Grow Your Video Business with Ryan Koral

We're going to try something a bit different on the podcast this week, but I think you're going to enjoy it. Since launching the Studio Sherpas podcast we've received a ton of questions both from listeners, as well as members of our Selling Like A Sherpa course, which we recently relaunched. In this episode we wanted to address some of the most common questions we get and give our take on how we a...

We've talked before on the show about how to start landing high end weddings and corporate clients, but I don't know if anyone has ever laid out the strategy in such simple terms as today's guest, Caleb Lee. Don't be fooled by Caleb's age, he's been doing this for a long time and knows a thing or two about not only filmmaking, but running a successful business. At 16 he sold his landscaping busine...

Have you ever thought about moving past the solopreneur, one person band, or maybe husband/wife duo business model and build up a team around you? Those of us who have made the leap to hiring a team often only realized that we needed one after nearly working ourselves to death trying to do it all ourselves. Part of the reason is that most of us have absolutely no idea what makes a creative team cl...

Let's face it: It can be hard being a self employed filmmaker. Not only do we have to worry about how to run our businesses better, find new leads, and keep the lights on, but we also need to continuously improve our craft and the finished products we deliver to our clients. Oh, and don't forget that many of us have families and lives outside of our work, as much as we may love it. My conversation...

We might not realize it, but a lot of us waste a huge amount of our client's time - and money - on set by being impractical in the way we approach our gigs. Dennis Abad is a Manila, Philippines based filmmaker, educator, and co-founder of Shoot Practical Videography. He and his partner founded the school after witnessing novice videographers botch jobs again and again, and deciding to do something...

So many of us work primarily as corporate or wedding filmmakers - and love what we do - but have dreams of doing more. Of pursuing passion projects and making a living from them. It can be hard to know where to start, however. How can we set up our businesses in a way that allows us to expand and grow beyond our current client base? Abraham Joffe is an incredibly talented wildlife and travel filmm...

Most of us didn't get into filmmaking in the first place to take on clients and run businesses. When we picked up a camera for the first time and were captivated by what we could do with it, it was because we ourselves had something to say. Our own story to share. The deeper into the world of film we dove however, the more we realized that it seems all but impossible to bring our passion projects...

As filmmakers, most of us spend the majority of our time thinking about how we can best tell the stories of our clients. When it comes to our own businesses however, we often neglect to think about the stories that make us unique and might help us connect with new prospects. Bill Baker is the Founder and Principal of BB & Co. Storytelling, a company that helps brands—and the leaders, teams, and or...

A few years into my video career I got a big time scare. Not one, but two filmmaker friends of mine were sued by big record labels for using unlicensed music on a couple of videos that happened to go viral. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but during my first few years making videos, I didn't even know what music licensing was, let alone pay for it. I wanted to support artists, but I couldn't afford t...

Have you ever come across a tool that makes you business run so much more smoothly that you would gladly pay 5x the price for it and still feel like it's a steal? Yeah, me too, and for me, Wipster is one of those tools. Wipster is something of a "Google Docs for video", allowing for commenting and collaborating right on top of the video, where it makes sense. You can even export those comments int...

If you're anything like me, when you first started your creative business, literally the last thing you wanted to be spending your time on was selling. For me, it was all about creating emotional films that moved people, but as I took on more work and got busier and busier I ended up spending less time shooting and more time selling. Besides the fact that I wasn't spending as much time doing what...

When most of us think about making a career shooting films, we're only able to come up with a few routes to success. Sure there are the wedding and corporate/brand film industries, but they are often crowded markets with a ton of high-quality filmmakers vying for these jobs. A lot of us dream of landing high-end commercial clients, but have no idea how to even get started. So what do we do? Brad W...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com Let's face it, none of us are getting any younger. And one of the challenges that our ever increasing ages present to us in our industry is that it becomes harder and harder to keep up with what our clients expect when it comes to wedding and commercial video projects. Tastes change, and there's always some new piece of gear or software with whi...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com When a lot of us start out in the wedding industry, whether it be as filmmakers, photographers, or coordinators, we have dreams of working with high-end luxury and celebrity clients. I know I did when I first started, but as most of us realize pretty quickly, it can be really hard to elevate your brand to a level that attracts that type of clien...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com It's a challenge that wedding filmmakers and creative business owners the world over face and struggle with, every day. "When is it time to quit my job and go full-time on this? Is it even possible for me to make a career telling stories through film?? My market is waaay too small for that..." Some of us struggle with this for months, years, or...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you're probably going about pricing your film services in the wrong way. Don't worry, I've been doing it wrong as well, and so are about 99% of not only wedding, corporate, and commercial filmmakers, but creative business people in general. Sean Low is the Founder and President of The Business of Bei...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com You might notice while listening to this episode that today's guest, Evan Bourcier uses a certain word again and again and again. That word? Intentional As in being intentional, thinking intentionally, and making decisions about your work, your projects, and your life with foresight and purpose. Despite his age (he's 23), Evan has achieved a lot...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com A little over a year ago we (Matt and Ryan) launched this crazy idea we had, called Studio Sherpas. Since then, we've put out our Selling Like A Sherpa course (which we will be relaunching soon!), launched this here podcast, and created a whole bunch of other content to help filmmakers take control of their creative businesses, move in a directi...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com "It takes more than pointing your camera at a human to really capture character in your video. While most wedding have a bunch of people, and often prominently feature a couple, they rarely have any character." This was the opening line of a recently published blog post by today's guest, Patrick Moreau. The blog post in question was titled Why M...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com Unless you've been living under a rock for the past… well, ever... You've probably realized that our industry is going through some pretty major changes. A lot of these changes are scary to us as filmmakers and video producers. Budgets seem to be getting smaller, and it gets harder and harder for us to stand out from the hordes of insanely talen...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com Ok, confession time. There was a time in my filmmaking and creative business journey where I almost let the business take over my life. I let the work that I was doing take over more and more of the energy and attention that I should have been focusing on my family, and I learned some really hard lessons from it. Joey and Aaron of 31 Films and F...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com If you're like me, at some point in your life you've probably aspired to making it big and breaking into Hollywood as a director, producer, DP, editor, etc. But where did this idea of success come from? Rob Hardy was an indie filmmaker working 18 hours days on projects he wasn't passionate about, with people he didn't click with, burning himself...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com "You get to a point where there's always going to be something that could hold you back, and you have to decide, 'Ok, at which point am I not going to let that something be a hindrance to me starting to check things off of that bucket list that so many people have but they never actually get through." [33:57] I've been a friend and admirer of Ro...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com Ok, I hate to be the one to bring back these horrible memories, but do you remember how painful it was when every project delivery was done through DVD? Yeah, I hear ya, dealing with the whole DVD process was the first thing I offloaded when I hired my first employee, and I could not have been happier to never have to deal with it again. We've l...

Find the original post at: podcast.studiosherpas.com Are you one of those classic creatives who loves what they do, and is really great at it, but struggles with taking control of their business and capitalizing on their talent. I know I am, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that just because you're a creative type person, doesn't mean you can't master the business skills as well. Brenna...