Ep. 037 - Josh Cast: Build Relationships, Not Contact Lists
Podcast Title: Generator
Episode Title: Josh Cast: Build Relationships, Not Contact Lists
Episode Number: 037
Publish Date: 28 February 2025
EPISODE OVERVIEW
The discussion between Josh Cast and Matt Stagliano centers on their extensive professional relationship that started in 2012 during a training class. They delve into the evolution of their respective roles in the media landscape, highlighting the transition from low-budget marketing efforts to a modern approach focused on demonstrating product capabilities at trade shows such as SHOT Show. The conversation addresses the challenges of educating clients within the defense industry, emphasizing the necessity of conveying the intrinsic value of their work. Josh expresses a desire to expand his team and diversify into outdoor industries while maintaining an active role in project execution. Matt commends Josh's documentary-style storytelling, which fosters a profound connection with viewers, illustrating the importance of narrative over mere visual flair in media production.
GUEST BIO
Josh Cast aka "Whitey" is a Commercial Photographer and Videographer focused in the Defense and Firearms industry for over 12 years. A background in Graphic Design and Commercial Illustration, as well as big box retail consultation as a corporate badged consultant for Apple, Inc. he is a self taught photographer, videographer and business owner; a hobby lead to a blog which lead to photography and video production. Josh often says that he is making a full-time job of getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
Takeaways:
- Josh Cast and Matt Stagliano reflect on their professional journey since they first met in 2012 during a training class, highlighting their evolution from blogging to a focus on media production.
- The podcast discusses the transition from low-budget marketing strategies to demonstrating product capabilities at trade shows, emphasizing the importance of storytelling.
- Josh expresses his intention to expand his team and diversify into outdoor industries, maintaining hands-on involvement in projects to foster creativity and connection.
- Matt praises Josh's immersive documentary style that resonates with viewers, reinforcing the significance of understanding the narrative behind products in the defense industry.
- The conversation addresses the challenges of educating clients about the value of creative work, particularly in industries with small businesses and tight budgets.
- Both hosts emphasize the necessity of building strong relationships over merely collecting contacts, which is key to thriving in creative fields.
Resources and Links
Companies mentioned in this episode:
More About Generator
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Mentioned in this episode:
For more about Stonetree Creative, please visit https://stonetreecreative.com
Transcript
All right, folks, we're kicking off season three of Generator, and this one's a good one.
Speaker A:You ever look back at your life and think, how the hell did I make it this far?
Speaker A:Yeah, me too.
Speaker A:Well, it turns out my buddy Josh cast and I have been thinking exactly the same thing.
Speaker A:Close to 15 years ago, before I ever started Firelance Media or Stone Tree Creative.
Speaker A:Josh and I met while we were taking a rifle class here in Maine.
Speaker A:We were just a couple of guys that were into firearms training.
Speaker A:We both had cameras and no real plan for the future.
Speaker A:Fast forward to today and somehow we've both built careers in media, survived the chaos of the defense and photography industry, and shockingly, made it past the age of 35.
Speaker A:In this episode, Josh and I dig into what it takes to balance creativity with making a living.
Speaker A:How the defense industry has changed from a creative standpoint, and why storytelling beats flashy trends every single time.
Speaker A:We talk about the importance of educating clients on the value of good work, the struggle of pricing creative services, and the constant need for better gear, Josh also opens up about his shift from running a successful gun blog to building a full blown media production house.
Speaker A:And spoiler alert, he's making some big moves.
Speaker A:So if you've ever wrestled with the tension between passion and profit or wondered how to stand out in an industry that's constantly evolving, then stick around, because I think you're really going to like what my friend Josh has to say.
Speaker A:So let's get on with the show.
Speaker B:I was talking to our buddy Nick.
Speaker B:We weren't supposed to live this long.
Speaker B:We suck at having these, these futures because we weren't supposed to live this long.
Speaker A:I never expected this to be the case.
Speaker A:I never, I never thought that, that I'd cross that 50 threshold.
Speaker A:Like the amount of junk that I've put in my body and the risky things that I've done my entire life, like, there's no reason I should have made it this far.
Speaker A:But you're real women are good at that.
Speaker B:They're like, they can be planned for the future.
Speaker B:And guys like, I'm not supposed to live past 35.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:James Dean didn't.
Speaker A:Jimi Hendrick didn't.
Speaker A:Kurt Cobain certainly did.
Speaker B:All the cool ones, right?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:All the cool ones.
Speaker A:And then the nerds, Zappo, you just live forever.
Speaker A:Figured it out.
Speaker A:Got me thinking, like, as we were prepping for this, and I can't believe, like, I haven't had you on before, but the thing that I was thinking about was, like, when did, when did we first meet.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And we've kind of discussed this recently too.
Speaker A:It was at that weapon craft class where I was there.
Speaker A:I had just started.
Speaker A: is must have been like, what,: Speaker A:13?
Speaker A:Thereabouts.
Speaker A:Ish.
Speaker B:A lot later.
Speaker B: Like maybe: Speaker B:No, I think you're right.
Speaker B:2012.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was right around there for like, 13 years.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Only because I had just kind of lost my job not too long before that.
Speaker A:And I was spending a lot of time on the range and I was, you know, bringing the cameras and whatnot.
Speaker A:And then I saw you and you were making a video at the same time, and I was like, this guy seems pretty cool.
Speaker A:And then we just, for the last, what, 13 years, have kind of done the same thing, leveled up all along the way, and it's just been really cool to watch.
Speaker A:So I'm glad that, you know, now I've shifted over to yet another medium in podcasting.
Speaker A:And I'm glad you're here.
Speaker A:So one of the things that I really wanted to talk about was you were.
Speaker A:We're gonna.
Speaker A:We're gonna go in a.
Speaker A:A really disjointed way here because I want to kind of do the.
Speaker A:The whole memento movie.
Speaker A:We're gonna be present, and then we'll be in the past, and then we'll be in the future.
Speaker A:And I'm gonna leave it to the listeners to figure out where we are in this.
Speaker B:Just do a Tarantino, this thing.
Speaker A:You were just in Vegas for shot show.
Speaker A:I'm going out for WPPPI in about three weeks.
Speaker A:I know you've been going out there for years.
Speaker A:I've been going out there for years.
Speaker A:How has your view of what you do?
Speaker A:Photo, video, design, social relationships, all the things.
Speaker A:How has that changed over the years for you?
Speaker A:And then we're going to get into the backstory, but I just want to hear, fresh off your trip, how have things changed for you as you've gone to this major conference year after year after year after year?
Speaker B:It's changed a lot.
Speaker B:And the reason why is because how we interact with our industry has changed a lot as well.
Speaker B:So if you rewind, a decade ago, we were up and coming blog.
Speaker B:We were trying to get our name out there.
Speaker B: So back then, the early: Speaker B:It was just like, who's gonna get the new releases, who's got the most following to get the most distrib out for low budget marketing output for just about every manufacturer and trinket designer.
Speaker B:And we were running 18, 20 miles a day with video and camera gear and doing booth review videos and booth interactions with marketing directors and R and D people.
Speaker B:Fast forward to today, and we're no longer focused centrally at all on the blog or reviews or anything of that nature.
Speaker B:We're now part of the industry in a manner that we've grown to a point that we can demonstrate, showcase, and illustrate what products are capable of and how they can be sexy and how their engineering really speaks to themselves on a commercial level.
Speaker B:Executing the photography video that we started doing back when we were just a blog ten years ago.
Speaker B:So we go there now and the trade show is no longer about what can we get there sooner, what can we showcase sooner?
Speaker B:Now it's about maintaining relationships more than anything.
Speaker B:Because Shot show, if anyone who's ever been, or any major trade show, sometimes when you get to a certain level, and I'm just assuming this is kind of like what your show is like, it's more of a being seen there as opposed to, I'm generating business here because that says just as much, if not more than going there and trying to grind and hustle and see who you can work with and what you can do and whatnot.
Speaker B:So that way you can further your career, your business.
Speaker B:So we went to like one party and I had five.
Speaker B:Five different people are like, that's a sick demo reel.
Speaker B:Here's our card.
Speaker B:Call us, we need a video.
Speaker B:Call us, we need a video.
Speaker B:Call us, we need a photo shoot.
Speaker B:That was if.
Speaker B:If all four of those pan out, all five of those pan out.
Speaker B:My year is paid for, right?
Speaker B:But I went to Shot show with my year already paid for.
Speaker B:Like, I already have commits from major clients.
Speaker B:So some months are going to be light, you know, any studio, right.
Speaker B:Some months are going to be overburdened, heavy, and time crunch.
Speaker B:And those months pay for two other months.
Speaker B:So as long as you backfill enough work.
Speaker B:And to me, that's what Shot show has become.
Speaker B:Now.
Speaker B:It's just a, we're gonna go, we're gonna maintain relationships, maybe we meet some new ones and we grow in that.
Speaker B:That fashion.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I found it really interesting that when I started, I was doing all the editorial stuff, right?
Speaker A:So recoil guns and ammo, Right.
Speaker A:I was writing and doing this kind of the same thing that you were doing, doing a bit of news coverage and then also doing more photography and a little bit of video back in the day, but more photography for magazines, for websites, that sort of Thing, but I wasn't approaching it in a commercial way.
Speaker A:Thinking back, I really failed at that because while I did pick up some commercial work along the way and it was great, you really focused on that in providing those visuals for these companies and really stepping up.
Speaker A:Providing creativity in an industry, like you said, is not really all that creative all the time.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's a manufacturing industry.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's good.
Speaker A:It's good enough, right?
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker A:We're gonna get into that.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But you were able to build a lot of these relationships and I love the way you say it, like relationships, not a contact list.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's a, that's such a huge differentiator for me.
Speaker A:I think back of all the years that that I went, covered all this stuff, developed some of those relationships, and you're right, it does become Josh, Matt.
Speaker A:They're seen there and you get people coming up because there's always this change of the guard, right?
Speaker A:The new people rise up and then they're replaced by other people and so on and so forth.
Speaker A:But in that business, there were probably, I don't know, 10 or 12 of us that were like full time, all the time doing this type of content.
Speaker A: ne else was, but in the early: Speaker A:So it was one, easy to get recognized and two, easy to stand out amongst all the older stuff.
Speaker A:Do you find that on that commercial side, right, where there are, yes, higher ticket invoices that you send out, but there's also a lot more complication that goes along with the job.
Speaker A:Do you find that with the commercial work that you're doing more education of the client or you're doing what they say?
Speaker A:And the reason I asked that question is in that industry specifically, it's a lot of small businesses.
Speaker A:We're not talking Nike, Adidas, Right.
Speaker A:And you've got your Glocks and your Mossbergs, right, that are big companies.
Speaker A:Art departments, marketing departments, Most of them though are pretty small.
Speaker A:They run a tight ship.
Speaker A:Do you find that as you've built that experience over the years that you're actually teaching them what commercial work is?
Speaker B:That's an amazingly insightful question.
Speaker B:For those that don't know that, follow Matt's blog.
Speaker B:Cause I'm sure he doesn't cover this stuff all the time.
Speaker B:The gun industry is not as big as people think it is.
Speaker B:Based on popular media, there's probably five or six big, big players.
Speaker B:The rest is literally sub 20 employees, sub 10 employee, in some cases, hundreds of people that have real jobs.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:How many times did you go around shot Joe like you got the wrong business card.
Speaker B:And it was like, what the hell is Steve's, you know, Steve's plumbing?
Speaker B:It's like, well, that's my real job.
Speaker B:Because it's literally an industry of hobbyists because it's so dang hard to run an actual firearms or weapons development or any kind of stuff like that.
Speaker B:So you're dealing with a lot of mom and pop.
Speaker B:And it's highly contradictory because you also have all these guys that are former war fighters, former command structure guys, guys that had a great idea and found a way for a buddy to machine it to make a prototype to drawings to now because my guy in CAG loves it, we have a cage code and we're, you know, government contract.
Speaker B:And it becomes a thing.
Speaker B:Like, you know that like with, with theorem, for instance.
Speaker B:Like theorem was never the way it was supposed to be.
Speaker B:It was just.
Speaker B:I knew a guy, knew a guy, got the right placement and now it's a thing.
Speaker B:But it's still.
Speaker B:How many people are at that company?
Speaker B:Less than 10.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker B:And that's, that's a big majority of It's.
Speaker B:It's a mom and pop business.
Speaker B:So the one end, the mom and pop shop, you have to educate and you have to educate and kind of the budgeting, which is something we should go over, is night and day for the rest of the world versus the aerospace defense industry.
Speaker B:Unless you get one of those big clients, you have to educate and help them understand what they're getting.
Speaker B:Otherwise you end up just being perceived as out of price.
Speaker B:Because like we said, the good enough industry, I could just do that.
Speaker B:My iPhone.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Let me know.
Speaker B:It goes like, at some point you have to be willing to give more than you're going to get.
Speaker B:So that way down the road you can start getting what you're worth.
Speaker B:And it's a tough pill to swallow.
Speaker B:The other side, you have the guy who killed people.
Speaker B:So now I know how to run a business that happens all the time.
Speaker B:I mean no disrespect for any of those war fighters that are actually watching this podcast, but it's one of those things where good leaders know when to put other people that are proficient in a certain area into a position to do their job and leave them the hell alone.
Speaker B:And then there's other leaders that need to micromanage.
Speaker B:There's a lot more of the micromanaging that happens More than the good leaders.
Speaker B:I'm working with a couple great companies, Ridgeline, as you know right now, their CEO Alex, is a great guy, but he also is a guy who has a vision.
Speaker B:He wants the right sausage, but he doesn't want to know how the sausage is made.
Speaker B:So once you start getting your creative stuff going, oh, I can hook a camera up to this, we can run that.
Speaker B:We'll run a drone over this.
Speaker B:Here's the broad strokes.
Speaker B:I want sausage.
Speaker B:Here's the flavor of sausage.
Speaker B:You go make the sausage.
Speaker B:So he's, he's a little bit of A and a little bit of B, but it's a great relationship.
Speaker A:And that's kind of the dream client to have.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because as creatives, one of the hardest things is for us to say, all right, I've got an understanding of this company.
Speaker A:I know the story that needs to be told.
Speaker A:I've already got a vision for it.
Speaker A:I'm going to incorporate their products and their mission and kind of all their ethos, but in a creatively new way.
Speaker A:Something that they might not be thinking.
Speaker A:That's like the dream world for us.
Speaker A:Then there are the companies that are just kind of like, I want to hire you because you're a monkey and you can press a button.
Speaker A:We are going to tell you exactly.
Speaker A:We have to see and say on the screen everything that is in our marketing materials and it just winds up being a PowerPoint presentation that moves and there's really no depth to it.
Speaker A:So, yeah, Alex from Ridgeline is great with that and Andrew from Theorem is great with that.
Speaker A:And it's great because they're the small business owners that get the power of creative work.
Speaker A:I'd say 90% and it's no different.
Speaker A:We could talk about any industry.
Speaker A:Put an industry in here like a mad lib and it's going to be the same no matter where.
Speaker A:And I've, I've been able to see this on both sides.
Speaker A:Both the photo industry and in the defense industry is you've got a lot of people that just don't understand what goes into making that 30 second reel, that one minute reel that gets a viral following, that gets a ton of views.
Speaker A:They just don't understand the planning, the production, the things that you have to incorporate into editing, the time that it takes for revisions, so on and so forth.
Speaker A:All of that is time out of our schedule and deserves to be paid.
Speaker A:But it's very difficult to get that across when everybody's got a phone.
Speaker A:They're like, well, I could just do it on my phone.
Speaker A:All right, Then it'll be good enough and go ahead and do it.
Speaker A:These are common issues that we face in kind of any industry, really.
Speaker A:I think so, yeah.
Speaker A:And so we see it all the time when we're at shot show.
Speaker A:Got guys going up in the booth, hey, I just started a YouTube channel.
Speaker A:Can I get this widget 5,000 for, you know, review and testing.
Speaker A:And as a company you're like, why would I give you a $3,000 piece of equipment when you have no standing whatsoever and nothing that leads me to believe that you could test our product more than we've tested it or review it more than the other people have reviewed it.
Speaker A:I see the same thing in the photo industry when people who are photographers, a lot of them kind of mid level, maybe advanced, are going to companies and saying, you should send me your new light, you should send me your camera to test, you should sponsor me, you should sponsor that.
Speaker A:And without giving anything to the company in return other than their word that they're going to produce this thing for them.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it never really happens that way.
Speaker A:I know that I was guilty of it at the beginning because I didn't know any different.
Speaker A:I hadn't started a business and I was just like, what's the easiest way for me to get some of this stuff so I can start producing content?
Speaker A:I don't fault people for going that, but I think it would be more advantageous to just understand.
Speaker A:You can't just walk into a store and be like, I really like this tv.
Speaker A:Give me this TV Best Buy and I will go home and review it for you so you can tell me what you think.
Speaker A:You know, it happens the same in every industry.
Speaker A:As creatives, we owe it to not only the people coming after us, but also the people that we're dealing with every day to understand what our capabilities are, what we can provide, what we can bring to the table, and what it can do for their company in the way that we do it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The way that I do things is much different than the way you do things.
Speaker A:And a company might like your style more than my style.
Speaker A:Perfectly fine.
Speaker A:The thing though is that we both come at it and explain what we bring to the table.
Speaker A:That sometimes takes years to develop that amount of experience.
Speaker A:Let's go back in history a little bit.
Speaker A:You've got graphic design experience, you've got consulting experience, you got video photo.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Kind of a lot of this is self taught.
Speaker A:A lot of it was, you know, school and whatnot.
Speaker A:Tell me a Little bit about that journey.
Speaker A:Why don't you start, like, from the graphic design standpoint and how that started going from visual graphic design all the way through to, oh, my God, now I'm running this company.
Speaker A:Of all this creative work, is there.
Speaker B:Ever an A to B in life?
Speaker B:What it boils down to is, when I was in high school, high school is just not for me.
Speaker B:I knew enough to not drop out.
Speaker B:I knew enough to graduate.
Speaker B:But I also spent half my time playing pickup basketball.
Speaker B:I would skip classes and go three towns over and play in the hood.
Speaker B:I would come back and.
Speaker B:And by the hood, for those of you asking, New Haven, Connecticut versus Branford, Connecticut.
Speaker B:Like, one is very.
Speaker B:My son goes to Yale.
Speaker B:And the other is, yo, where's my freaking rocks, bro?
Speaker B:It's a very different world.
Speaker B:And if you can exist in that world, like, you get a little bit of credit.
Speaker B:I had no plan senior year to go to college.
Speaker B:I had no plan junior year to go to college.
Speaker B:I didn't have the grades for it.
Speaker B:I didn't even take the sats.
Speaker B:My mom is from a generation where.
Speaker B:And I'm sure every Gen Xer out there understands, like, you have to go to college.
Speaker B:You will never get a good job if you don't go to college.
Speaker B:Meanwhile, I'm teaching my kids, hey, the garbage man makes more than that.
Speaker B:Just want you to know that when you're willing to do work, do work that no one else is willing to do, you can charge whatever you want for it.
Speaker B:He's got a boat and two houses.
Speaker B:We got two houses.
Speaker B:No, we rent a house.
Speaker B:Daddy pays for your catching camp.
Speaker B:That's about it.
Speaker B:So mom said, here's a local college that specializes in art.
Speaker B:Come to find out, it's actually very reputable, but we couldn't afford it.
Speaker B:So I'm paying my own way.
Speaker B:So I'm working 30, 40 hours a week.
Speaker B:I'm doing graphic design school, everything from their prerequisites.
Speaker B:You had to do watercolor.
Speaker B:You had to do oil paint.
Speaker B:You had to do drawing by hand.
Speaker B: K: Speaker B: w to develop film in the late: Speaker B:Yeah, I know, right?
Speaker B: kids say, oh, you're from the: Speaker B:I will smite you, child.
Speaker B:Anyway, so we went through all that, and then it just boiled down to, I didn't have time for the piece of paper that said I was okay.
Speaker B:To do what I was okay to do because I was already doing it.
Speaker B:I was already working as a graphic designer in multiple agencies from Stanford to New Haven, back and forth, some bull lifes, some, some high and ritzy stuff.
Speaker B:And eventually I got picked up by a headhunter for Apple because in their eyes the best person to sell a snap on wrench is the mechanic who's been turning it for 10 years.
Speaker B:And I kind of got roped into that because anybody who's been self employed or a graphic designer or somebody who's had to interact with a computer day in and day out, you either keep the ball moving by knowing how to work your equipment and maintain it when things go wrong or you're just useless because oh, it will take care of it and you'd never experienced having to do it on your own.
Speaker B:I ended up being with Apple for nine years.
Speaker B:It moved me around the country.
Speaker B:So not around the country.
Speaker B:We moved from Connecticut to New Hampshire, let's be honest.
Speaker B:But I worked in a dozen different stores helping other people during tax free times, things like that.
Speaker B:And our main goal, this is before Apple Store existed.
Speaker B:So for those that can't remember a time, our program that we worked for was called the ASC program, the Apple solutions consultant.
Speaker B:Our job was to go to big box retailers, maintain a small section of the store.
Speaker B:So if you ever went to a comp us as or at city with SBI and you went to the mini Apple Store, there was only a hundred of us on the second wave, grand total of 125 throughout the country.
Speaker B:And what Apple was basically doing that we can now know in hindsight, was they were sending scouts out to figure out where are the hotspots, where is it worth us investing millions of dollars in placing a store staff and you know, branding, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker B:Turns out where I was was one of those places because we ended up having to compete directly with an Apple Store.
Speaker B:And eventually I just got more involved in the blog and the video stuff that I didn't really care.
Speaker B:And I was only there because Apple did have great benefits.
Speaker B:Like we had two kids and we barely paid a thousand dollars with like a 5 day stay post postpartum.
Speaker B:So all of it, like if I broke a bone, I was back to work in three weeks.
Speaker B:Like great care.
Speaker B:But I was miserable.
Speaker B:It's not an easy thing for any man to admit.
Speaker B:I at one point was crying to my wife like I'm not happy, I'm extremely unhappy.
Speaker B:I'm literally a slave to a job for the benefit of benefits.
Speaker B:And she said, make this work and you can quit.
Speaker B:So I cashed in some of my 401k and I said, give me a year.
Speaker B:Here's all the bills that I have in a year paid for with this 401k.
Speaker B:Let me figure out how to monetize this and make it work.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:I don't think it's a matter of me focusing more than, like, say, you did.
Speaker B:It's a matter of, my back's on the wall.
Speaker B:I have to make this work.
Speaker B:How do I make your work?
Speaker B:And there's a million stumbles along the way.
Speaker B:I didn't, because the first time somebody said, oh, you're a commercial photographer, I was like, oh, mother.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:Like, how dare you?
Speaker B:I'm an artist.
Speaker B:And it's like, then I look at my work and I look at, like, artistic work.
Speaker B:Like, I look at your work, and I'm like.
Speaker B:Like, you're the main reason why I won't do headshots.
Speaker B:Two reasons.
Speaker B:One, you're very good at.
Speaker B:You've worked very hard towards it.
Speaker B:And two, going back to that original shoot back at Weapon Craft, when you and I were comparing SD cards, essentially, you and I couldn't tell who shot what more than 75% of the time.
Speaker B:So we shoot very similar in the actual act of doing it.
Speaker B:So my fear is, you've earned your spot.
Speaker B:I've earned my spot.
Speaker B:I don't want to cross into that realm and say, oh, I'm going to do headshots, just like Matt does.
Speaker B:And then if people can't tell you from me, that kind of affects both of us.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:In a not good way.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It could hurt your business, it could hurt my business, it could water down your brand, and among other things, you're my boy.
Speaker B:So I wouldn't want to ever take food or money out of your pocket.
Speaker B:You and I had this brief discussion because there's only a handful of people that are at this whatever perceived level, even in the firearms industry, where it's like, so and so can do it.
Speaker B:So and so can do it, or so and so can do it.
Speaker B:Like, that's your.
Speaker B:Your five names.
Speaker B:If one of us gets approached by somebody else's clients, we end up picking up the phone and saying, hey, what's going on with this?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And 100.
Speaker B:The last thing I want to do is, like, I said, take food or work off of your plate.
Speaker B:Just like I'm sure you wouldn't want to do it to mine.
Speaker B:We don't like crossing the streams.
Speaker B:Everyone kind of builds their little tribe and it's like, we are the people of the photo realm, like we're going to make your videos and you leave him out of this.
Speaker A:I think that is something that you find in the commercial world that you don't find in the retail world, I'll call it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I'm dealing with the Muggles, the non commercial people that you know in the commercial world.
Speaker A:Yeah, With a small community of photographers, small community, creatives.
Speaker A:We all had a great network of, oh, you need a graphic designer, you need one of these people, you need someone to shoot video.
Speaker A:These people, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:And then, you know, also if we got approached by a company like I thought Josh was doing their work.
Speaker A:Let me give him a call and kind of figure out what the deal is because it is a small community and all you have is your reputation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I know that I kind of, I don't want to say burned out of that industry, but I kind of burned out of that industry because I found that I wasn't interested in taking pictures of plastic anymore.
Speaker A:I wasn't really into the commercial side of things the way I thought I would be after a period of time.
Speaker A:And I really just like telling the story of people and headshots and portraits.
Speaker A:And that's really kind of where I branched off and started Stonetree.
Speaker A:You went from Apple, you started the blog thing, right.
Speaker A:You cash in your ira, you start doing photo and video and you start to build this up and building your reputation gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker A:Do you find that there's anything that you're doing now that you're like, I wish I had done it this way 10 years ago.
Speaker A:Or I wish I had branched into this area earlier or later or not at all.
Speaker A:Is there anything like that?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:So the funny thing is is I think in my opinion, photographers make better videographers and it's because they have better understanding of framing, they've understood a composition of lighting and how to achieve that.
Speaker B:Once you take all that math and you apply it to the amplification needed for video, which is nothing really changes other than how much light you need.
Speaker B:And understanding ISO better, you can make just about anything, then boils down to editing.
Speaker B:Well, there's plenty of stuff and tips.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'll give you one free one that every videographer that's up and coming you to hear.
Speaker B:Never chop and edit on no motion.
Speaker B:It's the best tip I could give anybody because it's like, how many times you watch your video, it's like, ready, okay?
Speaker B:Or it's.
Speaker B:They chopped right after somebody in the background said, you're okay, we're good.
Speaker B:And it always start in motion.
Speaker B:Be in motion.
Speaker B:That'd be the best tip I could give anybody who's learning how to edit.
Speaker B:It's a staircase of situations.
Speaker B:So what do I wish I did differently?
Speaker B:I wish I charged more.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because it's.
Speaker B:It's easy to kind of walk back a problem.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, I wish I charged more, but I wish I charge more.
Speaker B:Because if I had better equipment, it's one of the few industries, right, where you could have two photographers side by side.
Speaker B:And if they're both the same level of intellect and the same level of capability and talent, the better camera is better, period.
Speaker B:Like, there's.
Speaker B:They both know how to edit.
Speaker B:They both have the same eye.
Speaker B:They both have the same composition and lighting.
Speaker B:The better camera is better, Period.
Speaker B:End of sentence.
Speaker B:A better camera will make somebody better.
Speaker B:It doesn't buy talent.
Speaker B:It doesn't buy composition.
Speaker B:It doesn't buy that eye that people talk about.
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, a better camera makes you better.
Speaker B:I think going cheap in a lot of the ways I did over the years because we tried to run a very thin budget.
Speaker B:A lot of people don't realize we were liquid financially up until two years ago, really.
Speaker B:Because of the name of our llc, no bank would give us credit.
Speaker B:No bank.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's on me.
Speaker B:You know, for those that don't know, we launched our business, which was a media marketing blogging company, four Guys Guns, llc, the day after we went live and had our credit card processing everything, the Newtown shooting happened.
Speaker B:And that was a.
Speaker B:That was a gut punch for the entire industry.
Speaker B:Like, I debated what the I was doing.
Speaker B:Can we swear on this?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, because I drop F bombs left and right.
Speaker B:I want people to get those false impression of me.
Speaker B:Like, I literally went dark on social for.
Speaker B:And we were really active for more than a week where I was just like, what the f are we doing here?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:And then when you start dissecting things and you get past the noise of what happened, well, sick individual did a sick thing with a bunch of crimes.
Speaker B:And that's not my fault.
Speaker B:I didn't propagate it.
Speaker B:I didn't promote it.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:But that very same week, we got a call shutting down everything.
Speaker B:So we've always been cash on hand from the entire.
Speaker B:And that's a short little diatribe.
Speaker B:We don't need to get super Annoyed.
Speaker B:But because of that, we've never had credit, we've never had ample stores.
Speaker B:So because of that, we're working with, I don't want to say subpar equipment because it worked at the time we made it work.
Speaker B:There's only so much you can push and post, unfortunately, to really make it kind of to be the tier you want to be at.
Speaker B:But if I had bit the bullet and kind of ate ramen for, you know, a month sooner than later, I think I probably could have made this a lot, a lot faster of a transition up to bigger corporate jobs.
Speaker B:I just got off the phone with another client that literally was like, we already shot this video for him, shot it a year ago.
Speaker B:Product ended up getting benched and he wants me to reshoot the video.
Speaker B:Mind you, we're using the same model, we're using the same location, it's the same exact firearm.
Speaker B:His words to me were, I like the stuff you're doing now better than what you did a year ago.
Speaker B:So I want you to reshoot it.
Speaker B:And not only that, he wants me to reshoot it and he's paying me for it.
Speaker B:Talk about dream client, right?
Speaker B:I want you to redo it.
Speaker B:I want you to do it the way you're doing it these days and you're gonna get paid yet.
Speaker B:So it's like when you get that kind of feedback from a client where you're like, yeah, you're kind of right.
Speaker B: s ago for them with a Sony, a: Speaker B:And multiple people, which having somebody creatively to bounce stuff back and forth and hash things out is highly underrated if it's essential as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker B:But anyway, having that feedback come back where, yeah, you're improving and if I didn't give it to you, I got to get you my demo reel.
Speaker B:Because that actually got us a bunch of business this year and we're only in February.
Speaker B:Very proud of that.
Speaker B:And a lot of that is because of our boy Jimmy and the collaboration between the idea, the execution and then the post production work.
Speaker A:You bring up a really good point about the.
Speaker A:The gear doesn't make the creative right, but sometimes it does.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So I'm a big Fan of.
Speaker A:I started the same way, right?
Speaker A:Canon T3I.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And a kit lens was everything that I was using.
Speaker A:I thought I was the shit, right?
Speaker A:I was just like, I got a camera where you.
Speaker A:Where you could take the lenses off, right?
Speaker A:And I was just like super proud of that.
Speaker A:And you don't realize that what you're doing with the kind of the lower end gear is just paying your dues.
Speaker A:You're getting your chops, you're learning how to tell a story, you're learning how to shoot for an edit, you're learning how to shoot for the final piece, whatever it is, you learn that way.
Speaker A:And then as you start to outgrow the gear and hopefully commensurately you're getting paid for that, you can invest.
Speaker A:It's this ongoing process, especially in our industry, in the creative industry, it's a constant investment.
Speaker A:What works, what doesn't, what makes my storytelling, my voice match on the outside, what I see in my head.
Speaker A:And sometimes that comes down to gear.
Speaker A:My thing is lighting.
Speaker A:Less the camera, more the lighting.
Speaker A:What kind of lights do I need?
Speaker A:Constant strobes, you know, tube lights, led, like, whatever it might be.
Speaker A:I'm always playing with those things.
Speaker A:It doesn't make me a better storyteller, but it can enhance the story that I'm trying to tell, right?
Speaker A:So I think there is a point, there's a tipping point where the gear definitely does make a difference.
Speaker A:I think where people often get stuck is they just kind of plateau and don't push more towards how do I make this more cinematic.
Speaker A:They become very comfortable in the way that they're producing things.
Speaker A:I know I fall into this quite a bit like, oh, shit, the stuff that I was making five years ago, I'm still making stuff that looks exactly the same, even though I know way more.
Speaker A:I just became comfortable in producing the videos a certain way.
Speaker A:I think, you know, that evolution of your voice, of your style is essential so that you can get clients and be like, wow, I really do want you to reshoot that.
Speaker A:Because I.
Speaker A:It resonates more now than it did then with what we're trying to do.
Speaker A:It keeps you current, it keeps you on top of the trends that are happening and you just become a more broad base of knowledge when you're starting to pitch other jobs to other companies because you can say, hey, what I'm seeing in the industry is this, and my style kind of fits this and your company sits over here and here's how we're going to make all of that work.
Speaker A:I love the fact that you, you call part of that out.
Speaker A:I think the other thing is your own confidence and your pricing and your business acumen.
Speaker A:As you gain more experience, as all that grows, you just become a more valuable player to your potential clients.
Speaker A:I want to ask you because I've seen this a lot.
Speaker A:When you start to level that up, you started to charge more, right?
Speaker A:You started to get a more regular national rate rather than doing things for ramen and likes on videos, right.
Speaker A:You actually started to put money into your account.
Speaker A:As you started to do that, I'm sure you lost lower level clients or heard he's growing too big for his britches or he's charging too much.
Speaker A:How do you handle that with clients?
Speaker A:Because I know a lot of my friends hear that over and over and over, you're charging too much, I can't afford that.
Speaker A:I'd love to hear your perspective on it.
Speaker B:Some of this goes back to educating the clients, right?
Speaker B:So a lot of the, a lot of clients in this industry, they're very comfortable with, you know, like say machining or the staffing for that, machining or bits, things like that, the manufacturing side of things.
Speaker B:So I asked them, why does Widget X cost X, Y, Z?
Speaker B:Well, it has this many turns on the machine, it has to be handled this many times or put two bodies on it, things like that.
Speaker B:And said, okay, so if I'm telling you that the price you want means I'm worth 26 cents an hour, is that something that you're comfortable with hiring me for?
Speaker B:Do you feel like you're getting 26 cents worth of value and then it's kind of, we'll know.
Speaker B:It's like, okay, so the equipment required alone to make what you're looking for, to really make your vision come to life and become a nationally recognized, maybe a highly shareable, maybe some, maybe it goes viral.
Speaker B:I'm not making those, those claims.
Speaker B:But our goal is to make the thing that's in your head come on out in the most epic way possible.
Speaker B:And with that, we need this equipment.
Speaker B:I need this many people, they this much time to do it.
Speaker B:Those people also have bills and stuff that need to be paid and they're worth a dollar amount.
Speaker B:The equipment didn't just magically appear on my doorstep.
Speaker B:If you need something different than I can recommend other people.
Speaker B:But it got to a point where once I started getting better equipment and better understanding as to how much dollars per day I needed to exist in this world, from there we moved up.
Speaker B:And anybody who's I guess done it long enough, knows, like when you start getting inundated with work and it's time to raise your prices.
Speaker B:If you don't have time for yourself, all you're doing is working, it's time to raise your prices.
Speaker B:If you lose some of that lower end on the way, they're not gone forever.
Speaker B:Because I've had clients that this wasn't, you know, like you said, too big for your britches.
Speaker B:I'll go to X, Y and Z.
Speaker B:And this is part of this weird web.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So the relationship piece.
Speaker B:Do you have that chemistry with that client?
Speaker B:Growing too big.
Speaker B:Got it.
Speaker B:You know, we're always here for you if you need help.
Speaker B:When they go and they try somebody they don't jive with, when they try somebody who doesn't listen to them or engage with them in a fashion that feels like they're getting that, that conversation happen, eventually they bite the bullet and they come back.
Speaker B:And when they do come back, they're very happy.
Speaker B:They did.
Speaker B:Because you, this industry, I found, you always have to give more than you're getting.
Speaker B:And even if you feel like you're charging way more than you ever would have ever before in your life, as long as the client feels like they're getting more than they paid for and they're happy with the interaction and it was an easy transaction and you made every possible effort to make their life easier.
Speaker B:It's never too much money.
Speaker B:And now we have.
Speaker B:We were able to take a month off.
Speaker B:We're trying to as a team, we're trying to learn DaVinci resolve.
Speaker B:We could never do that if we were just constantly piecemealing, you know, thousand dollar jobs, $1,500 jobs to get $300 jobs here and there and just bouncing all over, driving ourselves nuts.
Speaker B:We're fortunately, we've earned our way past the grind.
Speaker B:And there's certain people I make the exception for.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Just like any of us would.
Speaker B:Because you believe in them, you believe in their mission, you believe in their, their story, whatever the case may be, where you're like, I'm going to help you because I see where this could be and that's a relationship.
Speaker B:Just like the guy who's five YouTube followers wants a $3,000 hardware.
Speaker B:Every now and again you find your this kid's going somewhere.
Speaker B:Like, let's go ahead and latch on.
Speaker B:Let pitch our wagon up to that.
Speaker B:It was definitely a thing where we started getting too busy and we weren't making enough money for the amount of labor we were putting Out.
Speaker B:And I said, you know, no, I'm done.
Speaker B:It boiled down to, I'm going to commit myself to this one client for three days plus five days of post production work on just this shoot.
Speaker B:Here's how much I need to just make sure you're my only focus.
Speaker B:And half of it's a crapshoot where you're just like, I'm gonna throw this number out and see what happens.
Speaker B:And then when they go, yes, you go, I didn't charge enough, damn it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you have to be good with that, right?
Speaker A:So the parallel in the portrait photography world is mini sessions, right?
Speaker A:There's so many photographers that don't have the value of themselves and what they're creating and, and have done a less than stellar job explaining the value of their work to their clients.
Speaker A:Therefore, their clients view it as something, a commodity, something cheap you can get anywhere.
Speaker A:And they haven't differentiated themselves on value.
Speaker A:So they feel like they can only do these $75, $100 mini sessions and they have to do 15 of them in a weekend in order to make it a profitable weekend.
Speaker A:Rather than saying, okay, what does it really take to run my business?
Speaker A:What are my numbers?
Speaker A:How much do I need to live?
Speaker A:How much do I want to get paid?
Speaker A:Do I want to pay for benefits?
Speaker A:Do I want to have gas in the car?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What are the extra things?
Speaker A:And pay my taxes and do all the things related to a business.
Speaker A:If you're going to make it a business, you have to know your numbers like that.
Speaker A:And I find that a lot of folks that are just starting out don't know their numbers.
Speaker A:And that's perfectly fine.
Speaker A:It's something you learn.
Speaker A:But as you start to really get a picture of how you want to live your life, you realize that you're often raising your prices just to stay treading water rather than staying in the red.
Speaker A:You've got to raise your prices.
Speaker A:While it's uncomfortable for you at the beginning, it becomes very comfortable after the first client says, yeah, no problem.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Where you say, wow, I should have charged more.
Speaker A:And it just, it breaks that ceiling over and over saying, wow, there are clients out there that value what I do at the prices that I provide it for.
Speaker A:And therefore, what would lead me to believe there aren't other clients out there like that?
Speaker A:Now, it might not be everybody's going to pay you $100,000 for a one hour session, but you might find one or two of those clients out there, right?
Speaker A:So I think there's this, this fear in the Pricing in cost.
Speaker A:I think there is a dearth of people explaining what the value of photography or creative on any level.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Sculpting, painting, video, photo, doesn't matter.
Speaker A:Artists sometimes lack the ability to explain the value of what they're producing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And I think we're starting to see a lot of that with AI now where things become push button, make your own headshot, just upload a picture and then make 37 versions of your headshot.
Speaker A:That's perfectly fine.
Speaker A:Do it.
Speaker A:You're going to get what you get.
Speaker A:You might have seven fingers on one hand.
Speaker A:It's fine.
Speaker A:As AI makes things easier like that, people start to see the value in the craft of creating something that is bespoke, that is something special for them, that isn't just computer generated and thrown out there.
Speaker A:And you have the same thing that everybody else has.
Speaker A:There will always be clients that gravitate to you for what you provide.
Speaker A:So as you've gone through this past decade plus of working in the defendant industry, getting better at everything that you do, where do you find that the craft is insofar as how the customers are viewing it?
Speaker A:Clients are viewing it.
Speaker A:Are they starting to see on a mass scale, a lot more goes into this as everyone tries to build their own TikTok and YouTube channel, they're now starting to realize, oh shit, there's a lot more that goes into this than we thought.
Speaker A:Do you find that the craft is changing?
Speaker A:Do you find that people are becoming more aware of what it takes?
Speaker A:Or do you find that you're still starting from scratch with a lot of folks that think it's just pressing a button and go, I think it's D all the above.
Speaker B:But before we get into that, I want to touch back on something you had said.
Speaker B:You know, one of the things I had submitted to you and by the way, way to knock out the professionalism and make me feel like an absolute shit schmuck when it comes to the podcast.
Speaker B:So for those of you that don't know if you're gonna sign up to be on Matt's the professionalism from start to finish, I've known Matt, I've borderline seen Matt naked.
Speaker B:What it boils down to is Matt has like this onboarding, he has this follow up.
Speaker B:You feel warm and fuzzy about it and you're just like, great.
Speaker B:So I fill out this form and I'm like, God, his CRM and all this other stuff, like, I'm not even doing this and I feel like a schmuck.
Speaker B:So one of the Things I'd written in this form of utter professionalism that is Matt, is how much is a frog's jump worth?
Speaker B:And some people understand that analogy, some people don't.
Speaker B:But when people ask me, like, how do you know what to charge?
Speaker B:We as creatives tend to be, and I'm not saying everyone, but we as creatives tend to be, we're a frog that knows how to jump.
Speaker B:We do it because we can and because there's something inside us that says, you have to do this or else you can't breathe tomorrow.
Speaker B:Like, it's just a thing that you do and you know how to do it.
Speaker B:So therefore you apply zero value to it.
Speaker B:The reality is, is you can.
Speaker B:Once you figure out how to monetize that by showing people how to jump or teaching people how to jump or jumping for people, then that frog learns what that that leap is worth.
Speaker B:And it's hard when you have no value on your artistic capabilities, creative capabilities, whatever the case may be, to monetize that.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:A lot of that is self growth and not just the grind.
Speaker B:And what's been crucial to me is having my business partner, Brian, is very good at saying, here's how much time you've spent on this.
Speaker B:Here's what your rent costs, here's what the rent for the studio costs, here's what the equipment costs, here's how much your jump is worth to these companies.
Speaker B:And then there's this one fun word called margin.
Speaker B:We have to build margin to that so we actually are profiting and not just breaking even.
Speaker B:So I, I didn't just magically learn it by myself.
Speaker B:And it definitely took.
Speaker B:Because your biggest fear, right, is a client saying, no, like, you're no longer good enough.
Speaker B:We're all your friends.
Speaker B:I don't like that person anymore.
Speaker B:Like, whatever the case may be, at the end of the day, that growth is necessary for all the businesses to grow.
Speaker B:And you have to learn how much a frog's jump is worth.
Speaker B:To answer the other question, it's a mixed bag of clients, right?
Speaker B:Some clients, you, you don't have to.
Speaker B:They've been on set or they've been on location, they've seen all the equipment that comes out, or they've come to the studio and seen a timeline on your big screen of how a video is chopped and all this stuff and the drives and hold.
Speaker B:The logistical side of things, generally, if you get clients that aren't understanding of the creative side of things, they're usually understanding of logistical side things.
Speaker B:So once they see the Logistical side, then it makes sense and then they understand it's a process.
Speaker B:Then they understand like, or you have your guy like, so take, take the manufacturing job doing right now.
Speaker B:They didn't understand, like your library of assets.
Speaker B:You need this sku.
Speaker B:You need an image of this SKU on the web.
Speaker B:You need this skew to also be in lifestyle.
Speaker B:You need this SKU to be in PDFs and flyers going out to people in catalogs.
Speaker B:Where does that start from?
Speaker B:Well, we need clean light setup, we need lighting, we need to set it all up.
Speaker B:We need to clean it pristinely as much as we can before we set up the perfect camera angle, then the three quarter angle, then the top view angle, then the reverse angle, and then we bring it into Photoshop and then we clean it up and then it goes off to overseas so they can create clipping paths for everything.
Speaker B:And then it comes back.
Speaker B:And how many hands, how much equipment, how much time has now transpired for widget number one, you have 50 widgets that have to go up on your website by the end of the week.
Speaker B:Guess what?
Speaker B:My butt's getting wider in this chair requires you to spend more money.
Speaker B:And here's how much that money needs to be.
Speaker B:And once they see it once, that's it.
Speaker B:I need it again.
Speaker B:I need that again.
Speaker B:Because when you start at ground zero with professionalism and building out things properly, they never want to go back.
Speaker B:When you teach a man how to fish, right, or if you teach somebody how to clean their house and be organized, half of us are just gonna be a mess anyway.
Speaker B:But we know how to get it back to where it was.
Speaker B:If you teach somebody where they need to be at that, that point a, that starting point, they'll always want to get back to that.
Speaker B:And once they understand that process in some capacity, half the time, just invite your clients.
Speaker B:If, if you're doing commercial work, especially invite your clients, bring them along, buy them lunch, throw up in a hotel, whatever the case may be.
Speaker B:Like, if we're gonna go do a shoot in the middle of the woods, put them up, do drinks the night before, maybe getting, especially in this industry, get a little drunk.
Speaker B:Next day, we're all going through it together.
Speaker B:We're hiking up into the spot, we're setting up plates.
Speaker B:They're all meeting Jimmy, they're all meeting Brian.
Speaker B:They're all part of the.
Speaker B:Once they're there and they're living it, and then you bring them by the studio, like here, here's what I'm working on.
Speaker B:You show them Your before and after of this shot.
Speaker B:Do you like this look better than this look?
Speaker B:They start really grasping once they see the logistics in the process and that education is necessary.
Speaker B:But on the other side of the coin, you have the clients, like, oh, 60 grand.
Speaker B:Toodles.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:And you like them, too.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, those.
Speaker A:Those are.
Speaker A:Those are great.
Speaker A:That's a level of trust that I think we all kind of strive for.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You want to get to that point where the clients are like, no, I'm hiring you because it's you.
Speaker A:Not because I need a video.
Speaker A:I need a video, but I'm hiring you because you're the artist that's going to bring my vision, life.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's the dream.
Speaker A:That's where you want to get to.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:The same way that if a portrait client comes to me and says, just do what you do, and I have to look them in the eye and say, all right, it might get weird, but I'm going to do what I do.
Speaker A:And they're like, cool.
Speaker A:And whatever you show them, they're not like, well, I wish it was a little different.
Speaker A:They say, cool, I have a stone tree original, whatever it might be.
Speaker A:I love those clients.
Speaker A:But I think the education part, like where we started this conversation, like what you were just talking about, the more that we can educate the folks that are hiring us on what our process is, on how we make the sausage, then it just allows them to understand more about why it might take longer, why it might cost a lot, but it also, you know, has those ripples in the pond where they start to talk to their friends.
Speaker A:Be like, well, you need to hire this guy.
Speaker A:He's expensive.
Speaker A:But here's what's going to go into it, and he's going to hold your hand the entire way, right?
Speaker A:And that's what I love.
Speaker A:Rather than being like, he's going to give you pictures, but he's expensive.
Speaker A:I'd rather it be like, he's expensive, but he's going to give you the best pictures you've ever seen.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Because it's at that point that they understand the value as we.
Speaker A:We talk about this one thing that I never really saw.
Speaker A:And maybe you guys are doing this.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:I saw your.
Speaker A:Your demo reel.
Speaker A:Bananas, right?
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's really cool to see your demo reel now versus where we were 12 years ago.
Speaker A:And what would have standing on a.
Speaker B:Brown, dodging bullets from idiots that don't know how to unholster a guy.
Speaker A:Yeah, Right?
Speaker B:This is.
Speaker A:This is the safest thing I've ever done.
Speaker B:This is completely normal.
Speaker B:This is completely normal.
Speaker A:And I'm glad I'm doing this for exposure.
Speaker A:I look at the defense industry versus the portrait industry.
Speaker A:In the portrait world, a lot of photographers and videographers are trying to become their own content marketers.
Speaker A:We're trying to put ourselves out there in order to differentiate.
Speaker A:And I never really saw a whole lot of that in the defense industry.
Speaker A:Like I said with.
Speaker A:With your demo reel, that's great, but it's not necessarily the same as like a behind the scenes or, here's how I make the sausage.
Speaker A:You're like, here, look at my amazing sausage.
Speaker A:And there's the quote of the entire day.
Speaker A:Here, look at my amazing sausage software.
Speaker A:But I think, you know, in a lot of other industries, you don't see the artists promoting themselves as artists.
Speaker A:They're just saying, hey, look at the video that I made for this company or that company.
Speaker A:And it's not giving the potential clients any insight to how they work.
Speaker A:Is this a good fit for us?
Speaker A:Does it make sense for us to hire this person?
Speaker A:Are you doing any of that or do you see any of that?
Speaker A:Maybe I'm just blind to it.
Speaker A:Do you see any of that kind of behind stuff?
Speaker B:Jim?
Speaker B:Jimmy fights for this at least once a month.
Speaker B:He wants BTS stuff.
Speaker B:He wants to show how the sausage is made.
Speaker B:And to me, I don't mean to, you know, shit on anybody for doing it.
Speaker B:It's just not, I think, who I am.
Speaker B:I think I've gotten very comfortable at being the guy behind the glass.
Speaker B:You asked for a headshot and I had to find.
Speaker B:I think that's like my Facebook profile picture.
Speaker B:I was like, how often when you're behind the glass do you get pictures of you?
Speaker B:You're fortunate you're surrounded by peers that do what you do and you get these amazing.
Speaker B:Like, some of your portraits is just like, oh, okay, gq, calm down.
Speaker B:Like, I've never seen a prettier man in the north Maine.
Speaker B:When I get a picture of me that looks cool.
Speaker B:My God, like, cool, man.
Speaker B:Like that.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:Like, I'm genuinely appreciative of that stuff.
Speaker B:I don't want a client to hire me because they think I have funny jokes or, you know, I.
Speaker B:I make the faces or like.
Speaker B:Like Ed, when he hired me back at Wilcox, there was a second shoot we did, and it was a good three, four hours.
Speaker B:And he's like, you're not making the noises.
Speaker B:I'm like, we're in a dark cave, sir.
Speaker B:In the middle of nowhere.
Speaker B:What noises do you want me to make?
Speaker B:And all the.
Speaker B:All the 19th group guys are like, what the hell is going on?
Speaker B:Like, we.
Speaker B:We're used to some, like, stuff, but this is all.
Speaker B:And he was like, no, I don't.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:You know how Ed is.
Speaker B:He's like, usually when, like, you see something you like, like, you start, like, talking and making, like, these comments and noises behind the camera.
Speaker B:I'm like, I do.
Speaker B:Like, I didn't know that.
Speaker B:I don't want the client that's hiring me for the noises and the amusement.
Speaker B:That's what a YouTube channel is for.
Speaker B:I want to put our best.
Speaker B:I want you to see your company on that screen, your product on that screen.
Speaker B:I want you to envision that with this demo reel that could have been mine, right?
Speaker B:This style, this.
Speaker B:This color, this motion that's.
Speaker B:We just watched a demo reel the other day.
Speaker B:It was really, really well done.
Speaker B:But the problem is, like, that little bit of introvert that wants to.
Speaker B:Or extrovert that's stuck inside of introvert's body.
Speaker B:I guess when it comes to some.
Speaker B:Some filmmakers, they include themselves in their demo reel.
Speaker B:And I was like, that's in bad taste, right?
Speaker B:I'm not getting a demo reel to see you lounging on the couch.
Speaker B:Great composition.
Speaker B:Love it.
Speaker B:But the fact that you had to throw your little logo on your glasses and give a little wink to the camera midstream, not even, like, end of it, logo, black, fade out.
Speaker B:Like, no, like, you're part of it.
Speaker B:Then here tells me that you can't get models, don't know how to get models, don't know how to direct models.
Speaker B:Or that just wasn't a value to you for your own brand.
Speaker B:I don't need to sell me.
Speaker B:I need to sell what I can put out, because the rest is, like, we talked about relationships, not contacts.
Speaker B:If we meet because you don't just, you're hired, go do this, and then we meet.
Speaker B:You're like, I hate this guy.
Speaker B:That's not how this works in any.
Speaker B:Even in your industry.
Speaker B:You sit down, you talk to the people, you talk about pricing and requirements and your shot list and things like that.
Speaker B:So that's where that decision is made.
Speaker B:Not whether or not me or the BTS or any of that is included in my demo reel.
Speaker B:And that's just my opinion.
Speaker B:I would like to have the curtain up as the wizard of Oz.
Speaker B:And you don't look behind the curtain.
Speaker B:I got it from here.
Speaker B:If you want to come by and look behind the curtain while we're working on your thing.
Speaker B:By all means, I'll show you how this all made.
Speaker B:You can come look at my amazing sausage.
Speaker B:But the way I look at it is, is the.
Speaker B:The work should be what you're looking for, not the actual personality.
Speaker B:The personality is what you state.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker A:I think it's.
Speaker A:I think it's all contextual.
Speaker A:Where I always start is it's not about you.
Speaker A:It's not about you as the artist.
Speaker A:Unless it is.
Speaker A:So what I try to do, right, is I like to say, all right, this is going to be a BTS video of me so you can see me working and how I interact with people.
Speaker A:But if I'm making a demo reel, I want it to be the best work for my clients.
Speaker A:I don't want to insert myself in that.
Speaker A:And I think just understanding that it's not about you all the time, but sometimes it can be.
Speaker A:Is that balance that you have to walk, right?
Speaker A:Because I think when I'm able to put out behind the scenes, I did a.
Speaker A:I did one recently of like a headshot thing that I did for.
Speaker A:For corporate folks, and it was good because I get to show other companies, hey, here's how relaxed I am.
Speaker A:But when I go on my website, I'm not necessarily posting that.
Speaker A:I'm posting the headshots from the company because I want people to see the end product of what I was able to do with that.
Speaker A:So I think, you know, it.
Speaker A:It's a conscious approach to how much are we marketing the work that we do for our clients and how much are we marketing ourselves to try to get new clients that will be the right fit.
Speaker A:The last thing that I want to do is have someone hire me and then realize it's not a good fit, which is why you do all the consultations.
Speaker A:You build the relationships up front so that you can head it off at the pass and say, you know what, I don't think this is going to work, but I know a guy that would be a great fit for you and let me refer you and give you his information.
Speaker A:Hell, I'll set up the call if you want that.
Speaker A:But it just.
Speaker A:I don't think we're seeing things eye to eye.
Speaker A:I think it's important just to keep that little bit of ego in check and say, you know what?
Speaker A:I'm not the right person for everybody.
Speaker A:I'm not going to give you the best headshots if we are not connecting at any level.
Speaker A:And that's one thing that I've always seen you do really, really well is connect with people, building those relationships.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You've.
Speaker A:You got the rhythm with the tism, right.
Speaker A:You are all out there and you are able to build these relationships really quickly.
Speaker A:But I think one of the things that you and I have in common from working in that industry for so long and you had, you had put it on your little questionnaire is that you are, you've made a full time job of being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Speaker A:And I think that sums up a lot of what we do as artists.
Speaker A:So I'd like you to talk about that a little bit because it's not just the positions that we're in on a range or in a shoot house or that we're around, you know, the guys that were around and in close quarters.
Speaker A:But there's.
Speaker A:That goes to so many levels that as a small business owner you just have to be comfortable constantly being uncomfortable, especially mentally.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So talk to me about some of the challenges that you've had there.
Speaker A:Just because I faced a lot of them the same.
Speaker A:But I'd love to hear your perspective on kind of what you mean by that discomfort.
Speaker A:What's the discomfort that you feel that you've kind of grown attached to.
Speaker B:So we reached a point towards the end of middle of last year where I now have more overhead than I've had in my life, especially self employed.
Speaker B:There's people I'm responsible for and financially things were looking very dicey.
Speaker B:And I had a great meeting with Alex and it seemed very minuscule by comparison to what he was going through at the time.
Speaker B:And it still was proportional.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So if a millionaire had the same problems as somebody making minimum wage at the Piggly Wiggly, those problems scale, but they're still problems all in the same that weigh exactly the same on each person's shoulders.
Speaker B:But the experience level of how you've dealt with those problems, and I've been in such tight financial spots before that are relative to my stature in the community, the financial community, that it's part faith, which is funny because I don't celebrate any religion really, but part faith that things are going to work out and part hustle and then where they meet in the middle is kind of where you exist.
Speaker B:You're really unhappy with that boat anchor of problem tied around your neck.
Speaker B:But you also have faith from past experiences that here's what's going to happen, here's what you think is going to happen, here's what you believe is going to happen, here's the cards are showing you is going to happen, but you're still dragging that anchor trying to get to that other spot.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:You have to get comfortable with understanding that you're not always going to have 100k in float in your bank account.
Speaker B:You're not always going to have a million inflow, whatever the number is for you.
Speaker B:For me, 100k in float would be freaking stellar.
Speaker B:We constantly are riding, you know, not nearly that, but between paying people to work, paying models, paying location fees, new equipment, it ebbs and flows.
Speaker B:It's, you know, delta P wave, so to speak.
Speaker B:It's got to get comfortable with having that poker face and understanding that this isn't everyone's problem.
Speaker B:And it's also not just your problem.
Speaker B:Having a business partner, having a partner in life, whether it's a wife or a husband that supports you in what you do and is willing to be the person that bounces other ideas off of you.
Speaker B:When I struggle, like the first person I go to is Brian.
Speaker B:Like, hey, am I messed up for this?
Speaker B:Am I effed up for this?
Speaker B:Like, do you see a different way of doing this?
Speaker B:And if they don't have some sort of different point of view, then you need better friends or you need a better relationship or someone to bounce things off of.
Speaker B:Because a different perspective is always, especially as a creative, it changes your head tilt just a little bit to say, I didn't look at it that way.
Speaker B:And that causes your creative mind to spin a completely different direction.
Speaker B:Say, I got this.
Speaker B:This is no big deal.
Speaker B:Yeah, getting comfortable being uncomfortable requires, in my opinion, strong mental fortitude in your past experiences and a good support system around you of people that can that understand you and take you for who you are and celebrate that with you and knowing that supply you with advice that you may or may not like.
Speaker B:The Emperor's New Clothes is one of my favorite fables of all time.
Speaker B:I bring it up just about every conversation with somebody who asks about, especially this industry.
Speaker B:But you can't surround yourself with people that are just going to celebrate you and tell you how great you are.
Speaker B:And every decision you make is right and correct.
Speaker B:That's what children are for.
Speaker B:And even then, they're still going to hate you after 13 years anyway.
Speaker B:So get somebody that's willing to tell you no that you still are comfortable with closing your eyes next to at night.
Speaker B:You know, like, get yourself a work wife, a work husband, whatever the case may be.
Speaker B:Collaboration is just such a key to not just creative work, but mental health.
Speaker B:Because yeah, we get into uncomfortable spots on the range, for sure.
Speaker B:I mean, who doesn't want a blade of granite in their shoulder blade while they're semi inverted on a downward mud slope just to get that one shot of the dude doing the epic thing and then you get to do it again.
Speaker B:Oh, and it started snowing.
Speaker A:Like, oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Given what we do, that's, that's a common thing.
Speaker B:So it is, like you said, multi layered.
Speaker B:And it's more than just being uncomfortable on location.
Speaker B:It's being uncomfortable with being a solo business owner or a small business owner.
Speaker B:You know, making things meet as you grow and expand and having other people you're responsible for.
Speaker A:It goes so far beyond the physical, like you said, right.
Speaker A:It is, it definitely is a mental game.
Speaker A:I remember, you know, I got hit with more ricochets and shrapnel and things than I could.
Speaker A:I can count.
Speaker A:However, I was never concerned about me.
Speaker A:It was always like, oh God, did it hit my lens?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Did it, did it, did it knock the light over?
Speaker A:Did something happen?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Not am I waiting?
Speaker A:It's just my, like, oh God, what happened to my lens?
Speaker A:I don't have another $50 for another filter.
Speaker A:Like, you know, I think there was a point that I got to.
Speaker A:And it's right about the time I switched from Firelands to Stone Tree that I was just like, yeah, you know what?
Speaker A:I'm, I'm seeing these ups and downs and I now have the fortitude to bring it into another business and start all over again.
Speaker A:Because I know from previous experience.
Speaker A:Experience that I can do X, Y or Z better or I know these things are coming right, and this is all just experience.
Speaker A:But there is something in solopreneurship that you have to have that unshakable faith in yourself.
Speaker A:Not religious faith, but just unshakable central faith in yourself that you're going to make this thing happen.
Speaker A:And when that starts to waver, it's that support system that kicks you back to the middle of the road, right?
Speaker A:So that you don't drive off a cliff.
Speaker A:And they're the ones that generally get you back on track, like you said, give you a slightly different perspective.
Speaker A:Hey, did you think about it this way?
Speaker A:Hey, do you remember that time you did the thing you thought you weren't going to succeed at, but you did anyway?
Speaker A:Look, we're at that same spot again.
Speaker A:And it takes that support system, whoever that might be, business partner, spouse, friend, whatever.
Speaker A:The bartender right there needs to be someone that tells you an unbiased view of what's going on just to give you that perspective.
Speaker A:When we stay isolated, as a lot of us do, and we don't have that outlet, we don't have an assistant, we don't have someone that can tell us these things, and you don't get a different perspective.
Speaker A:But when you start to realize, like, am I the only one seeing this?
Speaker A:And you have the faith enough to say, yeah, no, I'm.
Speaker A:I'm sure of my own vision, that's where I.
Speaker A:I think you start to understand the fits and starts, and you start to prepare for the future.
Speaker A:You start to engage a little bit differently, and that's where you become a real business.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:It's not the hobby where you make a little bit of money now.
Speaker A:You've created a business with workflows, and you see it a little bit differently.
Speaker A:I think that takes a little bit of time.
Speaker A:But the earlier that you can do that, the better off you'll be in the long run.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And I didn't realize it till about seven or eight years into business.
Speaker A:I had struggled along for years and years and years, and then I finally got to feeling like, you know what?
Speaker A:All right, I can do this.
Speaker A:I can do this year in and year out.
Speaker A:Not saying there aren't lean years, but there are some years that are great, some years that aren't.
Speaker A:And so long as that law of averages kind of keeps that trend line going upwards, cool.
Speaker A:But you can't panic every time something goes off the rails.
Speaker A:So I'm going to ask you this.
Speaker A:As.
Speaker A:As we start to kind of land this plane.
Speaker A:That's probably not the proper phrase to use, given that planes are flipping over and flying into each other left and right.
Speaker B:Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker A:But as we start to land this plane safely and not in Canada, where do you think you're going as a business?
Speaker A:Are you staying in this realm?
Speaker A:Do you find yourself as a business owner?
Speaker A:Would you rather be the Don Draper that oversees an art department and, like, kind of at that executive producer level?
Speaker A:Or do you love staying in the guts of it all?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's funny.
Speaker B:Where.
Speaker B:Where do I want to be versus where do I see myself?
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:No, there's a great way to separate us.
Speaker B:Where do I want to be?
Speaker B:I want to be able to dealing with clients on a one to one basis.
Speaker B:I want to still be working a camera as projects get bigger and clients and client numbers increase.
Speaker B:Where I think I will be.
Speaker B:Not this year, although stranger things have happened.
Speaker B:But in the next year or two, I'd like to be in a much bigger footprint.
Speaker B:I'd like at least two more guys, maybe three more guys.
Speaker B:I'd like to start becoming a little bit more diverse and outside of just the firearms defense industry, we'd like to get more into hunting and fishing and outdoors in general.
Speaker B:With that also opens up talent pool.
Speaker B:A lot of people don't realize when you start bringing on employees, it's more than just their capabilities.
Speaker B:It's can you tolerate this person chewing next to you on a flight without murdering them?
Speaker B:So it's building a team is one of the hardest things in my experience to do, especially when you're holding the reins.
Speaker B:So where I'd like to be is I'd love to stay shooting forever.
Speaker B:But I also know that if I'm going to stay shooting forever that I need to carve time away to go not be in a chair 24 7.
Speaker B:I need to be in the gym, I need to be doing stuff.
Speaker B:I need to be doing the shaking hands and kissing babies which means I gotta have people doing what I was doing.
Speaker B:I would love for this to be like a full blown media house where we had, you know, several staff members that were collaborative working together across multiple projects and you know, have an Xbox in the corner and a pool table and you know, have the cool MTB cribs hangout just to keep creative juices flowing.
Speaker B:But I honestly don't know because twice in the past six years have been approached about being bought out, which inevitably includes, you know, me.
Speaker B:But that do you want to step away from being your own boss to reporting back to somebody else?
Speaker B:Do you want to commit to this one person's vision as opposed to the 15,000 visions per year that you can work on and keep the add bouncing happily.
Speaker B:I don't know where I'd like to be, honestly is able to not look at a bank account when I go to make a purchase and my kids to be taken care of.
Speaker B:And I'm a 40 hour work week at the most.
Speaker B:It's all over the board, you know, you never know.
Speaker A:It's not a question where there is a definitive answer.
Speaker A:God knows I've gone from bouncing in bars to owning a photo studio and literally every job in between.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And I never thought back when I was corporate that I'd be doing what I'm doing now.
Speaker A:And I'm sure that in another 10 years I'll be doing something.
Speaker A:And I look back and I'm like, wow, I never thought I'd be doing this thing over here.
Speaker A:I I only ask that because I've seen your growth over the, you know, decade plus, and it's.
Speaker A:You're constantly expanding.
Speaker A:You're constantly coming up with new ideas, setting some bars for other artists in that industry.
Speaker A:I still keep an eye on what's out there.
Speaker A:And you can tell, and this is a wonderful thing, you can tell your work immediately because you've developed this voice and this feeling.
Speaker A:That's what I.
Speaker B:Explain that to me in words.
Speaker A:Can I explain it to you?
Speaker A:Okay, sure.
Speaker B:No, like monkey's like, oh, you definitely have a style.
Speaker B:I'm like, I just do what I do.
Speaker B:Like, I don't know what my style is because I don't strive for it.
Speaker B:It's just what I do.
Speaker B:So I'm curious for that outside input.
Speaker B:What is.
Speaker B:What is it?
Speaker A:What I see you have a very immersive documentary style that like literally immerses you in the action.
Speaker A:You feel like you are right there.
Speaker A:A lot of times I'll watch a video and be like, well, it's a well produced video and they've got, you know, all the cool shots and they've got FPV drones and they've got all this kind of cool stuff, but it's soulless.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:What I see with you is you create an immersion for the viewer where they are on the range, they are in the helicopter.
Speaker A:They understand that this isn't about see and say, look at this cool widget.
Speaker A:And we're going to show you 900 pictures of this widget.
Speaker A:We're going to show you the value of this, why it looks good in your hands, why it fits your lifestyle, regardless of what the lifestyle is.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I just did this with you when we shot the video for Mossberg is I saw how your mind works and it wasn't just about, let's get shots of this on the range.
Speaker A:It was, let's show you holding it, looking out over a field and walking with it and holding and putting it on the workbench.
Speaker A:And there's just all the ancillary parts of owning this product and using the product that you're great at getting those things across to the viewer rather than it just being flashy and trendy.
Speaker A:And look at the transitions we have and the light leaks.
Speaker A:And look, I'm using an anamorphic lens, right?
Speaker A:It being about you, you're able to make it about the product.
Speaker A:And that, to me, is a great cinematographer, it's a great photographer, it's a great editor.
Speaker A:When I'm not thinking about what went into making it and I'm just in the story.
Speaker A:That's where I really see your work quite a bit being different from others that I see in the industry.
Speaker A:Because I feel like with your work, I am part of the shoot.
Speaker A:I am part there.
Speaker A:I was there watching this whole thing happen.
Speaker A:But I just feel like it's a much more immersive experience.
Speaker A:So that's the way I see your stuff.
Speaker A:Quick cuts, a little bit darker, a little bit grittier.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I dig that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So that's not always about flash.
Speaker A:It's about the storytelling.
Speaker A:And you've always had this amazing knack of storytelling.
Speaker A:You've done an incredible job of growing four guys Guns from this blog.
Speaker A:I remember you making all those, like, review videos and whatnot to really a media production house.
Speaker A:Now that I'd probably put up there with just about anybody in that industry, if not above anyone in that industry.
Speaker A:I don't say that because you're my friend and I'm blowing smoke.
Speaker A:But there's only a couple of other production houses out there that are producing this type of content at this level.
Speaker A:I'm very comfortable in saying that.
Speaker A:You're a.
Speaker A:You're a leader in that.
Speaker B:I appreciate the kind words.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It's always interesting to hear what your reflection looks like to somebody else is what it boils down to.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:Sometimes you get a little vampirish, if that's a word.
Speaker B:Like, you look in the mirror, but only you can see yourself.
Speaker B:What does the rest of the world see you as?
Speaker B:And you know, when Monkey said it, hearing you, like I've always heard, like, cinematography, very cinematic style and gritty.
Speaker B:I've heard that my biggest fear when finding out that I had a style was feeling like I was in the beginnings of being pigeonholed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So that's one of the main reasons why we wanted to kind of branch out.
Speaker B:Like I did.
Speaker B:I did videos like this retired lawyer.
Speaker B:And we.
Speaker B:We did some fitness stuff for another small gym in the area.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:Just to prove that we're not a one style.
Speaker B:Like we can be Mighty Morphin Power Rangers when it comes to whatever you need to be a true design house.
Speaker B:But the more we dive into, like, this industry, the more I'm seeing.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:Like I'm looking at this picture on my desktop right now.
Speaker B:It's all behind the camera.
Speaker B:And it's the dude in quad tubes, like, coming through the door.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you're just like.
Speaker B:As you're describing, I'm like, shit, he's Right?
Speaker B:Shit, he's right.
Speaker B:Shit, shit, he's right.
Speaker B:And I took that picture friggin six years ago.
Speaker B:So it's just like, God damn it, this is the guy I am.
Speaker B:I get it.
Speaker A:Don't misunderstand me, right?
Speaker A:So voices are voices for a reason, right?
Speaker A:Every great artist, you kind of look at them, you know a dolly when you see it.
Speaker A:You know, certain artists, like I can recognize Peter Lindbergh, Helmut Newton, Ellen Von Unworth, like all of these great photographers, Annie Leibowitz, you just know it when you see it.
Speaker A:And the same thing, it's not a good or bad thing.
Speaker A:I like it for the fact that you've produced so much work that there is a style, there just shows like, hey, this is my voice.
Speaker A:I can also do the things on this side in the gym or at a dentist office or a lawyer's office.
Speaker A:But you know so much about that industry.
Speaker A:You live it, it's part of your lifestyle that it's easier for you to get the nuance.
Speaker A:And I think that's a thing that a lot of cinematographers or photographers don't understand.
Speaker A:Part of the story is truly understanding the depth of the product that you're using.
Speaker A:So I could certainly sell this pair of glasses, but I'm not an optometrist.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I'm not going to have the real details to dig into.
Speaker A:And you're able to do that.
Speaker A:I think having that voice is a good thing, but not saying that's my only voice.
Speaker A:You have to be able to expand and experiment and fail and do all these types of projects to figure out what it is that you're really trying to say with whatever art you're producing.
Speaker A:I just as defining part of that market in that industry based on all the work that you've done.
Speaker B:So my mother, the New York liberal Jewish woman, says, why don't you just take pictures of kids?
Speaker B:Why don't you take pictures of landscapes?
Speaker B:Why don't you take pictures of bikes?
Speaker B:Used to be in the mountain bikes, right.
Speaker B:And it's, it's not a choice.
Speaker B:It's almost like, you know, sorry, my own guy.
Speaker B:Like this is where my brain locked in.
Speaker B:Like I, I don't feel like I had a choice in the matter.
Speaker B:It's the one when I put camera to gun and it was like, oh man, if you're trying to tell me that there's a difference between a Sig 320 and a Glock 19.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Subtle differences, whatever.
Speaker B:But when you start breaking down the actual little details, how things work and what those two companies viewpoints on how they're.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They see their product being used.
Speaker B:That's where things start like getting your brain wrapped around.
Speaker B:You're like I didn't get behind this one.
Speaker B:I can't get behind that one.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:And I'm into it and I want to go take a video then I want to do photography with that.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It wasn't a like a.
Speaker B:I'm going to be a gun photographer for that wasn't my choice which is where I ended up because where I clicked it and.
Speaker B:And you do.
Speaker B:I mean let me tell you if, if I ever decide that I want headshots I'm coming to Matt Stagliano and Stone Tree.
Speaker A:Well we should have, you know we should have done that when you were out here.
Speaker A:So I'm not.
Speaker B:I gotta drop like 60 pounds again like then balacle up there so I could do my.
Speaker B:Get my turtleneck and grand black beard off.
Speaker B:Then we'll see what's up.
Speaker B:We'll.
Speaker A:We'll turn you into me.
Speaker A:It'll be great.
Speaker B:Steve Jobs little muck the ste.
Speaker A:Steve Jobs.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:This is just.
Speaker A:It's hiding Turkey neck is what it is.
Speaker A:FGG Media.
Speaker A:Is that where.
Speaker A:Where you're at these days or do you have another site that people can go check out to see deso reels.
Speaker B:And part of this we're currently under construction is the.
Speaker B:The political answer.
Speaker B:So Four Guys Guns.com and Four Guys Guns on YouTube all spelled out still exists.
Speaker B:It always will exist.
Speaker B:We are currently working on getting our old which was blacksite.fgmedia.com I think hopefully it's in the show notes like that's.
Speaker B:That hasn't been updated like two years but the new demo reel.
Speaker B:Some newer photography clients we've worked with which I hate doing but it's one of those things where it's when you're dealing with new clients they if you're doing like a cold call type situation where it's like oh yeah we do that versus you know it's.
Speaker B:It's like Hitch.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If your clients introduce you to your new clients over and over again like you can always get a pretty decent baseline as the type of character, personality and company you're going to deal with.
Speaker B:But inevitably in business you're going to have to at some point do some cold calling or cold selling or elevator pitching or you're going to hand your car to a person who seemed interested at the time.
Speaker B:They need to be able to see that you're not just some schmuck.
Speaker B:And, you know, you have a camera.
Speaker B:I have a 660D and a kit lens.
Speaker B:And I got this bao Fang Xingtao strobe with a cover on the top.
Speaker B:I can do your wedding.
Speaker B:They want to see.
Speaker B:So we have a portfolio site.
Speaker B:It has our, you know, clients we've worked with in the past.
Speaker B:We're in the middle of.
Speaker B:Literally in the middle of transitioning from old webmaster to new webmaster.
Speaker B:And we're going to have him reconfigure.
Speaker B:Reconfigure everything.
Speaker B:And it'll be fggmedia.com, which right now will bring you, I think, to our old.
Speaker B:Our new, old blog site.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, that'll all be in the show notes.
Speaker A:So just look for the links here and you'll be able to check out all of Josh's work.
Speaker A:I'm telling you, I've known this guy for 10, 12, 13.
Speaker A:I can't remember how many years.
Speaker A:I'll have to go back and find those original pictures.
Speaker A:More than 10, less than 20.
Speaker A:More than 10, less than20.
Speaker A:I want to see us younger, without all the gray in our beards.
Speaker A:I haven't dug those up in a long time because I can't remember period before the gray.
Speaker B: I don't remember: Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I think that was probably about the same.
Speaker A:I started growing the beard then too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All that'll be in the show notes.
Speaker A:Dude, I can't thank you enough for doing this and I could have talked for another couple of hours.
Speaker A:So maybe we'll get you back and we'll do something else.
Speaker A:But this was real.
Speaker B:You got a better camera set up for next time?
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll get you some depth of field.
Speaker A:You're the cinematographer, man.
Speaker A:Like do the cinema stuff.
Speaker A:Get better gear.
Speaker A:You need better gear.
Speaker B:Like it's part of the problem, you know?
Speaker A:Tell Brian I think I'll use this for this.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think I have an 800 camera with a 15 hour lens.
Speaker B:It's doing nothing.
Speaker B:I'll just use that as my webcam.
Speaker B:Like that's.
Speaker B:That's the way you've made it.
Speaker A:Oh, my God, you're amazing, dude.
Speaker A:All right, so hang out here.
Speaker A:Thank you again.
Speaker A:And I can't wait to talk to you again soon.
Speaker B:All right, thank you so much, Matt.
Speaker A:Take it easy, man.
Speaker A:Love you by.
