I've turned around, so I'm all
for it.

Ben Mangum (33:14):
Make horizontal great again.

Look, I don't know why people can't turn their
phone this way, but we have, asa society, accepted vertical
content.
So as filmmakers, we have tolearn to adapt and if we don't
adapt, we're going to leftbehind.
Funny enough, the society isstill okay with that, with Brian
videos.
So if you go to their website,people are absolutely okay
turning the phone, but if it'son TikTok, instagram, facebook,

(33:37):
whatever, people don't want to.
People don't want to turn theirphone around.
Um, but at the end of the day,like again, you're good, you're,
you're, you're tapping themarket instead of just being
that.
That Dick filmmaker I was a fewyears ago saying I know, not
for me, then you're losing allthat business, right.

Ben Mangum (33:53):
That's crazy.
Yeah, so that's funny.

I mean, it's not crazy, but it You're here to
make money, your business, youhave to go where what the market
wants to pay you for I mean sono, that's very smart on your
side.

Ben Mangum (34:10):
I enjoy the brand videos, though I like doing the
longer format stuff.
So I've kind of, when you starthaving several clients who are
doing short form, I think it'sall mindset, but sometimes I get
burnt out on reels.

I'm like.

Ben Mangum (34:24):
This is not but then , sometimes when you do the
brand videos you're like oh,that felt really good.
Whether you're interviewingthem or you can.
You're kind of more proud ofthe final piece.
It's more of a portfolio piece.

It's very impactful to them overall,
because I find, and tell me thisso you're doing reels, but the
reels have a very short life.
Yeah, so you know a day or two,maybe, I don't know, a week,
but they're gone, you knowthere's no uh, very few people
are scrolling back um, you know,and looking at old content
nowadays, so so they don't havethe life like a brand video

(34:58):
would no, not at all.

Ben Mangum (35:00):
and I I want to get back to pitching more brand
videos because I was thinkinglike, okay, I'm just doing these
Instagram ads, like peoplearen't going to their website
unless they're coming fromGoogle or whatever.
But then I kind of realized I'mlike, okay, we can make a brand
video, then just pin it totheir Instagram or you know what
I'm saying, so I'm like causeit, it does make sense it, it

(35:23):
does make sense.
There's more work, it's morecost on their end.

But, like I, think it's worth it.
Yeah, if it's the rightbusiness, you know.
So let's say the meeting's gonegreat, the, the.
The content is what they want.
They want the um, you know, thevertical videos or whatever the
ads that you're selling them.
What's the package that you'retypically trying to make for
them and how do you present thecost?

Ben Mangum (35:40):
so the deliverables have changed.
I keep doing that littleaustralian show.

It's just me thinking so, yeah, what are the
deliverables and how many?
To me that's very important, Iknow it's gone less and less and
less for the same price.
That's how it needs to be.

Ben Mangum (35:55):
Yeah, so at first I was doing like 30 videos plus
teaching them the ads for 8Kwhich is, I think, a really good
price.

Yeah, no, very good price.
30 videos, yeah, yeah.
And then I was like oh, this isa lot.

Ben Mangum (36:09):
So then I did 24, and now I'm pitching 18,.
I think yeah, honestly,sometimes I'm like you just get
a gut feeling.

You're like dude, I'm doing less video, so you're
playing with the numbers still.

Ben Mangum (36:23):
yeah, it's still three months of content.

Yeah, so it's just less videos per month, yes, uh
yeah, so so how do you come upto the number?
Six is the perfect number for amonth, right now at least,
because you know I'm guessingthat's how you get to 18 yeah,
actually now I'm thinking aboutit, I mostly do eight videos a
month.

Ben Mangum (36:41):
Okay, that's what I'm at.

Because it's twice a week.
It kind of sounds nice.
So 24, yeah.

Ben Mangum (36:46):
Yeah, you can easily do six a month.
It doesn't matter.

Yeah, I mean the end day, it's the value of the
content.
Okay, so let's say sure, let'sstick with that one for now.
So two twice a week.

Ben Mangum (37:06):
Oh my yeah, oh my bad, go ahead, no, no, go ahead.
No.
I was gonna say like I'm evendown to talk to you of just like
advice from you of how I canadjust my offer, because some I
go back and forth all the time.
I guess it's the problem ofoverthinking of what's working
or how you want to structurestuff and so no, and I'm happy
to you know tangent there.

But personally, to be real, uh, that's why I'm
talking to you I don't sell thatmuch vertical content when I do
okay, I'm trying to sell.

Ben Mangum (37:21):
I need to stop acting like this and act like no
, yeah, yeah, you, you're no,y'all, no, you're doing better
than me and vertical.

But now we do sell vertical.
I've actually have so funnyenough, I say I don't.
I've sold it since long, longago, before I was production
company, because social mediahas been around a long time.
I remember at one point it wassquare videos because that's
what was popular on facebook,but the so yeah, so we've always
uh, I say that you know, like,I don't like vertical, but we've
done at different aspect ratiosall the time yeah, um, but the

(37:50):
um, the way I sell packages isall encompassing, meaning I want
to do a brand video, a coupletestimonials, then we'll throw
hey, we'll give you a few ads torun on social media, so so it's
always part of a bigger package.
I'm not just selling, and if youwant to talk about disaster,
that was when I did try to sellonly vertical content.
You know about that.
A couple of years ago I did tryto pivot into a separate part

(38:15):
of my business, oh, like cheapediting or something.
No social edge is what I calledit.
Yeah, yeah, no social edge iswhat I called it, where we were
going to try and, uh, just pitchvertical content.
It didn't go well for me and Ijust realized I've marketed
myself so much as the thefilmmaker guy they talk about me
in, which is good.
I mean, hey, I'm proud of it.
But the businesses at least Iwork to talk to me as the
premium, better quality goodchoice, which I think again, my

(38:39):
prices are too low, but stillthat's what they consider me.
Then I found that when I waspitching them this, you know, a
whole month of content for acouple thousand bucks.

Ben Mangum (38:48):
They didn't want it because they were like, so
that's what I'm saying.

I was like dude, I will make you one video for
five grand or I will make you awhole month of content for two
thousand dollars.
Which one do you want?
And they were like, oh, we wantthe one.
So it was like oh, so I am notthe guy they want to come to for
cheap content, which is fineCause, remember, I wasn't even
going to be the man making it.

Ben Mangum (39:08):
The only way financially I could work it was
build a team, you know, andanyway point is yeah, I have not
had some coincidences in there,like some variables that you
just won't really really know,like maybe it's just how the
client felt or just that client.
So I mean, of course you couldsell vertical client like your
quality is amazing, so, but yeah, also it.

(39:28):
Maybe there's a factor ofreputation, but at the same time
you need quality.

I think actually videos that are not that good
quality do well on social mediayeah, you really don't, because
people are expecting.
You know, uG likeuser-generated content that is
made with iPhones.
So I think that type of videosdo better.
Yeah, like I was talking about,my research shows that you got
to be louder and chilly and youknow, high energy, basically,

(39:54):
and fast-paced, moving, fastcuts completely opposite of what
I would call high qualitycontent.
Where we're, you know, we'repacing ourselves.
To me, uh, when I'm making avideo, a pace like sometimes
just a pause, is worth so muchto create, tell that story.
You can't do that on socialmedia.
Somebody's gonna just alreadygo to the next thing, you know I

(40:15):
don't know.

Ben Mangum (40:16):
Yeah, yeah, yes, similar and different.
Yeah, no for sure.
I mean it is interestingbecause, like, I don't think I
agree with you, but I also Ithink there's, you don't have to
yell because I swipe past thosepeople.
I think they're annoying, solike sometimes it's very nice
when people are more calm orwhatever that.

Maybe I guess you're the alternate choice, but
I think those other people aremaking millions of dollars.
Yeah, so it must work.

Ben Mangum (40:40):
Yeah, I mean no I'm not saying that what you're
saying is it doesn't work, butI'm saying you don't have to do
it one way, of course.

Yeah, you can do it the better way.

Ben Mangum (40:48):
Yeah, there's not one way to do it.
Like one of my clients, Josh,like he's not high energy like
that at all, he's like he has acountry accent.
He just kind of speaks a little.
I mean he speaks normal.

But you know what I'm saying a little slower, I
guess I feel like I'm making himsound.
Oh my goodness, controversyalready started here just uh
what are you trying to saypeople who have a country accent
talk slower, we do?

Ben Mangum (41:09):
yeah, I mean I feel like I have a little of one, but
uh no, no no, my point is isthat I mean he gets views too,
so it's it's interesting um no,I mean no, I completely with you
.

Like your strategies is incredible and uh,
and I love that.
What you're saying is is uhimportant that you don't have to
be that noise, that thatannoying person.
You can do it better and stillget sales, which is what I'm
saying.
You are succeeding doingsomething where you have to do
these annoying things to findsuccess and you're finding

(41:42):
success, um, you know, doing itbetter is the way I would put it
so but yeah, I debate.

Ben Mangum (41:50):
Going back to, um, what you were talking about.
So, like last year, I think Ionly sold maybe about three
projects that weren't just onlyvertical.
Like I did a brand video, I dida, I think we did an faq and a
testimonial and some reels andalthough they took longer, I you

(42:12):
kind of feel good that it'slike okay, those videos are
gonna last for a long time.
So I mean, that's what I usedto only do, for the most part
was like video business cards.

Yeah, I think that may be the next evolution right
, doing both or at leastoffering them the option.
Because, like we talked aboutin our meetup, the whole good,
better, best strategy right.
I'm very much a fan of becauseeven in the beginning same thing
I was like this is the offerright.
Once you've built the offer,they get one option yes or no

(42:41):
and I've slowly evolved to likeno, there's good, better, best,
because a it works humanpsychology but b you can
genuinely then be surprised whatpeople pick.
Obviously, most people are goingto pick better, right.
So essentially what you do isright for people don't know you
would um, you know you'd be thehigh I would say low cost
solution.
Then you would pick the medium,which is the solution you want

(43:02):
to sell.
You know which would have whichwould be higher price but would
have better content or bettertime spent on it, and then the
best would be.
Now here's your dream scenariothat you want to sell them to,
and most people obviously pickthe better.
But you'd be surprised how manypeople have picked the best.
They're like no, we're thebetter, the better brand and we

(43:26):
want best.
Now you're doing the value uh,it's rare.
But now you're doing theproject how you would love to do
it, right, but you didn't thinkthe client had the money to do
it.
And are there times whereyou're expecting to do better
and then they go no, we'll justtake the, the less option, but
that's better, because mostlikely they would have said no
to your regular offer.
So maybe that could be the nextevolution for you, where I do
it.

Ben Mangum (43:42):
Yeah, I do that.
Okay, so you already do thatfor sure.
Yeah, yeah.
So I mean I think I lost a tonof deals not doing that when I
first started.
I would just do like.
I mean, this is me like.
First, starting, or whateveryou're like yeah, I do a video
business card for like 2500 andlike yep, that's it, which like
some people said yeah, but somepeople yeah, you got to like

(44:03):
make it look sexy.
Yeah, exactly, I mean, hey, itworks, it does.

Yeah, but so and so and again.
I think people hyper focus onthis.
The typical a hundred thousanddollars that you got to make in
central Florida.
I feel like that's nothing, butalso it's overhyped.
But now you're past that club.
Right, you're beyond, you'revery successful, you had a great
year.
How does that feel?
Is that any different?
Like I think it's overplayed tomake over six figures, but

(44:30):
what's your opinion on that part?
Like the creators over-focus onit, or what?

Ben Mangum (44:38):
I mean I balance being grateful and then also
like I don't feel thatsuccessful yet at all.
Uh, because I feel like there'sa lot of well.

I mean I'll be honest, like I went from, like
last year I did 104 and thenthis year I did 140, so it's
really not I'm grateful, butit's not like oh, it sounds like
.
Yeah, you know, your lifedidn't change overnight.

Ben Mangum (44:56):
You're telling me not at all, and I also spent
more money unfortunately so Ineed to get better about my
finances.
So I mean, I guess I just wantto be honest with people, cause,
like, some people may bestarting out like, oh, that's
amazing and it's like, yeah, Iam grateful of where I pay my
bills, doing video full time,which is dope, um, but I also

(45:17):
feel like I have so much more togrow, or yeah, I guess that
never ends, but, um, no, it was,it was cool.
I mean, I guess, if you don'tmind, I'll share my whole
evolution, not my whole story.

But just like, absolutely like, I love numbers
go ahead.

Ben Mangum (45:33):
Um, and it's embarrassing for me to say, but
I think it's cool for peoplejust starting out maybe yeah
like covid happened.
I got laid off.
I was trying to do videofull-time, like end of 2019, but
it was part-time and it wasn't.
I don't know I was barely doingit.
And then I bought excuse me, Igot laid off from covid and then

(45:57):
so I had unemployment money soI'm like, okay, at least I know
I can like pay my rent yeah, Iguess and so I was like, screw
it, I'm gonna start the businessup, I'm gonna join networking
I'm gonna do it um, and so thatyear I only made 18 000.
Wow it was bad.

I mean, of course.

Ben Mangum (46:16):
I mean that's how a lot of time first years are, so,
but yeah, and so and my wifewas also you know, she was my
girlfriend at the time like shewas also paying quite a bit of
the bills too, like she wasunderstanding.
Like, hey, you're just startingout like you know you gotta.

It takes time to get clients shout out to
significant others man, youcouldn't do this without a
significant other whounderstands what it takes to be
an entrepreneur, but yeah, yeah,no, she's always been
supportive too.

Ben Mangum (46:39):
I think I can't imagine being with somebody who,
like, would talk shit about youstarting a business like you
still haven't landed a clientyet.

It's like can you imagine do that again.
But no, absolutely.
Yeah.
You're already going through somuch shit.
You're already working longhours.
You don't need somebody naggingyou at the end day.
You want a supportive partner.
That's very important, yeah anddude.

Ben Mangum (47:02):
I mean I.
I mean I think it was acombination of things.
My videos weren't that good.
That was the reality.
And then two just like notknowing how to sell and then not
knowing how to market and Ithink when you're starting out
at least for me, like I didn'thave that much confidence either
I'm like oh, I'm like trying tomake videos for these business
owners, like you know you knowyou're putting them up on a
pedestal.
But once you get to a certainlevel it's like you're almost

(47:23):
like you need to get your shittogether.

Yeah, exactly.

Ben Mangum (47:26):
That's kind of how it feels, but uh, yeah, my
second year I only did 32,000.
It was bad still no but you jobat an ad agency, my in 2022 and

(47:47):
my salary was 75 which I waslike okay, cool, like nice, you
know I was making videos forthem basically and and so I
think I did a ton of videosduring that time that I just got
more confident with my skills.
So then when I went backfull-time 2023, I did 104.
So, like my point, I guess mymoral of the story is like when
I was doing 1832, I looked at ahundred thousand, like it was
this huge thing, like oh my God,and then I think just naturally

(48:07):
I did it that fourth orwhatever.
Yeah, when I went back and dida hundred last year or 2023,.
Um, I did was like, oh, that'snot that crazy, like it was cool
, I'm grateful, but like, andthen this year I feel like I
could have done so much more.

A lot of times I find myself being very lazy, but
that's just how we are.
We're critical of each other,of ourselves, but no, that's an
incredible journey.
I remember when you had comeback full time after the ad
agency and I couldn't understandit.
But now I get it.
See, the thing is, if you'renot confident, it is better to
go work for someone and actuallyget the skills up, or at least

(48:47):
your confidence up, becausehere's the truth you're helping
somebody in their business, orscale their business, or even if
they're just their marketingdepartment, you're doing their
branding.
And if you don't want toembarrass yourself and get
yourself blacklisted, right um,and then the biggest thing I
tell people is uh, don't playaround with somebody else's

(49:08):
money, and and the easiest thingin this business is you don't
need to.
the advice that I give people isyou don't need to own anything,
you don't need to investanything or know anything as
long as, as long as you'regenuinely interested and
genuinely want to do something.
Just look people around in thearea, like Ben, who are already
doing what you want to do, andI'm pretty sure tell me if I'm

(49:30):
wrong if somebody hits you upand said hey, ben, I'm
interested in what you're doing,I would love to get a cup of
coffee, what would your answerbe?
Yeah, for sure.
Exactly right, so you surroundyourself with people, want to be
.
Obviously don't take advantageof them, but I'm pretty sure
somebody came and said look, uh,tell me I used to do it.
Yeah, exactly, and I'm sayingand tell me if it's different.
There's two types of people.

(49:51):
One would just hook you up, hey, I'll come for free work.
Usually you'll say no right, ifsomebody you've never met,
never had a coffee, juststraight up like, hey, want to
learn, I'll just come to yourshoot.
Yeah right, you're not bringingthem on.
But if they made an effort theywere like, hey, here's coffee.
They met you a couple of times.
Now you know the person.

Ben Mangum (50:09):
They're not going to fuck up your set.

I'm pretty sure you'll be inclined to take up
them off or you me free.
Slowly you could upgrade, maybeeven pay them a little, and
that's how you learn way, waybetter and faster.
Until you're confident, thenyou go.
Okay, ben, now I'm gonna hireyou right, and to me that's just
how it works.

Ben Mangum (50:30):
I think that's the best thing someone can do.
I wish I did that 10 times, 100times more, when I, in those
first two years where I wasstruggling like I was too much.
I mean it is what, like youknow, I was trying to run my
business, or you're trying tonetwork, and which, like I'm
glad I did, but like I remember,I went on.
Uh, you may know him, kyleLoftus.
He's here in Orlando and I wasfamiliar yeah.

(50:52):
Yeah, you, you may have seen him, but and, um, I just remember,
like I followed him on Instagramor something and I saw that he
was in Orlando and then I thinkit just offered to be a PA or
I didn't ask for money and yeah, I was on there.
I was like, oh, this is dopeLike for me personally.
It basically just validated,like, oh, this is the same thing

(51:13):
I'm doing, it's still the samethree point lighting setup.
They just have better gear thanme.
Or you know it's just a fanciercamera, and I saw how he was
talking to the client.
I'm like, okay, I do that samething and it just gave me a lot
of validation of like you're onthe right path.
You just need to keep levelingup, keep going, and I wish I did
that way sooner to anybodywho's doing it and, uh, I would

(51:37):
have just learned so much fasterbeing like a PA or just cause I
would do.
There's been a few like clientstories where I'm trying to set
up equipment I didn't know howto set it up.

It's so embarrassing.
Oh wow, can you hear one ofthose?
You don't have to tell us thename of the client, but yeah,
dude, my first free gig um.

Ben Mangum (52:02):
I had one of those shitty light boxes where you
can't even adjust the intensity.
It's just one that you likeflip on like an Amazon light and
like it has I mean just likeany softbox it has a little
metal prongs.

Yeah, you have to.
And, dude, I could not get itlike through the thing.

Ben Mangum (52:13):
And I'm messing with it for like literally 20
minutes and we're like almostready to shoot, and it was just
so.
Also, my I used to like ask mywife to come help me out on set,
like she was there, and shemakes fun of me sometimes, like
yeah, you remember when you yeahso it wasn't a huge deal.
But I just remember lookingback like, yeah, that's kind of
an example, nothing bad happenedit was good experience, but

(52:36):
like that's an example where youcan kind of like ruin your
reputation almost like if you doa bad job when you're first
starting out.

So like I was kind of the opposite, where I had
been making for a few yearsvideos for a few years, but like
I still sucked, like I didn'tknow lighting, I was kind of
just doing it or whatever, but Istarted selling clients, like
because I joined that, the howto sell facebook, yeah, look at
that yeah, which I think that'show we initially met, right,
yeah, I'm pretty sure Idiscovered you in that group and

(53:05):
then, um, uh, when I was movingback to south as an orlando,
left a few years for alabama,then came back, and when I did I
was looking up who was localand I think you came nice, yeah,
yeah.

Ben Mangum (53:16):
No, I just think there's a lot of people who get
really good at filming but theystill don't have the confidence
to sell.
But I was kind of doing theopposite.
Looking back, my videos sucked,but I was still trying to sell.
Yeah, I mean, that's whatmatters.

Look, I'm telling you, like I said, I'm a
filmmaker first, personally, Ithink then salesperson, but
here's the truth Filmmakers aredime a dozen.
Good salespeople are rare.
So if you're going to learn anyskill, yes, ideally you should
know both.
You should be a good filmmakerand you should be good at
selling, because even if you'rehiring other people, you need to
be able to judge them.

(53:50):
If you don't know what you'relooking for, then you wouldn't
have a good crew.
But coming back to it, I thinkyou're far better off listening
to, like, what you told about adstrategy, getting clients
running meetings.
Because guess what, if you have, let's say, zero knowledge of
video production and all youhave to do is go out and hire
people who are good at it?
Right, a lot of people forgetthat.

(54:12):
Yeah, a lot of people don'tthink about that.
Like, video production is acollaborative thing.
Nobody can be good at it.
And even video, a lot of peoplethink it's a one-person job.
You know, lighting is somebodyelse's job, sound is somebody
else's job, camera is somebody'sjob.
You know these are 50 jobs thatone person is trying to
accomplish together.
You're not going to be good atit.
It doesn't matter how good youare.

(54:33):
You could be master of one, butnot everything.
So at some point, especially ifyou're trying to scale to hire
videos, you have to collaboratewith others.
So you're better off justhiring somebody and getting good
at sales until you're confidentin your skills.
Now you've seen them do 10times and you're like okay, I
know, I can do it.

(55:03):
Or you know like, and thenthat's okay, if you want to nick
some crew, make some extraprofit, but at the end of the
day, I don't know why people getso gung-ho about not hiring
professionals and just doingeverything themselves, because
people will gladly pay you fivegrand.
And now you're fiddling with,like you said, lights.
Then you know, rather, youwould have paid someone a couple
thousand dollars to do it andyou would have still made three
grand profit and look like achampion.

Ben Mangum (55:18):
Right, I don't think that's a bad strategy.
I wish I did that way sooner,did I was?
I mean, really it was because Iwas selling low budget videos
so I'm like I need all of thismoney.
That was kind of the real and Iwas full time.
So, yeah, there's a lot ofthings I would have done
differently, but once I hiredsomebody, like good, they had a
lot of equipment it was justeverything was better.

(55:40):
Yeah, you get cool bts exactly,plus you know you're able to
focus on what matters most,which is the client right,
exactly because you should be onyour shoot focus, because
that's what I do on my shoots.

If I'm touching equipment, obviously I'll help
move stuff.
Then something's going wrong,because I should be focused on
the client yeah and running theset.
I shouldn't be, and it's notthat I don't love to.
Obviously part of me wants tolike set up every light, set up
every camera, change everylittle setting.
But the truth is I have tofocus on running the whole set
and make sure, like you said,the shoot goes smoothly and the

(56:11):
client is happy.
That is the most important thing, and I can't do that if I'm
going to try and be thetechnician.
So I'm sure now, when youstarted bringing people in, your
clients are happier right yeah,I'd say so.

Ben Mangum (56:23):
I think it's just overall a more fun time there's
more people like.
If you have people on set thatyou gel with, you know it's a
better quality video.
Most of the time I mean in myexperience you know um yeah,
you're less stressed and you'remore focused on the client maybe
I it kind of made me better atlike planning or like better at
like communicating with theclient maybe I it kind of made
me better at like planning orlike better at like
communicating with the clientbecause you're not worried about

(56:45):
lighting for the

most part, like you know, you check the camera
to make sure it looks good butyeah, and I'm sure your skills
as a, as a technical person oras a creative person uh,
filmmaking side have improvedtoo.
Right, just having other people, because you're now learning
from many different.
Yeah and yeah, and you've gotto communicate better.

Ben Mangum (57:01):
And I think it makes you more decisive too.
That was one thing like lookingback.
I'm like man, I was soindecisive and not confident as
a director, and that's reallyimportant.
It's one thing to you know youneed to get open to feedback and
you're open-minded, but at thesame time, get more clear on
your vision and what you want itto look like, and stuff like
that.
I think that just makes for abetter set and better end result

(57:24):
.
So, yeah, I would.
I would have hired people a lotsooner on set, most definitely
I completely agree.

And that was, uh, my strategy day one.
I had first shoot as aproduction company, but I'd done
enough freelance to kind oflearn from it.
So, uh, first thing I literallywas like I gotta, I gotta have
bts, I gotta have assistance.

Ben Mangum (57:44):
I gotta have a producer.

I had julie, you know.
She was my producer and at thattime she was not that much
interested in video production.
Because I was like no, no, no,you couldn't come.
This is your script, this isyou're gonna keep us, you know,
in line and everything, and shedid great.
But the point is like we had afull crew, like it wasn't just
me.
I was like that was my thingfrom day one.
I'm a production company.
It's a company.
It's not me and I feel like thatkind of helped me, yeah, and

(58:07):
helped me propel, but it helpedme.
First day I realized I was sofocused on the client and the
experience I would have neverbeen able to do had I not had
that crew with me.
Because because I was able toliterally be like, hey, bring
the soft box and, you know, setthe slider up, can you put this
chair in this angle, whatever,like there was people helping do

(58:28):
everything and I was able tofocus on then directing.
And I know for a fact, had Ibeen like messing with every
little thing, the productwouldn't have been as good.
And obviously I made tons andtons of money from that first
shoot because I was able to getmore work out of that and I
don't think it would havehappened had I not done that.

Ben Mangum (58:48):
I need to do that way better I think you're doing
great.

But I mean to be real, coming back to your side,
what you're doing.
Unless you're doing your backto your brand stories or
testimonials or other stuff, Idon't think vertical content
needs a crew.

Ben Mangum (59:00):
Typically yeah, testimonials or other stuff.
I don't think vertical contentneeds a crew.
I typically yeah, I'd say maybe70, maybe even 80 of the time I
don't have help, but you don'tneed it for vertical content.
Yeah, I'm just outside, eitherhandheld with a lav mic, or
maybe I have a gimbal.

That's the most.
Yeah, now I see that would bechanging if you're doing back to
like your brand story or stufflike that right.

Ben Mangum (59:22):
Anytime I did that, I always hired it honestly.
A lot of times I just hire oneperson.
I'd hire the dp, and then Iwould just be helping setting up
lights too for a con.

You know talking head if that's what you're doing
, yeah, it's fine, yeah yeah,that was all, all interviews and
stuff like that, or I'd hire asecond person to corporate video
is so wide scale like I've beenon sets where we're doing
talking head and it's just meplus whoever's like directing,
producing, for example, if I'mthe dp and I set up everything.
And then I've been on setswhere we're doing the same thing

(59:54):
talking head but we have like15 crew, we have alexas and cook
lenses and I've set up likebook lights and so much.
Set design.
Even at a set design point islike it can go uh, from really
high scale, but at the end dayyou're just doing a talking head
, it's just the scale is so wideit's crazy.
Yeah, but that's awesome.

(01:00:15):
You've been on any large setsyet or no.

Ben Mangum (01:00:16):
No, I would love to, just to experience it.
For what's?

Vipul Bindra (01:00:19):
crazy for me is technically I've hired you, but
I was not there.
That annoys me, because I'vebeen wanting to work with you
for years and I technically didbring you in at least once, I
was lucky enough.
And then I was somewhere.
I don't know where I was, I wasNashville or somewhere I was
traveling.
I know for a fact I was not intown and so that kind of sucked

(01:00:40):
sucked so you've technicallybeen on my set without me being
there.

How was that experience?
That was cool.
That was a large set for me,but there was maybe eight people
, yeah, six to eight people atleast.

That was a big set , and I wasn't even there,
that's it was annoying because Ihad a, I had you on and I think
I kind of let you even leadbecause I was like I knew you
had experience with interviewsand stuff.
So I was like, hey, if you'redoing any interviews, feel free
to ask questions or whatever.
Yeah, because at the end dayyou know it's not scripted again
, it's just basic questions yeahum, and I knew you had done

(01:01:06):
enough, uh brand videos orwhatever to know, what to do
about it uh well, the cool part.

The cool part was that I've worked with emmanuel,
I don't know maybe five timesand he was the dp, so it was
honestly very just collaborative.
It wasn't even almost like Iwas running it.
If that makes sense, I'm prettysure I had a producer.

I had Julie there producing too.

So I think you had a good crew with you, and then
other people too.

They were all like .
Everyone had worked before.
So, like I said, the onlyunfortunate part is I wasn't
there.

But I think it went smooth right.

Yeah, for sure.
I hope you learned somethingout of it.

I don't know what, because like I wasn't there, I
mean, I learned that the fx6slook very nice yes, they do, I
learned that this big lightsource looks very nice yes, it
does there you go um?

no, it was cool, I just no the thing with light is
, you know, I was chilling, Iwas just asking people questions
to be honest, yeah, I mean, hey, I'm glad you got paid to do
that.
Yeah, no, uh, to be honest, Idid learn, sorry, I did learn
you were.

I'm like wow, he's very organized, not only just
the planning, the pre-production, but then also even just like
the cart, like on the day of theshoot I was like, oh, this is,
this is the next level, andfunny enough, like I wasn't even
there, uh, but but that's mything, you know to.

To be real, like, yeah, if I had to be call myself
anything, I would be saypre-production king, because the
truth is, um, you have to planeverything.
That's what video is.
Most of the work is inpre-production and I think
that's what most people miss.
I had planned funny enough,like I spent very little time on
this shoot, but I still hadplanned, um, where everyone was
going to be, where the interviewis going to be, what the

(01:02:45):
lighting set it was going to be,what the cameras were going to
be, and and to be real, it wasmy typical setup.
But that that was when you guysshowed up and I wasn't even
there.
99 of the time, you guys canjust go and like somebody you
haven't you haven't even been onthat set.
At least Emmanuel had looked atthe location.
Um, you can just go and be, becreative and be successful

(01:03:07):
instead of figuring things out.
And, uh, I think the only thingthat happened that I got one
video call about something fromeither you or Emmanuel, I don't
remember, but I think you guysdid the whole thing without me,
my input, and I think it wentgreat.
Like I, the client said thatwas the best video they'd ever
seen of their company so that Imean, I don't know what else to
say, you know?

and I was so proud of it I'm like hey, I'm making
money.

I'm not even there you know that's dope.

It doesn't get any better than that right yeah, and
that's a lot of pressure, likewhen you're working with a big
company and you got a lot ofpeople.
You're not there, like Ihaven't done that.

That's dope yeah, it's really cool no, I need to
get way.

I mean, I'm just on this podcast and I need to get,
like benja but uh I need to um,I do honestly.
I do need to plan better.
I do plan like for example,you're doing a brand shoot, like
you're planning out theinterview topics sometimes the
night before, but um, chat.

Gpt is your friend nowadays are you using?
That for the social content areyou doing on the fly like off
the cuff?

I still do chat gbt quite a bit.
But so my main client, josh, hedoes roofing.
I don't really plan anythinganymore, unless for the short
form at least, because I meanI've been working with him maybe
nine months, maybe I don't knowsomething like that and like at
a certain point you kind of runout of like roofing topics.

(01:04:26):
So like most of the time weshow up he's going to a job,
he's doing an estimate or we'regoing to a project and like he
kind of just talks about what'sgoing on.
That's kind of like the vlog,kind of vlog style, just
documenting, and that works forhim, because he doesn't like the
scripted stuff.
My point is, yes, I do use chatgbt, but sometimes some of my
clients I don't.
Okay, um, I think it's reallygood for video topics, like if

(01:04:50):
you educate it a lot, you giveit a lot of information, but the
scripts can be good too.
But at the same time you needto make sure you go through and
maybe use your own words or justI don't know, sometimes it's
still yeah, it's, it's not whatI find is is it's great for
narrowing down things, as in thebrain storming part of it,

(01:05:11):
because that saves you so muchtime.

Now I don't.
I don't ever use final, so,like in the past, uh, scripted
videos.
I've had to like, hire writersand be like hey, can you write
this from?
scratch and it's annoyingbecause you know they don't know
your vision.
Now you're explaining versusnow I love is I can.
Plus, I love how the you haveto make chat gpd work I have to
go and the way I at least makeit work.
I don't know if it's right, I'mlike okay, so you're a writer

(01:05:33):
for bender productions, this isthe assignment that you've been
given.
This is the thing, and I'llliterally feed it, like the
whole thing, and I say itdoesn't take but 30 seconds.
But you know I'm typing allthis and then I enter and it's
so funny it'll generally likenarrow down to I don't know,
here's 30 concepts and I'll gookay, uh, number seven and
number 10 work great, rest aretrash.

(01:05:54):
can you work more and find memore like that?
And then that's basically.
Um, it does.
But what's amazing is all thistook me 30 seconds, so it's
insane.
30 seconds later, I have actualconcepts that I like, and now
when I go to a writer, I'm likeokay, here's your concepts that
I need you to work.
So now I brought their workfrom, let's say, I don't know,
four days, five days, to likeone day, because now all they

(01:06:15):
have to do is the brainstorming,the hardest part is reduced.
So I don, the hardest part isreduced.
So I don't think it replaceswriters, like you said.
The content it produces isstill, I think, not that good,
but it can narrow, at least forme, the concepts of
brainstorming.
Like funny enough for thispodcast.
I was like I gotta start apodcast, but this isn't paying
me, I don't have time.
So I was like what should Iname the podcast?
give me names oh, yeah, I waslike oh, I like these two, can

(01:06:37):
you give me more like that?
And then that's how I ended uppicking a name, because I'm like
whatever, who cares?
I mean it's not that big of adeal, but I spent 30 seconds on
it.

I mean that's like my, my effort with chat gpd yeah
, like you said, thebrainstorming part takes a lot
of time and just like startingand that it can help you save so
much mental energy just to likeit's already writing stuff, so
fast oh okay, boom, I forgotabout that.

I didn't think about that, so I do use it plus
I've been using this, so Ifinally upgraded my mac from m1
max to m4, m4 max, uh, macbookor whatever, and what I love is
now it's kind of integrated.
So I love I used to have to inthe past go to my emails, copy
paste, chat, gpd, bring it back.
Now you can literally rightclick and say make it more

(01:07:19):
professional, make it morefriendly, and so it can
essentially rewrite that uh, Idon't know if have you seen that
like that's so cool, so likeyou can do that, I do use it for
you, yeah but it's likestraight in the apple laptop.
Now I don't even have to go tochat gpd I haven't done that.
Yeah, that's so cool becauseit's saving me again.
That's 30 seconds.
I don't even have to goanywhere anymore.
I just go straight into theemail and just hit rewrite or

(01:07:41):
whatever and it'll just handleit.
And that's incredible.
Again, that's what I'm saying.
I don't think it replaceswriters, but it definitely helps
us make the content faster andbetter.

Absolutely yeah.
Research or ideas yeah, I useit quite a bit.

That's awesome.
So I want to and I know we'rebouncing back, but I want to,
and I know we're bouncing back.
But I want to go back to yourstructure.
So I know you said you do threemonths, eight grand whatever,
24 videos, whatever.
How do you structure pricing?
So do they have to pay you allup front, or are you splitting
them in three months or threepayments, or how do you go about

(01:08:18):
the payment aspect of it?

Yeah, so I'll either do payments so like if it's 8k,
sometimes I'll do um fourmonths at 2k, or but the content
is only for three months, soyou're giving them content
before the the payment.
Yeah, they're just doingpayments, yeah okay, uh, I'm
just, I just make it an easylike uh even even number.

Yeah, okay.

Or like sometimes it's 6K or whatever.

So what do you use ?
Like you're just setting upsome kind of invoice, Do you do
automatic?

payments.
I do HoneyBook.
Yeah, I do automatic payments,yep.

So they don't get to pick, like when the payment
comes out?
Is that true?
No, Okay.

So like, if it's on the 5th of January, it's going
to come out the 5th of February.
Dude, that changed the game.
For me, at least me personallywas like either retainer or
automatic payments.
Dude, because I remember lastyear, or even you know, those
beginning years of, like,chasing down clients for
invoices.
They're like you know,sometimes that would be like

(01:09:17):
your only client that month.
You're like dude, I need thismoney Exactly and that would
suck, suck you know you feelweird, you know just as terrible
.
And then automatic payments.
That makes you sleep a lotbetter at night.

Have you had any fail yet?
No so everything's going good,yeah everything's going good.

Yeah, I don't need that.
Juju, don't be talking about it.

Um hey, I, we were seeing what our filmmaker chad
and somebody had payment issues.
I was like, oh that seems likea nightmare.
I haven't had that in a longtime.
I've had now, um funny enough.
Again it's the low payment.
I've only had one issue everwith payment, and that too, um,
again, I I take 100 of thepayment before I do anything.

It's just what it is I need to do that, so I'll
sometimes split it, like yousaid, but that's fine, then they
still.

The other part needs to be paid before we come
out to shoot.

That's good.
There is no payment after DudeI can't.

But I've had, like you know, my partners.
I don't want to name them, butI only partner with some
organizations and obviouslythat's where you're kind of
coming a half out of my pocket.
So they signed the contract andthey were like, oh yeah, we'll.

(01:10:25):
Uh, we don't have enough moneyright now.
Can we pay you after this eventor whatever?
I'm like I don't care, you knowit's half my money anyway.
I'm not making any money onthis, this is just a bonus thing
.
And then now, four months later, there's no payment.
And then the next event iscoming up and I'm like, uh,
we're not gonna film, I can'tschedule anyone, I can't pay
editors and I pay all my creweither on the day off or before
you know, when the shoots happen.
Because, again, I want to bethat type of producer who's not

(01:10:46):
owing anyone anything.
Plus, you want to come workwith me.
Point is, I can't do that whenI haven't even received the
payment.
I can't schedule people when Idon't know how to pay them.
But that's only one time.
But either way, I didn't loseanything because the event
hasn't happened.
So I haven't lose anythingbecause the event hasn't
happened.
So I haven't scheduled anyone.
So there's no loss per se, butit is kind of annoying.

(01:11:07):
So I can't imagine.
If you've already done the work.

How that would feel.
Oh, that's happening, notgetting paid.
Yeah, yeah, that's happened tome a few times.
I would dude.
I have to start doing that.
I actually have one project nowthis is kind of crazy to say so
like I did a 50 deposit andnormally I do 50 after it's
delivered, I need to start doingon the day of the day before
the shoot.

Yeah, before the shoot or two days before the
show.
How are you gonna set it up?
I used to do that way 50 upfront and then 50 at delivery.
Thing is I don't want to, whichI mean I've never had a client
say I don't love the video, butI don't even want that risk
where they go, I don't like thevideo but I don't even want that
risk where they go.
I don't like the video that'shappening to me.
See, that's what I'm saying.
I didn't even want see.
My thing is I listen to otherpeople and I say I don't want
that.
So now it's just that, and 50%upfront and 50% before the shoot

(01:11:52):
.
That's the only split optionthey get.

And that too you, they, they agree to the budget,
and then you explain that tothem, or how would you do that?
No, it's just in the agreement.
So my proposal oh, so you don'teven tell them on the call?

Well, no, no, I can't.
If they're like, I'm like, hey,okay, so the payment is just,
uh, at the time of contractsigning, or you have the option
to split it.

You can do 50, 50 if you want to.

That's an option, and but I would only offer it
for uh, you know, if they bringit up, yeah, no, no.
Or if it's a decent amount, ifit's like 20 grand, I want to
offer it to a small business.
It depends.
Funny enough.
Clients who have money neverquestion it, my biggest clients
30 grand invoice paidimmediately.
I'm telling you, the bigger theclients get, the at least for
me I don't want to say all bigclients, but the payments come
out much easier you I'veliterally had.
Now I've had that happen whereit's like, hey, I've got a 15

(01:12:45):
grand invoice spending and theyhaven't even opened it.
Thank goodness I can track inmy proposal software when
they're opening it.
Um, so all I've had to do,funny enough, I'm like, hey, uh,
I gotta buy plane tickets.
What's going on?
And the client goes oh, sorry,didn't even look at it and then
before I can respond to thatmessage, paid screenshot.
So it's not that they weren'twanting to pay, they just didn't

(01:13:07):
look at it because they're busy.
It's always the 10 and underclients and they're like can we
split it?
We can't afford it, and that'sokay because they're small
businesses.
I need to up my prices, man,yeah, but yeah, but remember,

(01:13:33):
there's not that much profit.
That's my other side of it.
I know people talk to me andthey're like has somebody who's
done wide scale of, I would say,renting from yourself and maybe
a couple of people, right, soyou can make, and maybe an
editor, you can make 50, 60%profit, if not more.
How much do you want?
to do yourself, you edityourself, you can make that, but

(01:13:56):
anything gets bigger.
You start to bring crews in andyou start to bring better
equipment in, do you?
Have to that's very good to seeand that's a very good topic,
though I don't think you'll getrepeat clients, because here's
the truth.
Let's say you charge someone15K, right?

Okay, and you still use the same.

For one video, or two videos, let's say, because
that sounds like a realisticpackage.
We'll make you two videos,500 avideo.
Now remember, you're chargingthem $7,500 per video, plus
you're shooting them both on thesame day and then you go and

(01:14:31):
you bring the same equipment youwould have for that 3,500 video
that we were just talking aboutand the same assistance.
Are they getting the value?
Or you're making more money?
Because then guess what they'lldo?
They'll talk to their buddy onthe golf course who'll say, oh,
we hired bindra and he broughtbig lights and big setups and
the video looked nicer and therewas a bigger crew and he paid

(01:14:51):
more attention to us because hecould, because you know he had a
bigger crew and and so that'svery good way in my opinion and
again, it's not just me, it's alot of bigger shoots, the
minimum, like I I see whatyou're saying, I haven't done
that, but like what do youthink's the See to me?

I feel like, if it's not some crazy commercial, you
know you can, you're thedirector, you have a DP, you
have a PA, maybe a grip yeah anda BTS if you want Sure, grip
yeah and a bts if you want sureand you think that's.
Is that what you consider?
Having a bigger crew for abigger project, or is that a

(01:15:27):
small crew to you?

and that's what I'm saying.
It depends on the scalabilityand the client's expectations.
So, um, that's what I'm tryingto say.
It's the budget right, theirbudget and reflects the quality.
They're not just paying you 15grand because they want to and
you can get away with it.
That's what the the thing isnow.
Yes, some people do value-basedpricing yeah and, yes, you can
charge 15 grand for your videobecause you're making the

(01:15:48):
millions of dollars.
That's a completely differentsales strategy.
I'm just going by videoproduction.
Okay, what we do.
You charge them 15 grand andthen give them a video that
somebody else can make for 1500to 2000.
You're doing them disservice.
You're doing them disserviceand it's a very good way, in my
opinion, not to get hired againpersonally, because here's the
other side of it.
Now, the scalability depends onthe budget.

(01:16:09):
Now, if they say I want atalking head, right, and they're
a large national brand, theyknow what the costs are.
They're not stupid.
Oh okay, so for 50 grand theyexpect.

It kind of depends on the client, yeah exactly.

So I'm already budgeting in that we're going to
have to rent two Alexa Mini LFs, two Signature Primes, maybe a
set of Signature Primes.
I'm going to have to have DPsthat can handle that equipment.

Not everyone can operate that.
Do they talk to you about thatstuff, though it depends on?
The agency is expecting you tohave more gear, more people.

No for that budget so again, uh, some will stay
direct.
So some come with full creativelike, hey, this is the shot
deck, this is this you're justdirecting or producing it.
Here's, uh, the equipmentrequirements or whatever.
Or we want you to come up withone one or the other.
But some are still like theclients where they're like this
is what we want done.
But as long as you have priorrelationship, they let you only,

(01:17:07):
then not, but they let you justbe in charge of it.
But what I'm saying is that isthe expectation.
If I showed up with um sony fx6on that big of a shoot, not,
you know, it ain't gonna work.
Now they do have sometimeslower budget shoots.

I've had that happen .

We're like, okay, uh, we're going to do a three
camera interview.
This xyz celebrity is coming totown, right, you're going to do
that and the budget is, I don'tknow, eight grand.
Then, yes, we're going to stilluse fx6s.
That's for the same agency yeahthe budget reflects the people.
Cost is always higher than theequipment costs.

So in that scenario, with an agency there, it's like
expected for you to have, forexample, the Alexas compared to
the FX6s, like they understand.

That's at least what the demand is, but that's
why the budget is higher.

I don't think they're really nearly paying you
money.
Why would they?
They want to keep all of it.
So, okay, how about differentscenario?
Let's say uh, you know, for mypackage I did a brand video faq
and some testimonials.
I think I did an ad.
Whatever, it doesn't matter,yeah.
But let's say I charged 7500and that they didn't ask about

(01:18:16):
camera equipment it was justbusiness at that level wouldn't
care.
Yes, and so let's just say Idecided to charge $15,000 for a
brand video and a testimonialvideo.

Yeah.

Maybe we do an ad.

It still doesn't matter yeah.

Can I not just hire FX6s?

You know a DP that has the FX6 and it doesn't
Exactly.
I mean, again, you can doanything.
So it's kind of two differentscenarios, right.
Yeah, but here's the two waysto do it.

But that's more profitable.
Is what I'm trying to say?

Yes, so there you go.
There's two ways to do it.
One is you just make moreprofit.
You do the exact same thing youwould have for $15,000 and you
just put the extra $75,000 inyour pocket.
Can you absolutely do that?
Absolutely.
If the client will come back toyou and you give them a product

(01:19:03):
that's worth 15k, why wouldn'tthey, why wouldn't you do that?
Absolutely?
You have to understand to thatclient 15 grand is a lot of
money, yeah, right, for a lot ofthey want.
If they're paying you 15 grand,they're expecting 15 grand of
value, right, yeah, the way theycare about is they're wanting
sales.
And then they want the video tolook at a certain quality.
You know, on par of whatever.

(01:19:24):
The quality is what I'm saying,what my thing is and and maybe
again, this is this, is this,which is great.
I'm glad we're having thisconversation.
People typically who do videosat this point don't, don't even.
That's, not even a point.
That's why you're charging thatmuch.
You're charging because that'swhat it costs to make it.
Right, my costs are.
I'm already initially going.
Here's the production fee,right, that's what the company

(01:19:45):
makes.
The rest is all expenses.
Now I can make some more moneybecause if I'm directing it or
I'm the DP, I can take that dayrate for myself, or sometimes
I'm not, because if I'm onanother project I want to hire
somebody else, then that goes tothem.
But I could make more money nowby, you know, taking some of
the roles.
But the the money is, this isfor equipment, this is for

(01:20:05):
people.
Now I have a lot of equipmentso I can pull some of the rental
into bender productions too.
But sometimes we don't have acertain which I mean rare but
bigger equipment, like I used tohave alexis, but I don't
anymore because it wasn't worth.
I'd rather rent them.
The point I'm trying to say is,then, that cost is going to a
rental company or to a.
DP I prefer, like you, I prefera DP who has their own Alexa.

(01:20:27):
That way I can just loop thatinto one and maybe make an extra
profit.
But the point I'm trying to getto is the video has to match
the quality.
I'm saying, if you offer aseven grand video or 15 grand
five times in a row, there's ahigh likely chance you won't be
doing this for too long yeah,well, let's say, I don't know.

I guess my point is that I understand what you're
saying.
Of course you have moreexpenses, whatever.
There's a couple differentscenarios.
But let's say, you know, thetwo, three videos you're making
for 15 grand are very highquality, kind of like the stuff
that I worked on when I wasdirecting, for you know, you got
the fx6s, or you know, you have, I don't know, three people

(01:21:11):
helping you like, do you thinkin your experience?
I guess let's just call itbranding yourself as the more
premium?
like, like yourself, like youhave all the equipment you have
the crew, do you think?
Do you think that small let'sjust call it small businesses
they're doing a couple million?

a year that they would be willing to pay
absolutely if they want to playat the higher level, if they
want to be?

what type of client do you think would pay that much
?

so funny enough, and I know the people have
called her like hey, like hebeen to the premium, I'm
actually a value option.
Funny enough, the people I'mcompeting against, uh.
So there's agencies, I won'tname them.
They'll charge uh, for example,an organization, but this is a
realistic scenario, I'm just nottelling you the name, but they
will charge this organizationone million dollars for yearly

(01:22:00):
content.
Right, I am the guy.
And again, very known agency,very known organization,
nonprofit.
That's the video cost, that'sthe budget, that's the RFP that
they put out.
I am the option.
I can come and do this for halfa million, right?
So I'm saying, in the high-endscale, I am the value option,

(01:22:20):
I'm not the high-end million,right?
so I'm saying, in the high endscale, I am the value option,
I'm not, I'm not.
I'm basically saying I'll giveyou the ferrari at the price of,
I don't know, a toyota,whatever, but I don't want to be
.

Yes, I'm not playing in the honda league yeah,
they're like a bugatti, not tosay anything bad about honda,
but I'm not.

Yeah, I'm not playing at the honda ikea,
whatever low, I'm not a carperson, whatever the low car
value is.
Yeah, I am.
I'm trying to give you aferrari and actually give you
ferrari.
There's a difference because,like I say, you can go and say
I'll give you a ferrari theprice of a toyota, but can you
actually right?
Yeah, I am saying no, I, if Icome in and I am doing a video

(01:22:52):
at that level, it's gonna be avideo at that level.
I'm, I am the budget like videoking in that higher price tier.
So technically I'm not thepremium.
But yes, for lower clients,when I do which is my favorite
work, like you, service-basedbusinesses, for them somehow I
become the premium option.
Yeah, because I am slightlyhigher.

Some people even I'm like eight, six grand.
They're like exactly.

Yeah, so you are the premium option.
But you have to understand I amgoing by, look, I'm solving
your problem and I will make youa great video and I guarantee
you at that price point that'sthe only guarantee I'm giving
you.
Nobody can make this video withmore people, more equipment and
better quality at that pricepoint, because you cannot
compare my $100,000 video withmy $5,000 video.

(01:23:36):
That wouldn't be fair.
You can't go oh, vipple, youmade this and then you made this
track.
It doesn't match.
Yeah Right, but at that fivegrand, I'm saying nobody can
come in, because I know for afact they can't because they
don't have the rental costs theycan absorb and the equipment
costs or whatever they canabsorb.
And that's the advantage I have.
I wouldn't do this, to be real,I wouldn't be financially

(01:23:57):
responsible if all I did was 5kvideos.
Yeah, of course, when I'mhandling this, I'm like I'm
absorbing this or I'm I'm takingthis rental cost and I own this
equipment that's getting used.
So when I go to my smallertalking head, whatever, I'm
doing it because it's faster forme, it's faster for me to set
up a 600x with the light dome150 and quickly set up two

(01:24:17):
socklers with two fx6s, justbecause that is actually
efficient.
I'm not trying to show off oranything, but now that does play
into it because that becomes anexperience for the client.
They are not expecting that atfive grand or four grand or
three grand or whatever thelower tier price points are.
And then when somebody elsethey hire who shows up with two

(01:24:37):
mirrorless cameras, guess what'sgoing to happen?

They go, oh why would we hire this?

It's not necessary .
You're absolutely right.
Typically, when you're workingdirectly with a business owner,
they don't care because theygenuinely don't know.

But they do care about size.

Size doesn't matter.

That's what she said .

You know, because they don't know an FX6 or an FX3
, but they can tell the size.
Tell me an fx6 or an fx3, butthey can't tell the size.
Yeah, tell me if I'm wrong, andthen they will always hire the
guy with the bigger camera.

Now, that's why a lot of?
People will fake it with thecinebacks and the matte boxes,
and then you can I mean that'sfine yeah, I mean that's the
part of the game yeah, and Iguess to be clear too, like what
I was saying, like I haveclients who have paid me 20, 30k
over the year, but I've neverhad a client pay me 15.

Actually, well, I have had one client pay me 12K
for one video, but it was a verylong video it was like a 20
minute video as fucking hell, soI don't even kind of count it.
I mean that's fair.
See, you charge 12K because youspend a lot of time on it, so
the value is there.

I guess my point.
Like you did answer thequestion, I don't know premium,
which we'll call it fx6 yeah,whatever the yeah, you know
great great lighting whateverinto the local smaller business
market sure it's kind of likethat next price.

I mean it's not that much more money but it's
still quite a bit for, like,let's just call it a local
business but yeah, absolutely Icould, and that could be the
option like I I was tellingpeople look, if I'm free, um,
not to again, we're not tryingto sell anything here.
But option Like I was tellingpeople look, if I'm free, not to
again, we're not trying to sellanything here, but that's like
I was telling you, look, Ialways tell people there's no
ROI in equipment, especially ifyou're playing in those lower

(01:26:20):
numbers.
So if you go out now you're asales guy, you go out, you
tomorrow sell somebody a 10K or7K.
7k would be more realistic, um,uh, 7, 7,000, 7,500, talking
head.
Right, you can bring me out.
And now you, you could pull in.
I don't know how much you payan editor, but you could pull 5,
6k easily, right, 5k.

(01:26:41):
Give editor a thousand k, pay1500 to me and now you can have
a massive set.
Right, you've impressed themand the client will go yes, this
was worth it, as long as, again, your editor is good in the end
, final video matches theirexpectations.
You don't have to have zeroinvestment.
You can still make a lot ofmoney.
But the only way you can dothat is with rentals.
People need to understand stopbuying everything, Cause if you

(01:27:03):
can't play in the higher level,then you don't need to buy
buying it.
You always rent.
Even me like, like I said, itwas a mistake buying an alexa.
It didn't, didn't get usedenough for it to be worth it and
we're in central florida wherethe rental market isn't high
enough, so it made more sense tojust rent it when I needed it
than to keep it on hand.

(01:27:23):
But but it makes sense.
With the fx6, because therental market is huge, I'm
making thousands and thousandsof dollars of the camera just in
rentals and forget my use anduse another set.
So the ROI is how I determine.
Even though I'm a gear freakand I love gear, I don't keep
anything that doesn't make ROI.

(01:27:44):
If it's making me an ROI is aninvestment.
So, coming back, I hope thatanswers your question.

But what I'm trying to say is, honestly now, the
more that you explain it, it I'mlike that was kind of a stupid
question.
No, no, that's.

There's no stupid questions, because people do do
that.
I've had people where they go.
They have never had a 10kproject and then they finally
will.
And then they'll hire two oftheir buddies to come assist
them for a couple hundred bucks,which is fine, and they're like
look I made 90, and they wouldhave been better if they
made,500.
And then, a year later, I'm likeawesome, so what else did you
do with that client?
That's cool, because that's howyou get to bigger and bigger

(01:28:15):
leagues.
And it's like, oh, they nevercalled me back.
Well, why do you think?
Right, because they don't knowthe equipment, because you're
working directly with them.
But they know what value isRight, they know what they
expect and uh, like I wastalking, our meetup client
experience is important.
So there's the experience ofsales, right.
Then you do your pre-productioncall, but when you shoot, that

(01:28:39):
is the first impression.
Sure, the video is the finalimpression and that's what
ultimately matters yeah but ifthat sucks, they'll always go.
The video was great, but let metry someone else, and when they
do and and I'm not the only oneI don't want to be like I am
some something doing.
Of course there's hundreds andhundreds of people, players that
play in the game like a realproduction company, right, and

(01:29:01):
they'll happily, you know, makea good video then, or whatever
that cost factor is then they go.
Why am I gonna, or theiragency's gonna, go?
Why am I going to, or theiragency is going to go?
Why am I going to hire thisperson who just wants to pocket
the money?
And they're not going to getthe better ROI right.
At the end of the day, forbusinesses, it's all about money
.

It's not about video for us.

It's about and that's what people don't get.
It's like hey, why would youuse An Alexa?
My FX3 can do 90% of that.
Yes, it can, absolutely, butthat 10% matters.
That's why we're using it.
But I wouldn't use it.
Like, even if I owned an Alexa,I wouldn't take it to my, to
that brand video.
We're about to make thishypothetical.
Yeah, that'd be silly, becausenow our data rates are higher,

(01:29:44):
our SSDs we need to dump.
We need to do this, like, wedon't have time for that, right?
Um, so fx6 is a better choiceat that moment.
But now, on the same thing,you're like can, can I use two
iphones?
There's the other side of it.
Absolutely should you.
Are you going to use twoiphones?

no, but.
But the quality is there thenew pros.

You can even record in log and that's what
I'm talking, it's the, theclient but it's like they're
paying you.

You know what I'm saying?
Exactly, exactly.

I don't even have to.
But that's what I'm saying.
See, that's the exact scalethat it goes into.
But the funny thing is youdon't need to own any of this.
You don't need to buy anythingIf you want to start playing in
that league.
All you need to do is just gosell it, because there's people
with those equipment and thatskill set, that are ready to be
hired by you.

(01:30:31):
You'll be the boss, uh, andmaking still the most amount of
money, though I don't.
I do want people to know theprofits, like right here in this
hypothetical uh, uh, you knowbrand story video, which is not
that hypothetical.
We've done videos of that,right?
Um, you're pulling 5k out of7500 budget.
Very good profit, right?
Maybe a couple of days of workplus meetings, one for editing,
let's say, one for shooting.

(01:30:52):
But on the other side, samething.
If you're I don't know making a30K brand video, guess what?
How many meetings there aregoing to be?

True.

How much equipment there's going to be, how many
pre-light days there are goingto be.
There's more work, and so theprofit may be less than 10K, 12k
, 15k, I don't know out of the50K, but technically I think you
made less profit overall perday.
So I tell people all the timethere's more money to be made if
you want to play with smallbusinesses, because you can pull
a higher profit rate and stillmake them happier, because two

(01:31:30):
FX6 will please and an FX3 maybethat will please any small
business.
The problem is why I like toplay in this middle ground,
because not that many smallbusinesses have a 10 15k right
to just spend every other month,at least in my opinion yeah
versus the people who do have it.
That's the scale that they'reexpecting, and I'd rather not go
chasing, you know people,because the thing is they're

(01:31:51):
like, oh, we would love to workwith, but we don't have that
kind of budget.
Then what's the point?
You know?

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I think both are
valid.

No, I hear you.

I guess I've just been kind of debating and I
asked all those questionsbecause, like, I kind of like
what we were saying.
Like you know, know, you do thebrand videos and this and that
compared to just doing verticalcontent.
With the vertical content Ivery much productized the offer
and I made it, I mean prettyaffordable you know what I'm
saying, like for the amount ofvideos.

(01:32:20):
It's not the same work as abrand video, but it's almost
like this yin and yang of youknow.
Should I go back to doing more?
I guess longer format, tryingto pitch bigger prices, or
should I like?

you know what I'm saying and I think that's
something you've got to playwith.
I think this would be exactlyokay.
What I'm thinking is it wouldbe better to add to your best
option right, so you offer good,better best, and in your best
you're like, hey, you get thisplus you get a brand video right
, and if they pick it, then youget to do that.
But I don't think you shouldtake away from the offer that

(01:32:56):
you're having success in surebecause biggest, I think,
mistake would be you're like I'mtired of it, which I get it.
If you're doing the same thingover and over again, no matter
what scale, you get bored, um,uh, then you just stop doing it,
and then now you're not makingthe revenue that you were, uh,
but nothing stops you from alsooffering those at the same time.

(01:33:19):
And you know, and you're goodat them I've seen your brand
videos so they're great.
So why, why not offer them?
You know?

true, but I don't think you should take away from
vertical because there's higherprofits like you said, said you
can make bigger profit.
If you're the one doing a lotof that, I mean you could hire
somebody else to shoot yeah.

And but, but it's easier to find.
Uh also people at that forvertical content cheaper because
, they don't need to be thathighly skilled, highly technical
people.

But at the same time I have done that.
I mean, I guess I'm justsharing this, maybe there's.
You know, you just got to becareful of who you've hired
because you could hire somebodyat a lower rate.
Maybe they have a good cameraor whatever, but maybe they
don't have as much experiencetalking with a client that you
know.
You gotta definitely vet yourpeople.
Yes, you gotta.
I've had.

I've had uh, not that, but I've had mistake of um
again.
I'm very careful about who Ibring to my set of vet people,
but I've had mistake where Ididn't realize and these are
things you have to test out inpublic because you won't find
that easily but where they starttalking about their girlfriend,
their family or something thatwent wrong in their life, I'm
very easy to talk to Like I'lltalk about anything with someone

(01:34:27):
, but in front of my client, no,I mean we don't want to talk.
We can joke around and have fun, but we don't want to be
talking about personal issues oryou know things like that.
That becomes unprofessionalvery fast.
I've had that happen where I'mlike, oh, I can't bring this
person again, despite theirskill level, because that's a
negative experience, because myclient doesn't need to be
hearing about you know what yourgirlfriend did at home?

or whatever, whatever.
You got a rash yeah.

Yeah, exactly.
And maybe it's fine when we'rechilling at lunch when there's
no one around.
Whatever, I don't care.
To be honest, I'll talk aboutit.

Yeah.

Like you know, we were after that event.
We were like chilling, we'retalking Cool.
No, who cares?

But I wouldn't have that conversation that we had in
front of a client, kind of likethat.
Right, yeah, exactly, I guessto me.
I think the reason I was askingall this stuff is just
beginning of the year.
You're trying to think okay, Iwant to scale which, because
there's so many different waysyou can go about this business
and like the offers.
If you you know people say itall the time like the offers.

Yeah, one of the most important parts, exactly I
think the offer should still bethe same, because I don't think
you can and some people do that.
Now, yes, as a DP, if you'retrying to be a DP, it may make
sense to buy, let's say, yourAlexa Mini or Mini LF and then
now you can market yourself.
Look, I'm a DP, I come withthis and you may get work
because there are productionsthat are just looking for we

(01:35:52):
need an FX6 DP or we need anArri Alexa Mini DP, but as long
as your skill obviously matcheswith what the camera you have.
But that camera will get youwork.
But as a production companyowner or as somebody who's
working with small businesses,there's no ROI in that.
You will not find a singlebusiness owner who will pay you,
because even fx6 or an arielx,they don't know the difference

(01:36:12):
right, they can see the size,like we were talking about.
So I don't think your offershould have anything to do with
equipment.
Your offer should be likeyou're offering now like hey,
here's what the business problemis, here's what the solution is
and here's what the cost isafter you met them to solve that
problem.
Now what you can do is offeragain a higher end solution

(01:36:34):
where the production qualityautomatically should increase
because it's a higher costoption sure, that makes, yeah,
that makes sense.
So your okay, so your percentageprofit may drop on that higher
end option, but the number maybe higher if that makes sense it
shouldn't take you longer tomake it, especially with small
businesses.
You can shoot most things in aday or two.

(01:36:55):
At least that's what I think.
Yeah, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean I agree with that for the most part.
Sometimes I've found likecertain industries kind of suck,
like not that the industrysucks, but just the type of
project, because ideally you'relike oh, we could totally shoot
this in one day.
Which a lot of b-roll andtalking parts you can.
However, sometimes you want theclient.
They're the clients like oh,like you know, you shot the

(01:37:18):
before, can you come back andlike shoot the after, whether
they like did tile work orwhatever you know so like there
are times sometimes, where I goback to the same job like three
times and there's not a crew,it's just me

so I do it anyway, but yeah, and and that that's
okay to do.
Obviously I've done that too,but at least in my contracts I I
have clear definitions of thisis the project, this is how many
number of shoot days, this ishow many number of crews you're
gonna get.
So so we're gonna come out liketwo times, you know, to your

(01:37:50):
shoot.
So third time I'm coming,there's extra charge.
But like you, I have done thatand I will, like I had have had,
but again, only for smallbusinesses, never for the large.
But we have, uh, they're likeoh, can you come get this pickup
shot or whatever, and and I'mlike, sure, but it won't be a
whole crew, but I'm happy tograb a camera and go get a quick
shot, because yeah, you careabout the relationship yeah,

(01:38:10):
because me the relationship isfar more valuable than that and
10, 15 minutes of my time is notworth creating a negative
experience, but only again.
This is once in a while.
This is an exception, and again, at the end, it will help me
create what you call betterproduct at the end.

Yeah, and you're not trying to take it.
You know Exactly.

You can kind of tell if they are.
Yeah, but I've had uh.
So I'll give one example.
I've had a slightly negative Iwouldn't call it that negative
but I had a client, um, whowanted us to make a course.
And you know me being nicebecause, um, you know she was
new to this and she didn't haveenough budget.
So we were like, sure, we'llcreate the course for you.
I think we discussed on a 10kbudget or whatever for two and a
half hour course.
Dude, that's like incrediblerain, uh, and high production,
four cameras, yeah, you know,full crew, anyway I, and that's

(01:38:58):
because I want to help her out.
But then the, themiscommunication there was, you
know, she had option of spanishor english and so I was like,
look, you tell me the languageyou want to make, and we
definitely can, can make twolanguages.
And, um, so we chose englishbecause, even though that's not
her first language, that's wherethe market would be bigger,
right, she can make more money.
But I was like, hey, as a bonusno, that's my mistake, the

(01:39:21):
lessons learned.
I was like, look, here's whatI'll do.
Until we can make a spanish,I'll just give you a dubbed
version for free.
Now it's not perfect, but it'ssomething until you know.
You have a spanish dedicatedversion exactly two and a half
hours of freaking dubbing, butthat doesn't mean there's any
editing, right?
Because we're just covering.
Obviously, if it's our nativelanguage and spanish, the lines
will be shorter, so there'll begaps.

(01:39:42):
So what happened is we gave herthe english version.
She's like amazing, this isexactly, you know, perfect, blah
, blah, blah.
Exactly what I expected,because I know we went above and
beyond.
And now I'm like okay, let medub this in Spanish and darn it,
man.
And we had recorded her, so itwas her voice.
And then she's like but there'stoo many gaps.
And then the whole negativeexpression there's too many gaps
.
It's not good.
Why is it not edited?
And obviously the contract saysit clearly.

(01:40:03):
I know in the community, I wasthere in the meeting.
I told her, but that is nowmonths ago, right?
So she's like expecting this tobe edited, so you have to be
very careful about it.
So the experience wasn't thegreatest, but I had to like
break it down to her Look,there's going to be no editing.
This is already for free.
It's cost me, you know, adecent amount of editing hours

(01:40:27):
with a Spanish editor Plus.
It's not worth it.
Anyway, this is just an optionand and most software, they
should be able to select englishand spanish.
You don't want it to be.
It's not a separate video, it'sjust an audio track.
Point I'm trying to make is yes, when you're ready, we'll make
a spanish version, but thisisn't it yeah, anyway, maybe
that favor should have been acouple photos.

Yeah, exactly, right , so I've learned my lesson.

Sometimes doing going above and beyond isn't
worth it either.
So now my current strategy iswhat I do is just simple.
I promise them this number ofdays, this number of people,
this number of cameras, like.
So it'll be a two-day shootwith three cameras, three
equipment.
I always bring an extra cameraand an extra person.
I already planned for it.
Obviously this isn't typicalvip.

(01:41:08):
Yeah, exactly.
So they'll always get more thanwhat they expect.
That's my strategy.
So they're like expect, and I'mvery clear about it.
So that's why they know they'relike okay, so I'm gonna have
three cameras, two day shoot,three people and they'll always
be four people, you know, oneextra camera and and obviously,
same number of shoot days.
I'm not upping that, but thepoint is then they get always
impressed.

(01:41:28):
So my clients are always havinga positive experience and there
is a producer advantage heretoo.
If somebody calls in, I'm notgoing to be short people, right?
I'm going to just have what Iplanned on having, because that
can happen.
You know, somebody can get sickor whatever.
Ideally not, but the point I'mtrying to make is there is an
inherent advantage in that, andI always do that because at the

(01:41:49):
end day, a relationship to mefar outweighs um anything else
yeah, no, that's smart one thingI meant to ask you earlier what
, um what proposal software doyou use where you can give them
the option of 100 up front or 50?
so I use something called betterproposal so it has the option.

I think again like they can click that.

Yeah, so they have , so they can.
So you can basically createoptions and you can select that
that they can select.
Only one of them Got it, sothey essentially select and it
automatically makes that thetotal price.
And I've done that for optionstoo, because sometimes lower end
they don't have budget for likea makeup artist, so lower end
they don't have budget for likea makeup artist.
So I'll say mua, you know, Idon't know whatever the rate is

(01:42:34):
and optional.
So if they check it, it justadds that.
But if they don't check it,yeah, you know, nice it's, it
doesn't affect anything.
But but then it'll say optionaland then why to add it?
You know you'll look great.
You know I recommend it.
I make none of this moneybecause I'm basically just
taking away the processing costsand passing that along to a
makeup artist anyway.
Um, uh, but some people do,some people don't, and that's

(01:42:58):
fine with me.
I just don't want to have thatconversation.
It's not worth me losing aclient over a makeup artist.
It's, but it does make myproduct look good so it's worth
to have give them that option.
So stuff like that.
Yeah, I highly recommend it.
I've had good, good resultswith better proposals.
Um, and especially, like yousaid, that good, better, best
option.
I do like that you can add allthree and they can pick, and,

(01:43:20):
but I will.
What I do like about it is youcan already have one
pre-selected.
So I always do the better aspre-selected so they have to
manually click on the lower thehigh.
They want to change so the totalis already what I want it to be
, you know, and I'm fine.
I mean either way.
That's why I put the threeoptions in there they make a
different option.
That's fine, but I already havepre-selected what I want in

(01:43:40):
there.
Okay, but so they have tomanually go in and then yeah,
yeah, I mean I'm pretty positive.

So with honey book, that's what I've used you can do
.
Obviously you could do 100 or50 on specific dates, but that I
pretty positive.
They don't have a setting wherethey can choose which up front,
or again it's been a few years.

I actually started with honey book.
When I initial started, I tookhoney book, but then I was like
they're charging so much money.
They were like 400 bucks orwhatever a year back then.
I don't even know how much theyare.

Better.

Proposal was half of that.
Is it that or is it more?

HoneyBook yeah, I think so, and I think their
rates are going freaking up too.

But the issue with HoneyBook was, like you said
it's great for what it doesBecause you know, like, say, I
could split the 50 50 payment.
That's what I liked initiallythat it would be.
Have a specific date, like yousign the contract.
I used to be able to do likeautomatically two weeks or
whenever the second payment waslike it would automatically like
that's your payment date.
But then I found very quicklythat there was no way, uh, for

(01:44:46):
me to um go in there andcustomize anything like the way
the software design and thepayment had to come through them
.
What I like about BetterProposal is it integrates with
Stripe.
So they still take the payment.
So at the end of the, when theysign the contract, it
immediately is like make apayment like HoneyBook, but it's
not coming through them.
It's integrated through Stripe,which is my payment platform.

(01:45:08):
I can generate invoices, it'sall in one, so all the money
stays through one thing.
So it's a lot easier to manageand I don't have a separate
software in HoneyBook having anyaccess to you know what I
didn't like was my payments.
So if they don't like it,somebody does charge back.
I have no control over it and Ithink they still use Stripe or
whatever on their backend, butyou don't get any control over

(01:45:32):
your payments from at least whenI used it HoneyBook or yeah.
Honeybook.
I'm saying I think it doesn'tmatter but, I, think you can do
QuickBooks.
Okay, so that may be new.
When I was there it was throughHoneyBook directly, it doesn't
matter.
They had a payment platform toounder them.
They were honest about it.
But what I'm saying is youdidn't have any access to the

(01:45:56):
payment platform, like youcouldn't see the details that
you can have.
You ever used stripe, yeah,okay so, yeah, so you know, like
you can go deep into who thisperson is a card fraud or not or
whatever.

I know who's paying me like they're.
I've never done that.
I've done like 95, maybe even99 of my payments through
honeybook, so but I have stripeyeah, so, and that's why I like
stripe, because it's a largepayment platform.

You know you can vet your who's paying you, which
I mean generally.
They're good businessesregardless.
Like I said, I don't want tohave risk because there's so
much cost involved for me atleast.
I have crew cost, of equipmentcost.
I don't want to bear any youknow losses or whatever.
We're a small company so, uh,it's just, it's just not worth
the risk, is what I'm saying.
But this software, thisplatform I'm on third or fourth

(01:46:32):
year now at this point, betterproposals with Stripe has worked
great for me.
The only negative is, like Isaid, it doesn't integrate with
QuickBooks.
So I have to still manually goand, you know, attach all these
invoices to QuickBooks.
But you know it is what it is,it's part of it.

Have you ever used a firm?
Have you ever had a clientfinance?

no, I think I don't know, even if I have it
turned on, but I wouldn't mindit.
I don't, I don't care, becausethat's between them and a firm
right, it's not it has nothingto do with me, so I wouldn't
mind if they're that's again Ioh yeah, there's no downside to
you.
I was just curious if you know,I don't, I don't think, I
haven't, not I know, I knowpeople who do that all that's
like I need to check.

If it's turned on, they go for it because you can
get, you'll get a piff, you'llget a payment up front and then
or paid in full, whatever, andthen they finance it.
Yeah, for whatever I'm sayingexactly.

It's pretty wild and I'm so glad.
See, this is why I wanted tohave these conversations,
because genuinely, I don't know.
So I need to go to pull up myStripe account and make sure
that these things are turned onBecause, like you said I why
would that affect me?
As long as if it's better forthe client, why not?
You know?

there's a specific setting though, so they don't
have I don't think they have asetting or something like
photographer, videographer, likeit's either not an option or
it's blocked for a firm, so youhave to put like professional
services or something like thator like something it kind of was

(01:48:02):
a pain in the ass okay and uh,but did you turn it on?

did somebody take it?

I have it.
I've never done it, I've nevergot it um, but I know people who
do like marketing yeah, andthey.
They'll get like 10k up front,but they're paying whatever,
like 1500 a month exactly, and Ithink that's totally fair.

Obviously, anyway, we can help a client because,
at the end of the day, you knowat least the the scale we're
talking about when we're notworking on the marketing agency.
Uh, we're just genuinely tryingto help people, man you're just
trying to make them videos.
We're trying to help them makemoney and, if that is the way
they can currently finance itand get it done and which is why
I'm so try to be efficient whenmaking videos faster.

(01:48:42):
For my clients, it's like thesooner I can get the video to
them, the sooner they canimplement it, the sooner they
can make money to make morevideos.
Right, I want them to havesuccess, so that's why I try to
do like a two-week turnaround,because I really want them to
take advantage of the videosthat we're making.
So, yeah, no, I would love toturn that on and as soon as

(01:49:05):
we're done, I'm going to gocheck my Stripe, make sure I
have that turned on.

Yeah, try it.

If I don't, why not?

It makes no sense.
Why not to?
Yeah, because I'm getting, likeyou said, paid in full up front
.
So yeah, for sure.
Um, so I know you get.
I guess all your business, ormajority from referrals have you
focused on like social proof oryou know, outside of somebody
just like hey, I worked withbenja, he's great you should
work with him.
Like have you put in an effortto do like testimonials or try

(01:49:37):
to do a case study, even thoughyou're just making?

no, I mean, I do have some testimonials we made
years ago and we put on ourwebsite, so they are there for,
I guess, some cold person comingin.
Mainly what I try to do is ask,obviously, who sent them, so I
know what their expectations are, because if it's a client.
I did an expensive video for I'mlike okay, I hope they have the
budget for that or they'relower end, so I know at least
what they came through, becauseI'm pretty sure business owners

(01:50:01):
love talking about money.
They probably know what myvideo costs with the other
client, right, there's a veryunlikely chance the other guy
didn't tell him what he spent.

I'm always worried about that when I raise my
prices.
No, yeah.

But it happens, your price is your price.
Funny enough, I have neverraised my prices since I started
a production company.
I think we're very fair.
We were always a premium option, but I've never raised my
prices.
I need to, maybe 2026, we'llsee Because, like I said, the

(01:50:33):
money that was then doesn't meanhalf as much.
Uh, but luckily we've scaled somuch that it hasn't affected me
as much, but still um but um.
What was I saying?
I lost my train of thought no,just like I don't know.

That was something I wanted to focus on this year,
especially with trying to helpmore people with ads was, uh, I
basically like you have to get,like, social proof clients.
Oh yeah, you know.

So it's kind of social proof that I do is
genuinely share like.
So, for example, somebody willcome, come to me and they're
like oh, we're a dentist orwe're a lawyer or whatever.
So I could generally work withone of every industry.
I get a similar industry atleast, so I can pull like.
It may not be, let's say, aophthalmologist, but it may be a
chiropractor or whatever.
Yeah, so I could pull somethingsimilar.

(01:51:13):
But I can be like hey, look,this is what we did for them.
This is what kind of the videolook like the.
Is that what you're kind of?
Because my biggest thing is, uh,before that I'll always ask do
you have a video?
I can see right that, becausethe main thing I'm looking for
is they're showing me 100k videoor 1k, because the expectations
have to be matched.
I want to exceed theirexpectation.
But if their budget is 5k andthey're showing me a commercial

(01:51:35):
for 100k that I know roughly theproduction budget would be, I
can't match the expectation.
I don't want to be part of it.
So what I will do is show me avideo and then I'll look at the
video.
I'm like, okay, I kind of getit now, and then I'll find
either that was good enough.
Or if I don't, then I'll belike, look, let me show you
something I've made Right, andhere's a video.
And worst case, it's happenedrarely.

(01:51:56):
But if I don't have anythingthat Ivan and I have, or they
have, then I'll go looking intowith my buddies, like maybe in
our group or somewhere, like,hey, do you have something with
I don't know surfing?
You know something I haven'tdone?
So then I can show that.
Point is I want to show them areal video where it's like is
this what you're thinking?
So the answer is usually yes orno, but I try to narrow it down

(01:52:17):
once I see the scope right,then I can be like, yes, okay,
so this is what we've done.
Uh, we helped this client.
They made, you know, 10x money.
So I am giving them a proof,because I don't like to sign up
with people don't know what asyou, yeah, so so, yeah, so I am
giving them an example.
Typically it was like hey, theywere able to uh 10x their
revenue, they opened a newpractice, or uh, whatever, abc,

(01:52:40):
whatever the the thing is.
Uh, I do try to do that.
So I want them to knowrealistically what somebody else
was able to achieve.
But at the same time, I'm veryupfront, like look, here's what
I'm going to promise you, thatI'm going to make a sick video,
sick ass video yeah, I can'tguarantee obviously any results,
but these work.
The good thing for us is allthese big companies that use

(01:53:00):
video have spent hundreds andhundreds of millions of dollars
in studies proving video works.
Right at this point, if youdon't think video works, you can
go read studies like it works.
There's not even a debate aboutit.
So, as a business owner, youneed video or not should not
even be a debate.
And if you do have that, thenwe need to start much lower, at

(01:53:21):
a ground level, why they need tounderstand why it works.
But as long as they know thatit works, I know I can make a
good video at that price point,or that I'm not worried about my
skill set, because the bestthing about me is I'm going to
go in which I've touched at thispoint every type of video.
I'll go make them the video andif I don't know, I'll be on the
phone calling somebody who hasand be like look, hey, I'm how

(01:53:41):
much to hire, you come do it forme, right?
Because at the end they'regoing to get the best people to
make that video, whether it's me, the crew that I typically work
with, or new crew or somebody Iknow or whatever.
But they're not gonna.
Again, I don't put my reputationon the line personally.
I would get somebody who knowswhat they're doing.
They're guaranteed, even ifit's not me, and I'm happy to

(01:54:02):
then stand back and learn anddirect, because I can still
direct it and then learn.
You know how to do thatspecific thing.
I don't know.
I'm just, I don't even know atthis point what that would be.
But rocket launch, for example,I've done work in nasa, uh, but
I've not actually covered aspecific rocket launch like I
was talking with justin about.
So, um, then I would bringsomebody who's covered, you know
, rocket launches, like I want adp that does that.

(01:54:24):
That was, I know we don't missthat shot, something like that.
I don't know, does that makesense?

it does.
Yeah, and I think for you, like, if you're not, or not for you
for anybody, like if you're notpromising x result or whatever,
the proof is already, like theysee your videos, they see how
great they are and stuff likethat, so that makes sense yeah,
no, and I'm happy to show themwhat I have done in the past.

but ultimately my thing is for me, my reputation
as as an I wouldn't do it anyway, if I don't think I can do it,
I would just be like hey it maynot be a right fit, and that's
how I think I want therelationship to go Now to be
real.
That is harder when you don'tknow someone, which is why I'm
like if they don't know me, thenI'm just another videographer.

(01:55:07):
Then, yes, they're just like ohyou know, that person promised
me this, this person promised methis.

I don't know who to go with and you're promising me
nothing, so they may not pick me, and that's okay, yeah that's
kind of it's been a challengewith ads, to be honest, like
sometimes you have there's, youcan just feel there's less trust
which like you have to do abetter job up front, whether
it's like it's either thecontent that they see from you
or you're posting.

(01:55:34):
Like you're posting valuablecontent that you send to them
that's like actually valuable,and they're like oh, this guy's
giving really good information,whatever, and then you have
client results or clienttestimonials.
So like you have to make sureyou do that all upfront, cause I
can tell it is different thanreferrals so absolutely, I guess

(01:55:54):
you know we were talking aboutads.
I don't want to make ads soundlike a.

It's not a silver bullet yeah, but it is a way
like say it didn't work for me.
There's the opposite end of it,where I did try them and I'm,
to be honest, not listening to.
I'm open to trying them againand see what that works, because
I am, like you, trying to getpeople to pay me eight grand or
whatever yeah and if thosepeople exist on instagram, then
why not you?

know, I mean, you really don't even have to spend
that much money either.
However, if you do on bad, youwill waste money.

So yeah, exactly well, that's why we know the
expert.
Now, right, I'm gonna becalling you.

I wouldn't say expert, but yeah, well, I mean.
Well, I mean better than me,right?

It's funny enough.
That's what I'm saying.
I made ads for other people thathave done really well because
it's very different to theoutlook where I'm like okay,
what's the product you'reselling, what's the service
you're selling and generally theclients that you're working
with, their product or servicesare good for Instagram because
they're mass market andInstagram is mass market, so
it's easy to sell.
It becomes hyper hard, at leastfor me, because I'm selling to

(01:56:54):
specific subset of audience.
Right, my target audience iseither marketing agencies or
direct service-based businesseswith higher ticket items or,
worst case, the side item that Ido is like I'm a DP director
for other people, for peoplelike you.
That is essentially it, so it'sa very limited market that I'm

(01:57:16):
trying to target, and the otherthing is the footprints
nationwide.
I'm literally on a plane everyother week, so it's very
expensive and I don't want to berunning ads where the people I
don't know, regular people areseeing my face, who have nothing
to do with video or marketingor anything I've never done
nationwide.

Yeah, you gotta.
I mean, I've only done local.

Yeah, but um but I don't know how much uh business
is in here for people to um andagain.
There may be.

Obviously there's a lot of business, but for people
to like hire me, even you knowyeah, so I guess that's why I
was asking all those questionsof like cause I've been debating
on just trying to get moreclients in the Orlando area,
just try to get bigger Causeit's like I don't know, it could
be a limiting belief, butnaturally there's more people

(01:58:03):
here, so more businesses feellike they need to be on social
media and stuff like that Causelike honestly, sometimes in
Ocala, the people that come tome they know they need to be on
social media.
That doesn't mean they're alwaysthe best fit client, but
there's also a lot of people whoare very much further behind.
It's like slower, it's morerural yeah um, not anything

(01:58:23):
wrong with that, but that's justkind of the nature compared to,
like, what we sell, we sell,you know, social media content,
whatever so it's my thing.

It's interesting.
You're gonna have to dosomething different eventually
too, once everyone's on socialmedia content, whatever.
So it's interesting, you'regoing to have to do something
different.
Eventually, too, once everyone'son social media and they're
doing the same thing Becausewhat also frustrating sometimes
can be with a client they'relike oh my competition, they're
doing this, I want to do that.
It's like lawyers, especially,oh my goodness.
They're like oh, they're allrunning these ads with this text
animated.
I want to do the same thing andI'm like sure, on a production

(01:58:52):
company side, we'll happily makeyou these.
But then why do you want to dothe exact same thing?
Let's do something different.
Because, you know, because ifeveryone's doing the exact same
thing, then at the same timeyour advertising, instead of
being impactful, just becomesmore noise in their, you know,
in the scrolls that they'rescrolling.
So I've tried and lawyers arethe hardest one where they're

(01:59:15):
like no, no, no, we just want todo this so I've done a ton.

Yeah, I've done a ton of these these things that
they want.

These, um, I'm sure the audience has seen them.
They're like text stories, likeI had this happen and this
attorney got me 500k and they'rejust texting, they're animating
and we'll do.
We have a we have a very good.
I've got very good animatorsthat work for me, uh.
But the point is we can happilydo that, but then the point is
it's boring, it's like there'snothing to it.
It sort of matters where you'reputting it let me put some

(01:59:43):
personality to you, becausethat's who people like nowadays.
They're like businesses withpersonality, because you know
we're all human, yeah, and theythey're so scared, at least
attorneys.

I find that to put their freaking personality into
it, oh yeah, and I'm like, comeon, or the ones who do are so
corny, they're like they havelike a fake accident or
something like who's got yourback?
Yeah, I don't know, like justsome dumb shit exactly so.

So it's kind of like that can be a challenge.
So eventually I'm like peopleare gonna have to do something
different, because if allroofers, like for example, are
doing the exact same content,true then it'll become the same
issue like currently.
The issue is there's 10 roofers.
I find one with videos.
I see their personality.
As long as it jives with me,made life easier right thank
goodness, there was video.
once there's 10 roofers doingthe same thing, the issue will

(02:00:29):
will be I don't know who's nowreal, so I need somebody who's
doing something unique orsomething creative, like you
said.
That vloggy style alreadysounds very interesting to me.
I may pick that one because I'mlike Ooh, that's, that's more
real.
They're like this is versus.
You know, just hire me, we'llwe'll build you a good roof.

It's very easy to add your personality into more
of like just documenting vlogstyle, but you can still give
value and give good information.
But, however, generally speaking, the information's the same in
every industry, but you know,general statement, but without
being corny, you can like addyour personality to it by
telling a story or telling yourperspective, I don't know.
Compared to like sometimespeople try to almost like

(02:01:14):
lawyers, like sometimes they'lllike force their comedy into a
skit.
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, and it's not even funny,maybe some inside joke or
something.
Yeah, like we'll fight for you.

Yeah, I don't know , just some, I don't know, yeah,
and they're usually as somebodywho has in the past hired one
of those tv attorneys man,they're so bad because you see
them in the past hired one ofthose TV attorneys, man, they're
so bad Because you see them.

And the funny.

Thing is that you're very good at answering
the phone.
So when?

because you know you want to hear the same guy, yeah
, yeah, type of guy.

So there was.
I wouldn't name the attorney,but you know.

I'd hire someone.

Years ago.
So we need an attorney andrelevant to this.
But you know, then you havethis name that's coming over and
over again call me, call me,call me.
And then, when the time comes,you're like, oh, let's call that
guy.
And the, and first I was like I, I knew there was going to be a
scam, because I'm like, oh,that, watch their team, it's a
big team, right so, but no, theexact attorney answer.
I'm like dude, this is, this isgood strategy on their part,

(02:02:05):
because they want the same guythat you're seeing everywhere.
But as soon as you you talk tothe guy, he's like oh, yeah, I
can fight for you, same, samespiel.
But then, as soon as you signthe contract, oh, this is your
attorney in my team right,that's the strategy.

It's like yeah you get.

You see the guy, you see him everywhere, and then
you go to talk to the same guyover the phone or whatever.
But when, as soon as you sign,you're like, hey, here's your
specific attorney, and now itdetermines if they're good or
not, depending on the attorneythat they sign to you right.
Which may be good or bad.
I'm not going there, but thepoint I'm trying to make is yeah
and again, that is a strategy,that's a sales strategy.

(02:02:40):
It's just not what I like.
I don't know if I would want todo that for me in.
I'm so happy for you, I'veknown you now a few years,
seeing your success, seeing yougrow I think you're doing, you,
bro oh, come on, man, I'm tryingto.
I'm like, hey, you're, you'rehaving success too, and I I've

(02:03:00):
learned so much.
This that's what I keep tellingpeople.
It doesn't matter whereanyone's at their journey.
I've learned so much in thepast couple hours talking to you
.
I'm ready to go out and applythis to my business and see if I
can get some new leads and seeif these ads work for me or not,
and I hope somebody listeninglearned something, because I'm
telling you sales, sales is themost important thing and if you

(02:03:22):
can do them genuinely, then itdoesn't feel like work, because
you don't want to be a sleazysalesman and these type of
genuine strategies do work andyou're a perfect example of it.
Yeah, so I appreciate youcoming here, being honest and
sharing that.
Those with me.
Before we go, anything else youwant to add or ask or say or,
you know, shout out yourinstagram.

This was like a refreshing format.
I've been on a bunch ofpodcasts and it's cool not to
feel like you have to perform orlike tell your story perfectly
or whatever.
So this was nice and, uh, Ihope by me going in detail with
stuff, it wasn't too boring forpeople, but for the people that
are interested it was actuallyhelpful.
So yeah, bro, this is fun.

Awesome.
So what's your Instagram?
Where can people follow you?

At Ben C Mangum.

Please go follow him.
Way better Instagram than mine,but thank you again.

You just got a post, bro.
Look at all your crazy content.
I will, I will.
This place is amazing, that'smy goal for 2025.

I'm going to try and be better about sharing
content.
Like I said, I need to deepenmy horizons and just not wait on
just referral marketing.
Like I said, business has beengood.
It doesn't mean it can't growbetter.
Plus, my personal goal is tocollaborate with more and more
people, so hopefully this yearagain we get to collaborate,
just like last year.
And if not worse, at least onads.
I'm going to definitely behitting you up, even though I

(02:04:40):
don't know.
I'm more behind the camera guy,not the guy in front of camera.

You're in front of camera Exactly Look.

I'm trying, I'm trying, don Exactly, look, I'm
trying, I'm trying.
Don't get me the jitters.
Anyway, thank you again.
I said this was awesome, bro.
You're welcome anytime again,all right, thank you, hell yeah,
thanks, man.

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