The Power of Niching! EP #346

The Video Mentors dive deep into the world of niching, from targeting specific industries to honing in on geographic areas and stylistic approaches. The conversation unpacks both the benefits and challenges.

You'll hear personal journeys from the team on how embracing a niche has shaped their business, boosted financial success, and created more satisfying client relationships. 💡📈

TVM: Den Lennie, Andy Johnston, Caleb Maxwell, and Matt Smolen

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Transcript

 The power of niching. I niched into broadcast television, equipment manufacturers, Sony, Canon, O'Connor, you name it. And he used to just get so much business because I was in that one niche and it has been a real flag in the stand north star for me. But I also experience a lot of videographers at all stages, often being very nervous about the idea of niching.

So, I want to just sort of set the record straight.  When I say niching your video business is absolutely critical for financial success,  what I mean specifically is talking to one audience at a time so that your message resonates with them. But you know, Andy, you and I were on a call this week with the guys in the VBA group and like, There was, there was a lot of concern about, but I want to miss out on the fun stuff if I just do one thing.

So I'd, I'd love to throw it to you, mate. You know, what's your view on niching? Yeah, I absolutely like it.  I suppose in this market, there is just straight off the bat. There's a lot of there's a lot of fear around niching.  A lot of people can focus on the cons to niching and that is, it's usually driven by like the fear of missing out.

There is a fear of. Not being passionate about an industry and then them feeling incongruent as an identity kind of thing. And then as creatives, they go like, well, I have to be passionate about an industry. And if I'm not, you know, if I don't live and breathe that industry, I just won't feel good for me to grow in that industry.

I'm going to feel a fraud. There's that conversation. But the pros for me, far outweigh the cons far out comes an aging and like,  you know, and. If you look at it as a, as a business terms, when it comes to selling, perception is a really big deal when it comes to selling, positioning is a big deal when it comes to selling and selling is essential to growing a business, but niching immediately tenfolds the perception and the positioning of any brand, because in order to, to niche and to, to make us, to take a stand in any industry it requires character.

There's like kudos points straight off the bat that just gets handed to you, because in order to do that, it requires an, a conscious decision to serve and help a particular demographic. And sometimes the fact of even doing that can sometimes be perceived as value that in itself is like, Oh, wow. Okay. And yes, there is the you know,  there's the initial thing of, you know, when you niche into an industry. 

People like what you, you, you're now helping builders or you're not helping dentists or you're not helping lawyers and people are afraid of that perception of how will they be perceived if I actually niche into an industry, but it's actually not, there's nothing happens. Like  people just go, Oh, cool.

Like that guy's doing that thing now. And then they just carry on in life. Like that's, that's kind of it. Well, Andy, you're not you're not speaking as one who hasn't done this, right? Like you, you, you're the builders man, right? What was that? Oh, I want to hear what's that, what's that journey. What was that journey like for you?

Yeah, so like  I started at expansion media was a, I started out as a videographer, just a generalist. So I took on anything and everything. I started out shooting weddings and then eventually moved into corporate and sort of, it kind of grew from there. But the kind of defining moment for me when I decided to niche was when I was running Facebook ads. 

And I remember a moment when our Calendly link was just pinging off. Like, I was looking at my phone and we were like getting book lead, book lead. I'm like, I looked at my, I looked at Christine and my partner and I said, Oh my gosh, we've like cracked the code. I'm here at home working from my office and these people are then booking into my calendar.

Like this is amazing. And at that point I was like, okay, my life is going to change. Like I'm just like, I'm, I'm going to be sending it now. And I took about 30 sales calls, 40, maybe even more, 30 or 40 sales calls. And I closed about all of those.  And I remember going,  this is not scalable. Like I had to every call that I got on, I was having to, they were like in a different industry, slightly different niche, different requirements, different problems.

And those who were getting close to it, or yes, but then trying to push me down on price. And I'm like,  I just don't even want to win this anymore. Like this is, this sucks. Like I'm in a position of like, they, they, I feel like I had a lot, a lot of value to give, but they're, they're trying to push me down on price.

And I'm like, I don't want to be the guy that gets pushed down on price. Like I, I want to own the frame and it's a privilege for you to be working with me. Cause I've got it. Ton of experience here. So how, how do I get into that position? It's, it's from,  and I, I have that now.  I, I, I, I, I literally have, like I said on a sales call to this guy yesterday, I said, we have the best brand service in Australia for the construction industry.

And he goes, yeah, yeah, there's, you know, you know, and I just kind of said that it is, it is debatable. But he was kinda like, well, yeah, that's, that's right. Like, of course, like, you know.  It gives you, it gives you the ability to make those claims and stake that, that flag in the ground. Right. And be like, this is what we're excellent at.

And then all of the work and the testimonials speak to that too, which I think is something that they get lost a lot with like show reels and portfolios where it sort of touches lots of different things and you kind of don't get a great. Sense of it was if you go, you're a builder and here's a whole bunch of problems we've solved for builders with the stuff we create, do you want us to help you as well?

It's like clearly a no brainer for them to have further conversation with you. So it just, it makes so much sense.  Yeah, I think it was I can't remember who it was, but I feel like it was Elon Musk that said it. The bigger the problem you solve,  in a nutshell, the bigger the paycheck.  And from hopping around from industry to industry, what I realized was that the big problems are not in the shallow end.

The big problems are in the deep end. And it takes time to get to the deep end. And a lot of people hop from industry to industry and they never spend the time to get to the deep end to truly understand the pain points of an industry. But once you get to a point when you can understand the pain points of an industry, because we come in going, well, do you want video content?

Or do you want to come in running a brand story video? And then you go, OK, here you go. You give them that. But what I learned was in that process, the problem actually isn't the video. The problem is creating a client acquisition machine that predictably produces high qualified prospects for these guys to convert, but also track. 

Like that's, that's actually the key problem that we solve for them. So if I was a generalist, I would not have the time to figure that out or work that out. But now, because we've spent the time in that niche and worked that out, we can now get paid for that, build a system around that, good processes around that, bring people into that.

Before you know it, you've got a good business. How  many sales calls drive you down on price now?  I'm not going to lie. You still get it. You still get it because the, the, the, the quality of builders fluctuate because you get some, you know, your top 20 percent of the guys that you're going after, but there's still a majority of builders who, who are still kind of still a bit price sensitive.

And you just tweak your offers to that and you, you systemize it. So if you, they do come on, it doesn't hurt the process as much. But yeah, my experience is, is Nishing into industry. And I know Matt, you would be a stylistic nation for yourself. Caleb would be. Well, geo-targeted niche, cause you'd be focusing on an area.

So I'd actually love to hear like from your guys then. So I'm niched in specifically into an industry, which is great. Cause I can, you know, we have clients all over Australia. But maybe you can talk a bit about that kind of like niching into your geo-targeted area.  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I jumped on with Den, we, we went through this process of who, who do we speak to?

Who do we help? The most, who's the most valuable clients to us. Because as you said down at the start, like if you, if you're talking to everybody which most videographers do, they go, you know, it's all about me. I'm so creative and I can do anything. Then it, how do I get retainers? How do I get returns? 

It's like, like, oh, come to me 'cause I could help you. It don't, no matter who you are. I mean, I feel like people have kind of that, I feel like that's me going, Hey, I'm creative over here, but we'll get to that.  Yeah, we'll get to that though. 

But if you're, if you're speaking to everybody, you know, no, one's going to resonate with it. Right. Unless you've got a really specific message that you're, you're you're giving we, I'm based in Bendigo in Victoria and town of a hundred thousand. And I think it was 99, 000 the last time I checked.

You're not even giving me that nonsense. Fuck, so it's 99, 003 since you spawned your three  children recently. Yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah. If anyone from Ballarat's listening to this, don't, don't fight me.  We're bigger. But so Bendigo.  We think we're, well, there's not enough of one industry right around us.

And not that that needs to be the case. Cause Andy, you know, your, your clients are everywhere. You've worked with clients in, in the States, for example, but we worked out that the people that we work really well with, that we connect with, that, that that have the right budgets were regionally based businesses.

So we have. Niched into remarkable regional businesses, we call them and we know all about them like, and they, they've cover a couple of different industries like heaps of different industries, but they all share really similar things. They all have really similar things in common. They all have a marketing team of one to three people.

And we know those people and their pain points really, really well. They all don't have the opportunity, the time or the history to become video experts, cause there's just so much on their plate, right? I could talk for ages about regionally based. marketers in, in regionally based companies.

So we, we serve them really well. And we, everything that we do, like I've got a podcast that is targeted at remarkable regional businesses. That's what it's called. And we've got. You know, all of our marketing is going into how to connect with and show more content to regionally based businesses.

But, you know, likewise to Andy, similar to Andy, you know, our, our regional businesses span from regional New South Wales to regional. Canada, Canada, that's right to, to Victoria, to, you know, everywhere around the place. So it doesn't really lock us in, but it does when a regionally based business gets onto our site or into our kind of ecosystem, they feel at home and they're like, These guys are going to get me.

I'm going to work with these guys. Cause I know regional people that there's a connection there. And that's what we've built, right? That's the idea of niching is you have, when someone lands in your ecosystem, they go, I'm in the right place. Cause I, I can see me here. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah.  I love that. I've got a question about you, Matt.

I was just going to, I was just going to ask,  what would you say qualifies as regional? How do I know I'm regional? For National Regional Australia, cause I checked the second site, cause I was looking at some grants recently. I was like, I was thinking about getting some alpacas, different story. I'm like, can I get a government grant as a farmer?

If I get alpacas, short side, yes, you can. As long as you've got five and you produce wool. But anyway, I mean, hang on, I think there's a little shortcut around this that you could just like claim that they all live on your render farm. Ah,  I see, like, he's, he's here, I'm glad you're here.  I'll see you guys next week. 

So technically, anywhere outside of a metro city area in Australia is regional, so outside of the major cities, and I think that's it, Perth, Darwin, Adelaide, Ambera, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne. Anything outside of that is regional. So it's interesting that your niche is remarkable regional businesses.

And you'll go, how'd you do that in Bendigo? It's like, well, that's where I live, but your clients come from even Canada as far off as I think that the truth is in this. In this, the reality of the niching space is the opposite happens to what you perhaps here will happen, which is like, no one will come to me.

But yeah, Matt, I would love to hear from you because you're obviously you're the odd one out and that you don't niche into a specific industry or geographical area because you are in, in the big city.  It's interesting, like the idea of niching originally terrified me because I was like, we don't work in one specific industry and we don't have a specific sector or geographic location.

We work to looking at it, you kind of to niche into a style or an approach, it becomes the, the, the kind of work you're known for. So. For us, we're in Melbourne. There's a lot of options as far as video production. There's big agencies, there's small one-man bands and everything in between. And so how do you stand out from that?

What do you, you know, how do you attract your ideal clients and what do you get known for? And for us, it's our approach in that the creativity now as a top-level sounds completely stagnant and everybody's creative, but it really is echoed through the way. We as individuals deal with clients and projects all the way through to the actual end result and everything between those two bookends of that process is fun, exciting, creative, it's just, it's got the kind of balloon tree magic to it that we just, it's kind of unquantifiable, but it's, it's really, really clear at any point in the process, you're getting a balloon tree.

Production video so as far as like the niching and going out to a market and trying to attract those clients it means that all of your marketing falls into making sure that that's front and center and it will deter some people like we are not everybody's cup of tea some really you know like. Just take a law firm that are typically, you know, a bit more stuffy or uptight or a bit more sort of by the numbers, we'll probably bounce a whole bunch of those off us because we are coming across as much more, you know, open and relaxed and casual and bright and colorful, and it might not jive and that's totally cool because we probably won't produce the kind of work that they want and vice versa.

Stylistically, niching seems like it's a bit of a weird odd sheet but it also has helped really shape and narrow our focus because everything we put out there Ideally attracts the kind of work that we want to create, which is that fun, exciting humor, parody type stuff that we are extremely good at and to kind of circle back to what we were talking about with Andy, when like, you know, you have a client comes to you and goes, Hey, we're the greatest brand story video producers in the construction industry.

We can do the same thing. We know how to take. Boring corporate stuff and turn it on its head and make it really fun and engaging for a massive event, internal stakeholders, your marketing, whatever it is. And here's 13  years of experience. They go, wow, you guys are incredible at doing that. Why would we go anywhere else?

Stylistically niching doesn't on the surface seem like it's as obvious, but we found a lot of success in it and we get a lot of satisfaction from producing really fun, silly stuff too. So it's a win-win.  Well, you've got some clear language around it though, too, right? You, you, you say you, you niche into fun, humor, and wonder.

Is that still, the language that you use to communicate that? Yeah. And I think it's, you know, we sort of tacked on things like engaging and entertaining as well, depending on the context, but, you know, it, it's, I think the, the trap that a lot of small businesses or people, videographers starting out and they're like, we loves telling stories and we're storytellers is like, that doesn't talk to the way you do that.

And it's the way you do it in construction will speak very differently to that industry. The way you do it for a regional business speaks very differently. The way we do it through fun, humor, and wonder, and sometimes puns kind of speaks to our approach and our sense of humor and our sensibilities that.

People get it or they don't. And if they get it, they're locked in. And it's like, yeah, it's clear. We're going to get along really, really well. And so a lot of that language around niching and shaping your offer and communicating that becomes so clear because I think for all of us, people bounce off it.

If they go yet, this isn't for us, but also that's great because it's then cutting down the amount of volume or, or leads that are just. Never going to go anywhere in the first place. So by focusing that and having a really clear, targeted approach to the way you communicate what you do and who you do it for, just means that you save yourself so many headaches down the track going, no, actually we can't help you.

Or sorry, this isn't quite a good fit that all gets filtered out through the power of niching, which is. I mean, arguably it's, it's greatest superpower.  One thing that really has really helped in the stylistic niche. And I think it applies to a lot of other niches as well. He's, he's having like a really clear customer or client persona.

And like, who are you talking to? It's not just like people in construction, but it's Bob, the builder. He's great. I've seen a lot of his stuff. He does. Good, good work. Not quite up to code with his equipment, but it's fine. But you know, like we, we have a North star of a guy who got us our first, like we've done three back to the future parodies now, which is like blows my mind that that even happened, but it all became possible because of this one guy.

And he was our connection in, and we got along really well. And it was that.  So now we sort of filter every idea we have in terms of marketing or approach or who would find this interesting through a version of him. And it's like, would he find this fun and funny and interesting? Great. Then it feels like it's aligned with the way we're doing it because the work we got through him was the best work we've ever done from a satisfaction point of view and then results as well.

So having that really clear idea of who you're talking to, name, age, interests, hobbies, pain points, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Really helps kind of get clear on that niche factor as well.  So I wanted to, to move this conversation into money, which is a tricky subject for some videographers because a number of calls I've had where they go, well, you know, I asked them, you know, what, what are you, how much do you want to make?

And they're like, well, you know, I don't want to be greedy, not too much. I don't want to be a millionaire or anything.  Of course that I I'm very proud of the fact that I love, I love the fact that business can create. You know, funds and capital and you can do really cool stuff with it. But, but money and bank is the result of niching.

Nishingwell separates you from virtually all of the competition. And I think back to my days at Sony, I used to get a lot of stick people asking the question, why is this guy Den Lennie launching yet another Sony camera? And I wasn't the greatest filmmaker. I wasn't the best filmmaker out there.  But I knew my market and I knew my audience.

They associated, this is a true story, Sony Senior Management associated the successful launch of the Sony A7S 10 years ago because of Den Rennie. Internally, they coined the phrase Den Rennie style. And so Den Rennie then got the FS5, the FS7, and a bunch of other cameras to launch. And what I would do is just, lean into that.

But that then got me an incredible relationship with Zeiss lenses, incredible relationship with Atomos, incredible relationship with all these other suppliers, Connor Tripods, because I was in with this one. And I think that's the power of niching, is once you're in that environment,  Andy, you were at a Builders conference, I think in Brisbane a few weeks ago, and you picked up loads of work because you're the guy that's in the room because you get invited in because you're a specialist.

And I think you said you had like at least two calls the next day off the back of that one meeting, Andy, where you went down to Brisbane and hung out, and had some drinks with some builders. Yeah, that event, I on the tail end of that got two calls, pretty much booked in the next day, closed one of them and since then I've got two more.

The other thing I was going to add to that, that, before I asked you that question was, As a result of being niched into the space I was in when I was still shooting, I was able to command pretty pretty significant rates for the work we were doing. Cause they wanted me at which point I'm like, okay, well I come with a certain price tag and, and you know, you guys know this, but I, my, my thing was always business class travel.

So I was like flying around the world business class. And I was always asked the question, is this a business class flight? I'm like, yep.  Okay. Then ready. You know,  when you set your stall out as an expert in a niche,  and you should turn around and say, we are the very best in this space for doing this, because here's the thing, virtually no one will challenge you on that.

They might whinge and moan, but they won't challenge you. And, and people believe what you tell them. And you can back it up because on your website, Andy, there's nothing but films for builders.  And the only thing that matters is that other builders see that and go, I want what that guy's got. And so can you talk a bit about how, how going niche into builders has impacted your ability to price what you do as a service compared to perhaps what you might've been doing when you were like a general videographer. 

It's completely transformed because one of the things that happens when you. Decide to niche into an industry is you create pretty much you, you create your own framework of how you complete your work. So.  That in itself inherits value, so we're not giving them a video, we're giving them this signature framework, which has been coined by specializing in an industry, so just, there's already value within that, but if we just talk like the most plain terms, if we just talk numbers I would say that since niching into the residential construction space, Expansion media has, it will probably be close to just over 3x  in top-line revenue.

And that's in a short period of time. That's only in about 18 months,  give or take. So it's like, I'm seeing past seven figures and I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm, those numbers don't scare me. I can actually, I've, I've reverse engineered the numbers to get to 85K, 100K business and how many clients we need to put that on board.

And I've got the systems and the processes to back that. And it doesn't really scare me. So the and, and yeah, sorry, per month. So that means it creates a seven-figure business. But yeah, no, it brings me to say that is some videographers are like aspiring to make six figures a year. And I think that's why this is worth laboring is that this isn't just like, Hey, we like niching.

This is like, has a.  And astronomical impacts on your ability to provide value and therefore receive the value in return.  Correct. And like the, the, the thing about like, man, I just,  so it's like, this, this is my take on it. Right. So like, yes, you can sometimes if you're just a generalist, right. You, yes, you can land a 50 grand job, for example.

Right. But the question I have to that as a business owner, right. Just because you got landed a 50 grand job,  can you. Can you generate another 50 grand job in three weeks time, predictably, do you have a process to deliver on that? If it does come through, and can you build a system around that so you can bring in trained people to run that consistently and in a, in a way where you can like take your hands off the steering wheel a bit.

And if the answer is no, then you don't really like,  you don't really have a business. It's just a expensive freelancer.  And I think it's like, it's a distinguishing point. It's like, do you want to be an amazing freelancer or do you want to run a business? Because a business requires systems and processes.

And like, even the selling I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking of bringing in somebody else to do the selling for me, which is what I've always wanted to do. Because even the way that I sell. Is repeatable, like the things that I say aren't by chance, it's, it's kind of scripted in my mind. It's ingrained into my mind.

I don't even have to, I could do it half asleep because I do it that many times, but, but that's what you want. That's like, you know, and my, my lens is I want to build a business where I can have other people's thrive in it. And they feel like they're moving towards their goals and we're helping our clients win.

They feel like they're winning and every everybody wins, but then I'm allowed, I'm able to create a business that runs and creates profit, right? It creates profit and then allows me as a creative. So that hard on my credit to then focus on the other projects that I really want to do. If money wasn't a factor, I'll just be shooting fun doco stuff, fun, creative films just for myself and that's it.

But money is a factor. We've got bills to pay, we've got kids to feed, we've got countries to travel to. That's the reality of it. So we need to fund that with the resources. Yeah, that, that's a, you know, conversation I like having in the niching spaces is how predictable can you, can you then resell your, your product in a way that you can forecast in 12 months time and keep in mind as well, like, not a lot of video production businesses can, can sell or can exit, but when you niche this conversation about exiting, because then it opens up a whole nother conversation about mergers and acquisitions.

Like that's something as a generalist, you can't really have. Yeah.  would just hire you as a creative director and then see, but if you've got a business, that's a machine, it spits out profit on the other, on the other end. That's attractive to other, you know, private equity companies. So it just opens up another world. 

So it's it's a game changer.  How about you, Matt? Have you noticed that being a specialist in a particular area gives you some,  some, some elasticity with the kind of budgets you work with and the kind of things that you can do with that? Yeah, I mean, it instantly opens up a pathway to trust when you go, Hey, this is a really wild idea and it's going to cost, you know, a bit more than what you said you might have, or, you know, the budget conversation comes up, you can then point back to all of the examples of, we did this for this much, or we did this for this much, and you've got those runs on the board and that reference point.

So it becomes a much easier conversation.  I also think too, To that like predictability of like being able to go, we need to turn over, you know, 50K months or whatever it is. It becomes so hard when, as a generalist, it's sort of like, you know, trying to, trying to go on a road trip, right? If you go, I want to drive from Melbourne to Bendigo, you can get your map, it's very clear where you follow the road and how you get there.

If you go, I want to go on a road trip from Melbourne. And then you're like, where do you go? What do you do? What direction do you head first? And sort of like, you can still drive and go on a road trip, but it's completely aimless and you're not going to quite have any destination or goal to get there. So I think even stylistically, you can be like, this is the  So how do we, how do we bring more business in?

We can lean into the stuff that separates us from anywhere else and double down on that and know that it's just dialing in our offer to make sure that people know we're amazing at this thing. And then the official bite on the hook. Right. So.  It's definitely, it positions you as an expert in a space and for us, it's taking bland, boring ideas and making it something far greater than it ever has any right to be.

But if you're really good at that and can take those ideas and anybody else that comes in on that journey and they do it. Buy in and trust you, you do get to sort of say, Hey, well, we're the experts in this and write your own check in a lot of ways. It's not to say that, you know, we don't have people squeezing you some price and stuff, but you, you're coming from a place of, or a position of power and authority and not just, of course we can help you.

We can do TV commercials and live streams and it's like, no, we, we do this really well. And this is what will solve your problem. And it's going to cost you this.  Do you want to do it? So yeah, that's what we've found. What about you, Caleb? I'm imagining it's similar in your space out there in, in Bendigo the 99,000 hobby.

Yeah.  Yeah. 99 thousand three. Yeah. . The I,  I was actually, you made me think of one video. I think I saw you on your LinkedIn. You finished it with, like, there, there's lots of fish in the sea, so don't sell for a catfish. Yeah,  that's right. I actually watched that video, but it, it kind of, I was like following that.

Fishing analogy on like the idea of niching is that you reduce the pool of people that you're looking for. That's the kind of the idea that's that you want that to have people come in and go, Oh, this guy's not for me. Because that means that there will become people coming in and you're not fishing for a cat.

You're not. You're not. Fishing in the wide open sea and you get a catfish, you get a Marlin because that's all you're fishing for. That's like that, you know, you know, I might be taking it too far there. But so for us, like we know our audience so well that they're, they're either executives or marketing solo marketers within a company.

Because that's regional businesses don't ever have any more And so we understand their experience. And what we've done is add on strategy as a, as a, a service to all the videos that we create and what we hop on about is that we're not the, we're not the production company that you need to hold our hands and tell us what to do and, and lead and manage us and try and fit that into your marketing strategy.

Because we help remarkable regional businesses perform on the world stage with strategic video. You don't have to, you know, we're going to be your video production partner that will align a video strategy to your existing marketing goals so that you can trust us that to achieve an outcome. Rather than just make you a pretty-looking video.

Cause nobody cares. Nobody cares about a video. They want the outcome that the video is going to achieve for them. Like Andy's brand story videos, the builders aren't you know, there'll be an element of, of, of vanity and there is in nearly every client, but they're not generally coming to them going, I want a video because I think video is cool.

I want a video cause it's, it's just how much fun would that be? You know, they're spending 30 plus K on video because they. Think and they believe that it's gonna get them more business or it's gonna get them more leads, more of their ideal market is gonna see them. They're gonna stand out. You know, there's a long list of desires that that they have, but they want that outcome.

So that's how we position ourselves, right. In a regional, regional, niche. We say, look, we understand you. We understand the pain points you're experiencing and we're going to come alongside you. So when they're comparing, and we always get it, like we, we send a quote for even, you know, 10, 15 K and they'll come back to us and say, look, You know, the next, the next option to you was like half your price, but we're going with you because we know that it's going to be an easier process and we're going to be able to trust you.

So when we're always more expensive, but we can, we still get plenty of work because the people understand that we're, they're not comparing us to another video production company because we have niched into knowing exactly who our audience is and what they need. Yeah.  I think one of the other powerful things like on the, on the back end of, of niching, it's like one thing you actually don't consider.

And one thing we didn't consider  was when it comes time to start marketing outbound leads, it's actually more cost effective  to spend money advertising when you're niched in. It's very generalist.  In order to find an ideal client, and if we're just talking ad spend, in order like our client acquisition leads at the moment I think it's under 20 for a lead.

Like it's, it's bonkers  as, as a generalist, like you would be, you know, you got, you got quality control that that's an issue, but then you've also got Like it's hard to even in your ad copy, like how do you target the person? Like who, who is it, you know, that it ends up being a generic. So you end up having to spend a lot more to acquire a lead.

And so that becomes an issue when you're trying to scale or when you, when you're then trying to, you know, if we're having a low quarter, you need to increase the top line. You try to scale that. You run these ads, you then pull in these. Average leads and then you can't say no to them because you need the cash flow and then you end up saying yes to Non ideal leads and it ends up slowing you down even more so in the long run.

So it's yeah, it's true yeah,  it's an issue and I only say that from experience because it was yeah, man, it's It was it's painful at times if you're sort of just attracting anyone everyone From startups to people wanting to, I had a company selling mattresses, willing to spend like 20 grand on ad spend with their videos.

And then I remember jumping out of that meeting and then I had a conversation with somebody who was wanting to start a fashion brand and had just ordered like, and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, the turbulence, like my neck spinning like this. I'm like, this is.  This isn't healthy.  I just wanted, before we wrap up, there is something we were talking about that day, Andy, on, on the call inside the the free video business accelerator group that we run.

And for anyone who's watching or listening to this, you know, Someone on this page, there'll be a link to that, you should come and hang out. It's a free group, we get together, we chat, help you iron out some of your business problems. But we had a guy on the other day and he was like, Oh, but you know, I really love like all the variety I get.

And you were great at it because you went, look, dude, you could tell him that every single day you pick up a camera, it's a super fun job.  And it's not. Like, everything you do in life that has some sort of value exchange at some point gets monotonous. And I think that there's a consensus out there that the freelance videographer is like somehow got all this variety and only ever does fun stuff and is always seeking to just do more fun stuff.

But the truth is it doesn't happen like that. So what, what do you say to a quick, quick wrap-up? So we wrap this episode up. What what do you say to someone who's, who's like, like that chat we were talking to the other day, Andy, we'll say his name, we'll call him Bob. You know, he was just like really fixated with having fun. 

But I think you raised some great points too about the fact that  are you having fun every day? There's a misconception, I think, that niching suddenly all you ever do is the one thing.  Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And to your point, you do anything like, yeah, you do anything long enough, the fun eventually is like diluted and then it kind of gets watered down a bit.

But what I would say is the fun shifts when you niche. When you niche in, like initially your fun is getting creative and creating the video. And like, this is really cool. And you create a system. And then you do that enough. Like, I'll be honest, the brand stories today that don't excite me that much.

It's cool. It looks really cool. But the fun for me now has shifted now to growing a business, to building a team, to becoming a better leader myself and, like just even personal development as a business owner and just, just learning new business opportunity, the fun shifts as you evolve, you know what I mean?

It's like a kid, like as kids, we enjoyed playing on the playground and swinging on the swings. But we grew up, I find changes and in business, it should be the same as well. Our fun should be shifting on to bigger and better and more challenging things because you know, what is fun? Fun is playing, but there's also a sense of a reward system in there as well.

So the thing about niching and moving forward is there's a slight challenge in there, but there's also a rewarding system within that. And, and it's, it becomes this new gamification of business. Yeah, I mean. Just trying to put that into a nutshell. It's like, I don't know. It was like, there's a sense of, there's a bit of, is it naivety?

Like just there being a bit naive to just think that it gets boring. Like you actually think about it and, and and are open to it. You might actually find that you'll have more fun. 

Good. How about you guys? Yeah. Well, it really enables access, right? Like it, yeah.  I think something you mentioned earlier, Andy, about, you know, or actually Den, when you were saying, you know, people go, no, I don't want to make that much money and just, I'm not greedy. You know, I think I said that to you on our first call back.

You know, it's, it's what everyone says that doesn't make you much money. Yeah, no, no. I'm here for the good times and the laughs. But when you actually get into it and dive into it, you're like, I can't do this forever. If I'm not making money and not because I'm greedy, it's because that is, that is what is required to provide for my family.

It's what's required to have freedom to actually be able to choose to do the things that I want to do because my needs are covered. And I've been able to produce some reliability. And so, you know, there's, there's a maturing that you need to get to in order to understand that.  I need to shift my goalposts here and realign what I'm trying to achieve with actually building a successful business, because if I'm building a successful business, I'm going to be able to build reliability and there's a level of safety there, but like you say, Andy, that's what the transition I made was from, I'm a, I'm a filmmaker to I'm building a business that can.

Creates videos and it achieves value. There's a value exchange between me and our clients. And I love that. Like that is where that is exactly where my fun comes from is being able to see the team. Be amazing and see the results that we're getting for clients, but then know that I've built something that is actually gonna sustain my life and provide me the opportunity to have fun.

And it doesn't have to be connected to the work I'm doing. Very neat.  Well, you know, businesses need fuel. You know, Matt, you're sitting in your brand new, literally brand new office. Do you have a team of five? Well, you know. Everyone loves working with you, but they need to be paid every month. And that's a big responsibility, which needs fuel.

So how important is, is doing something that generates the right kind of fuel in terms of  tying into that niche? Yeah, it's hugely important. And I think it's a North star to make sure that the fuel is good fuel. It's like we could just to make ends meet do Anything and everything just to kind of pay the bills and keep the lights on, but then the team and the work we produce wouldn't be nearly as good as it could be because we're not feeling inspired and excited by it.

So, you know, the idea of, of everything being fun, while that's what we put out and we say, Hey, everything we produce is fun, humor, wonder, whatever. We also do some pretty dry material. We do some pretty. Dense dry training stuff, but it's like it's through conversations that have started because there's an alignment in the way we go about things.

So it helps to make sure that even if the work is less inspiring than, you know, a big, crazy commercial or something like that, the relationships that we've built and can maintain through doing that work is what fuels us because we know we need to make certain amount of revenue every month to keep the place going.

And we can only rely on the relationships we do have to keep us going and then try and bring in new business to support that. So finding a way of working with people and offer that really connects with people and then really just reinforcing those relationships by great experiences, great customer service making them feel like they're one-to-one and not one of many clients just just further strengthens your position.

The best place to go when it comes to video no matter what niche you're in, it just means that you can start relying on those, those clients and their jobs to come back and you can then grow and scale a business over time as those, those relationships compound and you get more and more and more of them under your belt.

I think that's a great place to end this episode. We'll see you all next week. 

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 The power of niching. I niched into broadcast television, equipment manufacturers, Sony, Canon, O'Connor, you name it. And he used to just get so much business because I was in that one niche and it has been a real flag in the stand north star for me. But I also experience a lot of videographers at all stages, often being very nervous about the idea of niching.

So, I want to just sort of set the record straight.  When I say niching your video business is absolutely critical for financial success,  what I mean specifically is talking to one audience at a time so that your message resonates with them. But you know, Andy, you and I were on a call this week with the guys in the VBA group and like, There was, there was a lot of concern about, but I want to miss out on the fun stuff if I just do one thing.

So I'd, I'd love to throw it to you, mate. You know, what's your view on niching? Yeah, I absolutely like it.  I suppose in this market, there is just straight off the bat. There's a lot of there's a lot of fear around niching.  A lot of people can focus on the cons to niching and that is, it's usually driven by like the fear of missing out.

There is a fear of. Not being passionate about an industry and then them feeling incongruent as an identity kind of thing. And then as creatives, they go like, well, I have to be passionate about an industry. And if I'm not, you know, if I don't live and breathe that industry, I just won't feel good for me to grow in that industry.

I'm going to feel a fraud. There's that conversation. But the pros for me, far outweigh the cons far out comes an aging and like,  you know, and. If you look at it as a, as a business terms, when it comes to selling, perception is a really big deal when it comes to selling, positioning is a big deal when it comes to selling and selling is essential to growing a business, but niching immediately tenfolds the perception and the positioning of any brand, because in order to, to niche and to, to make us, to take a stand in any industry it requires character.

There's like kudos points straight off the bat that just gets handed to you, because in order to do that, it requires an, a conscious decision to serve and help a particular demographic. And sometimes the fact of even doing that can sometimes be perceived as value that in itself is like, Oh, wow. Okay. And yes, there is the you know,  there's the initial thing of, you know, when you niche into an industry. 

People like what you, you, you're now helping builders or you're not helping dentists or you're not helping lawyers and people are afraid of that perception of how will they be perceived if I actually niche into an industry, but it's actually not, there's nothing happens. Like  people just go, Oh, cool.

Like that guy's doing that thing now. And then they just carry on in life. Like that's, that's kind of it. Well, Andy, you're not you're not speaking as one who hasn't done this, right? Like you, you, you're the builders man, right? What was that? Oh, I want to hear what's that, what's that journey. What was that journey like for you?

Yeah, so like  I started at expansion media was a, I started out as a videographer, just a generalist. So I took on anything and everything. I started out shooting weddings and then eventually moved into corporate and sort of, it kind of grew from there. But the kind of defining moment for me when I decided to niche was when I was running Facebook ads. 

And I remember a moment when our Calendly link was just pinging off. Like, I was looking at my phone and we were like getting book lead, book lead. I'm like, I looked at my, I looked at Christine and my partner and I said, Oh my gosh, we've like cracked the code. I'm here at home working from my office and these people are then booking into my calendar.

Like this is amazing. And at that point I was like, okay, my life is going to change. Like I'm just like, I'm, I'm going to be sending it now. And I took about 30 sales calls, 40, maybe even more, 30 or 40 sales calls. And I closed about all of those.  And I remember going,  this is not scalable. Like I had to every call that I got on, I was having to, they were like in a different industry, slightly different niche, different requirements, different problems.

And those who were getting close to it, or yes, but then trying to push me down on price. And I'm like,  I just don't even want to win this anymore. Like this is, this sucks. Like I'm in a position of like, they, they, I feel like I had a lot, a lot of value to give, but they're, they're trying to push me down on price.

And I'm like, I don't want to be the guy that gets pushed down on price. Like I, I want to own the frame and it's a privilege for you to be working with me. Cause I've got it. Ton of experience here. So how, how do I get into that position? It's, it's from,  and I, I have that now.  I, I, I, I, I literally have, like I said on a sales call to this guy yesterday, I said, we have the best brand service in Australia for the construction industry.

And he goes, yeah, yeah, there's, you know, you know, and I just kind of said that it is, it is debatable. But he was kinda like, well, yeah, that's, that's right. Like, of course, like, you know.  It gives you, it gives you the ability to make those claims and stake that, that flag in the ground. Right. And be like, this is what we're excellent at.

And then all of the work and the testimonials speak to that too, which I think is something that they get lost a lot with like show reels and portfolios where it sort of touches lots of different things and you kind of don't get a great. Sense of it was if you go, you're a builder and here's a whole bunch of problems we've solved for builders with the stuff we create, do you want us to help you as well?

It's like clearly a no brainer for them to have further conversation with you. So it just, it makes so much sense.  Yeah, I think it was I can't remember who it was, but I feel like it was Elon Musk that said it. The bigger the problem you solve,  in a nutshell, the bigger the paycheck.  And from hopping around from industry to industry, what I realized was that the big problems are not in the shallow end.

The big problems are in the deep end. And it takes time to get to the deep end. And a lot of people hop from industry to industry and they never spend the time to get to the deep end to truly understand the pain points of an industry. But once you get to a point when you can understand the pain points of an industry, because we come in going, well, do you want video content?

Or do you want to come in running a brand story video? And then you go, OK, here you go. You give them that. But what I learned was in that process, the problem actually isn't the video. The problem is creating a client acquisition machine that predictably produces high qualified prospects for these guys to convert, but also track. 

Like that's, that's actually the key problem that we solve for them. So if I was a generalist, I would not have the time to figure that out or work that out. But now, because we've spent the time in that niche and worked that out, we can now get paid for that, build a system around that, good processes around that, bring people into that.

Before you know it, you've got a good business. How  many sales calls drive you down on price now?  I'm not going to lie. You still get it. You still get it because the, the, the, the quality of builders fluctuate because you get some, you know, your top 20 percent of the guys that you're going after, but there's still a majority of builders who, who are still kind of still a bit price sensitive.

And you just tweak your offers to that and you, you systemize it. So if you, they do come on, it doesn't hurt the process as much. But yeah, my experience is, is Nishing into industry. And I know Matt, you would be a stylistic nation for yourself. Caleb would be. Well, geo-targeted niche, cause you'd be focusing on an area.

So I'd actually love to hear like from your guys then. So I'm niched in specifically into an industry, which is great. Cause I can, you know, we have clients all over Australia. But maybe you can talk a bit about that kind of like niching into your geo-targeted area.  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I jumped on with Den, we, we went through this process of who, who do we speak to?

Who do we help? The most, who's the most valuable clients to us. Because as you said down at the start, like if you, if you're talking to everybody which most videographers do, they go, you know, it's all about me. I'm so creative and I can do anything. Then it, how do I get retainers? How do I get returns? 

It's like, like, oh, come to me 'cause I could help you. It don't, no matter who you are. I mean, I feel like people have kind of that, I feel like that's me going, Hey, I'm creative over here, but we'll get to that.  Yeah, we'll get to that though. 

But if you're, if you're speaking to everybody, you know, no, one's going to resonate with it. Right. Unless you've got a really specific message that you're, you're you're giving we, I'm based in Bendigo in Victoria and town of a hundred thousand. And I think it was 99, 000 the last time I checked.

You're not even giving me that nonsense. Fuck, so it's 99, 003 since you spawned your three  children recently. Yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah. If anyone from Ballarat's listening to this, don't, don't fight me.  We're bigger. But so Bendigo.  We think we're, well, there's not enough of one industry right around us.

And not that that needs to be the case. Cause Andy, you know, your, your clients are everywhere. You've worked with clients in, in the States, for example, but we worked out that the people that we work really well with, that we connect with, that, that that have the right budgets were regionally based businesses.

So we have. Niched into remarkable regional businesses, we call them and we know all about them like, and they, they've cover a couple of different industries like heaps of different industries, but they all share really similar things. They all have really similar things in common. They all have a marketing team of one to three people.

And we know those people and their pain points really, really well. They all don't have the opportunity, the time or the history to become video experts, cause there's just so much on their plate, right? I could talk for ages about regionally based. marketers in, in regionally based companies.

So we, we serve them really well. And we, everything that we do, like I've got a podcast that is targeted at remarkable regional businesses. That's what it's called. And we've got. You know, all of our marketing is going into how to connect with and show more content to regionally based businesses.

But, you know, likewise to Andy, similar to Andy, you know, our, our regional businesses span from regional New South Wales to regional. Canada, Canada, that's right to, to Victoria, to, you know, everywhere around the place. So it doesn't really lock us in, but it does when a regionally based business gets onto our site or into our kind of ecosystem, they feel at home and they're like, These guys are going to get me.

I'm going to work with these guys. Cause I know regional people that there's a connection there. And that's what we've built, right? That's the idea of niching is you have, when someone lands in your ecosystem, they go, I'm in the right place. Cause I, I can see me here. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah.  I love that. I've got a question about you, Matt.

I was just going to, I was just going to ask,  what would you say qualifies as regional? How do I know I'm regional? For National Regional Australia, cause I checked the second site, cause I was looking at some grants recently. I was like, I was thinking about getting some alpacas, different story. I'm like, can I get a government grant as a farmer?

If I get alpacas, short side, yes, you can. As long as you've got five and you produce wool. But anyway, I mean, hang on, I think there's a little shortcut around this that you could just like claim that they all live on your render farm. Ah,  I see, like, he's, he's here, I'm glad you're here.  I'll see you guys next week. 

So technically, anywhere outside of a metro city area in Australia is regional, so outside of the major cities, and I think that's it, Perth, Darwin, Adelaide, Ambera, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne. Anything outside of that is regional. So it's interesting that your niche is remarkable regional businesses.

And you'll go, how'd you do that in Bendigo? It's like, well, that's where I live, but your clients come from even Canada as far off as I think that the truth is in this. In this, the reality of the niching space is the opposite happens to what you perhaps here will happen, which is like, no one will come to me.

But yeah, Matt, I would love to hear from you because you're obviously you're the odd one out and that you don't niche into a specific industry or geographical area because you are in, in the big city.  It's interesting, like the idea of niching originally terrified me because I was like, we don't work in one specific industry and we don't have a specific sector or geographic location.

We work to looking at it, you kind of to niche into a style or an approach, it becomes the, the, the kind of work you're known for. So. For us, we're in Melbourne. There's a lot of options as far as video production. There's big agencies, there's small one-man bands and everything in between. And so how do you stand out from that?

What do you, you know, how do you attract your ideal clients and what do you get known for? And for us, it's our approach in that the creativity now as a top-level sounds completely stagnant and everybody's creative, but it really is echoed through the way. We as individuals deal with clients and projects all the way through to the actual end result and everything between those two bookends of that process is fun, exciting, creative, it's just, it's got the kind of balloon tree magic to it that we just, it's kind of unquantifiable, but it's, it's really, really clear at any point in the process, you're getting a balloon tree.

Production video so as far as like the niching and going out to a market and trying to attract those clients it means that all of your marketing falls into making sure that that's front and center and it will deter some people like we are not everybody's cup of tea some really you know like. Just take a law firm that are typically, you know, a bit more stuffy or uptight or a bit more sort of by the numbers, we'll probably bounce a whole bunch of those off us because we are coming across as much more, you know, open and relaxed and casual and bright and colorful, and it might not jive and that's totally cool because we probably won't produce the kind of work that they want and vice versa.

Stylistically, niching seems like it's a bit of a weird odd sheet but it also has helped really shape and narrow our focus because everything we put out there Ideally attracts the kind of work that we want to create, which is that fun, exciting humor, parody type stuff that we are extremely good at and to kind of circle back to what we were talking about with Andy, when like, you know, you have a client comes to you and goes, Hey, we're the greatest brand story video producers in the construction industry.

We can do the same thing. We know how to take. Boring corporate stuff and turn it on its head and make it really fun and engaging for a massive event, internal stakeholders, your marketing, whatever it is. And here's 13  years of experience. They go, wow, you guys are incredible at doing that. Why would we go anywhere else?

Stylistically niching doesn't on the surface seem like it's as obvious, but we found a lot of success in it and we get a lot of satisfaction from producing really fun, silly stuff too. So it's a win-win.  Well, you've got some clear language around it though, too, right? You, you, you say you, you niche into fun, humor, and wonder.

Is that still, the language that you use to communicate that? Yeah. And I think it's, you know, we sort of tacked on things like engaging and entertaining as well, depending on the context, but, you know, it, it's, I think the, the trap that a lot of small businesses or people, videographers starting out and they're like, we loves telling stories and we're storytellers is like, that doesn't talk to the way you do that.

And it's the way you do it in construction will speak very differently to that industry. The way you do it for a regional business speaks very differently. The way we do it through fun, humor, and wonder, and sometimes puns kind of speaks to our approach and our sense of humor and our sensibilities that.

People get it or they don't. And if they get it, they're locked in. And it's like, yeah, it's clear. We're going to get along really, really well. And so a lot of that language around niching and shaping your offer and communicating that becomes so clear because I think for all of us, people bounce off it.

If they go yet, this isn't for us, but also that's great because it's then cutting down the amount of volume or, or leads that are just. Never going to go anywhere in the first place. So by focusing that and having a really clear, targeted approach to the way you communicate what you do and who you do it for, just means that you save yourself so many headaches down the track going, no, actually we can't help you.

Or sorry, this isn't quite a good fit that all gets filtered out through the power of niching, which is. I mean, arguably it's, it's greatest superpower.  One thing that really has really helped in the stylistic niche. And I think it applies to a lot of other niches as well. He's, he's having like a really clear customer or client persona.

And like, who are you talking to? It's not just like people in construction, but it's Bob, the builder. He's great. I've seen a lot of his stuff. He does. Good, good work. Not quite up to code with his equipment, but it's fine. But you know, like we, we have a North star of a guy who got us our first, like we've done three back to the future parodies now, which is like blows my mind that that even happened, but it all became possible because of this one guy.

And he was our connection in, and we got along really well. And it was that.  So now we sort of filter every idea we have in terms of marketing or approach or who would find this interesting through a version of him. And it's like, would he find this fun and funny and interesting? Great. Then it feels like it's aligned with the way we're doing it because the work we got through him was the best work we've ever done from a satisfaction point of view and then results as well.

So having that really clear idea of who you're talking to, name, age, interests, hobbies, pain points, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Really helps kind of get clear on that niche factor as well.  So I wanted to, to move this conversation into money, which is a tricky subject for some videographers because a number of calls I've had where they go, well, you know, I asked them, you know, what, what are you, how much do you want to make?

And they're like, well, you know, I don't want to be greedy, not too much. I don't want to be a millionaire or anything.  Of course that I I'm very proud of the fact that I love, I love the fact that business can create. You know, funds and capital and you can do really cool stuff with it. But, but money and bank is the result of niching.

Nishingwell separates you from virtually all of the competition. And I think back to my days at Sony, I used to get a lot of stick people asking the question, why is this guy Den Lennie launching yet another Sony camera? And I wasn't the greatest filmmaker. I wasn't the best filmmaker out there.  But I knew my market and I knew my audience.

They associated, this is a true story, Sony Senior Management associated the successful launch of the Sony A7S 10 years ago because of Den Rennie. Internally, they coined the phrase Den Rennie style. And so Den Rennie then got the FS5, the FS7, and a bunch of other cameras to launch. And what I would do is just, lean into that.

But that then got me an incredible relationship with Zeiss lenses, incredible relationship with Atomos, incredible relationship with all these other suppliers, Connor Tripods, because I was in with this one. And I think that's the power of niching, is once you're in that environment,  Andy, you were at a Builders conference, I think in Brisbane a few weeks ago, and you picked up loads of work because you're the guy that's in the room because you get invited in because you're a specialist.

And I think you said you had like at least two calls the next day off the back of that one meeting, Andy, where you went down to Brisbane and hung out, and had some drinks with some builders. Yeah, that event, I on the tail end of that got two calls, pretty much booked in the next day, closed one of them and since then I've got two more.

The other thing I was going to add to that, that, before I asked you that question was, As a result of being niched into the space I was in when I was still shooting, I was able to command pretty pretty significant rates for the work we were doing. Cause they wanted me at which point I'm like, okay, well I come with a certain price tag and, and you know, you guys know this, but I, my, my thing was always business class travel.

So I was like flying around the world business class. And I was always asked the question, is this a business class flight? I'm like, yep.  Okay. Then ready. You know,  when you set your stall out as an expert in a niche,  and you should turn around and say, we are the very best in this space for doing this, because here's the thing, virtually no one will challenge you on that.

They might whinge and moan, but they won't challenge you. And, and people believe what you tell them. And you can back it up because on your website, Andy, there's nothing but films for builders.  And the only thing that matters is that other builders see that and go, I want what that guy's got. And so can you talk a bit about how, how going niche into builders has impacted your ability to price what you do as a service compared to perhaps what you might've been doing when you were like a general videographer. 

It's completely transformed because one of the things that happens when you. Decide to niche into an industry is you create pretty much you, you create your own framework of how you complete your work. So.  That in itself inherits value, so we're not giving them a video, we're giving them this signature framework, which has been coined by specializing in an industry, so just, there's already value within that, but if we just talk like the most plain terms, if we just talk numbers I would say that since niching into the residential construction space, Expansion media has, it will probably be close to just over 3x  in top-line revenue.

And that's in a short period of time. That's only in about 18 months,  give or take. So it's like, I'm seeing past seven figures and I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm, those numbers don't scare me. I can actually, I've, I've reverse engineered the numbers to get to 85K, 100K business and how many clients we need to put that on board.

And I've got the systems and the processes to back that. And it doesn't really scare me. So the and, and yeah, sorry, per month. So that means it creates a seven-figure business. But yeah, no, it brings me to say that is some videographers are like aspiring to make six figures a year. And I think that's why this is worth laboring is that this isn't just like, Hey, we like niching.

This is like, has a.  And astronomical impacts on your ability to provide value and therefore receive the value in return.  Correct. And like the, the, the thing about like, man, I just,  so it's like, this, this is my take on it. Right. So like, yes, you can sometimes if you're just a generalist, right. You, yes, you can land a 50 grand job, for example.

Right. But the question I have to that as a business owner, right. Just because you got landed a 50 grand job,  can you. Can you generate another 50 grand job in three weeks time, predictably, do you have a process to deliver on that? If it does come through, and can you build a system around that so you can bring in trained people to run that consistently and in a, in a way where you can like take your hands off the steering wheel a bit.

And if the answer is no, then you don't really like,  you don't really have a business. It's just a expensive freelancer.  And I think it's like, it's a distinguishing point. It's like, do you want to be an amazing freelancer or do you want to run a business? Because a business requires systems and processes.

And like, even the selling I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking of bringing in somebody else to do the selling for me, which is what I've always wanted to do. Because even the way that I sell. Is repeatable, like the things that I say aren't by chance, it's, it's kind of scripted in my mind. It's ingrained into my mind.

I don't even have to, I could do it half asleep because I do it that many times, but, but that's what you want. That's like, you know, and my, my lens is I want to build a business where I can have other people's thrive in it. And they feel like they're moving towards their goals and we're helping our clients win.

They feel like they're winning and every everybody wins, but then I'm allowed, I'm able to create a business that runs and creates profit, right? It creates profit and then allows me as a creative. So that hard on my credit to then focus on the other projects that I really want to do. If money wasn't a factor, I'll just be shooting fun doco stuff, fun, creative films just for myself and that's it.

But money is a factor. We've got bills to pay, we've got kids to feed, we've got countries to travel to. That's the reality of it. So we need to fund that with the resources. Yeah, that, that's a, you know, conversation I like having in the niching spaces is how predictable can you, can you then resell your, your product in a way that you can forecast in 12 months time and keep in mind as well, like, not a lot of video production businesses can, can sell or can exit, but when you niche this conversation about exiting, because then it opens up a whole nother conversation about mergers and acquisitions.

Like that's something as a generalist, you can't really have. Yeah.  would just hire you as a creative director and then see, but if you've got a business, that's a machine, it spits out profit on the other, on the other end. That's attractive to other, you know, private equity companies. So it just opens up another world. 

So it's it's a game changer.  How about you, Matt? Have you noticed that being a specialist in a particular area gives you some,  some, some elasticity with the kind of budgets you work with and the kind of things that you can do with that? Yeah, I mean, it instantly opens up a pathway to trust when you go, Hey, this is a really wild idea and it's going to cost, you know, a bit more than what you said you might have, or, you know, the budget conversation comes up, you can then point back to all of the examples of, we did this for this much, or we did this for this much, and you've got those runs on the board and that reference point.

So it becomes a much easier conversation.  I also think too, To that like predictability of like being able to go, we need to turn over, you know, 50K months or whatever it is. It becomes so hard when, as a generalist, it's sort of like, you know, trying to, trying to go on a road trip, right? If you go, I want to drive from Melbourne to Bendigo, you can get your map, it's very clear where you follow the road and how you get there.

If you go, I want to go on a road trip from Melbourne. And then you're like, where do you go? What do you do? What direction do you head first? And sort of like, you can still drive and go on a road trip, but it's completely aimless and you're not going to quite have any destination or goal to get there. So I think even stylistically, you can be like, this is the  So how do we, how do we bring more business in?

We can lean into the stuff that separates us from anywhere else and double down on that and know that it's just dialing in our offer to make sure that people know we're amazing at this thing. And then the official bite on the hook. Right. So.  It's definitely, it positions you as an expert in a space and for us, it's taking bland, boring ideas and making it something far greater than it ever has any right to be.

But if you're really good at that and can take those ideas and anybody else that comes in on that journey and they do it. Buy in and trust you, you do get to sort of say, Hey, well, we're the experts in this and write your own check in a lot of ways. It's not to say that, you know, we don't have people squeezing you some price and stuff, but you, you're coming from a place of, or a position of power and authority and not just, of course we can help you.

We can do TV commercials and live streams and it's like, no, we, we do this really well. And this is what will solve your problem. And it's going to cost you this.  Do you want to do it? So yeah, that's what we've found. What about you, Caleb? I'm imagining it's similar in your space out there in, in Bendigo the 99,000 hobby.

Yeah.  Yeah. 99 thousand three. Yeah. . The I,  I was actually, you made me think of one video. I think I saw you on your LinkedIn. You finished it with, like, there, there's lots of fish in the sea, so don't sell for a catfish. Yeah,  that's right. I actually watched that video, but it, it kind of, I was like following that.

Fishing analogy on like the idea of niching is that you reduce the pool of people that you're looking for. That's the kind of the idea that's that you want that to have people come in and go, Oh, this guy's not for me. Because that means that there will become people coming in and you're not fishing for a cat.

You're not. You're not. Fishing in the wide open sea and you get a catfish, you get a Marlin because that's all you're fishing for. That's like that, you know, you know, I might be taking it too far there. But so for us, like we know our audience so well that they're, they're either executives or marketing solo marketers within a company.

Because that's regional businesses don't ever have any more And so we understand their experience. And what we've done is add on strategy as a, as a, a service to all the videos that we create and what we hop on about is that we're not the, we're not the production company that you need to hold our hands and tell us what to do and, and lead and manage us and try and fit that into your marketing strategy.

Because we help remarkable regional businesses perform on the world stage with strategic video. You don't have to, you know, we're going to be your video production partner that will align a video strategy to your existing marketing goals so that you can trust us that to achieve an outcome. Rather than just make you a pretty-looking video.

Cause nobody cares. Nobody cares about a video. They want the outcome that the video is going to achieve for them. Like Andy's brand story videos, the builders aren't you know, there'll be an element of, of, of vanity and there is in nearly every client, but they're not generally coming to them going, I want a video because I think video is cool.

I want a video cause it's, it's just how much fun would that be? You know, they're spending 30 plus K on video because they. Think and they believe that it's gonna get them more business or it's gonna get them more leads, more of their ideal market is gonna see them. They're gonna stand out. You know, there's a long list of desires that that they have, but they want that outcome.

So that's how we position ourselves, right. In a regional, regional, niche. We say, look, we understand you. We understand the pain points you're experiencing and we're going to come alongside you. So when they're comparing, and we always get it, like we, we send a quote for even, you know, 10, 15 K and they'll come back to us and say, look, You know, the next, the next option to you was like half your price, but we're going with you because we know that it's going to be an easier process and we're going to be able to trust you.

So when we're always more expensive, but we can, we still get plenty of work because the people understand that we're, they're not comparing us to another video production company because we have niched into knowing exactly who our audience is and what they need. Yeah.  I think one of the other powerful things like on the, on the back end of, of niching, it's like one thing you actually don't consider.

And one thing we didn't consider  was when it comes time to start marketing outbound leads, it's actually more cost effective  to spend money advertising when you're niched in. It's very generalist.  In order to find an ideal client, and if we're just talking ad spend, in order like our client acquisition leads at the moment I think it's under 20 for a lead.

Like it's, it's bonkers  as, as a generalist, like you would be, you know, you got, you got quality control that that's an issue, but then you've also got Like it's hard to even in your ad copy, like how do you target the person? Like who, who is it, you know, that it ends up being a generic. So you end up having to spend a lot more to acquire a lead.

And so that becomes an issue when you're trying to scale or when you, when you're then trying to, you know, if we're having a low quarter, you need to increase the top line. You try to scale that. You run these ads, you then pull in these. Average leads and then you can't say no to them because you need the cash flow and then you end up saying yes to Non ideal leads and it ends up slowing you down even more so in the long run.

So it's yeah, it's true yeah,  it's an issue and I only say that from experience because it was yeah, man, it's It was it's painful at times if you're sort of just attracting anyone everyone From startups to people wanting to, I had a company selling mattresses, willing to spend like 20 grand on ad spend with their videos.

And then I remember jumping out of that meeting and then I had a conversation with somebody who was wanting to start a fashion brand and had just ordered like, and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, the turbulence, like my neck spinning like this. I'm like, this is.  This isn't healthy.  I just wanted, before we wrap up, there is something we were talking about that day, Andy, on, on the call inside the the free video business accelerator group that we run.

And for anyone who's watching or listening to this, you know, Someone on this page, there'll be a link to that, you should come and hang out. It's a free group, we get together, we chat, help you iron out some of your business problems. But we had a guy on the other day and he was like, Oh, but you know, I really love like all the variety I get.

And you were great at it because you went, look, dude, you could tell him that every single day you pick up a camera, it's a super fun job.  And it's not. Like, everything you do in life that has some sort of value exchange at some point gets monotonous. And I think that there's a consensus out there that the freelance videographer is like somehow got all this variety and only ever does fun stuff and is always seeking to just do more fun stuff.

But the truth is it doesn't happen like that. So what, what do you say to a quick, quick wrap-up? So we wrap this episode up. What what do you say to someone who's, who's like, like that chat we were talking to the other day, Andy, we'll say his name, we'll call him Bob. You know, he was just like really fixated with having fun. 

But I think you raised some great points too about the fact that  are you having fun every day? There's a misconception, I think, that niching suddenly all you ever do is the one thing.  Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And to your point, you do anything like, yeah, you do anything long enough, the fun eventually is like diluted and then it kind of gets watered down a bit.

But what I would say is the fun shifts when you niche. When you niche in, like initially your fun is getting creative and creating the video. And like, this is really cool. And you create a system. And then you do that enough. Like, I'll be honest, the brand stories today that don't excite me that much.

It's cool. It looks really cool. But the fun for me now has shifted now to growing a business, to building a team, to becoming a better leader myself and, like just even personal development as a business owner and just, just learning new business opportunity, the fun shifts as you evolve, you know what I mean?

It's like a kid, like as kids, we enjoyed playing on the playground and swinging on the swings. But we grew up, I find changes and in business, it should be the same as well. Our fun should be shifting on to bigger and better and more challenging things because you know, what is fun? Fun is playing, but there's also a sense of a reward system in there as well.

So the thing about niching and moving forward is there's a slight challenge in there, but there's also a rewarding system within that. And, and it's, it becomes this new gamification of business. Yeah, I mean. Just trying to put that into a nutshell. It's like, I don't know. It was like, there's a sense of, there's a bit of, is it naivety?

Like just there being a bit naive to just think that it gets boring. Like you actually think about it and, and and are open to it. You might actually find that you'll have more fun. 

Good. How about you guys? Yeah. Well, it really enables access, right? Like it, yeah.  I think something you mentioned earlier, Andy, about, you know, or actually Den, when you were saying, you know, people go, no, I don't want to make that much money and just, I'm not greedy. You know, I think I said that to you on our first call back.

You know, it's, it's what everyone says that doesn't make you much money. Yeah, no, no. I'm here for the good times and the laughs. But when you actually get into it and dive into it, you're like, I can't do this forever. If I'm not making money and not because I'm greedy, it's because that is, that is what is required to provide for my family.

It's what's required to have freedom to actually be able to choose to do the things that I want to do because my needs are covered. And I've been able to produce some reliability. And so, you know, there's, there's a maturing that you need to get to in order to understand that.  I need to shift my goalposts here and realign what I'm trying to achieve with actually building a successful business, because if I'm building a successful business, I'm going to be able to build reliability and there's a level of safety there, but like you say, Andy, that's what the transition I made was from, I'm a, I'm a filmmaker to I'm building a business that can.

Creates videos and it achieves value. There's a value exchange between me and our clients. And I love that. Like that is where that is exactly where my fun comes from is being able to see the team. Be amazing and see the results that we're getting for clients, but then know that I've built something that is actually gonna sustain my life and provide me the opportunity to have fun.

And it doesn't have to be connected to the work I'm doing. Very neat.  Well, you know, businesses need fuel. You know, Matt, you're sitting in your brand new, literally brand new office. Do you have a team of five? Well, you know. Everyone loves working with you, but they need to be paid every month. And that's a big responsibility, which needs fuel.

So how important is, is doing something that generates the right kind of fuel in terms of  tying into that niche? Yeah, it's hugely important. And I think it's a North star to make sure that the fuel is good fuel. It's like we could just to make ends meet do Anything and everything just to kind of pay the bills and keep the lights on, but then the team and the work we produce wouldn't be nearly as good as it could be because we're not feeling inspired and excited by it.

So, you know, the idea of, of everything being fun, while that's what we put out and we say, Hey, everything we produce is fun, humor, wonder, whatever. We also do some pretty dry material. We do some pretty. Dense dry training stuff, but it's like it's through conversations that have started because there's an alignment in the way we go about things.

So it helps to make sure that even if the work is less inspiring than, you know, a big, crazy commercial or something like that, the relationships that we've built and can maintain through doing that work is what fuels us because we know we need to make certain amount of revenue every month to keep the place going.

And we can only rely on the relationships we do have to keep us going and then try and bring in new business to support that. So finding a way of working with people and offer that really connects with people and then really just reinforcing those relationships by great experiences, great customer service making them feel like they're one-to-one and not one of many clients just just further strengthens your position.

The best place to go when it comes to video no matter what niche you're in, it just means that you can start relying on those, those clients and their jobs to come back and you can then grow and scale a business over time as those, those relationships compound and you get more and more and more of them under your belt.

I think that's a great place to end this episode. We'll see you all next week. 

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