Cold Calls, Claude, and Social Media Retainers (ft. STUDiiO)

This transcript was generated automatically from the recording and lightly edited for readability, so it may contain errors. The audio and video are the authoritative record. Spot a mistake? Email dario@creativesgrabcoffee.com. For chapter deep-links into the video, use the Timestamps section above.

Dario NouriCo-host, Creatives Grab Coffee00:00right. Hi, welcome back everyone. to another episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we have Micah David from STUDiiO, who's based out of Las Vegas. And yeah, we're gonna chat with him today. So hey Micah, welcome to the show.

Micah DavidFounder and Filmmaker, STUDiiO00:14Hello, thanks for having me.

Dario00:16So again, we always start these episodes off with a little history lesson. So just tell us how you got into the video space and a little bit about your company.

Micah00:25well in terms of the video space it all came back to traces back to YouTube. in fifth grade I had a a bet with a girl because we both watched the same YouTubers. And so we had a bet to like whoever can start a YouTube channel and get the most subscribers by a certain amount of time, they win. I did that and went full speed ahead. I posted as many videos as I could. The good thing is I won the bet 'cause she never really started, or at least she did start, but it didn't really go anywhere. but the bad thing is I posted a whole bunch of content without my dad knowing. So I I I got in trouble. But the good thing from about that is that he's seen the videos, he's seen that I had some you know, passion towards the video space, so he encouraged it. He's like, Okay, we can p keep posting videos, but you have to show up by me first. So I kept posting, kept posting, started with gaming videos because I watched gaming YouTubers. And then after a while kind of getting into high school, I wanted to get more involved of behind the camera. All the technical stuff I was doing with like the Elgatos and the different cameras I was using, all that stuff kind of really intrigued me. So getting into high school, I started to look more behind the camera. I wanted to get more involved. I wanted to do something more than just setting up the camera and play games. And so that encouraged me to actually figure out what how to use the camera rather than auto mode, go to manual mode. I actually learned how to use manual mode, shutter speed, aperture and everything. And from that led me to doing more and more studies and led me to where I am now. going more into the filmmaking space, behind the camera stuff, not always being in front of the camera, learning more about photography and got me more professional since like twenty twenty two. And then in twenty twenty or actually last year is when I made things official. I was kind of on and off. for a while, not doing anything, you know, too into it. And then in 2023 I dropped out of college to kind of go full speed ahead because I know the things that I needed to do. and I didn't need college telling me what I needed to do. Right. And there's a whole bunch of film history. And I don't really want to go into the history of stuff in order to know that I what I need to do. So then I dropped out of high school to go full speed ahead. and in twenty twenty five I finally made the LLC official rather than sole proprietor and here we are now.

Dario02:57Yeah, and again, like I I just found this out before we started recording, but you're you're only twenty one. Like a a lot of the people I speak to, they're like thirty and up. So it's it's just crazy to me that you did all this stuff at such a young age. 'Cause when even when

Micah03:11Yeah.

Dario03:11I was checking out your website, like it I thought you're already like a pretty like you know, you've you've been in the space for a while, type of thing, right?

Micah03:18Uh-huh. Yeah, well it's been over ten years is when I really started. I mean, I started like when I was seven years old. and you know, it's been a couple of years where I've been trying to like capitalize on, you know, doing things as early as I can. I mean, when I turned eighteen, I I graduated before I turned eighteen. So when I graduated high school, it was okay. It was a cool thing, but when I turned eighteen That's when I was really happy because that's when I was finally able to sign up for different stuff, sign up for some different platforms, you know, make more money and get things more official. So I really try to capitalize on doing stuff as early as possible.

Dario03:55So tell me a little bit then about like going from creating these hobby videos to starting to get paid to create the videos, right? Tell me a little bit about that transition.

Micah04:09well going from hobby to paid. I would say it's it's it's it could be an easy transition, I would say for myself, because once you do it enough of hobbies these hobby videos, creating these videos on your own, I mean that allows you to have the practice. I didn't do too many portfolio videos. I didn't have too much videos that like I actually did for like a portfolio. and my dad would always tell me about it like you gotta do more portfolio, you gotta do more work for your portfolio and I would be like, Yes, I know, I know, I know. And I would c think to myself, it's a bit more complicated than that. And I also have a a best friend that we met before high school. I met him before high school, so this was like around twenty nineteen. we found out we were always mutual friends and then we found out we're we were going to the same high school. So that was a huge relief. And he's also into film and we're still best friends to this day. and so yeah, we work closely with each other on a lot of stuff. And so yeah, my dad would be telling this stuff, and I'm like, yeah, it's a bit complicated, it's a bit complicated. And come to real realize that it's not that complicated at all, right? But when I did start actually making work, you know, not only making work for you know paid stuff, not only making work for this or that, but actually making work for the portfolio and also passion projects. it matters a whole bunch because that's when you actually get the practice. if you're like me, not all the time you go outside in your backyard and practice just willy-nilly just to learn. You know, you actually practice your practice comes in when you're on the job. Right, right? and so when you're actually focusing on a project, when you're actually putting in the work, the time, the effort in a project, you're figuring out, you know, how much pre-production really matters, how much planning really matters to the you know, production side and how much that production matters to the post side. Once you're learning how to all those things come together and how all your skill, your mindset comes together, it matters a whole bunch because once you go into paid jobs, you'll start to realize how that translates, right? You'll start to realize, okay, not only this, it's not only about creative, it's also about, you know, timeliness and everything. But, you know, with overtime, if you get b better with, you know, your passion projects and the free stuff that you do, you're gonna be pretty good with the the paid stuff. Because there'll be a certain point at which you'll just realize, okay, that's what the customer wants, that's what we give them.

Dario06:38Yeah, I completely agree. But but on your side, like you could learn a lot of the technical creative stuff from I don't know, YouTube or wherever you guys are learning it from nowadays. Wha how

Micah06:49Mm-hmm.

Dario06:50how did you start to learn like the business side of everything? Or are you just naturally inclined to kind of pick up on these things a bit quicker?

Micah07:00well for me it's kind of an odd case. I 'cause I actually like studying. I actually like learning stuff. so when it comes to business side, I mean I'd say a lot of it that I learn from, I I think a large part has to play from my dad again. He has a large role in my career in general because he's played a big part in it. he started He had his own business, he worked at a bunch of businesses, and he started his business again. So he's a lot in the business space. a lot of the stuff that he taught me, I didn't want to learn it. But then years down the line I realized that, okay, that's really key. He he actually made sense. And I find myself calling him like, Hey, you're you're you were right. You're right about that thing. but anything else business side, yeah, I would just research, study, and not do is such on the surface level. I did my time studying marketing, to realize, you know, enough that like, you know, the difference between marketing and selling, right? You need to market enough to the point where when first thing people think about video, you're the first thing that they think about because you popped up so many different places. selling, that's still something I'm trying to get better at and trying to sell myself to other people and trying to learn the Not really the concept, but I get the concept, but trying to learn the details of a concept of selling yourself. so yeah, the whole thing about business wide, how to take care of the business and how to really treat the foundation. I'm all a person about being safe and learning how to really secure the foundation of everything, secure the foundation of the business before you try start trying to do this and this and everything. So I could often be like you know, trying to get everything prepared. I could often look like me trying to get everything prepared, trying to l have everything perfect before I start. But those are just the things that I'm trying to secure on the business side, which is yeah, studying everything. It takes time to study everything, takes time to take notes and everything and actually apply it and know how it works.

Dario09:12just can you elaborate on what you were saying about the sales process? You you you're not in you're trying to figure out not just how to sell yourself, but the particular details. What do you what do you mean about that?

Micah09:23yeah, so the concept of selling. 'cause right now I'm kind of like a one man band. often have like other people that often go to with the business. But officially, yeah, it's just me for right now. so that would also mean that I don't have a salesman on my team. So I would have to be the one to do the cold calls and, you know, talk to the people, have the meetings to sell myself. So what I mean by that is I understand the basic concept of selling. Basic concept is, you know, you call a person, you listen to what they have to say, listen to what their their problem is, you listen for that gap, and then you put yourself in that gap. Like, hey, I'm the solution to this problem that you have. That's the basic concept. Now the problem is getting used to that, right? The problem is learning how to, you know, when somebody says this thing, how are you gonna respond to that? not all the time when they say this thing you have a response for that thing. So it's kind of like sometimes you would just you hear them say something and then you would just be stumped and like have to okay yeah have a good day bye bye or sometimes when you study enough or if you learn about it then you hear them say something and you have a response for that. You could learn how to re-articulate their question into another question for them. So those are some of the stuff that I'm trying to learn and get better at.

Dario10:49I see. Do do you find like a your age kinda comes into play sometimes, like when they find out how young you are or how young your company might be, the is that kinda like where where you get some pushback on some stuff?

Micah11:03Not really. No, I haven't had a whole lot of pushback or anybody saying, you're too young, get out of here. At least no one said that to my face. Maybe they could be talking about it behind the phone. Or they may see my age or hear my age once they hear me just like, okay, bye.

Dario11:20Mm.

Micah11:21but if anything, I would say if I had to say whether it was a disadvantage or advantage, I say it's a little bit of advantage, you know. If you're at such a young age, I feel like You only need a certain stuff, you know, at a certain point when you're talking to somebody, at the age that I am, when you're talking to somebody, you're showing them what you know, you throw in some of the industry terminology and they hear some of that stuff, they're like, Okay, this this guy knows what he's talking about. He's the real deal. He's not just some random kid off the street. So he knows what he's talking about, and then they'll just starting to believe you. And I think it's just, you know, that's the reason why people say, Yeah, throw in some industry terminology to kind of Let them know that you're a pro at this. Let them know that you are a professional and not just some random kid. So that's what I tend to do. So I haven't from that I haven't heard any pushback.

Dario12:13Yeah, no no, and I I think it's it's interesting to talk to someone that's a lot younger than me, for example. Like I'm I'm thirty-four, but to talk to someone who's twenty one already has a company up and is like as motivated as you is is interesting for me because I I kinda wanna see like how are you thinking, like where are you looking to kind of like build your knowledge and kind of like like the the mindset is is interesting for me 'cause

Micah12:36Mm-hmm.

Dario12:37again, I'm I'm I'm getting up there in the years, right? So Like at twenty one I was still in university, you know, it's it's crazy to me that and but I think sorry, go ahead.

Micah12:44No, I mean there's I I I I I looked it up and a lot of people they when they're they they do this stuff, a lot of people when they're at their stage of their life to like, you know, start their own business and everything, they're around their thirties. So you're right on time. You're right on time

Dario13:01Yeah. But but if I could go back, I would do exactly what you did. Like, yeah, even even in in uni, like I remember 'cause we kinda got into this, Kyrill and I, we got into this like I was in I think he was in second year, I was in third year of uni. But like I we like I just knew I was like this is gonna be the path, right? So finishing it up was kinda like, Well, I'm almost there, I might as well like otherwise why why have I spent all this time and money Might have well might as well just get the degree. It'll be like a backup thing if this goes south. But

Micah13:36Mm-hmm.

Dario13:36like I think yeah, like in today's world you could skip that and just go straight to starting your business. And I I think you were fortunate also to have your dad as like a a good business mentor to kind of guide you through those like murky waters. Cause a lot of the times like you kind of have to figure that out yourself. But even still, like sometimes you might hear from someone Like I can't tell you how many times we've shot an episode and someone's mentioned something and you hear it, but you don't internalize the knowledge until maybe years later where you finally have had enough experiences where

Micah14:12Mm-hmm.

Dario14:13you you understand what they really said, right? So yeah.

Micah14:16Yeah. And I thank you for, you know, letting me know that. it's definitely a r a refresher and I appreciate it. there's a lot of times, like I said, there's a lot of times where I'm sitting here and I'm like, dude, I'm I'm I'm getting up there, you know, I and I don't know how much time I have, already wasted so much time. Yeah,

Dario14:34Twenty one.

Micah14:36man. I mean, just just being in so much into business. I mean, every like my schedule, it's either, you know, gym, work or just at home relaxing. I don't quite really do too much else, right? There's been days where it's just like just stay at home just working. So there's a lot of times where I'm just like, man, I don't know if I'm if I'm doing everything on time. But no, I appreciate you saying that.

Dario14:59No, I think as long as you you just do like if you get just one thing done a day, I think that's good enough. Because it'll just compound over time anyways, right?

Micah15:09Mm-hmm.

Dario15:09'Cause sometimes like like for example, I got back from vacation August fifth, started working again August sixth, and I

Micah15:17Mm-hmm.

Dario15:17remember just like going to the barber on the sixth, and then on September sixth I went back to the guy and I was like Dude, I don't know what hap I can't believe it's been a month already. Cause I was working during the day and then at night I was catching up on extra stuff and

Micah15:31Mm-hmm.

Dario15:32August just like flew by. I don't know what happened. So I I started feeling it this week. So I took like a couple of days off just to like unwind and everything. And yeah, at times I did feel like I'm not getting anything done. But I would still like send out some emails, do little things where I was like, no, I'm still I'm still doing something, right? So that I think that feeling never really goes away. It'll always be there. Even even if like it's almost like you feel bad sometimes but you're like, No, you need some time off, otherwise you'll just like the quality of the work will start to degrade. So just something to keep in mind.

Micah16:04And if you don't mind, I would love to dive in a little bit more than that. I have a whole rant about it. but I mean

Dario16:12Okay, go ahead.

Micah16:14but that that's specifically like rest in general, and I tell this everybody that you see a lot of things on social media, and part of the reason why I I get like this my mindset at the age I am is because like you see people on Instagram like are sixteen, fourteen years old having like million dollar videography businesses. Like really, you know, that's the type of stuff that makes you want to get off of Instagram. But anyways, another thing that you see on social media is people saying like work. Work, work, work, work, right? You know, being on the grind. you know, you have to work your butt off. You work now hard in your younger years, you work now hard, and then later on you can relax. Later on, you can enjoy your fruits and everything. and I respectfully disagree. I think that it is key to like, you know, balance is what I really believe in, rather than you know. disregarding all your friends, disregarding all your love life, disregarding your your social life to just dedicate it to work. I I think that's very unhealthy, right? and so that's why I like ever since and honestly, like I left school at twenty twenty three, university twenty twenty three, and now it's twenty twenty six. For that period of time between twenty twenty three and twenty five or twenty six, I don't know what I was doing. But I started to implement a you know, schedule for myself because right after I left university, I wasn't quite into like I wasn't doing any type of work. This was just what I was doing full time. Now I have like another ongoing contracting job that I do. but I still like set a schedule for myself. You know, every weekday ten to six, that's my time to work. After six o'clock, unless I'm going to do that contract job. I'm relaxing. I'm doing something else. I'm not focusing on work. Even before 10 a.m. when I start work, I'm not doing anything else. I'm not doing some work before then because I think that that time outside of 10 to 6 is for resting, is for me to regroup myself. And sometimes after I finish, there are many days where I finish work and I'm like, dude, I don't feel like I got anything done today. There's like nothing good,

Dario18:31Mm-hmm.

Micah18:32nothing effective, nothing working towards my goals or anything that I got done. And I would feel guilty, but I use that guilt and I take it for the next day. I'm like, okay, tomorrow I'm gonna make sure I get a whole lot of work done. Tomorrow I'm gonna make sure I recess and make sure I I'm being more efficient and effective. But if I just keep spending like, you know, from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., you know, working, working, working, and then the next day, the same schedule, next day, the same schedule, eventually I'm gonna get burnt out, right? Or eventually, yeah, like you said, my work is gonna start degrading. So I think it's all about. balance and I'd rather, you know, again it goes into a bigger thing, life in general. We don't know how long we'll be here on this earth. I'd rather, you know, spend my time having a social life and a work life having that balance rather than spending all my time working just to enjoy it later.

Dario19:25Yeah, I completely agree. I I I've I've seen some of those videos on Instagram that you're talking about 'cause

Micah19:33Yeah.

Dario19:33I I only really just use Instagram now for the we we also have a wedding videography business that we started

Micah19:38Yes.

Dario19:40last year. and I I check that I I just go on Instagram just to check up on that business 'cause we get we s we're starting to get a lot of our clients from there. The people message us on there and whatnot. But I I'll see sometimes I'll I'll just go check and see the feed and everything. And there's so many people, yeah, promoting that that mindset or their programs, which are really goofy in my opinion. I've always thought like if you figured out the secret, why don't you just use it for yourself, right? That

Micah20:08Mm-hmm.

Dario20:09that's the thing that never made sense to me. but yeah, I I completely agree with you on the on the potentially burning yourself out thing and balance. For for me, like I just a lot of these a lot of our business ventures or even like this podcast is I I lo I try to look at it more like a hobby. And that really

Micah20:29Mm-hmm.

Dario20:29does help not make it seem like work. But then sometimes I get lost in the hobby, right? So I have to like take a little break and then come back to it in a little bit. But yeah, I I guess the the lesson there is like go at your own pace. Cause it's always gonna be different for people like us that have our own businesses versus Someone that's working for someone else, right? If you're working

Micah20:52Mm-hmm.

Dario20:52for someone else, it's like there's no point really burning yourself out for that. especially if you got set hours. But you got your own business. Sometimes you're like, This is my little my little baby, right? I gotta like take care of it. Or like I like doing like cr like creating stuff with the business or doing doing stuff like that. But again, always gotta go based on your own pace, right?

Micah21:11Yeah, it's about discipline, right? You can't spend too much time taking care of it.

Dario21:16Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. so about well first of all I wanna say I really like your website. again, when we first started, we we had a lot of trouble with our website. I'm just looking at it on this screen. It's it's actually really well well done. how d how did you how did you make this? Did you get someone to do it or did you use AI?

Micah21:42well yeah, well this wo isn't my first website. This actually isn't my second website and a close friend of mine actually made it for me. we were I had strike a deal with them. they make this website for me and I'll make some videos for them. because that's because they recently did a partnership with someone else. So yeah, this website, he made it. But a lot of they made the base website, they made I believe like the bare bones of it. And I probably I'm not sure because I know they have different people and they all have different requests. but I like gave them when they made the bare bones, they said, Yeah, send us any changes. We want to make sure you're going you have this website and it's yours and you like it. And I'm like, Okay. So I probably sent them like four whole PDFs. And probably all those PDFs

Dario22:38Okay, nice.

Micah22:39probably had like two or three plus pages of different changes and bullet points

Dario22:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Micah22:42of stuff that I wanted on there. so they if you talk to them, they'll say they made it. But I believe we all made it, right? It was all a a cooperative project. but yeah, this is a second website and they made it. It was Strafe Digital is their business name. So

Dario23:00Yeah, yeah. I I recently I recently started my own personal website as well and I've been building it with Claude and you should see the WordPress theme versions. I had to like keep adding another period followed by two decimal points because I kept like making updates to the theme and saying, Okay, let's

Micah23:17Uh-huh.

Dario23:18let's change this, let's do that. It's like, okay, here's the next one, next one, next one. but are are you using AI at all in your business?

Micah23:27I do quite a lot.

Dario23:30Which one?

Micah23:33You're you're really trying to get in that information, huh? I use Claude. I use Claude. Yeah. I use Claude

Dario23:37It's all public anyways. Claude, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Micah23:42as the right now. I know ChatGPT just came out with their Astra and my buddies that made this website, they were talking about it and they're saying that it's pretty good. So I'm on the brink of changing. I'm not sure. because I'm currently on the a hundred dollar plan for Claude. So I don't know if I want to change currently. I kinda want to, but

Dario24:01I was I I I'm on Claude. I j I started using Claude in June, end of June, and

Micah24:09Mm-hmm.

Dario24:10I quickly started going up until I hit the the not the not the first max plan, the the second one. So it came out to like like three something Canadian. And 'cause I I was doing a lot of changes like with the websites, like this the podcast website completely redid

Micah24:27Yeah, yeah.

Dario24:28it. Excuse me, then I I started with the wedding one and then after I learned from those two how to like fix up the websites, then I started working on on the the corporate one. And so I was using it a lot. Now as of yesterday, I I was like, let me test out let me test out ChatGPT because I it's funny, I was I was creating the engagement ring for my girlfriend on Claude and I was like, okay, show me like a photorealistic version of that. You'll you'll hit that stage in maybe like five or so years.

Micah25:01Ha ha

Dario25:04I was like, create a photorealistic version. And he's like, I can't create images. I'm like, what? Okay, that's at first. I thought I could do that stuff. It's like, no. And then I was like, okay, I guess I gotta try it out on ChatGPT. Tried it out, and I I was surprised actually. It's got a little bit more flexibility in doing things compared to Claude. So I

Micah25:20Mm-hmm.

Dario25:21I downgraded the upper max plan I was at to the hundred or so dollar one and I I I've started using ChatGPT f to fill in the the the the the blanks essentially for what Claude can't do and then just I went all the way up to this the equivalent plan over there. It's it's not that bad actually, surprisingly. It's

Micah25:42Mm-hmm.

Dario25:43it does things it does things, yeah, that that Claude basically can't do. Like for example, just talking between the project folders. I never understood why Claude can't do that. But

Micah25:53Uh-huh.

Dario25:54It can over there. And it can go in its own browser and do stuff, but yeah.

Micah25:57Yeah, I heard Astra's very very advanced and I'm not sure if it was or not their attempt at AGI, which is artificial general intelligence, like the next stage of AI. But I know yeah,

Dario26:15Mm-hmm.

Micah26:16that's very good with implied reasoning. 'Cause I know a lot of times with Claude it's like, Hey, can you add in this A, B, and C into the you know the PDF, right? The A B Cs and PDF. And they want to add A, B, and C. And it's like, Well, did you not add D E F G H I? And it's like, did you want me to add that? It's like, Well yeah, I

Dario26:35Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Micah26:37want you to add that. So it's stuff like that. That's kinda like, you know, make me use different type of language with Claude, right? So so no longer is there pleases, right? There's more like a hey, do it now. It's that type of stuff. So

Dario26:51Yeah. And I it also I like I I didn't know how to use well, I wasn't using code, Claude code. I I

Micah26:58okay.

Dario26:59was like I d I wasn't aware like I I I couldn't understand how to use it. It kept telling me, for what you do, you don't need it. but with ChatGPT it was a lot easier to understand how that would work. So I was using like Codex, so I'm I'm I was creating an another blog post for my personal website and it would just

Micah27:13Mm-hmm.

Dario27:14like I needed images from another website, so it would just go it was able to go and grab it, whereas like Claude was fighting me on doing that saying, no, I can't do that. But then I kind of understood I'm like, it's because I was using Codex and I guess code would

Micah27:26Mm.

Dario27:27be the equivalent. But yeah, it's not that bad. I I if you if you're thinking about using it, I highly recommend it. because it's it's interesting. Yeah, I

Micah27:33Okay. I'll have to try it out then. Okay.

Dario27:36now I have to f I think also visually it might be better. Like if you want to do like I I think Claude might be better for words, but I think for visuals, ChatGPT might might be a little bit better. Because I've even been doing

Micah27:50That would make sense.

Dario27:52Yeah, 'cause I've been doing some test runs with some of the the website pages and I was like, Ooh, I like the direction ChatGPT's going in compared to Claude. Claude's like very conservative or you could tell it doesn't really understand images that well. Now in hindsight it makes more sense, but

Micah28:07Yeah, I mean it can barely create a JPEG or a PNG image. I mean ChatGPT can. And I remember there's

Dario28:12Yeah.

Micah28:13one time Claude gave me an HTML and listen, I'm not like too much of a website developer or anything, like more of a computer

Dario28:20Mm-hmm.

Micah28:20engineer. And it was this one time it gave me an HTML file and it said just copy and paste it in there. I'm like, what do you mean copy and paste it in there? It's an image. It's like, but it says HTML. I'm like, how am I supposed to copy and paste an HTML in here? And then it's I went on to Gemini. I said quite literally. Press command A and I'm like, okay. So

Dario28:41It's not that hard. No, no, that's that's not that I think that one's on you. It's not that hard to do. That you

Micah28:45Okay. Noted. All right. Yeah, that makes sense.

Dario28:48could you could get it to customize those HTMLs it gives you. So like you could have it like give you a live preview and then like a section below that. That's what I do for my stuff. So like a live preview of what it'll look like, and then another section with the code and then a button that says copy all. So you could just go and copy all and then

Micah29:06Yeah, well I know that now. Thanks for thanks for giving me that. Yeah.

Dario29:10Yeah, yeah. I hey listen, I was in the same boat. Like you the you mentioned like terminal on Mac and I just start going like listen, you lost me already. Like

Micah29:17Ha ha ha.

Dario29:18but it's surprised like sometimes I just ask it like, Hey, dumb it down for me, like okay, like ex I need a step by step Yeah. But th you know what's funny about that? Someone made

Micah29:23Uhhuh. Tell it to me like I'm a third grader. huh.

Dario29:29a post on the Claude subreddit saying that they said that. And then Claude went crazy on them thinking that they were actually in third grade and banned their account. So be careful about exactly the prompt you use.

Micah29:44Okay. All right. At least it's not it's at

Dario29:46'Cause I was gonna do the

Micah29:47least it's advanced enough to ban somebody. Yeah.

Dario29:49Yeah, I was I was gonna say that cause you know the explain like I'm five thing from

Micah29:54Mm-hmm.

Dario29:54the office. I was gonna say that and then I saw that post and I was like, no, I can't I can't say that cause I so I've I've been saying like, okay, I'm not tech I'm not technologically advanced, just give it to me like very basic.

Micah30:08Okay. I'll have to do that from now on.

Dario30:12let's talk a little bit about the Vegas scene. You're you're our first guest from Vegas. So I'm I'm always curious to see like what the markets like in a lot of different cities 'cause we've done across Canada, we've done across the States, Australia, UK. what's it like over there? I'm guessing a lot of event based stuff, no?

Micah30:33Ike with companies doing mate like specializing in event spaces or sp events

Dario30:38Well, I I just figure 'cause a lot of people have their events in Vegas, right? So I'm I'm guessing that's like the main industry over there, or I don't know, you tell me.

Micah30:47one event space or one industry that is big is weddings. Because, you know, Vegas is kind of known for, you know, you go to Vegas, you get married same day and then you can leave or whatever. Right? And you can also

Dario30:58Right.

Micah30:59come here and it's very easy to get a divorce. That's one of the things that Vegas is known for. diving into a little bit of the history for it.

Dario31:04really? I th I didn't know about the the divorce part.

Micah31:06Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they made it very easy, very, very easy to get marriage and a divorce. Right.

Dario31:12Interesting.

Micah31:13so that's a large portion in here. There a lot of the I think wedding expo conventions, wedding chamber, I believe is is out here. but that's a that's a big one is weddings. So a lot of video production companies, videographers are gonna be doing a lot of weddings. Now, in terms of events I haven't heard of a lot of videographers saying I do events in general. I heard a lot of people say I do weddings, but not necessarily events. I'm one of person or one of the companies, one of the only companies that strictly kind of specializes in brand campaigns, events, and also social media retainers and also photography. Right? A lot of other people, production companies in Vegas, you're gonna hear specialize in everything, right? So I like to just stay myself to that four. I didn't want to say social media retainers, but because a lot of businesses do social media want social media retainers, I just phrased that one up saying social media retainers. It's a low hanging fruit. Easy to sell.

Dario32:16Well, I mean, do why don't you elaborate on that? Because we've had many, many conversations about retainers and everyone's always struggled with it. I think we've I can count on my hands how many guests that they've they've kinda landed it. But granted it wasn't for social media stuff, it was more so for, I guess, bigger projects. But even still, like maybe just tell me a little bit about the social media ones.

Micah32:41Well what problems have you heard about the retainers?

Dario32:44I I think well even us, like a lot of the times, like main issue seems to be that it needs to be like a good match between your client and the video production company. other people saying that they try to like again, I'm I'm I'm pulling back like like over a hundred episodes. Let me see what it was. So

Micah33:02Mm-hmm. No, you're right.

Dario33:04main issue seemed to be that a lot of the clients that they had didn't have enough content to shoot over the course of the month. So They were having a hard time selling it like that. let me see. So it was that, it was it was sometimes like they were either ending up doing too much work for the amount, something like that, or like some months there wasn't enough, but then the other months it was

Micah33:31yes.

Dario33:32too much, so there was like an imbalance. one one of the companies that kind of was getting them. And it was like a six figure a year type of thing. Was more more so to kinda like be book like so the client could get access to them because they would get booked up with other stuff. So it was kind of buying

Micah33:50Mm-hmm.

Dario33:51the client was buying accessibility with that company.

Micah33:54Mm.

Dario33:54That's what I remember. I think it was someone from North Carolina. If someone remembers the name,

Micah33:58So they had too much on their plate.

Dario34:00I guess so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The

Micah34:02Wow.

Dario34:02I think it was someone in North Carolina. I I can't remember the episode or the or the person right now, but someone can go on the network page and and kind of find out. I th there's probably more, that's all I can remember right now.

Micah34:14Yeah. well, the way we structure them is well when it comes to pricing it gets uncomfortable, right? I I I I don't I I don't all the time like the prices that I'm charging to people. And when it comes to pricing again, like a deeper going more in depth on pricing, I made sure to structure it in a way where it's like not really in my hands too much. I did structure it with Claude, right? But it's not in a way it's like based on how I feel. I know some people, believe it or not, I actually haven't seen it like with my own eyes or anyone personally, but I know that there is some people that price based on what they feel. Like and I say that they don't really say it just out like that. They say, Okay, well take what you take about your your bills and your this and this and everything and then write that down and then you know from that amount that's support that's the how much you charge. And I don't necessarily think that's too fair because it's like now the people are paying this high amount because you have to pay your bills. It's like, no, I want an amount that actually feels fair to me, feels fair to what I want to get, feels fair like to the industry and everything. So when it came to my pricing, I kind of take the guesswork out of it by really coming down to, okay, how much do you want to make per hour, right? And I don't do price things per hour. I price things I get an hourly pay because that's needed because it's like, okay, do you wanna be doing a project when you do work with somebody and you're doing a project with them, do you wanna be making fifteen dollars an hour, what you would be making at any other job, or do you wanna do this business so you're making more than what you would make at any other job? So then you would need that price per hour so you can set aside how much do you charge for pre-production, production, and post-production. That's how we cur currently have it figured out. And then not only that, we also have gear kit fees. so what specific gear are we using? And then add a markup on that because yes, you're paying for the gear, but then you'll also be paying for the business profit, right? But we don't tell

Dario36:22Mm-hmm.

Micah36:23people that. But that's really how you some of the ways that we structure it so we run our business, right? And not only that, but also the crew. How much do you want to be paying the crew? When you go outsource different crew members, you need this person, you need this person, how much are you gonna be paying them? Okay, now you need a markup on that. You pretty much need everything. a markup for the business, right? and so that's how we price things. That's how we structure it. So whenever it comes to something w someone wants to do something, we take down exactly what they want and then we plug it in there and then we get an amount for them. Because based on what you're telling me, this is how much it'll come out to, right? This is what the gear will need. This is how much hours will be dedicated to that on an average. And this is the people that we'll need. This is this and everything. And this is the price that we give them. So it gets very uncomfortable because I would like to charge people a little bit less. I want I want to be able to work with you. You know, I I wanna be able to bring it down, but I can't be working over here for ten dollars an hour. Right? So I think that's a lot of the conversation or that's where your mindset needs to go. It's like, yeah, I want to work with you, but you know, I made my own business for a reason. and so now when it comes to the social media retainers, we price everything in there, like price it per reel. and everything. and then we put it

Dario37:38For real. Okay.

Micah37:39yeah, we put it in a package. a lot of the stuff per unit stuff is behind the scenes. The only thing we give the people

Dario37:46Mm-hmm.

Micah37:47is the benefits for them. Well th the value they're getting and also the price. We don't really give them anything of a features because there's a difference when it comes to selling and everything. There's a difference between features and benefits. Features, let's say a project, I'm doing a project for you, right? Features would be, I don't know, we're gonna be using this ARRI Alexa camera, and then we're also gonna have you doing twenty-four FPS. We're gonna have, you know, all these lights and everything like that. We're gonna be doing this, and there's gonna be a very 4K sharp resolution image and everything like that. That could be features, right? Stuff that, okay, it sounds nice, but how does that help the client? Right? Now, benefits for the client would be this is gonna help you highly convert people, right? This is the image is gonna be making it easy for people to see you and also hear you so they can clearly understand what you're saying. The benefits is that it's optimized to sell you more. So I make sure whenever I'm telling somebody something, we start mainly off with the benefits. And if there is any additional things that we can add on to continue to sell them, it would be feature we'd add on a little bit of the features to sharpen that overall image for them and how the product works for them. Does that answer the question at all?

Dario39:04I forgot what I asked, but no I I

Micah39:05For social media retine.

Dario39:07well y w actually what what I wanna know then is what what kind of industries are you having you able to sell the the social media retainers on? Like w which industries kind of are are are more open to to

Micah39:21Well, for us the more in the industries are more open to restaurants, because yeah,

Dario39:27Mm, okay, that's what I figured.

Micah39:29I mean it's a highly There's a lot of restaurants, right? You have local restaurants, and you also have franchise restaurants. Not only restaurants, but I've seen a lot of people with cafes and everything. There are small cafes and there are big cafes, and I'm telling you, the reason why these cafes are so big is because of social media, right? You f you can find them on social media. I mean, there's like everyone in Vegas knows of well mainly Southwest Vegas knows of a place called Nana's Green Tea. Right? Because they're pretty big on social media. And also there's another one, Lunakin Lunacin Cafe. It's because they took the time they actually invested into getting these social media retainers so they can continuously have content. And that's the thing when it comes to social media retainers, that's a lot of things that you're gonna have to be stressing to people. It's like, okay, do you like where you're at? Yeah, yeah, I I I I like where I'm at. It's okay. Okay. You're not sounding too sure. It sounds like you would like to get you know, improve, you want some growth, right? Yeah, I wanna be better. Okay. Well then what what do you think you can do, right? We can get you some social media retainers, it can give you some social media content so you can continue to post and market yourself and again showing up in all these different places where people could see you and the first thing they think of when they think of like a restaurant or cafe, they're like, there was this one place that I seen on Instagram. there is this

Dario40:54Mm-hmm.

Micah40:54one place that I'd seen on, you know, TikTok or something.

Dario41:00Yeah. No, I I think with those businesses it it's definitely easier to to sell them on it. I I think the a lot a lot of our guests are having issues 'cause they're trying to sell it to businesses that traditionally wouldn't be posting that much on social. I think that's where the disconnect really comes. 'cause like yeah, if you got like a finan

Micah41:22Well, I mean, what would you say what would you say is the business that traditionally don't do it? Because I mean, again, social media retainers is kind of becoming the new tradition.

Dario41:32mean I like how you' how you're pushing it, but I'm thinking of for example like Let me see. Let me let me let me pull one of my clients out of the bag. Let's say a private equity firm, for example, right? Like

Micah41:44Okay.

Dario41:44you can't really like they're focused more so on I'll give you another one. Okay, we have a one that does management software for law firms, right? They do

Micah41:54Okay.

Dario41:54a lot of content, but it's more so on on LinkedIn. but they like the types of content they do. I like I I don't know, actually. Now that I think about it. I guess you could

Micah42:04Well

Dario42:05sell them on on it, but I it just depends on Like I I think the pricing is also the pricing this there's also a pricing disconnect in terms of like,

Micah42:14huh.

Dario42:15okay, we're used to doing one off projects, so our pricing structure is based on one off projects where it could be anywhere from five thousand up. A lot of the guys we talk to, I'm guessing, are probably in that range. Let's say seven and up, right? So but you like, okay, so that's for one video, but now you gotta create like multiple videos per month. So

Micah42:35Mm-hmm.

Dario42:36I I feel like sometimes You might not even have the resources to make those prices like make sense for your client, right? 'Cause it's like, okay, they're used to like spending ten thousand with you a year. Now you're kind of trying to pitch them on like I don't know, like the fifteen thousand a month. Like it it's just it's hard to make that work, right? I don't know. Maybe maybe I'm not I'm maybe I'm missing the mark on this. I don't know.

Micah42:59Yeah, and that's why I was kind of surprised when you said that one guy was making six figures a year on social media retainers. Yeah, well that's why that's why I'm like, are you serious? Well you must have a lot of clients because there's no way he's pricing them.

Dario43:05That's the one off though. So don't use that that we'll use that guy as the outlier. Cause 'cause the No, no, because like no, no, no, like I for me, that that guy's the outlier. I was just trying to think of people that successfully had retainers that were a guest on the show, and that's

Micah43:16Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh. Uhhuh.

Dario43:21one of the only guys I could think of. Cause I remember at the time my reaction was that too. I was like, Jesus Christ, like you got a hundred K like retainer, like you must be doing really well for yourself. Cause a lot of the

Micah43:26Uh-huh.

Dario43:31times we do have reta I cause we have retainers sometimes in different ways. So for example, we

Micah43:35Mm-hmm.

Dario43:35have a we have a client that has every year one AGM and three webinars, right? Since twenty

Micah43:41Yeah, yeah.

Dario43:42twenty two. That is like retainer, not really retainer, but I know usually every January I'm gonna get the email from them, hey, like we're doing this again, these are the dates, send over the contract. So that's kind of like like another version of a retainer in

Micah43:55Mm-hmm.

Dario43:56a way, but it's not like the traditional retainer where you go like, okay, Once once a month type of thing, right? But I think the the reason also is because we offer the assets, but we don't offer the implementation, right? And I've seen people that are trying to make the retainer model work, but they have to start offering the implementation of it. Cause that's the only way I can see it really making sense.

Micah44:20Yeah, like the posting and the captions and the schedule and everything.

Dario44:23Well yeah, cause like if I Like I can give you gas, but I I don't know how you're gonna drive your car, right? But if I drive the

Micah44:29Mm-hmm.

Dario44:30car for you, then I can t I I know how it's gonna go, like how far you can go with this, right? So

Micah44:34Mm-hmm.

Dario44:35I think it's a similar situation there. So even for you, I don't know. I wanted to ask you actually if long term you were thinking of maybe offering also like the marketing side of that, right? 'Cause that can also help like

Micah44:46Yeah.

Dario44:46keep that person on for longer. Cause it's like, okay, we know like it takes six to twelve months. So I'll sign you on for six months and then we'll do it in chunks of like three just to keep that's how I see it working or making sense,

Micah44:59Mm-hmm.

Dario45:00right?

Micah45:00Uh-huh. sorry, you'll probably see how anxious I was to answer your question after you're talking. so something that I heard was that video is a good skill, but like being able to do video or photo is a good skill, but I it's not enough to carry you to like the absolute top. Because you have to know another skill. You have to have another skill with video to put it together. that's the way how you're gonna make a successful business, right? so now when it comes to studio, we don't it's it's I it's very I'm still trying to figure it out myself, trying to very, very much identify that line because yeah, it's very easy to kind of cross that line of only doing video to kind of trying to be a marketing agency, right? Something I tried to say for a little while, which I'm not sure if I'm gonna continue saying is that hey, we do video for you. We're a video production company, but we imp we integrate marketing strategies with our video. So we don't just give you the content and you know just let it sit there, give you the content, and just okay, bye, go go ahead with it. You you this is your content, you can go now. But we also try to do a little bit with helping you to apply it. So something I did for one of our clients after we did a commercial for him is we gave him a guide on how to post it, right? If you're gonna post it on here. This is something you post it with. These are some keywords you can use. This is a caption you can use. This is some description you can use if you're gonna put it here and there. So I like I said, I did study marketing for some time. I actually am studying it now on and off. but I like to imply some of those or I like to apply some of those skills along with my videos when I produce a product for somebody. If there's any way I can help them. with that marketing side, like give them a little guide, a little push, just a little something that doesn't just make them seem like I gave them their stuff and they're left alone with it and they don't know how to use it. I I would try to do that. You know, I try to give them a little something to kind of go along with it.

Dario47:12Did they d did they use the guide? 'Cause y you know that expression, you could lead a horse to water, right?

Micah47:18Yeah. yeah, they they use the guide. Yeah, they they use the guide. not everybody will. But at the end of the day, we are a video production company as it stands right now. So you can't try to do too much with if you're a video production company you can't try to cross the line and say, yeah, we're marketing agency because like you're gonna need to h know a whole lot more than just posting on Instagram. Right? Because you're gonna need to know

Dario47:44Yeah, it's

Micah47:45if you they can get their return on their investment. Like if they invest in this

Dario47:48Yeah.

Micah47:48video, they need to be able to tell, like be able to tell, I'm gonna get a return for this. I'm gonna get some clients. How much am I gonna be able to get from this? and so yeah, you're not a marketing or you're not a they're a marketing manager, right? People some people, that's one of their things they come to. They're like, if I I had a person say that, it's like Okay, if I go with your video, if I go with your commercial, are you gonna be able to give me more R ROI from this new marketing manager I just hired? And it's like, well, I'm not a marketing manager, I don't know. And if they're guaranteeing you that you're gonna get this percentage, then they're probably lying to you because no one could guarantee that. So yeah, but you're you're different. marketing people, they still need video production people, right? They need you

Dario48:34Yeah.

Micah48:35to make content to post. How are you also gonna get that content?

Dario48:39Yeah, yeah. And again, like going from again, providing assets to then providing returns is a whole different different ballgame, right?

Micah48:49Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dario48:51you you talk a lot about sales. like it sounds like you're doing a lot of like heavy sales, but I often find like on our side at least, I have a lot of positive intent leads coming

Micah49:04Mm-hmm.

Dario49:05in. Whereas it seems like you're always trying to sell them on things, right? So are you doing a lot of like outbound stuff or or are you just like w what's your breakdown of like your leads? Is it mostly inbound or like you're doing cold calling?

Micah49:20well I sales is overall a good skill to have in life. So I try to learn a little bit about it as much as I can. I mean it can go it even when you're talking about sales, it goes down into psychology, right? Learning how people talk and learning how to pick up on certain things, slowing down conversations when somebody makes a certain expression or makes a certain tone, you know, you kinda pick up on that. So sales is overall a good skill to have. That's how I like to think about it. But a lot of my leads are lately has been a bit more both. you know, I had people coming in, like calling me randomly, people reaching out to me randomly. and then also, yeah, I have made a lot of cold calls as well myself. to different businesses and everything. And you know, selling to them, trying to talk to them. And even if I don't get it, there's a lot of no's, but it helps me. Helps me with my overall confidence. I'm the type of person to be intimidated about a person just because the way they said something. So so yeah, yeah.

Dario50:26really?

Micah50:28So it's a good practice for me. and but there are some there was some I I need to do more marketing stuff because yeah, it's two channels when it comes to outreach and everything. You have code calling, you have direct, you know, you go out to people, you hang up signs, whatever, and then you also have marketing where you go out do social media marketing, you you know, put the in Instagram posts, the Facebook posts out and everything. So I need to hop on that other channel. The only thing was that there was some like trademark issues and everything that I'm trying to sort out, like on the business side, on the back

Dario51:02For your logo?

Micah51:03end. not really with the logo, with the name itself. So we're I'm gonna try to

Dario51:09really?

Micah51:10yeah, yeah. So there's some stuff that I still need to figure out that I was a bit anxious about, but it's not gonna be long before I start putting some stuff out for marketing.

Dario51:19like someone else took the name then, huh?

Micah51:21no, not really. So STUDiiO with two i's. Actually, there was another company, another pretty influential creator had the name in the past.

Dario51:33okay.

Micah51:35but I look took a look at everything and they didn't it's not up anymore, as I'm aware. But there is another company with an identical name, and they have a trademark and also some other stuff with trademark issues. So yeah. It it's a it's a it's a very weird thing, but we'll get it sorted out. We'll just keep going. Something happens and we'll take care of it when it comes up.

Dario51:57Yeah, that sounds like a pain in the in

Micah51:59Mm-hmm.

Dario52:00the butt. Yeah, no, luck luckily we we we haven't had the issues with the name or anything. I actually got the like you know you could get a numbered company, right? And then do operating as whatever, but I got the

Micah52:12Mm-hmm.

Dario52:13actual like name. I think trademarked

Micah52:15Mm-hmm.

Dario52:16or whatever when I was doing the the incorporation.

Micah52:18Yeah, they have the yeah, the doing business as what we call it, yeah.

Dario52:23Yeah, and then I grabbed the domains.ca.com. Just

Micah52:26Mm-hmm.

Dario52:27we use dot com, but I grabbed the.ca one just in case there's ever like a nefarious actor out there that wants

Micah52:32Mm-hmm.

Dario52:32to grab the dot CA version. But I think at

Micah52:36Yeah, well

Dario52:37least for your social media you should be good because you already have experience being in front of the camera. You said when you were in grade five

Micah52:42Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dario52:43making all those videos, no, so I feel like

Micah52:45Yeah.

Dario52:46you should be doing those pretty well right now.

Micah52:49Yeah, you'll you'll you just need to get into it. I mean, I already had my taste of luck when it comes to the business because of Google, Google business. There's been so many people that have been ranting to me about like how do I get verified on Google Business and everything? It's so weird. I just logged in on there and instantly I got the blue check. So yeah,

Dario53:07really? Okay.

Micah53:08I'm verified on there, so I'm like, I can't relate. But

Dario53:10We we had an issue. So on that that front we had an issue. So originally we were

Micah53:15Mm-hmm.

Dario53:15at Young and Eglinton location I mean you don't know. Midtown location and the very first time the issue we were having is we forgot to put it's an east or west type of thing, right? I didn't

Micah53:30Okay.

Dario53:31know at the time. So it's like address and then you have to put east or west or whatever, right? So it was going to the other side. So We were, I forget at the time, let's say 100 Eglinton Street West. It was going

Micah53:42Mm-hmm.

Dario53:43to east. So

Micah53:46Okay.

Dario53:47we finally figured that out after weeks. Google was no help, as usual. And this was back when they still had people answering the phone. So just imagine.

Micah53:55Okay. huh.

Dario53:57and then and then I think in twenty twenty three we I wanted to save on costs. So I was like, hey, there we could get like a P.O. box downtown, and it'll be better

Micah54:05yeah.

Dario54:06because it's like Right downtown, like we'll show up right there in the center. And for some reason we couldn't get that damn address verified. It was a it was a mess for months. Like we couldn't

Micah54:17Uh-huh.

Dario54:18get it verified. Like we had to do the video verification. But the problem is it was on the dude, it was like

Micah54:22Yeah where they have you go up unlocking the door and everything?

Dario54:25so we had to it they're like, you gotta show that you gotta show street view, street sign, you gotta walk into the building, walk into

Micah54:31Mm.

Dario54:32the office. I'm like, okay. But the problem is it's on the t it's on the like the 10th floor. So I'm gonna lose connection but when I go into the elevator. And

Micah54:42Uh-huh.

Dario54:43there was like no one I could contact about this. Like because that by that point so this was 2023. I think by that point they fired everyone i in India. They were just using AI. And then like that's it. Like who do I contact? It wasn't even like it was a mess. And then we went back to the other address and then it got verified quickly on its own. But now

Micah55:01Okay. Well that's good.

Dario55:03I'm scared to move from that spot. I was like, I don't

Micah55:06huh.

Dario55:06I don't know where we can move. Like I d if something goes wrong, who am I gonna talk to? This thing just sent

Micah55:10Uh-huh.

Dario55:10the AI chatbot just sends me in loops, like it's crazy.

Micah55:15Well you have the experience, right? And you learn from it, so that's the important portion. Yeah, yeah. And hey, I I know

Dario55:19You learned fear from dealing with Google. But that's one thing.

Micah55:24my I know my little bits of Canada. I know Banff National Park. Huh?

Dario55:29That's like on the complete other side. But that's pretty that's north of you. I think you just keep going up and you'll hit it.

Micah55:37Well, I wanna go there one day, so that's my piece of Canada that

Dario55:43but speaking of Google, that's the one thing I also don't like is the fact that we are so reliant on it. You know, like if g if

Micah55:50Mm-hmm.

Dario55:51we get like we got knocked down a couple of pages this year and it's slowly going back up. I knew especially after I redid the website it would be like a little bit, but it would slowly go back up. but that's one thing I don't like. It's just like it's we're so dependent on people just hitting us up through our contact form. That this year I am thinking of exploring more like cold outreach. Maybe not cold

Micah56:16Mm-hmm.

Dario56:16calling, 'cause I feel like that's I I guess it's working for you, which is great. But I feel like for here, how would I even call someone who's a like a a marketing director or or a communications director or PR, whatever at a company? Like I I mean for sure it's just gonna go to their AI voicemail that needs to verify who I am first, right? So

Micah56:36Mm-hmm.

Dario56:37I'm still trying to figure that part out. But I do think Like you know, g using AdWords, at least being SEO AIEO optimized is good.

Micah56:48Mm-hmm.

Dario56:50but marketing on social platforms I think is the next step too. Like Kyrill and I need to sit down and and figure that part out.

Micah56:57Yeah, I really recommend it taking it upon yourself to if there's any way to like become Even a little bit more self-dependent with your business and how you get clients and how you get you secure your foundation and everything, secure your income coming in. I would strongly recommend it. I would know. It's I feel like it's kind of one of those things where people always talk about safety first. Make sure you get this, make sure get this. And they don't do it because it hasn't happened to them. But when it did happen to them, then they're all like, yeah, I understand. Because there was this time in I think I think it was yeah, 2023. Or twenty twenty four, where I finally logged into or got on to Fiverr. And have you heard of Fiverr? Right? You've heard of Fiverr.

Dario57:45Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Micah57:46Okay, everyone's heard of Fiverr. Okay. So I got on on a Fiverr and I was doing after like two weeks I think on there, I started kind of blowing up on there. And this is mainly with photography. I at the time I kind of had like a mentor friend because I had this other friend. I think he's He just turned twenty-two and I'm pretty sure he's like doing like ten times better than I am, if that's of any reference to you. Like he's he's you know, he took me on some jobs with him where like, you know, we're filming s like a a a basketball game of some sort and we had different types of basketball players on our side and everything, and he's meeting all these different celebrities. I think he did a couple episodes of like some type of show that I don't know the name of, but he was doing way better than me. And at the time he was mentoring me, like showing me, giving me like little tips, everything he said, sign up on Fiverr, make this your gig name and everything. So I signed up on there and I started doing really, really good. and I was that was like the best time at that point where I thought I'm like, maybe there's some hope in this this career that I'm going in. Maybe there's some hope. until there was this one time where I was Doing like a I was talking out like a really good deal at the time with this one guy, and he was so on and off with his text messaging. He was so on and off like with replying to me. This one morning I just woke up and then he texted me some stuff and he's we're talking about payment. You know, Fiverr wants to keep everything on their platform. And then I looked at it and then he's saying, I can't do this or something. Are you able to do this? And I texted him, I'm like are you able to do Zelle or like, yeah, I can do Zelle and then like ten minutes later I look on my email and it says, been permanently disabled on Fiverr and I'm like, wait, wait, what will happen? And yeah, it was because I mentioned the word Zelle or another form of payment or something like that. and they cut off my account. So then I kinda lost hope a little bit. and then I had no way of getting any other clients at the time, right? Because I was fully reliant on Fiverr. So now I'm like I managed to get another account on Fiverr, you know. and I hope nobody who's on the Fiverr team sees this. But I managed to get another count on there. but now it's I'm not looking into it too much. It's there, you know, in case anybody wants to, you know, seize me from there. I have different people coming to me from different ways. but I'm just making sure that I'm taking care of my own website. first in my own platforms, I'm making sure that I am in control of the different leads that I get. So I'm not reliant on something again and then it gives. Just securing again. Another way to secure the foundation. That's probably like my model for the podcast.

Dario1:00:41Yeah. And I mean like you're you're already I think you're already one step ahead of of a lot of people 'cause you're doing like you're actually calling people, you know, that's that's

Micah1:00:50Mm-hmm.

Dario1:00:50like very hard to do. Like I I I think I tried it once in the past, I couldn't do it. my social anxiety was going through the roof. I Jesus Christ, I don't know if people do this for a living 'cause sometimes you're like, wait, what do I even say? Like I'm calling you and then what? Like, you know?

Micah1:01:07Yeah, it's it gets very complicated and nerve wracking and the way that I get to like I I don't wanna make calls. I don't really like making calls. It's exhausting. My first hiccup was yeah, I didn't really know what to say. And I kinda figured that out. I talk to Claude about it. I like have it I role play with Claude. I'm like, Okay, you say this and then I'll say this. Yeah.

Dario1:01:30interesting. Okay.

Micah1:01:31So I would have it practice and then Another thing I do, I'm just I guess I'm just giving away everything that I do here on here now. thanks to you. So I actually okay, so I hear a piece of content from Instagram, right? And because Claude doesn't do so good visually, they can't take in videos or something, I actually play the audio into the transcript and then I enter like, you know, press enter. So it hears everything or yeah, it sees what I said, but from the video. So see it pretty much gets takes in all the information from the video. So I somehow conveniently follow a lot of salespeople, salesmen and saleswomen on there that taught have a lot of good value, and I give that value to Claude. And also different books to my friend that made or that my friend that sent me some books, like Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort, Wolf of Wall Street guy, and then also Alex Hormozi. I have two books from them. I was pretty lazy. to read it and I didn't really want to read all of it. So I did take a screenshot of each page. and just go ahead and put it into Claude. And yes, I had to send twenty pages at a time. And not only that, but also YouTube videos. Sometimes I don't really wanna watch all of YouTube videos. So I take the transcript and I put it into Claude. Like, tell me what it says. What is it really saying? And that's a lot of the ways that I I don't really study like that for YouTube, but Those are some ways if want to get some quick information, see what this is saying real quick, but not having to take 10, 20 minutes to listen to what they're saying, that's something I just do. And so when it's taking in all this information, it understands it. And I always have to remind it, hey, remember what you what I told you. Remember what you learned, right? Let's apply it here. It's like, okay, we'll apply it. So now when I'm doing cold calls, I would take the phone and record it on voice memos so it can hear the conversation and then hear transcript. Now put the transcript in. I'm like, What's going on here? What what what happened? What did I do? And so it would take the information that I gave it from all these different books, all these different YouTube videos, Instagram videos, and it would be like, Well, from this book, you're not you're not you're not giving this the pink line, right? You're not you're not identifying their gap. You know, you didn't tell them what they need. You didn't reinstate the value for them and different stuff like that.

Dario1:03:49Right.

Micah1:03:49So that's how I gonna go about it. And then also getting the people to call call. I I used to make an artifact with Claude, but that took up way too much uses and way too much time. So I actually use this website.

Dario1:04:01What's what's what's what's the art what's an artifact? Who what is that?

Micah1:04:05the Claude. It has an artifact. The there's like a page on the side. It says

Dario1:04:09What's that? Okay.

Micah1:04:10artifacts. I don't really know what it is. I just know that when I make

Dario1:04:13Okay. Okay.

Micah1:04:15something, when I tell it to do something, it's like that would be a good thing for an artifact. I'm like, okay. I guess something you can make like an app on it or something like that. I don't really know. But

Dario1:04:23okay.

Micah1:04:24yeah, so I I use this one website.

Dario1:04:26I I'm just opening up on the side, I'm like, What is this art yeah, what is that? okay, interesting.

Micah1:04:30Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yeah, I think it was something that you can make apps on it or like app like things. So there's

Dario1:04:38interesting. Okay.

Micah1:04:40probably gonna be people who are computer engineers like how don't they know what artifacts are?

Dario1:04:47Okay, so you make an artifact started to interrupt.

Micah1:04:50no, yeah, I I would make an artifact and that would it would the process would that Claude made the artifact and from that artifact it would pull different business names and pull different numbers. And sometimes if it was if I was lucky, it would give me some stats to go off of from the businesses. and those are the businesses that would just call.

Dario1:05:16Okay.

Micah1:05:17But yeah, it's not only that because now it's like, okay, well, when I have those businesses and I'm trying to get in contact I'm like, you know, you don't want to try to be selling yourself to the waitress, right? You don't want to be trying to sell yourself to some regular employee that has no correlation to what you're trying to say. Right. So now that's the other hiccup. Now you have to get into onto the phone with somebody in charge. And there are AI apps for that. Like where you can go into there on the website and then you can find the person in charge. But the the subscriptions are kind of pricey. But you go in and you can find the people in charge and you can just straight up call they either have the number on there for additional plans or the email and you can straight up just call them from that, which is very intriguing,

Dario1:06:04Do you

Micah1:06:04which I haven't tried out yet.

Dario1:06:06do you do what about I mean, cold calling is one thing, but I feel like that's

Micah1:06:09Mm-hmm.

Dario1:06:10kind of heading on the way out. What about like emails? Do you do emailing or or reaching out on LinkedIn or anything like that?

Micah1:06:18yes. And I feel like those are identical to cold calls. Because yeah, cold calls is like I you get a lot of no's and same thing with emails, you get a lot of no responses. So these are all things that all have to do with output, you know, the eighty twenty rule. Twenty percent of your you know, twenty percent of the things that you get in return comes from eighty percent of the work, I believe. Or it's eighty percent of effort,

Dario1:06:46Mm-hmm.

Micah1:06:47twenty percent return. I think something like that. So, yeah, it's all about like those are all the things. It's just about volume. The more you do you put into it, the more you'll get out from it. A majority will be like no's and no responses. So then you have to take some time to reassess and then work yourself back up. Be like, I got this, I got this Cry in the mirror, be like, I got this.

Dario1:07:11No, I like how I like how you were you're feeding the project folder with like sales books. I didn't think about that. By the way, just a tip for you, you can you can zip it. Like let's say you have like a hundred images, you could zip it and then feed it to zip. Yeah, you could do that. 'Cause I was running like yeah, 'cause

Micah1:07:25really? Ha. That that that'll make more sense.

Dario1:07:31when I was for example, like if I was fixing up the website, I would screenshot

Micah1:07:35Mm-hmm.

Dario1:07:37page speed, right? Sometimes there were a lot of screenshots, like over twenty. So I I had it I was like, How can I give you all this? He's like, just zip it up and then I can I can view it all at once. So just just a little tip for you.

Micah1:07:52Yeah, it that's one of the perks about AI.

Dario1:07:54Mm-hmm.

Micah1:07:54I didn't really wanna get behind it at first. but it's one of those things where you gotta take advantage of it. Just like social media and people with their personal brands and making so much money for it, you may not wanna do it, but it's like if you do take advantage of it, take advantage like the time that we live in. then you can get a lot of return from it. And I know that AI can be a whole lot more useful if you actually I I think the proper word or term would be train it. And 'cause I hear people

Dario1:08:26Yeah.

Micah1:08:26every single time saying, yeah, I'm training my AI, training my I'm like, I don't know what that is. But I think what I'm would be doing is training it. You know, like giving it the information, training it up, giving it

Dario1:08:36Mm-hmm.

Micah1:08:37the the way you would work, the way you wanna work, and have it learn all these things and it will be able to better help you.

Dario1:08:44I d I do that a lot. Like every time I let's say I did something big. I I'll give you an example actually. I I I was thinking about this two or three weeks ago. I was like, hey, I have all these emails. There's a lot of information in my emails, like for my main corporate one. I was like, a lot of information that Claude could probably make some use out of, right? So I was like, Okay, what's the best way to take advantage of this? And he's like

Micah1:09:12Mm-hmm.

Dario1:09:12well I'm already connected so I could check everything out. I'm like, yes, but maybe there's another way. It's like okay, you could use Google Takeout to download your

Micah1:09:20Mm-hmm.

Dario1:09:20entire email archive. I'm like, fantastic, let me try that. So I did it. And then I was like, okay, so I have it. What can we do with this? He's like, I'll build a Python script, put it in there, and then we'll run it and it'll be able to create like an Excel file. So it did that. And then out of that I was able to get all sorts of useful information like you'd want to talk sales, like. I created like it was able to create a whole sales document based on like leads that came in, who got converted into a client, clients that died out. you may maybe you could reach out to these old ones because it's been a while because it's it's got everything from when we started. So I I started this Gmail account probably twenty seventeen. So twenty seventeen to twenty twenty six, almost ten years of emails.

Micah1:10:06Ish.

Dario1:10:06It created like one big ass document. And then from there was we're able to create other pieces of documents, right? So I then

Micah1:10:12Mm-hmm.

Dario1:10:13I told it, I was like, okay, that we have all these other things. Which ones can I apply to your can can I upload to your context, right? So I've been slowly doing that and that's how you can train it to better understand and help your business, right?

Micah1:10:27Yeah, yeah.

Dario1:10:27even our accounting docs, it's all in its context folder. Cause if I ever need to access something, it just it's right there, right? I can just quickly it'll just know. So I think I'm gonna check out artifacts. I don't know what artifacts is, but yeah, definitely context folder and training it. Yeah,

Micah1:10:43Yeah, there's there's probably a whole lot where you could be used it. Yeah. So

Dario1:10:47and now that I'm playing around with ChatGPT it's made me I feel like I'm I I notice you gotta use both. You gotta use multiple ones. That's that's that's the thing I'm getting out of it. You can't just

Micah1:10:58Yeah.

Dario1:10:58stick to one. I was sticking just to Claude and then I realized from yesterday, I'm like, okay, there's this whole other thing. I can be using and it's not that bad.

Micah1:11:07Mm-hmm.

Dario1:11:07But it's not perfect. So for example, like I I'm creating another blog post right now. After it created it, I fed it to Claude and I was like, hey, d take a look at what it did. Like tell me if there's anything we should be fixing. And it found some things where I was like, okay. I would have never noticed that because I would have had to dig deep into the code. Like it misspelled my name. I'm like, how

Micah1:11:25Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dario1:11:27did you do that? Like it's it's so easy.

Micah1:11:29Yeah, I think my combo is Claude and Gemini at the moment, just because with Google Workspace you get Gemini. But I mean Gemini

Dario1:11:36Yeah, yeah.

Micah1:11:37Gemini is good only when you barely need it, right? So it was good when

Dario1:11:43You know what I use it for?

Micah1:11:44I when I lost my usage on Claude and I would use

Dario1:11:46Yeah.

Micah1:11:47it some.

Dario1:11:48You know what I use Gemini for? It's replacing I use I use flash mode and I just I I use it when I don't want to go on Google to to find out something. I'll just ask it directly over there. That's what it's but

Micah1:11:57Uh-huh.

Dario1:12:00to for business, like if there's money involved, I nah. Maybe just to double

Micah1:12:04It sucks. It sucks.

Dario1:12:06check something, but like it's very surface level stuff, not to actually like

Micah1:12:09The most annoying thing is that it forgets everything. It's like, did you not just remember the last conversation we had? And it's like, no, I don't remember.

Dario1:12:14Yeah, like I I don't know how a company like Google really misses the mark like that. Like you've got everything. You've been like spying on us since the beginning. Like how do you not have this figured out? Yeah, they've really gotta step up their game.

Micah1:12:23yeah. We're giving them more and more information so when they take over the world we're we're the first ones out because they know how we do. Yeah. Maybe not now. I think didn't

Dario1:12:31You know, I would I would have assumed Google would be the one to take over, but no now I don't know. I don't know how these exterior companies were able to yeah.

Micah1:12:39Google make a partnership with ChatGPT of some kind?

Dario1:12:44They better. I think I think their stock price depends on it at this point. Yeah, they were supposed

Micah1:12:47Yeah. That would make sense.

Dario1:12:51to they were supposed to do something with Apple and I think the I think they were supposed to get the data to then train their models

Micah1:12:58ChatGPT?

Dario1:12:59from No, no, I th I well again, I might be at it I might not be accurate. Google was supp I think, I don't know I th from if I'm I might be misremembering.

Micah1:13:03Or Google. Yes, with like Siri?

Dario1:13:09Yeah, weren't they supposed to be like the ones doing that and then I don't know what happened. I I don't know what those guys are doing, man. Like they're really like I don't know what's going on with that company. They gotta get it together. Get it together soon.

Micah1:13:22Well, all the different things they're making partnerships with and everything, it still doesn't improve Siri somehow. I think Siri got worse than it did before. So

Dario1:13:30Did you update to the latest OS software? OS what are they at twenty seven now?

Micah1:13:35Are they at twenty seven? Did they come out with it with the new iPhones?

Dario1:13:38Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I updated it to it. It connects now to your ChatGPT account. I think in the States you can switch it out for Claude. but my I think they're I I don't know, I think it's it's gone better from what I heard.

Micah1:13:52I have the iPhone sixteen pro currently with one hundred twenty eight gigabytes of storage. So I'll just let that sit with you. Yeah. You gu I I can't do anything, right?

Dario1:13:59Oof. Yeah you can't update. You can't you can't update. my god. Yeah, I I got the I don't even know which one I got. I think this is I think it's the sixteen actually. I got the sixteen too. Anyways, unrelated. listen, I think we're over the one hour mark. We should probably cut it off there, but

Micah1:14:21Okay.

Dario1:14:22no, it's it's been it's been nice having you on, man. Just to get someone younger on the show, just and y I mean, holy shit, like we gotta keep tabs on you because I think by the time you get to our age, you're gonna be like You're gonna be very far ahead. Very far ahead. Like if

Micah1:14:37I hope so. That'll depend on how much time I wasted.

Dario1:14:41I don't know man. Like if I was you should see what I was doing at yeah, you don't want to know what I was doing at your age, actually. Let's just leave it at that. If I

Micah1:14:46Okay. Yeah, I don't think I would wanna know either. I'm kidding.

Dario1:14:51was doing what you were doing at your age by the time I got to where I am now, Jesus Christ, that would be so far ahead. Damn man. Ten years. More than ten years. Yeah, no no.

Micah1:14:59Well thanks. It gives me it gives me a refresher. Thanks for helping me realize how odd I am.

Dario1:15:06No, you're way I think you're way ahead of a lot of people. But I I gotta say a lot of the newer guys have I've been like even sometimes when I've when I I have like a PA on or whatever on, I mean like they're hustling a lot, a lot more than I was at their age. So I'm always

Micah1:15:21Mm-hmm.

Dario1:15:21like when I have on set, I'm like, Jesus, like this guy's gonna go far in life. Like look what he's doing now, already at this age. Like me, I was I was barely shooting at that age. But you already got

Micah1:15:30Yeah.

Dario1:15:30your company, like the website looks mint. You should see what our website looked like. Back in the day, like you have no idea, my friend. Like your website looks like legit. and I always say that 'cause our we started off with such a rocky start on our website that

Micah1:15:45Uh-huh.

Dario1:15:45like it back then I was like, man, one of these days we're gonna figure it out. So now that we have kind of figured

Micah1:15:51Mm-hmm.

Dario1:15:51it out, like it's it feels like we we crossed like a really big barrier type of thing. But no, I think

Micah1:15:57Yeah.

Dario1:15:57you're I think you're way ahead of the game. I I think compared to a lot of us, People that have been on the show even, I think you're very, very far ahead. So it's good, man. Keep doing what you're doing.

Micah1:16:06But I I appreciate it. a chapter from I think a famous type of book, Outliers. Outliers, from Malcolm Gladwell talks about the outliers, the people who made it big in life, the successful people. and how did they become successful? What about their daily lives, what about their upcoming made them successful to the people who they're are today. And I think a famous chapter from that book is the ten thousand hours. That takes people ten thousand hours to usually get really good at what they're doing. You know, some artists, you know, they don't make it too big. Or like, you know, a pianist or violinist, they don't make it too big. But the people who do make it very big and make a whole lot of money is the people who put in ten thousand hours. So I think that's that's something that I've been trying to live up to. And also capitalizing, you know, taking full advantage of the time and place where I am at now because some people take it for granted and I recognize that. I watch a lot of people, I see a lot of people's into people's lives and also social media helps me see that. And so it just makes me really try to appreciate and try to make the most of where I'm at today.

Dario1:17:15Yeah, and I honestly I think that amount of hours is actually it might be outdated because I think now with all these AI assistants that we have, you can actually achieve that a lot quicker too. Like again, it th like my girlfriend doesn't understand this sometimes because I'm always raving

Micah1:17:33huh.

Dario1:17:33about Claude and ChatGPT now 'cause she's like, my god, you're obsessed with it. It's like, no, you don't understand. Like I had to figure all this stuff out by myself before.

Micah1:17:42Uh-huh.

Dario1:17:43Like now it's here, like it's like having an assistant. You you probably d won't I mean like again, you're a little young, the you're kinda growing up with this, but like this information is not public knowledge. Like even just having someone to help you out with so many specific aspects

Micah1:17:58Mm-hmm.

Dario1:17:59of your business, like this this wasn't a thing back then. Like you we, Kyrill and I had to figure out a lot of the stuff on our own. Even like or you would have had to read a lot of books, but who has time to read all these books, right? Like no one has all that time, right? You c you kinda

Micah1:18:11Uhhuh.

Dario1:18:11had to go through life and kind of like experience it and then kinda remember to like reflect on it and like jot everything down. But now it's it's so much easier.

Micah1:18:18Hey, some of my be best pieces of information comes from a book. I still read books. I saw my list of books right there that I still read. Yeah. Yeah. huh.

Dario1:18:24No, you know what I mean though. Like, I mean you you we you now have like someone that that that helps you out. Like they know everything about you. So even like you were doing role playing with Claude, which is genius. I didn't think about that. It's actually a very smart thing to do.

Micah1:18:37Uh-huh.

Dario1:18:38but like who are you gonna roleplay back in the day? Like it it like I could roleplay with Kyrill, but then like again, like it's we're both at the same point. But like now you have someone that is like an expert in these things. It's

Micah1:18:51Mm-hmm.

Dario1:18:51We live in interesting times. I I like I think, yeah, it's it's probably gone down from ten thousand to five thousand. Maybe in a couple of years it'll go down to one thousand. As long as you're motivated and Yeah,

Micah1:18:58Yeah. Well, thanks for just telling me my information's outdated.

Dario1:19:02and like you you'll probably n no, no, that's not what I mean. But like I it things will

Micah1:19:03No, it's it's fine.

Dario1:19:07things will be things will be faster now too, right? Just

Micah1:19:09Yeah.

Dario1:19:09'cause the technology's advanced and I think, yeah, if you take advantage of it of all these tools at our disposal, you can you can get to that point even faster, right? But

Micah1:19:18Mm-hmm.

Dario1:19:20But no, it's been good having you on, man. It's it's good chatting with someone younger, just picking their brains, seeing what the where it's at now. Because again, like we're we're we're getting old, right? So we're kind of seeing things through like an older perspective. But seeing someone young come in that's so hungry, and like you're you're very sales motivated. I think you'll you'll make a lot of money in the future.

Micah1:19:40thank thanks.

Dario1:19:41But here, let me let me give your your website a shout out. So to follow Micah, go to heystudiio, but it's with two i's. dot com and

Micah1:19:51Two i's. Don't forget.

Dario1:19:53he's obviously based out of Las Vegas. So if you guys got stuff there, reach out. And then your social I'm not seeing here on your website. Is it you you're not doing it right now or what's what's the deal with that?

Micah1:20:05it should be at the bottom, You know what? Let me check because

Dario1:20:08Go into the footer, I don't see it. I see it. Instagram at heystudiio. Again, heystudiio

Micah1:20:11I haven't okay. Okay, good, good.

Dario1:20:15with two i's.

Micah1:20:18I barely had the website for like, you know, six months, so

Dario1:20:25And yeah, I'm saying here you post you post a bit. No, that's good, man.

Micah1:20:29Yeah, heystudiio is the video production website or Instagram and then also personal is Micah David with a period and underscore. I was kind of on edge about making another account for the video production company. but I just went ahead and did it, just in case.

Dario1:20:51No, I think I think you should have it, 'cause I mean, you also don't wanna be tied to the n to the company too much because then it'll be tricky for you to send other people out. 'Cause they'll expect

Micah1:21:03Yeah, yeah.

Dario1:21:03you to be there. That that's like one one thing a lot of people r they realize once they start to grow a little bit is that a client's expecting you the whole time.

Micah1:21:12Mm-hmm.

Dario1:21:13It's like, no no, my guys are also good, so you gotta kinda detach yourself

Micah1:21:17Yeah.

Dario1:21:17from that. but yeah, Micah, listen, it's been a pleasure having you on, man. wish you lots of success. I want you to come back maybe in a couple of years just to see what the updates have been in.

Micah1:21:27Definitely, definitely. I would. I will.

Dario1:21:30We'll see where you're at then.

Micah1:21:32Hopefully I'm in a my gigantic warehouse and not in my mom's basement. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Well.

Dario1:21:38Hey, we all we all started in a basement. A garage, a basement. We're still doing this out of our condos, so believe it or not, like sometimes things don't change.

Micah1:21:49Yeah, no shame, no shame. But thank you again for having

Dario1:21:52All right, man.

Micah1:21:53me on and yes, I hope to come back in the future.