Breaking 6 Figures Within Two Years Of Moving To A Brand New City | With Rodrigo Tasca

Brian: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the six figure creative podcast. I am your host Brian Hood, and I'm here with my big bald beautiful mustached man. Who's my co-host Christopher J. Graham. How you do my boot

[00:00:13]Chris: [00:00:13] I'm

[00:00:14] Brian: [00:00:14] fin, but I combined dude, and it did not work really well. It was a complete mess up. You can tell me

[00:00:21] Chris: [00:00:21] your, uh, your, your pet name.

[00:00:23] Don't know. No, that's what I call it.

[00:00:25] Brian: [00:00:25] I can't use your pet name on the podcast.

[00:00:27]Chris: [00:00:27] What's changed topics really quick. Hey, I do have a mustache and I've discovered the

[00:00:31] Brian: [00:00:31] joys of mustache, but your mustache in every intro that's ever existed. So we're going to move on from that. Okay,

[00:00:37]Chris: [00:00:37] Brian, how are you

[00:00:38] Brian: [00:00:38] doing, sir? He did the stats on podcasts intros for the last 150 plus episodes. There's probably about seven where you asked me how I. There's no more than, so I appreciate it. This was seventh right here. I appreciate you asking me that I'm doing, I'm doing so good. My dude uh, oh, you, you had something to say before I even answered.

[00:00:54] Did you want to do button?

[00:00:55]Chris: [00:00:55] I've had so much fun trying to get guests lined up for us for this show, but I've also, since our systems are finally working now, I've been spending a lot of time trying to get us brand endorsements as well, specifically. Fun toys like e-bikes and motorized scooters and crafts

[00:01:13] Brian: [00:01:13] now right here.

[00:01:13] First folks, this is why it's taking so damn long for six figure creative to get launched. September was the last episode we put out a six figure home studio. September, 2020 is as of today, we're recording this June 8th, 2021. And Chris has finally disclosed why it's taken so long. It's because he's been trying to get sponsorships for toys instead of guests for this podcast.

[00:01:35] Is that accurate, Chris?

[00:01:36]Chris: [00:01:36] There is some

[00:01:37] truth.

[00:01:37] Brian: [00:01:37] There was a point where you had gotten more sponsors for this podcast than guests. Is that correct?

[00:01:43]Chris: [00:01:43] Well, and then that sponsors as much as like brand endorsements. For me,

[00:01:47] Brian: [00:01:47] you've gotten like a camera. You've gotten like microphones, you've gotten, you're trying to get like an electric bike thing.

[00:01:52] What's the, I don't even say the company name. I'm not going to dignify them with that yet until they give me a bike, you're getting all this free crap or discounted crap or whatever. What have I gotten out of this? I've got nothing

[00:02:01]Chris: [00:02:01] Jack. I had, Electro-Voice send you the new RA 20, because I think you sounded better than an RA 20 than an SM seven B.

[00:02:07] And it was really cool. And that was a surprise. And I'm a lot worse than that. That's

[00:02:10] Brian: [00:02:10] the one thing I've gotten out of it.

[00:02:11]Chris: [00:02:11] Well, we'll see I'm working on some other stuff more on cameras. I have been spending Brian. I wish I was a photographer,

[00:02:19] Brian: [00:02:19] man. Darvey now I hear it. Here's the thing. So we're, we'll talk about, I mean, I'm sure we've already talked about this, but.

[00:02:24]I'm launching a new business right now, podcasts agency. And I'm trying to get Chris to launch a new business as well, so that we can be in the trenches again, as, as business owners, we'll get into that more later, because like, again, I started my, my studio way back in 2009. So it's been like over a decade since I've started from the ground level in a service world, like a creative.

[00:02:44]And so starting a new business from scratch is going to bring a lot of content of this podcast. And I know it will for you too, Chris, if you, if you do that. So I'm going to challenge you for that. So let's change the subject here. We actually have an awesome guest on the podcast today. His name is Rodrigo.

[00:02:55] Taska also known as Drigo we're gonna again, the history here, but some of the things that we talk about from this episode is so awesome. Um, for our current audience, which is predominantly audio engineers and recording studios, but for any future audiences going back to listen to the episode that our videographers cause he's a, he's a very, agents are a video studio.

[00:03:12]Graphic designers, any creative freelancer can learn from this because he, he talks about in his story is crazy where he started from basically nothing moving from his whole family, moved over from Brazil at a young age. And so he was starting from, from scratch over here. And didn't have maybe some of the connections or, you know, family, friends that a lot of people might have to get those things started and has grown his thing to be a six figure business.

[00:03:35]Relatively. Early, like, I think his second year it was six figures we talked about in this episode and he talks about how he grew that fast. It's unbelievable. And some of the things he did to get established and build his portfolio and get credibility and get these clients that actually pay money, it is worth sticking around for and listening to this episode.

[00:03:50] So if there's not anything that I've missed here, Chris worth talking about, we should just bring in the interview. Let's

[00:03:56] Chris: [00:03:56] do it. Let's go, Brian, here's

[00:03:58] our

[00:03:58] Brian: [00:03:58] interview with Rodrigo Tesco. We're here. We're joined with our hopefully friends soon. Depends on how this interview goes with our friend soon to be friend Rodrigo Taska from Taska studios.

[00:04:08]and we're super excited to, to pick his brain. He runs a studio out of Florida doing video production for business owners and maybe a few other things. Along with that, we're going to dive into his story here of how he got started, how he got into the book crushing it by Gary V all from being well, we're just going to go to the story cause I don't want to, I don't want to smell too much, too much of it here, so Drigo thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

[00:04:27]Rodrigo: [00:04:27] Guys, thanks for having me, man. It's a pleasure.

[00:04:29] Brian: [00:04:29] I would like to talk about a few things here. I have a whole agenda of things that I like to talk about with, with guests. Your story specifically is interesting because you're kind of the, the American dream kind of story you came over from Brazil.

[00:04:41]With your family and started a business from basically scratch with no, no roots, no, no real connections. I'd like to get to talk about the beginning where you started to find your passion for what it is that you do today. Because so many people are in this transitionary period where they're trying to figure out is my passion even worth pursuing at all first place.

[00:04:58]So talk about the finding the passion that you have for a video at this point.

[00:05:02]Rodrigo: [00:05:02] So honestly, I came across video. A really long time ago. And as a immigrant oldest child of three, it was one of those things of like following my passion or just something that bidding fit. role that my family kind of had an idea, right?

[00:05:18] It's like, Hey, you come to America, going to go, go to school, going to get a good job. You're going to buy a home. You're going to retire as. So with video in south Florida, I was just one of those things that didn't seem like a dream that was really going to be like for me, able to achieve what I wanted to do.

[00:05:36] So did a lot of different things and worked in the hospitality industry. And it wasn't until by accident, I went to Peru to visit a friend. He was doing real estate there and I had my GoPro, which is actually right back to. And I just started shooting videos for him. And we launched this business called home for travelers who are, we're doing videos.

[00:05:55] And this is like 2000 and like 11, 12 shooting videos for just rental properties. And that's where I first got like my introduction to video the business didn't work out. But that's the first time I saw that video was, you know, a possibility for me. About two years later, moved to New York city. I'm working at an event.

[00:06:17]I used to do catering of like some high-end stuff and I'm holding like a tray of champagne. And I see these guys with these like camera rig things. I had no idea what it was. And I was like, yo, why am I holding champagne? Musically are over here getting paid way more money than me to do video. You know, and I kind of like that kind of sparked an idea for me as like I'm in New York city.

[00:06:37] This is the environment that I can actually start pursuing my dreams. Luckily enough. By accident a week later, I'm working in another catering event. And as I'm working this event, I hear this guy talk about how he made $10,000 buying shack dolls at Kmart, no buying shack. At the dollar store and return them to Kmart inmate $10,000 as an immigrant child.

[00:07:02] That is the stuff that I used to do. I used to be the kid at school that sold candy burn, CDs. Like that was me from hearing this guy talk them like, dude, who is this guy? And you sort of talk them about like, this is 2015. He was like, if you love doing something, there's no better time than now for you to follow a career, be passionate about it.

[00:07:21] I love Pokemon cards. You know, go after it and just happened. That guy was Gary V. So in New York city, hearing him talk literally died day. Um, And actually like two days later ended up buying my camera and start pursuing video as like a part-time hobby, which eventually turned to no, my six-figure agency that I run now,

[00:07:43]Brian: [00:07:43] one of the most expensive cities in the world, trying to start a video production business.

[00:07:48] How do you, how do you manage. Building a brand new business in a city that is not very free giving towards new businesses.

[00:07:55] Rodrigo: [00:07:55] Well, honestly was my intention in the beginning, wasn't to actually start a business and it was really just to do something that I love. At that time, I was 26, 27 years old. I dropped out of college.

[00:08:08]You know, I was in the catering hospitality industry, but it was getting to the point that I'm like, I know I can do this forever, but when his wall are doing something that I love and video just happened to be that. So like I was shooting videos for friends or shooting videos for the company that I worked for.

[00:08:23] And my goal was just to make a little bit of money, right? Like somebody paid me 50 bucks to go shoot a video. Like I was excited, but eventually. With New York, the thing is everybody wants video. Like the market, like being in a market where there's a demand for you to grow so much easier because there's way more opportunities.

[00:08:41] So, you know, I just started placing myself in front of people and just, you know, sorry, shooting everything that I could to kind of learn. Cause I didn't go to school. I looked into going to film school and I was like, oh, 50 grand a year or whatever I can afford. Sorry. I turned to YouTube and you know, I just want her to learn and just shoot videos for whoever I could.

[00:08:59] So you're,

[00:09:00] Brian: [00:09:00] I mean, I feel like most of our listeners can, can understand the exact thing. We all started from a passion. It's like passion first in this world and the creative world, we have this passion for something. And then we ask the question, how can we monetize this and, and start to do those things.

[00:09:13] So you were doing a lot of free work in New York city, I believe. Is that right? Yeah. If pre-work

[00:09:18] Rodrigo: [00:09:18] like, I was like the king of $200 videos. Like I was shoot a video, like out of work for like eight, 10 hours a day. And like probably spent like 30 hours editing you know, a $200 video. But for me at that time with catering, I was making $150 for every catering shift that are work for this company. So my goal was I just need to make more money than I am for catering. Right. And that's what, like, best rest started at 200. and that kind of just, you know, kept going from there, from there, from there, if you,

[00:09:48] Brian: [00:09:48] you go back, would you still start that same way or would you start trying to charge more sooner or what would you, what would you do differently?

[00:09:54] If anything?

[00:09:55] Rodrigo: [00:09:55] Honestly, I'm a big fan of the freeway. It has led me to a lot of different opportunities and a lot of different places. And I think, you know, if you're someone that's gone, you've had the cause for me, here's the thing I was learning day by day. Right. So for me, I didn't feel right.

[00:10:10] Charging somebody, not knowing what my deliverable or what the expectations of what I could actually deliver. Like, so it didn't feel right for me to actually charge somebody money. It wasn't eventually then people start coming back to me and be like, do that video is really good. And I was like, oh, okay.

[00:10:25] Like maybe I need to start charging more money for this. So if you're looking to just get started, if you're looking to get your foot through the door, if you don't know what you're doing, You work for free, go find somebody that's doing what you want to do and go work for them.

[00:10:38]Brian: [00:10:38] I've heard a lot of mixed arguments online about like, some people are just like, they have their stake in the ground and they say you should never, ever, ever do free work.

[00:10:46] And some of these people I've seen do this, or like, especially in the audio industry, there's like Grammy winning people. And these are business owners and other areas that are like seven figure business owners. And, I just, I feel like those people are too far out of touch with what it's like to be an absolute beginner.

[00:10:59]To understand what? So I personally think doing free work at the very beginning to build your portfolio, to build yourself confidence more than anything and start building out your systems and processes. So you can deliver on what you're doing. This, this is to me, I don't see many other options for getting started, unless you just have some sort of cloud already, or you already know a lot about what you're doing already to be able to confidently charge somebody from the very beginning.

[00:11:22] So I'm, I'm, I'm all on board for that.

[00:11:24]Chris: [00:11:24] Well, and the thing about the free work, when you see these sort of uh, pardon me, wants to call them old timers, but yeah, but you, you see these sort of like, you know, industry standard people, these older people that are like never, ever, ever, ever do free work. And I think one of the things that they don't grasp is when you're just starting out, like in 2015 and 20, 20 and 2021.

[00:11:44]Your free work has so much more power because it can go viral. It can spread in a way that free work 10 years ago. Couldn't so 10 years ago, should you have done free work? Eh, the argument's not as strong, but it's getting stronger. The easier it is for you to be like, Hey, I made this thing and I put it on Instagram.

[00:12:03] I made a fake commercial for free, or I made a commercial for free for somebody. I put it on an Instagram. People saw it. A bunch of people saw it. I got more work. So I think there's just, yeah, there's no reason to not. Doing that to get yourself off the ground.

[00:12:15] Rodrigo: [00:12:15] And I think the other big part of the free work is, is being intentional with your few work, right?

[00:12:21] Cause like, I don't want you to go out and shoot free videos for everyone. For me was I saw a company I wanted to work with and I shot something that I knew I wanted to do more of. I offered to do a free video for them because of the brain association. This is like a very high-end like luxury magazine.

[00:12:39]I got to work with like literally my first year of work, I worked with Seth Rogan to SP But these were like all like $150 to $200 videos that have put myself in front of this magazine. And I was getting to work with these kind of like celebrities. And then when I was later on showing other people this work, they're like, dude, you worked with Seth Rogan.

[00:12:59] He did a video Swiss beats. I'm like, yeah, like they don't know how much you charge like that. It didn't. I charged almost nothing for that. Right. So be very intentional with their free work that you're going to do. So like when I started doing free work, when I moved to south fork, I found a dentist that I wanted to work with because I knew that I did a free video for him.

[00:13:16] I could leverage dev video to do other videos, paid projects for another people. So like, be very strategic about how are you going to do your pre-work.

[00:13:25] Brian: [00:13:25] I want to go back to that dentist thing in a minute, but let's talk about the move to Florida. So you, you, you moved from New York city, one of the most expensive cities in the world to Florida, which depending on what city you're in is relatively cheap, especially compared to New York.

[00:13:37] Is that what motivated you to make that.

[00:13:39]Rodrigo: [00:13:39] To be honest with you. It was the cold weather man. I remember it was like a, it was like two o'clock in the morning. I got off the train and I'm walking back to my apartment and like the cold weather just hit my bones. And I was like, why am I here? You know what I mean?

[00:13:54] Not that like I was, I'm very grateful for the opportunity I got when I was in New York. There's a certain aspect of your environment and like the code. And like, I was honestly starting to fuller depressed, like when it's four o'clock in the afternoon, the sun's gone and it's 18 degrees outside. Like the motivation just starts to go away.

[00:14:13] So after that winter, I was like, I want to go back to Florida. At that time, I had like a mentor that he there's a lot of like big photons and stuff. And he's older. He's trying to be like in his fifties or so he didn't do video. So he's like your Rodrigo, like, you know, come do video, I've got projects for you.

[00:14:30] I've got projects for you. And I was like, I was like, you know what? It was like Let me go move to Florida and work with this guy. So that was like the main driving force for me. Cause then I was looking at my mark. It was like in New York city, Craigslist was king at that time. Right? Like you're only looking for any kind of project you want to Craigslist and there's jobs in there every single day.

[00:14:48] And when I came to uh, I started looking at Florida, Florida, they really didn't have a lot of competition. So like I wanted to put myself in a market that I was going to be able to, you know, grow and succeed a lot faster because the thing with New York is everyday some of these younger, newer, better than used moving there.

[00:15:05] Right. And with that. Allows you to grow a lot faster because you constantly have to innovate, but it got to a point that I was like, I'm approaching my thirties. How long can I keep doing this? Versus if I moved to Florida, I could possibly start a video production business. And star servicing these clients that don't have anyone offering videos for them.

[00:15:23] Brian: [00:15:23] So you, you made this move from the city down to Florida and immediately you move into a, like a high-rise penthouse, like luxury mansion, right.

[00:15:30]Rodrigo: [00:15:30] Something like that. But no, no, you were, you

[00:15:34] Brian: [00:15:34] were sacrificed, you, you, I, I was reading a story or was a YouTube video where you talked about, you moved in with your parents when you moved back.

[00:15:40]To get this business started. And I just want to point that fact out, because that is sacrificed, like to be in your late twenties, moving in with your parents to a new city to get your business started. I don't know that many people that are willing to do that and make that sort of sacrifice.

[00:15:53] Rodrigo: [00:15:53] Yeah. I mean, it was, it was tough for me too, because like I was 30 years old.

[00:15:57]moving back to my hometown or my friends or having, like having babies, getting married. And then here I am, you know, and with social media, everyone's like, yo drew goes in New York city and now they're like, you just move back home with your parents. Like, what's, what's the deal with that? Well, I mean, honestly for me, I grew up in a very supportive household.

[00:16:17] I was lucky enough that my mom went through this thing with my grandfather. My grandpa wanted my mom to become a teacher, made her go to school to get a degree. When mum graduated, she literally handed them my grandpa, her diploma. She goes, here you go. You can hang it up on your wall. And she went to like, become a journal.

[00:16:33]So with me, she saw that like, you know, I wasn't passionate about school, but I was really passionate about video. there were so supporting of like whatever I needed to do, like. Between sleeping on the couch and things like that, they were always just there for me. So I think the environment that you're you're in makes a big factor as well.

[00:16:52]Chris: [00:16:52] Where in Florida

[00:16:53] Rodrigo: [00:16:53] It was in Pompano beach. So I was about 45 minutes north of Miami, about 30 or 40 minutes of west westbound.

[00:17:01]

[00:17:01] Brian: [00:17:01] So you weren't in like a major city, you were moving to a relatively small city, especially compared to new.

[00:17:05] Yeah.

[00:17:05]Rodrigo: [00:17:05] Yeah. But it's funny how it worked out because Pompano beach is right in between Boca, which is like the last city of Palm beach county. And then it's kind of overlooked by Fort Lauderdale. But that area of, of pumping a, B there's actually a lot of businesses there. So at that point, there's even know about this.

[00:17:26] a lot of corporations are in that area. So like there's still clients that, I mean, I started a business in 2016 when I moved down here, like I still have about five clients that are started with when I first started my business, just because I placed myself on Google. I did like all the Google, my business, all these different things.

[00:17:44] So people sort of searching for me. I showed up and just sort of learned with like branding and all that stuff. Like they're like, oh, this guy worked with like, so to speak and Seth Rogan, he must be good. You know what I mean? And it just kind of worked out for me.

[00:17:57]Chris: [00:17:57] That's amazing. And Brian, just to give you an idea of how much money is in that area.

[00:18:01]Uh, When my dad lived down there I used to go and visit him when I was in here. And I would go on runs. And one time I was running down the main dragon boat. Okay. And I came to a stop light and I stopped for the crowd waiting for the crosswalk. And I looked to my right and there were two identical yellow Lamborghini's parked at that rate.

[00:18:19]Just randomly, they didn't know each other. I was like, oh, I'm not in Kansas

[00:18:25] Brian: [00:18:25] anymore. Now you made our listeners say, well, that's the only reason Drigo is successful is because he's in the richest county in Florida. No, that's not. That's definitely not the case. Okay. So let's talk about finding profitable niches. I think this is, From what I can gather. One of your superpowers is that you, you are great at finding and establishing yourself in profitable niches. And so when you landed in that county and you've started to look around and see what was out there for you, you, you jumped right on the things that you could find.

[00:18:51] So this is, this is just about the time that you started. You tried the free video for the dentist, or is this just give me a timeline?

[00:18:58]Rodrigo: [00:18:58] Yeah. So when I moved down from Florida or when I moved down from New York, I had a couple. Problems, which I didn't realize. Right. First I didn't understand. I was like, started reaching out to businesses and I'm like, can I do video?

[00:19:09] And they're like, okay, great. And I'm like, you need videos. Like you're a business. And like, they didn't understand like how video, but that was just like, they always say Florida's linked to the market. So like with New York and LA like videos, man, no one in Florida really cared about it. The other thing I went.

[00:19:26]In New York, you're like a woman Ben. Right? As a D rock, what is, how's the like a predator, a producer editor, a videographer type thing. And people didn't understand that. Like me as a one man band could produce, edit, shoot, do everything. So I was like, Hey, this is Rodrigo from Rodrigo Tasca productions.

[00:19:48] And they were like, who's Rodrigo, which that's where my Instagram name came from. Frigo. Was because like, I would literally call businesses to buy who's Rodrigo task. And I'm like, like, what is the problem here? And they're like, one man band can do all of this. So at that time, living at home, like pretty much sharing a bedroom with my sister, I was like, oh, task studios.

[00:20:09] Then I started calling people around like, Hey, this is tasked with CTOs. So then I'm like, okay, cool. Like task studio sounds more official. And I started getting for a couple of businesses, but then they were like, Hey, your videos are gray. I love the stuff you like the high fashion stuff. The behind the scenes.

[00:20:23]How does this apply to my business? Like, I'm a business owner, what am I going to do with like a cool behind the scenes passionate video? I was like, oh, this is the next problem that I need to start solving. But with that, I was like, okay. So I need to find someone that I can shoot a free video for that could then show other business owners like, Hey, I can do this kind of videos as I grew and learned that like, You need to solve a business problem.

[00:20:47]I mean, you just doing a free videos for someone, or like just screen a video like business owners cares about solving business problems.

[00:20:53]Chris: [00:20:53] I love that. Drigo. And as you, as you're talking about this, one of the things we want to do in this show is to come up with new terms, new phrases, to help people take an, a, a big idea and cram it down in a nice little package.

[00:21:06] And as you're talking about your problem of moving to Florida and people are looking at your portfolio and they're like, these are great, but how does this apply to me? It would be interesting to call something like that. Client portfolio match. There's something about having the right client look at the right portfolio versus having the right client look at the wrong pieces or where the client has to do the work and say, well, he's got talent.

[00:21:29] How would I use that talent versus I'm a dentist. This guy reached out to me. He did a video for another dentist. It looks way better than anything else. I've got. Duh, I'll hire him. Here's the,

[00:21:40] Brian: [00:21:40] here's the, an important thing I don't want anyone to miss is the fact that you were actually talking to potential clients because you talk to learn this stuff.

[00:21:47] You had to talk to them to figure out what it was, Keith, what was actually keeping them from hiring you. So are you cold calling? Were you emailing, were you showing up on their doorstep? What were you doing to get in contact with these businesses?

[00:21:57]Rodrigo: [00:21:57] So the first thing that we did was I pretty much started learning.

[00:22:00] Like I went to YouTube. Right. And I just started learning about marketing. And then a big thing that I struggled with in the beginning as well was I didn't have any money to market myself. Like the advertisement, like I was, I heard about pay-per-click. I was like, you know, I was listening to Gary V and he's like spend money on social media, spend money on advertisement.

[00:22:19] But I was like, I don't have, like, I'm literally living at home with my parents. Like probably have like 50 bucks in my bank account. And I'm like, I can't do. So like, what is it, what skill can I learn to help to learn about SEO, who aren't like search engine optimization within six months of moving back home, I ended up ranking my website on Google for video production and Pompano beach.

[00:22:40]So that gave me a bigger understanding of this other problem that a lot of business owners had. So by me understanding how the SEO thing works, I started realizing how video played into that. And I don't want to go, like, I guess, like too technical with this, but then I started looking at the dentist in my area.

[00:22:57] They're spending money on advertising, like, like, oh, you're running pay-per-click campaigns, but you're not in ranking in Google. I was like, let me reach out to this guy. And I'd be like, Hey, John saw you running no pay-per-click ads. Oh, but you're not ranking in Google. Or I took a look at your site in a store.

[00:23:12] You're missing these, these things. I don't know if you're aware of this. YouTube is a road second largest search engine owned by Google. I think a screen and a video would really help boost your presence. Let me know if you want to chat. I'd send out these emails. I'd sent probably 20 to 25 emails like this a day, no response, no response.

[00:23:32] And then I'll do follow up emails eventually. One day. Reach back out here actually make, so then I had my sister followed back up, cause like, I want her to make the company look bigger. So at this point I hired my sister. She was a hostess at a restaurant. And then when she got off work to help me do business stuff.

[00:23:49] So with the whole like perception of like, oh, let me make this business seem bigger. Or have my sister send an email, like, Hey, we're going to close your file. I want to make sure that you're no longer interested because we're only working with one dentist in your area. And we like, we want to make sure that you're not interested.

[00:24:05]And the guys like, Hey, like, Hey, a wall street, Mister email. Like, we get a lot of these things. I like, let me talk to your producer, the guy, the guy on the phone. I was like, Hey man, like I was just straight up with him. Like, listen, I've been doing video for about two years now. I'm moving. I'm new to the market.

[00:24:21]I saw that you guys are posting on social media. You have an updated website. Like your brand looks like someone I want to work with. I want to offer your free video. No strings attached. Just so I can be able to show somebody else what we're able to do. And the guy's like, all right, cool. Let's come in and do it.

[00:24:37] dive video itself. You know, I learned a lot of things. Like I learned about working with the business, like working with the dentist are great because they do have money. They're very proper business, but they don't have time. They're super busy people. So I learned about scheduling, working with dentists.

[00:24:51] I learned about when are they, what did they get into the office? If you want to reach a dentist, email them by six o'clock at night. You know what I mean? Like those things that like you don't learn about until you get into the field. I learned a lot of those things working on this one free video, that one free video has probably brought in over, I'll say $70,000 worth of business.

[00:25:11] Brian: [00:25:11] So there's, there's an interesting point. You bring up there is. Since you picked this specific niche, which is dentists and they are qualified because they have cash. They need the service, you have this unfair advantage over people who don't specialize in that niche. At least when you're starting out, you were specializing in dinner.

[00:25:27]You could learn the little intricacies of their business that other people don't know. Like you just said, emailing them at 6:00 AM. If you want to actually reach them, understanding how busy they are needing to know their scheduling, like this is the value that niching down offers you, is learning so much about a specific type of customer that other people don't know.

[00:25:43] And that allows you to tailor your service and your communication style and all these other. that type of client to make the service more valuable to them without really costing you anything extra. You're just learning how to work with the customer and they're getting more value. So I want to shift gears a little bit here and talk about kind of like, it seems like this, this is kind of your next phase and career where you started working with agencies who didn't do video.

[00:26:05] I call it these people gatekeepers, because these are the people who hold the key to lots and lots of projects. So you started, I believe, and please fill in the gaps here. You started reaching out to agency owners who offered all sorts of services, but video is not one of those in hopes to get those projects from them.

[00:26:21] Yeah.

[00:26:22] Rodrigo: [00:26:22] Craig, so. I'm a really big fan of farming. Um, You know, I want to work with other farmers that have the crops that I want and I want them to do the work for me. Right. So coming back in at that time, not a lot of people offer the videos and I went, I attended a couple of different uh, networking events where I knew other marketing agencies are going to be at.

[00:26:42] And I was just like, Hey, you know, same thing. Hey, I'm new in town. I see you guys do SEO and marketing. I'm a video production agency. I'll look to partner up with you on future projects. Just says, you know, an extension of good faith. If you have a project that you think video would be a good, like, you know, a collab for us, I'd love to do a free video for you just to get my foot in the door.

[00:27:04] And we can see work together that itself like helped my business so much. Yeah. Now I had myself doing sales for my business, but then also had another business push my business to already warm clients that they had.

[00:27:17]Brian: [00:27:17] So I think one important note there is, if you, if you listen back to our interview with Anthony, from lyric vets.com, back in episode 1 51 he talked about how his cold outreach strategy was working so well.

[00:27:28] And you know, all these things that sound really good, but the key to the success there for him and for Rodrigo here is that he was prepared for that stage when he got there. So with Drigo here, he had the portfolio, he had the experience, he had the confidence, He had his website up. He had all these things in place so that when he went and threw his name in the hat to these gatekeepers, they don't take a look at re Rodrigo and say, oh, this guy's a, this guy's a joke.

[00:27:51] He's not, I'm not working with this guy. Like they took a look at his work and said, he's serious. His quality is there. His website looks serious. He looks like he's. Take care of our clients. And that's an important part of this. If you're going to do cold outreach or, or start cold calling people again, it's the same sort of thing.

[00:28:06] That's why Anthony from had such success is because his website is amazing and Drigo has a great website as well. So these things all play into the whole picture here. You can't just start sending out 25 cold emails. Or showing up the networking events and trying to get ahold of these gatekeepers or, or do some of the other things we talk about on this podcast without having the foundation built and put into place first.

[00:28:26] So can you talk about some of those things that you have set up to help with the legitimacy, one of those things being listings in a business directories on Google? Like what other things do you do to, to help with what I call positioning and differentiation? Yeah.

[00:28:38] Rodrigo: [00:28:38] So I think the biggest thing that I think for everyone, that's like a freelance story, just kind of getting started in this is that you have to understand.

[00:28:46]Your main goal with positioning and being yourself is that you want to minimize risk for the business. When are you going to work with so by risk, I mean like business owners are busy people. They don't have time for uncertainties in their lives. So if you're able to present them that you've done this kind of work before you work with people like them, you're minimizing the risk for them, of working with you.

[00:29:08]So with a lot of different things, I learned with my business. With the dentist. I have a page on my website that is literally dedicated just to dentists. It would though, like, we'll talk about your practice. We talk about patients versus customers using words that sound familiar to them. So we do a lot of different types of productions now, but I have very high per niche pages within my website for different images.

[00:29:37]And I kind of learned that when I first moved down here because I was also doing weddings, I think for anyone that's like in video production, I think doing weddings at one point or another, it's going to come across your table. But I started losing brides, like people like halo of your work.

[00:29:54] They'll go to my website and then my website would have. Dentists video, a wedding video and brides were like, well, I don't want someone that does dentist videos only once who wanted those wedding videos. And I'm like, it's the same thing. Like the same person. And I was like, you know what, the best the problem.

[00:30:08] I talked to another bright, same thing. I was like, okay, great. I went to square space, Pascoe weddings.com, go to the website. I'm like three days. Hey, here's the website? Tesco news.com only has weddings. Bookings are going up like through the roof. Right? So like I came down of like, make it super easy for your clients, make sure that you're the right person to work with them now with the business listing stuff.

[00:30:32] I think that this goes for any business, right? You want to do these three things. You want to go to Google my business, set up your business account there. You want to go to Yelp. You want to go to Bing. Those are the three major ones that you want to play with and there's over like 200 directors. But you want to get your business, optimize them there with your, like they call it nap, name, address, and phone number, you know, make sure that those are consistent throughout the whole place, you know, make sure that those are the same on your website as well.

[00:30:59]And you can go to Fiverr and stuff like that to get people to do them for you. We actually use that service a lot to have people actually come in and build out or directors for us. Um, I think fiber's is probably the cheapest place that you can go nowadays to do it. There's other bigger players in the game that charge you like $150 a month for like six, seven months where you could probably pay somebody like $50 in fiber to do this work for you for next three months.

[00:31:24]Chris: [00:31:24] I want to go back to the, the wedding versus dentists. Because this ties into adding to the directories and all that as well. One of the things Brian and I have noticed coming out of the audio industry you know, most of our audience, they own recording studios.

[00:31:36] And we've talked about niching constantly on the show. And one of the things that we get pushed back from is it for a lot of people, a lot of greater freelancers in our sort of neck of the woods, the thought of niching down. Of well, I'm an offer less services. So my business will grow is just terrifying.

[00:31:55]And, you know, so it's, it's not uncommon where you'll, you know, go to someone's website and be like, are, do mixing, mastering editing, vocal editing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They just go on and on and on about every possible service you could offer. And I love the story you just told about. I talked to my customers, they told me I was offering two different services basically.

[00:32:14] And that, that alone was scaring away. Some of the customers, so. You just launched a brand new business, had solo branding for it, and then created, you know, directory, you know, created a presence on the internet. And I think that's something that so many creative freelancers struggle with is this idea of like, yeah, but niching you're saying if I, if I offer less services, I'll make more money.

[00:32:36]There's an inherent tension where that doesn't make sense. So, dude, I, I, you explained that I think better than I ever have using that story. So kudos, man.

[00:32:45] Rodrigo: [00:32:45] you know, I'm very involved with the future and this is something that Chris DOE preaches for us a lot about niching down.

[00:32:51] Yeah. Me and Moe were talking about this. I think the big reason why nichey and I still struggled with teaching. Like I still do a lot of different projects, you know what I mean? But I think the big problem with niching for creatives is that when we start out, we take on every single job possible to make money to survive.

[00:33:09]So that's like the thing that we do for the first two or three years, right? Like, we'd take on every single job we've got to pay the bills. But I think it comes to a point where you start figuring out what are the jobs that I really enjoy doing? What are the jobs are more profitable for me? And that's where I think you should start looking at niching down into an industry because the more you start niching down into a certain area, now you become an expert.

[00:33:32] So the same way, you know, if there was a bride looking at my website and she goes, oh, dentist's video wedding video to go to the next person. Oh, this guy only does wedding. That guy has more expertise and authority than me through her eyes. Right? Cause he only focuses on doing weddings. So he knows how the wedding goes.

[00:33:50] He knows like he's out doing other stuff. So that's where I think people need to look in that. It's like get to the point where you find the job that you enjoy doing, that you, you see the same problems over and over again, and then you can start charging way more money or solve those. And through that, you know, there's going to be a certain point that you're going to make less money.

[00:34:11]But that's very small percentage of it. So for me, my first year of business, I think we did $37,000. When I moved back from when I was living at home, my parents and my sisters were working with me who made $37,000 at the end of the year. Literally, I remember looking at my bank account January 1st, add a hundred dollars to my name.

[00:34:32] And I'm like full of self doubt at this time. I'm like, yo, literally I worked this hard to see. Make $37,000. Like why did I bring my sister into work with me? Like all these kind of like self doubt going through. But the next year we did on the books, we did 97,000 by you guys know how stuff goes under projects that they'll make it on the books, you know, but having my sister come in and place and helping that year, like it was a set.

[00:35:01]But we literally doubled the business because now she knew how the business works. We're able to hire other people to do certain things. I kind of lost my train of thought there, but it's you know, you're going to have a small setback and you got to learn things along the way and just stick to it.

[00:35:15]Brian: [00:35:15] You talked about something that I want to kind of bring back up here with the niching down where, when we start out, we're doing. You know, every single project we can possibly get our hands on we're in yes. Mode. So way back in episode 17 of this podcast, we talked about the five stages of a successful recording career.

[00:35:30] I think we kind of outlined it really well there. If you're not a recording studio owner and you do some other creative field, it's going to still pertain to you. But I wanna, I wanna mention a book here that's I think is gonna be super helpful for someone who's currently in yes. Mode and wants to get out of that and start niching down is a book called the pumpkin plan by Mike

[00:35:47]Rodrigo: [00:35:47] No,

[00:35:49]Brian: [00:35:49] that's such a good book. It basically helps people think through like, Hey, finding those profitable customers, the customers that aren't pains in the ass customers that are fun to work with that sort of stuff. and, and I think he does a really good job laying that out there. So I think as we kind of wrap this up, Conversation.

[00:36:03] Now I'd like to chat about client acquisition with you, Rodrigo cause you threw a little tidbit in our pre-interview that I have to bring up. And I'm curious if there's other areas that you, you talk about client acquisition, but clubhouse, which is an audio app that may or may not be dead in a couple of years.

[00:36:18] We who knows the, as fast as these, these social media apps go, you said you got to. $28,000 project off of clubhouse. And I would love to know more about that specifically, but also how your, how your overall client acquisition strategy looks.

[00:36:34]Rodrigo: [00:36:34] Yes. So with clubhouse and I'm going to say I did get, I mean, I don't know if I was lucky, but you know, being in a room with Christo carries a lot of weight to what you're doing and then giving the opportunity to speak on a room with him and having other people listen, And that kinda like, just kinda worked out with me.

[00:36:54] I had, were hosting rooms about, you know, local marketing and advertisement and how video plays it's just happened that this one guy does a head of marketing for a practice that has about six offices, was listening to the room. He liked about my strategy that I mentioned and for video and how video could play out.

[00:37:16]And he joined a couple of the rooms, send me a DM. He's like, Hey, I'm interested to find out more about what you do. I heard you speaking with Chris and you know, over two or three phone calls, he's like, Hey, I talked to the owner of the practice. We want to do like a six. Uh, Contract for you to come in and start doing videos for

[00:37:33] Brian: [00:37:33] us.

[00:37:33]Awesome. So being in part of its right place, right time, but also being willing to put yourself out there because I've been in clubhouse and I've heard you on some of those calls and you're willing to not only just share value, but to get vulnerable on those calls as well. So for those who don't know, by the way, Chris, Christo, I honestly wasn't that familiar with.

[00:37:50] Being in the audio background, but he's, he's like one of the top, you know, design agency, owner people, and he's got an awesome podcast called the future in website and his mission. He's got a very ambitious mission of, of helping a billion creatives do what they love for a living, So definitely check out the podcast, that website and everything that Chris does over there. And Rodrigo works with him on stuff as well. How'd you get connected with Chris?

[00:38:12]Rodrigo: [00:38:12] It's funny, but in the right place for a time. So like with the whole, the Gary V crushing it thing that happened with, you know, showing up right.

[00:38:22] A, I was in New York city still when, when I was living there and I came across Gary V at that point, and I was like, I want to work for Gary V. So at that time, pretty much listening to a Gary says, don't listen. Don't what is this? Don't watch spreads. Listen to what I say, watch what I do. And he's like going to get to somebody.

[00:38:40] Would it like get to what they care about? Gary cares about his team. So I started becoming, I went to Twitter. So our following everyone on Twitter, like pretty much, I look at the people's profiles and find out where do they have the least amount of followers that, so for a lot of the super, that time was Twitter, Instagram was popping off.

[00:38:58] Twitter was an active. So I found his, um, you know, how to development Alex became friends with him on Instagram or on Twitter. And then one day Alex is like, yo, looking for stories for crushing it. But I was like, yo, like I got a story for you. I told them about how I came across Gary V how I illegally downloaded the audio book and I was listening to it in the train.

[00:39:18] And then how I moved back home to start a business with my sister and throw like a six month process uh, you know, one day he hits me up and he's like, yo, Gary, read your story. Do want to push in a book? Are you going to do a call with like the ghost writer? Sure enough, like, you know, that was kind of how that worked out with Chris DOE.

[00:39:36]I came across him. He's like talking about how to charge more money for a logo. And I was like, dude, who's this bald Asian guy. Like, he just blew my mind right. Talking about like, oh, he hasn't really popular video that this guy's trying to buy a logo and he's like, Hey, I'm going to do a logo for you.

[00:39:51] It's going to be $20,000. And the guy's like $20,000. He's like, I got some medical different, cheaper, and he's like, didn't like, then hire them. You know what I mean? It's the why? Like, why are you talking to me? He's like, and then they kind of go into like the whole pricing structure things as like, I got to find out more about this guy.

[00:40:07]He's having a workshop in LA, a hundred dollars. He's going to do like this stamp, this college, I fly to LA, go do this. This workshop go there by myself, spent a day ended the workshop. I get to talk to him for like five minutes. A month later, Hey, I'm going to do my pricing, creative workshop, 500 bucks out in LA.

[00:40:28]I was like, I'm going back to LA. Why a ticket go to LA? I get to the future's headquarter. And honestly felt like one of those like apple commercials where like two people walk into the room, there's lights everywhere. And there's only, there's only two chairs. I'm thinking there's going to be like a full on workshop, full of people.

[00:40:44] It was me and his other dude. And Chris like, yeah, I guess the workshop wasn't as popular. So you guys gave me for the whole day, ended up spending like this, this be like a four hour workshop. Ended up being like an eight hour day with Chris, went out to lunch, went out to dinner. He was like asking us all these questions.

[00:41:01] And that's when I first got like on his radar, couple months later, he does the same workshop in Miami. And he's like, yo Drigo I know you're in Miami. Uh, I want you to be my guest. And like, you get some photos from me. Just give feedback from the crowd. This is going to be the first one that I'm doing outside of the feature.

[00:41:17]And then from there, like things just kind of kicked off. So I think now more than ever, if you want to get to someone, if you want to work with someone, the possibilities there is, are you willing to do the work? Are you willing to show up for that person? And I just kept putting myself out there. Like I shot, I did some tinnitus for Chris that he doesn't even remember, but I stripped one of his videos on YouTube and I, like, I made an edit out of, and I sent it to him and like, he never remembered that it was me, but like, I, like, I started doing these things, like what can I do to help with this guy's biggest freaking in his radar.

[00:41:52]And sure enough, you know, enjoy the pro group. And then eventually I was doing videos or Chris, I wonder his podcasts. Like I've hung out. Like I go to a lake now, like, we'd go out to lunch and chill. So it's like, if you want to get to someone, got it. More than ever is the easiest time to do it. You can find everything about anyone on the internet.

[00:42:09] Right. And it's are you willing to put in the work? Are you willing to show up?

[00:42:13] Brian: [00:42:13] Yeah, I think that we were talking about your superpower Rodrigo I think before the interview, or kind of the earlier part of this interview, and I think that that really sums up your, your superpower. I like talking about superpowers to people in interviews because I feel like everyone has one super power and you have multiple ones, but I think one big one that you have is.

[00:42:31]Your willingness and ability to put yourself out there and to be in a lucky right place at the right time. Just because you've put yourself out there and I think more people need you do that and not sit behind their computer screens in their basements or their parents' house or whatever, and actually put themselves out on the line with the potential possibility of nothing happening or getting rejected or not getting what you want.

[00:42:54]there's a lot of potential downsides, but the upsides are so, so much better than the downsides.

[00:43:01]Rodrigo: [00:43:01] Yeah. A big thing that me and my. When we first got started out, I had a big thing saying that if you don't ask the answer's always no. And that has gotten to me. So far in so many places, cause like what's the worst, right?

[00:43:14] If you ask somebody a question and it's how, you know, nothing changes your life, you move on. Right. But you started learning from those experiences. All

[00:43:21] Brian: [00:43:21] right. So dude, thank you so much for coming on this, I guess. Is there anything that you would like to anywhere you want to send our audience or work and they find more about you or maybe hire you for video?

[00:43:30]Rodrigo: [00:43:30] Yeah, you can find me an Instagram, a Drigo underscore who or our website's task is to do is.com or even YouTube. I do a lot of content on YouTube, just trying to help and give back the things I've learned over years, because I went through a thing and you guys through it, we missed this part, but like when I moved down to Florida, I reached out to so many people, man, it's like in New York is a very collaborative environment.

[00:43:54] Like you have a shoe come through. I came to Florida. People were like, no, like you're trying to steal my clients. Like no one would ever put me. So like when, as I grew, I was like, I want to be the total opposite of every one of those people. Like, I want to put people on, I want to have you on my side. If I could help you, I want to be that person.

[00:44:11] That's going to make a difference. That's

[00:44:12] Brian: [00:44:12] awesome. And that's, and that's how I found you, by the way Drigo was on YouTube. Uh, One of your videos is awesome on there, on, on starting your own video production business. So

[00:44:19] Chris: [00:44:19] yeah, I was just going to say, it's funny. Drigo when we were looking for people to interview, Brian found you on YouTube.

[00:44:23] I found you on clubhouse and we did a meeting and Brian was like, Rodrigo regrow Taska and I was like, yeah, it's on my list, dude. No

[00:44:31] Rodrigo: [00:44:31] way. That is

[00:44:33] Chris: [00:44:33] awesome. Oh my gosh. Drigo what, that was such a fun interview, Brian. And as we talked about the vision for the six figure creative Drigo, that was sort of exactly the type of interview view that we have been wanting to do of when we want to do so many more of them, no matter what kind of freelancer you are, you can listen to Rigo story and get so many ideas that you can.

[00:44:56]From his story from his industry and just drop them right down in yours. And I think that's what makes this idea for the podcast. Such a beautiful pivot for us to go in this direction where you are learning things to add to your business from other industries. I think. Fallacy. It's a big word. That means a

[00:45:15] Brian: [00:45:15] BS.

[00:45:16] I think you're talking down to her. Thanks for mansplaining to our audience. What fallacy means? Sorry.

[00:45:23]Chris: [00:45:23] Thank you for mansplaining to me that I just did that because I didn't realize I did and I need, I need that accountability. Sorry guys. So there's this stupid idea in a lot of creative niches that you can only learn business within your own particular creativity.

[00:45:37]That's not true. As a matter of fact, it's the absolute opposite of true, the best place to learn business. Isn't from people in your own niche. It's from people in shoulder industries. It's from people in one niche over from two niche overs. That's where you can really start to bring something unique to your business because the I'm getting excited here.

[00:45:58] But I think what a lot of creatives, what a lot of creative freelancers get right. Is they think that to grow their business, they need to do with the most successful people in their industry are doing. And that that'll help maybe a little bit, but what will really light you off? What will. Make things work for you is that you start doing things that smart business people are doing in other industries that no one in your industry is doing yet, like starting a business podcast for audio,

[00:46:24]Brian: [00:46:24] but also that's what Drigo was doing.

[00:46:27]But he was, he was following Gary V and Gary V is not in his niche or in his industry. Completely different business model and everything that he's doing, but he still adapted a lot of those things that he was doing, learning from Gary V and brought it over to the video production business. I mean, I even learned things that he talked about that I'm going to implement for, for my podcast agency.

[00:46:43] Like that there's stuff that I'm doing with that, that he taught me in this interview that I'm going to just steal, not really steal, but borrow it's a bar. There's no stealing. Cause he still has it. You know, he still gets to keep doing it, but

[00:46:53]Chris: [00:46:53] I took two pages of that. You brought up earlier in that interview that he was actually speaking to potential customers, that was huge.

[00:47:01]And you were right to sort of underline that. And I thought that what he said about noticing the same problems again and again, as he talked to all of these new potential customers, there's gold in them there Hills guys that he noticed that it's

[00:47:17] Brian: [00:47:17] fine. Just keeping weird, Chris. Don't stop.

[00:47:19]Chris: [00:47:19] I'll keep being weird, but that he mentioned finding that common problem.

[00:47:23] That's where you find product or service market fit. It's when, what you are providing and what the market wants, start to click together. You can't find that unless you are talking to potential customers. You can't grow unless you find it. I don't know. I don't know. Help me, Brian, I'm flailing wildly. It's like to watch

[00:47:41] Brian: [00:47:41] you struggle like this.

[00:47:42] Sometimes you just, you back yourself into these corners and then you, I can see those pleading eyes through our our screen. So there's another part of this story that resonates with me because he started his studio in his parents' house. And I, I, he started his is a video studio.

[00:47:54] I started my recording studio in my parents' basement, which so it's like, there's a lot of parallels. And he made almost the exact same amount of money. His first year that I made my first year. The difference was I didn't take any of the entrepreneurial stuff seriously until 2014. Five or six years later.

[00:48:10] So I didn't crack six figures until then he did it his second year, which is absolutely insane. So it just shows you like how fast you can grow if you take the business side of your business. Seriously. So that's, that's just a good Testament to actually taking some of the things that three go's doing and saying, and preaching and, and doing himself and applying it to your own business, in whatever creative niche that you're in.

[00:48:30] Chris: [00:48:30] I love what he had to say about how his clients would go to his website and he was doing weddings and he was doing dental. And that that alone was enough to scare off clients. And we talked about this idea of client portfolio fit are the type of clients that you want to get into your webpage in is your portfolio a fit for those types of clients.

[00:48:52] So again, that's a word we're going to bring up a lot in the future on the podcast client portfolio fit. So sort of take note of that guys.

[00:49:00] Brian: [00:49:00] I'm looking forward to. Our future with this podcast, what we're doing, the interviews we've done so far have been awesome. The ones we have lined up are awesome.

[00:49:07] It took so damn long to get through this, but I'm just glad to finally get the ball rolling on this.

[00:49:12]Chris: [00:49:12] Me too, man. It feels fantastic. I'm so pumped. We've got four episodes that we're going to do this week alone.

[00:49:18]Brian: [00:49:18] We're doing, you're not going to hear them for a long time listener, just so you know.