The Power of Niching Down (ft. Foxal Media)

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Dario00:00And we're live. So hi everyone today we got Dave from Foxal Media. Dave how's it going man?

Dave Lisowski00:06Doing fantastic, man. How you guys doing?

Dario00:08Good, I love how you have a shirt with the logo on it and everything.

Kyrill00:09Doing great.

Dave Lisowski00:12Felt right, you know, choosing the shirts in the morning. What are we going to do? Well, easy choice. Here we are.

Dario00:18I always go for like black shirts. But we've been talking about getting branded laps or creators grab coffee shirts.

Kyrill00:24It's hard to find brands that one are comfortable for everyone too. That's the other thing. Or sometimes a lot of the time the shirts that you get that are decent, they have like their logos that are like really big. Or if you wanna get just with your logo, it's usually not the best, especially if you need to buy in batches. The classic Gildan tee is always gonna be the most, is the worst one.

Dario00:46Gildan is awful man. The worst.

Dave Lisowski00:48Dude, dude, so hit or miss. Yeah, I feel you on that. These ones are like, all right, I think they're like Hanes or something, but yeah, you wanna, I really had high hopes because I spent a lot of time before getting these shirts, like finding the perfect t -shirt. Hanes Black Label came through and then I ordered it from the website for like the printing company, complete switch up, felt like I had been duped. It's such, hey, here we are.

Dario00:57Haynes is just as bad as Gildan, man. You know –

Dario01:05Yeah.

Dario01:14You know what I think the best way to do it is, is you buy your own type of shirt, like from whatever retailer you like. Like I really love reigning champs. So I was thinking like we just buy a bunch of reigning champ stuff and then bring it to like a DTG provider and then just do it like that. I feel like that's the best way to do it. Cause if you go to someone that also provides the printing and the clothing, like the clothing always stinks. Like the quality is terrible.

Kyrill01:15Wow.

Dave Lisowski01:30Mm -hmm.

Dave Lisowski01:33Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:39You know what I did was I got I went and I bought I waited till Adidas was having like they're like blowout sales and I bought a bunch of Like that year's like basic soccer jerseys Just white and black and then I got like little patches printed up with our logo on it And then I took him to a soccer shop buddy of mine worked at a soccer shop and they like he pressed them on and then just put media on the back like like the player name

Kyrill01:41It's very rare.

Kyrill01:45I s – I saw that, yeah.

Dario02:05nice, yeah.

Kyrill02:06that's clever. That's clever. I saw those photos on your website. I saw them. It looked good.

Dave Lisowski02:07I had like these grand ideas. Yeah, dude, I was just like, I had this big vision for like, this will be cool, you know, and I'll like, I had, I even wanted to do more stuff to it, but I was like, let's just get this going. And dude, they always get compliments and they're pretty comfy. And I've got no complaints other than the fact that like, if I had to do it again, I'd get them stitched. Cause the heat eventually kind of like starts to fall off a little bit. Yeah, yeah. But like, hey, moral of the story is

Dario02:30it comes off. interesting.

Dave Lisowski02:35buy your own stuff, go get it made somewhere. I think it works out to be a little bit better, but.

Dario02:40We lucked out with these hats because they had 47 brand as one of their, I guess, suppliers or whatever, clothing suppliers, and they're pretty legit. I'm not gonna lie. Thank you. Thank you.

Kyrill02:48Yeah.

Dave Lisowski02:49Yup.

Dario03:00Ha ha.

Kyrill03:00My God, first few compliments on the show. It took 60, what, five, how many, what are we at? 70 episodes now?

Dario03:02No, no, you, you, no, no, no, like the public at this moment, I think we're at 64, but this, this particular one I think is like, might be 70 or something.

Kyrill03:11Public were at 64 but –

Dave Lisowski03:17flatter to be the first, I guess. Exactly, exactly.

Dario03:19Ha ha

Kyrill03:19You're flattered to flatter, flattered to flatter. It's funny, we had a similar idea where we were gonna do the same thing with patches and put those on our own custom shirts, but there was also that same issue that you just ran into, which was, are we gonna do the ones where you kind of just like press it on or do you do stitching, but then you still have to go to someone to stitch it together. And it's like, there's no perfect solution to merch nowadays, unless you have thousands of dollars.

Dario03:29Yeah, that's right.

Dario03:44I'm kind of against the stitching, Kirill, because I notice some shirts that I have that have an embroidery. I find that sometimes it irritates my skin because the stitching bit goes through the inner layer and whatnot. So maybe just heat press is the best, like DTG or something.

Dave Lisowski03:46Yup.

Dave Lisowski03:54Mmm.

Kyrill03:54Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Lisowski03:59Yeah, I think it depends. The heat press, I will say like the heat press, a lot of them, well, a lot of them held up for a while, but like the vinyl lettering, like if I were to go over and do it again, here's the inside scoop for anybody that's trying to get, you know, solid looking merch. You get like the vinyl heat press, like the heat transfer, the vinyl transfer stuff, because that's what the lettering is. The lettering is held up fantastic, it looks awesome. Then also you're not getting like the, where the patch is, is like.

Kyrill04:02No, he had an issue with it, he was saying.

Dave Lisowski04:27It comes off, it's kind of like bulky. You can feel it there a little bit. But if you just have like vinyl transfer all the way across, my God, it looks awesome. And that's, I just wanted to mirror like what like professional sports teams were looking like, because I just, I don't know, like how can we look a little bit different? Always trying to do something different. And all the pro teams now, they don't have stuff embroidered most of the time. They have it like directly printed on, because that's the performance thing. And I'm like, look, if we're going to be out there moving around, let's have that.

Kyrill04:38I'm going to go to bed.

Dario04:39Mm -hmm.

Dario04:49Yeah.

Kyrill04:52you

Kyrill05:01It does.

Dave Lisowski05:08100%. The science sounds right. Let's just make that a statement now. Yeah, the polyester will not hold as nicely. You heard it here.

Dario05:13Hahaha!

Kyrill05:14The non -scientists have the science. You should have done it like a shirt sponsor. You know how all the soccer teams have just giant letters right on the center of the shirt? That's how you gotta do it.

Dave Lisowski05:25That's the game plan. That'll be the version two batch. Cause I have like a few different like specific offers and like different packages that we've kind of built out now too that I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna like go get a sponsor. I'll just sponsor it myself and just put like, like the one is impossible to ignore. It's like short form content. I'm like, let me just put like the logo for that right across the center. And then like,

Kyrill06:07We got other stuff to be spending our money on.

Dario06:07We were thinking that we were thinking the same and I made Kyrill hold off on the hats for a couple of years because when I saw the initial price tag I'm like, you know 800 bucks like we don't need to spend this money right now

Dave Lisowski06:20Like, do we really need to order like, you know, 30 hats right now? Do we know who to give them to?

Dario06:25But I regret waiting. I regret waiting that long though.

Kyrill06:25I mean with

Dario06:49Give him a shout out. Give him a shout out.

Kyrill06:57They gave us the option to choose different colors for the different hats. So even though you have a minimum of like 12 or 15 hats that you have to get, usually it's like 12 or 15 of the same color. But when he said like, you can get like three blue, you can get three black or four red. It was like perfect. So then that gives us a bit of variety at the same time, but also forces us. So like Dario would get like six hats. I would get six hats, but you know, a couple of different colors and see that's what it is. It all comes down to suppliers as well, but

Dave Lisowski07:09Yeah.

Kyrill07:27You know, we found that buying merch that is, it's like a one size fits all is usually the best bang for buck, you know, either like mugs or hats, you know, shirts. It's a little bit harder to, it's really hard to kind of nail down just for.

Dario07:39Those mugs we still gotta offload, I got a case of those things. Back at my old place, like I don't even know where to put them.

Kyrill07:43Yeah, you got

Dave Lisowski07:47Dude, it's just, it's a client package. You just, if you're like, a lot of the time it's interesting because we're delivering like digital files, right? But a couple clients in the past year I've had, I've delivered hard drives because they bought the raw footage and I'm like, all right, let's, how can we make this a little bit more interesting here than just, here's your WD like packaged thing, you know? So I would just buy like a little like a shirt box, put some like,

Dario08:38That's true, we gotta start doing that a bit more.

Kyrill08:41I'd love to see your, like how you kind of like put it together, like in terms of like all the aspects of it. Cause yeah, like that's, that is one other part of the whole client experience as well is what happens when you finish a project with them. It's, it varies from company to company. Like we've experimented, you know, obviously like with mugs giving them, you know, cause we actually, the mugs we got were really high quality and we always got compliments on, on how like,

Dario09:11I've been using ours like daily for the past how many years? Like when was the last, when did we buy them, Carol? Like four years ago or so? They hold up well. They hold up really well. If you don't put them in the dishwasher either, they don't scratch up and like they still hold up.

Kyrill09:14Yeah, yeah, let me see. I think it was like something like four years ago, but yeah, and yeah.

Dave Lisowski09:23That's a good looking mug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, I've been, there's so many different merch things. Like this is the part of my brain, like I think everybody in this type of field has something that their brain defaults to of just like their comfort zone. Like some people think about like creative edits or creative shots. Some people think more about like the business and marketing and branding side of it. My brain's always like, what cool different thing can we do to stand out?

Dave Lisowski11:48Like it's a big thing, like let's get stoked about it. So I think it's just, when it even comes back to like the merch stuff and like the mugs and any of that type of stuff, I'm always trying to think of it of like, how can we do something that's gonna make people go like, that was pretty cool. Like that was a little different, that was pretty cool.

Kyrill12:07I had a very similar idea about a year, year and a half ago where I was just kind of writing notes and brainstorming ideas on different things for the business. A soccer jersey uniform was something that I wanted to kind of explore, but I knew Dario wouldn't go for it. So I'm like, Dario's not, he's not gonna wear that. So I'm like, ugh, what's the point at that point? But it's nice to see that someone is gonna, that's working now.

Dario12:22Ha!

Dario12:27You know what though here here As soon as he was talking about that I'm like I wonder if kill brought it up in the past and I was like I wonder if I shot it down I Like hearing it though. I like hearing it though. We should probably implement that now

Kyrill12:40You probably did like see, see, here's the thing, Dario is sometimes, so this is actually funny. When you have a business partner, sometimes when you hear ideas from your own business partner, you accept it, but sometimes you're like, you need to sit on it and then you need to hear it from someone else. And that is like one of the biggest things from Dario is like he needs to hear sometimes an idea of mine from someone else. Yeah.

Dario13:00Did you do the same thing? You do the same thing. Don't even get started. Like, I'll call him up and I'm like, yo, I had this idea. I'm pitching him on this idea. And then right away, he's like going against it. I'm like, bro, just say yes. I just need you to say yes right now.

Dave Lisowski13:17I think there's a thought experiment in there where it's like, what would happen if we did say yes? What would be the worst case scenario or the best case scenario if we did this thing? There it is. Or the worst case scenario, you could be broke. So somewhere in between is the likely outcome.

Dario13:25We'd be millionaires by now.

Kyrill13:29See.

Kyrill13:32I don't know though, when you said the worst case is we get broke, like I don't know then. We gotta just go with I'm in.

Dario13:37I never had those kinds of ideas. Call Kyrill up, it's like, let's put it all on Bitcoin.

Dave Lisowski13:37Yeah

Dario13:49There's this talk called GameStop.

Kyrill13:49I like what you, exactly. I like what you mentioned though about how the key with whatever you're doing within your business is not to look at, like look at what other people are doing and what the standard is, but not to be thinking from the perspective of I need to do that better, but I gotta do it better for me. That is essentially what a lot of businesses need to kind of look at. It's like how will it, how will you do it different in a way that is more efficient for you as a business?

Dario15:06They were pretty bad. They were pretty bad, Kirill. Like the bill was like flat. I don't know.

Kyrill15:12See, flat bills, it depends on people. Like some people, it works a bit better.

Dario15:15No, no, it was meant to be like curved, but it came like flat. Like way flat, yeah. I think that's what scared me of like the whole hat idea. I was like, if the whole batch is gonna be like this, I don't wanna do it.

Kyrill15:19became a little bit flatter. Yeah, but so

Dave Lisowski15:21Mmm… Mm -hmm.

Kyrill15:28Yeah, and then they like some of the hats were printed poorly as well. And so like I complained, they sent some new ones, but we were like, okay, so we're going to avoid this supplier. And then finally we found another supplier that was a lot better. We found a hat that we both liked out. That's the other thing. When you have a business partner, you got to make sure the stuff you guys are getting, you both like to, right? It's not like one person likes one thing and then the other person doesn't, right?

Dario15:31Yeah.

Dave Lisowski15:49Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said about that right there because you can take that. That's not an isolated experience right there. That's a universal experience to businesses across the board here. It's like we had a bad experience with this supplier. And so now, whether you actively or kind of subconsciously think it, it's like, maybe we shouldn't do hats. Like, is this how our experience is going to be with all?

Kyrill16:48Yeah.

Dave Lisowski17:14who understands that and knows how to address those things. And of course you can actually provide a better experience. You are in a way better spot than anybody else. So I mean, think about that. Like what was it about the next company or what was it about the company you finally went with that after all those bad experiences made you go, yeah, I think these are the guys we wanna go with.

Kyrill17:40Yeah. you're asking. So yeah, the, I think I mentioned it briefly. I love how you were tying it into also like the, into the whole business side of things, you know, with video production, cause like everyone experiences similar things like that as well. But in terms of like what made us go with the, with the newer company was the one, the customer service aspect was actually a big thing. The, the, the constant communication, the willingness to talk, inviting actually one thing that I think that was that I really liked was

Dario17:41He's asking.

Dave Lisowski17:41Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyrill18:09that they invited me to come over and see some of the merch that they had. They basically have a whole floor of all their products and they have so many things. Things I wouldn't have even expected. Aside from water bottles, they had those very high -end type water bottles they had for people who want to get their name on golf clubs or golf products and things like that. They had such a huge variety. And just kind of seeing the products and feeling it was one aspect. So again, it really depends on your business.

Dave Lisowski19:07There it is. There it is. You know, I think that's something that everybody's got to keep in mind. It's like, hey, not everyone's going to be ready to just throw money at you. You got to like meet them where they're at, you know?

Kyrill19:18Yeah. And have you experienced something like that as well? Because you were talking about it how like video production or like clients sometimes have a bad experience with a video production company and then come to us still needing video, but you know, they're going to be a little bit more reserved. They're going to want to probably play it safe a little bit more. Like, is there any experience that kind of comes to mind where you kind of dealt with that? You don't have to say obviously company names or anything, but like more so the story.

Dave Lisowski19:46Yeah, yeah, I think of actually a client that I'm working with now. It was a recent way more recent experience where it wasn't particularly video, but he had tried hiring or bringing on or tried working with a couple of different people for marketing. So he's got this business. It's newer and he's trying to get traction with it.

Dave Lisowski22:10You said that flexibility with the merch company where they were like, yeah, like, tell us what you're looking for. We've got this, this and this. Same type of thing. I'm talking to them and I'm just saying like, look, tell me your situation. What do you actually want to happen here? What if we're talking again in 12 months and we're celebrating why, what needs to have happened for you to consider this a success? And then if we can make something happen and based on what

Kyrill24:01And it's also listening to them. I was just saying, it's also just like listening to your client to the lead, like sometimes they want to explain what their challenges are, and they want to make sure that you understand what their challenges are, what problems they're facing. Because then if they know that you understand it, then they'll be more inclined to listen to your solution rather than like you said, it's funny hearing you say about like a doctor, imagine a doctor just saying like, I went to this school, I went to this school, here's a pill. It's like, but I didn't tell you anything. How do you how can you just

Dario24:01There was an episode of… sorry, I'll go ahead.

Kyrill24:31Like you lose the lead right then and there. Exactly.

Dario24:34There was an episode of two Bobs I was listening to and they were talking about how sometimes during the sale process you need to shut up and just let the lead do most of the talking, right? Because they were talking about how that seems to be a very big problem with salespeople is that they just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and they're not listening. And they said something really interesting about how sometimes that might be due to the fact that the

Kyrill24:50Yeah.

Dario25:02the marketing side of the business hasn't done a good enough job. So the salesperson has to take on that role and like teach the lead about the company before they get into their process, which was really interesting. It was a really interesting episode. They also talked about how sometimes extroverts might be the wrong person for the job too, cause they talk too much and they don't listen. So introverts might be better at the sales process cause they're better at listening, but it's really good episode.

Kyrill25:25Hehehehe

Dave Lisowski25:30I think it just, it all comes back to control and dialing it in because there's this kind of expected thing or this expectation, right? That extroverted people are going to be great salespeople because they can go and talk. And that's kind of just the established thing when in reality you shouldn't be doing all that talking. Like you just said, the person who's talking more is…

Dario25:58They might talk themselves out of the room basically.

Kyrill26:01Yeah.

Dario26:06Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dario26:13losers.

Dave Lisowski26:27there's a power in silence where if you're not talking, somebody else feels the need to fill that void, just its human nature. And that is if that's the time where somebody is going to say things that are going to kind of hint at like, here's where my head's at. And so obviously in the movie, they use it in like a very manipulative way and that's not the goal. But if you were talking to somebody in a sales meeting,

Dario27:40Yeah, you got to just be asking enough questions to uncover if you're even a good fit, right? Trying to see what the problem is. Can you be the solution for that? And then just go from there. But you can't, you know, person asking the question, it's like when you have an interview, the interviewer is not doing most of the talking and you shouldn't be. So it's weird when the balance is off like that. So it's the same process here.

Dave Lisowski28:03Exactly.

Kyrill28:06One interesting thing I saw on your website was that you, what was it specifically focused on blue collar businesses? Is that like a niche that you kind of have kind of gone into or is that just kind of like one of one of your main markets that you kind of play in?

Dave Lisowski28:23Yeah, it's definitely, I would say the niche, that niche, niche, niche. It's the, I'm gonna, I always, whenever I have this conversation, I choose which one I'm gonna roll with. So for this conversation, I'm just gonna say niche. It's definitely the niche that we've focused in on and ended up in. It's with any niche, not like a linear path to get there, but, and it continues to develop like the current.

Dario28:30Nietzsche.

Kyrill28:31Nietzsche.

Dave Lisowski28:51wording there is blue collar brands or blue collar businesses. You know, a couple months from now it may change to we work with contractors or I use a lot of the time I say we work with home service businesses. So it's all the same. It's just which verbiage is gonna resonate more with people, but it is roofers, painters, HVAC companies, things like that, residential home services.

Kyrill29:12Yeah.

Dave Lisowski30:02Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear that you immediately knew what it meant. That means it's working too. Like I said, it's not a linear path to get there. I've talked to people before and I've actually mentioned this in like some interviews before where my experience with niching is that it's not just taking aim and running in that direction. It's like playing Battleship where you don't know what the other side looks like, but you know somewhere over there.

Dario31:09What about it, sorry to interrupt, but what about it wasn't clicking for you? Was it like the price ranges you were working with or was it like just the type of

Dave Lisowski31:16For me, it was that it wasn't typically high ticket. A lot of the ways that I'd learned and developed kind of our strategies is that this works really well for businesses who are high ticket businesses. There's a big trust factor. A lot of the health and wellness, like there were some that were like exclusive types of training and things like that. But by and large, it's a high volume type of play where, okay, we're gonna need

Dario33:30So you're looking for a client that would provide a lot of repeat business and that would also have the funds to be able to bring you on for it, right?

Dave Lisowski33:37Of course.

Kyrill33:38I mean, that's what we're always looking for in our industry is like, how do we find repeat business? Because yeah, the reality is that a lot of there are a lot of businesses out there which really only need a handful of videos in general. They are not. And when you think about it, not all companies are going to need video every month or every two months or every three months. Sometimes they just need. Yeah, or yeah, exactly. A lot of the time, it's like once a year, it really varies on

Dario34:00Most clients just once a year like that's the case with a lot of us

Kyrill34:08not only the businesses that you're in, but also depending on their size, what departments you're working with, because some departments literally only need one video, and then other departments might need one. So maybe there's that where you can find repeat business within a company where different departments, you can help them out. But then sometimes organizations are also so big, so you might get it in with one department you're doing once in a while, but then the other ones, they're working with other people depending on their goals and needs as well. So it's hard to find…

Dario34:57Go to guy.

Kyrill35:06over time, they're just going to keep coming to you because of that relationship you've built. And I guess that's why it's kind of like hit and sunk that battleship for you, right?

Dave Lisowski35:15Yeah, dude, that's actually, it's a very good way to put it. And a lot of, most of everything that you just said, like checks the boxes. Yeah. I don't think there was anything that you said that didn't check a box. I just think there's other parts outside of that too, that were like consideration factors. And some of them for me, one of the things with niching that I early on myself didn't really get, and I think a lot of people that don't think about,

Kyrill35:31course.

Dave Lisowski35:44is that it's not just picking an industry or picking like a type of business. There's different ways to niche. It can be a specific type of focus of what you want to do. It can be a certain type of person, certain characteristics of an owner that you want to work with. And for me, early on, it was not necessarily an industry. Like even before I focused in on fitness and wellness,

Dario37:32that's true. Yeah.

Dave Lisowski37:40five years in maybe, so they're doing well, but they're also understanding that they could be doing better and that they could grow this exactly. And they know like, well, social media is kind of where we're at, or like websites, people are, they're more receptive to this because they know there's runway ahead of them that they can still catch up to. So it's, yeah, it's all those things that you mentioned and then some, and I think that's…

Kyrill37:43Right.

Dario37:47They're still growing, yeah.

Dave Lisowski38:09The key takeaway is like, you will keep continuing to find more and more and more. I don't think we ever actually sink the battleship is the big thing.

Dario38:19When you were when you were first trying to find your target market like I was I'm wondering were you were you actively Doing outbound sales

Kyrill38:19Yeah.

Dave Lisowski38:32No, no, and truthfully, I do very little outbound sales. Like cold outbound has contributed very little overall over the years I've been doing this, which…

Dario38:46So you just decided to pivot and then, you know, change your website up, did your SEO and then just waited for them to come in?

Kyrill38:46Mm.

Dave Lisowski38:52It was pretty much, I, every year or so I take stock of, okay, how did the last year go? What projects were the best? What ones weren't? What do I want to do more of? What do I not want to do again? What was the most profitable? What had the shortest time turnarounds? And about two years ago is when I looked and I took note and I went, wow, the projects that are like construction or…

Dave Lisowski41:18getting in front of, we're more in line with the people that I wanted to be working with. So for me, it's always kind of taken that approach where it's like, where do I want at rest to be more rather than having to like continuously throw spears and try and like, you know, do the hunt, so to speak.

Kyrill41:40This is the classic example, that classic business saying where you have to build out your ideal customer profile, where it actually works, especially in our industry. That is a big challenge that a lot of video production companies face is they don't know who their ideal customer is, right? And it really is hard because sometimes it really is different almost every time. Like I, Darren and I think about the businesses that we've worked with over the last like two years and

Dario42:34then next year might be different though, right?

Kyrill42:39The thing is though, the one thing that Dave you've done right is you sat down and figured out what you wanted and when you know what your customer profile is, that's how you can start building out your content and your marketing to kind of attract more of those types of clients, right? Because then if you do more general video production outreach and marketing, you're gonna get a general inflow of clients because they can see that you can do a little bit of everything depending on what is needed.

Dave Lisowski43:14Yep.

Dario43:31But most of us, Kira, like most production companies are generalists. And I think we like being generalists in a way because we might have that short attention span. We like to see different things and everything. I think what Dave's done is what Dave's done, I would say, is probably in the minority because not a lot of companies niche into a specific industry, right?

Kyrill43:44But that's another aspect of it. Yeah.

Kyrill43:54But they also can't, but they also can't, that's the other thing.

Dario43:56But I don't think they want to because you're always it's hard to do and the risk is higher compared to just being able to do everything, right?

Dave Lisowski44:04Yeah, I think, yeah, you go, you go.

Kyrill44:04Well, there –

Kyrill44:09No, no, no, I was just gonna say like, that's the challenge is that how do you wanna maybe like figure out what your ideal customer profile is, but where Dario is coming from is also what happens also when those other companies come to you, you know, like you're not gonna turn down work. You wanna make sure that you also.

Dario44:22Kirill, I think what you're forgetting is like ideal customer profile for a lot of companies has like a dollar sign attached to it. It's not so much like an industry type. It's more so I wanna only do projects that are minimum 10K and up, for example, right? It's not so much like I wanna focus specifically on this industry.

Kyrill44:32Yeah

Dave Lisowski44:34Ha ha.

Dave Lisowski44:40Yep.

Kyrill44:44Yeah, that's what a lot of companies do, that's for sure.

Dario44:47Especially once you get bigger, like the overhead gets higher and like you again, you get to the point where you're like, okay, I'm now managing a business. I have to think about this and that.

Dave Lisowski44:47The –

Dario46:00How long ago did you start?

Dario46:09Okay. Okay.

Dave Lisowski46:17has contributed to this this niching here, or the niching versus the generalists. I think you've both got really good points. I do think some people don't have the desire to niche or to focus in. I think there's a there's a joy that comes from exploring all different businesses. And I think maybe to another extent, it's that some of those people that say they don't

Dave Lisowski48:38and then choosing to go and do it themselves. And because of that, they have such passion about what they do and this fire inside them to make it work because they've been on the other side of it. And they realize, I'm gonna do this my way and I understand how I can do this better for me. And those people, when you work with those people, that's like the best thing in the world. And because I've narrowed down so much to blue collar and home services,

Kyrill49:35There's a lot.

Dave Lisowski50:04I need to go do this.

Kyrill50:06Yeah, yeah, it's like, I need to go do this to pay the bills. There's that aspect. But again, it also, it really depends on, on everyone. Everyone, everyone is different. And one big, big, challenge potentially also is what is the scalability aspect as well? Because Dario was mentioning one aspect of like being able to, work on a variety of different industries and just kind of working with bigger budgets, you know, can also allow you to

Dave Lisowski50:53This is something that's been very, very insanely top of mind lately because I finally feel like the offer of what I'm leading with is very dialed in. I've always had, you know, like again, the three or four different types of projects and I've had processes and frameworks for all of them. But what I'm doing now, really, really I see

Kyrill53:21So it's more so in terms of like, like you said, you've created like a playbook or system for your entire client process from when they first call you to when you finally completed a project for them. You have a system where you're basic, you were whoever you need to bring on. You can scale up and down depending on the volume of work at this point. You've just developed a system that's so that's not necessarily foolproof is the right word to say, but

Dario54:16Can we know how big your team is first? Like is it… yeah.

Dave Lisowski54:19Yeah, on paper, like on, again, everybody's got the on paper and then who they bring on board. Like on paper is just me, it's a single member LLC. On operations, depending on the shoot, if it's something very simple, straightforward, I'll just go out. If I do have something that's a little bit more flushed out, typically have a crew of three where it's the same guys that I've been working with for years because I know they're great. We've basically come up together.

Kyrill55:25Yeah, okay. So it's very nimble and flexible at this point. It's very similar to us and a lot of other video production companies.

Dario55:35Yeah, you just scale up and down with freelancers depending on the project. That's like most companies to be honest with you.

Dave Lisowski55:39Yeah. And I don't think it makes sense for most people to grow to like huge bloated production company. Because again, it introduces bloat. And if you have the big contracts in a city, then you know it's guaranteed. Like, okay, we're going to have this huge project annually coming on. Sure, makes sense. But I just think for the majority, overwhelming majority people.

Kyrill55:39So do you, yeah. And do you.

Dave Lisowski56:08Running it this way makes sense.

Kyrill56:10Absolutely. The thing I'm curious about though, because you've really dialed in your process and you really have figured out kind of who you're going after and how you want to like serve them. Do you foresee yourself potentially getting to a point where like a lot of these clients are coming to you that you feel like you need to bring on more of like a permanent team? Like obviously it doesn't have to be something like 10, 15, 20 people, but maybe having like a core three to five person group, which is really all you really need in our industry.

Dave Lisowski56:48I wanna keep it as nimble as possible because…

Dave Lisowski58:53I've never run ads to them. I never even like really market them that much just because that's never been my leading thing, right? It's just, hey, I know it helps people so hell yeah. And they get insane great feedback. So it kind of all clicked to be like, look, let's just keep dialing this in. I know that I don't love the shooting and editing. I love the communication aspect. I can play that support role for people.

Dario59:50Have you thought about maybe like, because if you do have it down to such a process and it's like step by step, you can achieve it type of situation. Why don't you just like open up another company in another city where you might have a big market in and just like do your sales. Yeah. Do your own sales remotely from Philadelphia and then just use freelancers to execute.

Kyrill01:00:05Your own franchise basically. Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:00:12I've thought about that as well. But one of the key things for me is that I don't know necessarily the degree to which I want to be hands on in operations. What I mean by that is like lifestyle design, you know, if you want to zoom out that far, I want to be able to unplug because right now it's nonstop like

Dave Lisowski01:02:37some different coaching things I've been involved with. It's it to me, it just makes sense. But that's kind of the grand test, right? It's like, let's see. Because if you test it and nothing works, then it's like, all right, maybe maybe it wasn't as cracked up.

Dario01:02:50It could be that the market's not big enough either, right? Because again, even when it comes to video, not a lot of us go into it. And not a lot of us will niche specifically into blue collar work, for example, right? So you're targeting a very specialized part of the market, right?

Kyrill01:02:56Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:03:11To clarify, this system, it's like I apply the system to blue collar, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dario01:03:16But you can use it for anything else. I see, okay.

Kyrill01:03:18it's more general in terms of, yeah. Okay. Cause a lot of, a lot of companies when they, when they come up with the system is like, they're going to figure out ways to like grow the business to, in some way to be able to accommodate like if more scale is needed. Right. And like Daria was mentioning, like, what if, for example, you grew a core team of like, say five people, maybe you have like, you could start with like two or three with you in Philadelphia to help kind of be the core.

Dario01:03:58Like you're doing like big picture stuff, because there's some companies I noticed when I was doing outreach for the show, like where they got offices in like 14 different places. Like they all got like producers running that production company, same production company, just in a different city. It seems like that's a natural progression of where you would be heading in based on what you're telling us. It's just strange to hear that you're like taking a step back and say, no, I'll just sell a course for it or like selling a license for it.

Kyrill01:04:03Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:04:10Mm -hmm.

Kyrill01:04:17Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:04:24Yeah, well to clarify, it's, you know, the way that I see it is that there's a lot of those companies that grow those teams and they have multiple offices in multiple different places. You know, I know some people that run that way too. And those operations, there's one, so much more overhead. Like the overhead of having a team that's built up that high is so high, so the pressure to consistently

Dario01:05:51Master Filmmaker. What's that one, Kirill?

Dave Lisowski01:05:52Yeah.

Kyrill01:05:54Masterclass filmmaker, $100 ,000 a year, a year revenue.

Dario01:05:56Masterclass series.

Dave Lisowski01:05:58Dude, there's so many and like five years ago, six years ago when I was getting started, it was way less frequent. But now, yeah, dude, like I remember I was trying to figure out, again, I graduated college. I decided I wanna, I'll never have this little responsibility again in my life. Let's give it a shot.

Kyrill01:06:09almost non -existent back then.

Dave Lisowski01:06:23I went to YouTube University, how to run a video business, you know, like how to get clients. And there was like a couple people talking about it. And that's kind of where I naturally gravitated to. And since then, I mean, like the community I joined back then had like 700 members by like a year and a half ago, it had like 7000. So it's just the number of people in the space overall has grown tremendously. And it keeps

Kyrill01:06:26Yeah.

Dario01:06:27Yeah

Dave Lisowski01:06:52growing and it's crazy. And so, so many of these people who have come up and figured out, you know, this is what worked for me. They're all, everyone's got a sales course nowadays. Everyone's got their own process for like, here's how you start charging more. Here's how you start getting people on retainer. Here's the easiest way to get to a 10K a month. And having seen the backend of a lot of these things, it's like,

Kyrill01:08:30Listen, this is those guys where you hear the same BS or like a different version of the same BS. Those guys are the financial gurus of our industry, okay? They're not making money from their clients. They're making, their clients are us, are us, video production companies, video production professionals, the new starting videographer, where if you put in 500 bucks for this course, you're gonna learn a heck of a lot.

Dario01:08:3620 ,000 a month.

Dario01:08:46is you.

Dario01:08:56Every time I saw ads for that I'm like, okay if you actually knew how to make thirty thousand a month Why on earth would you tell anyone else about it? I would just scale it from that point

Kyrill01:09:02You wouldn't be doing this.

Dave Lisowski01:09:05Well, so here's what I've learned also because, dude, I'm one of the most skeptical people that I know. And so anytime I see that stuff, I'm like, come on now. I know a lot of people in video that are making really good money and doing really well and having $30 ,000 a month. And some of them,

Kyrill01:09:18Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:09:35Some of them, here's where I think it kind of splits for me is like some of them continue to do that and are like, okay, there's a way to now teach this also and help other people and that's awesome. So like, let's do that. Whether it's just because, whether it's as selfless as like, let's share knowledge or even if it's, hey, there's another stream of revenue. Okay, but it's like,

Kyrill01:10:52by a camera, step one.

Dario01:10:53Hehehehe

Dave Lisowski01:11:04like looking into, knowing who you're buying into. And regardless of who it is, you'll see testimonials praising them because they get people results, they help people. And at the end of the day, I used to, because I again said I've had a lot of beef with this whole internet coaching culture. If people's lives are being changed because they paid you money to learn something and they taught you and then you were able to implement it,

Dario01:11:16Hehehe

Dave Lisowski01:11:35At the end of the day, can I really hate on that? I can maybe hate on the way it's marketed and it feels gross, but you're making an impact on people. It's the means to an end is how you advertise it, I guess.

Kyrill01:11:52thing is it's like there's a lot of people that actually are helping which a lot of what they're selling and pitching a lot of that is accurate you know it's like you know like the biggest challenge for a lot of video production professionals like how do I get consistent work on a monthly basis how do I ensure that I'm going to be busy six months down the line like what systems are out there and there are legitimate people and companies out there that are pitching that and providing a service that like you said are actually gonna give you the value like look if you pay

Dave Lisowski01:13:05Yeah.

Kyrill01:13:21skill sets we want to improve a little bit more so we know what to look for.

Dario01:13:23But we'd have to go through the course to find out if it's bullshit or not, Kirill. You don't know who it is until you go through their course.

Kyrill01:13:27But sometimes, yeah, that's, but sometimes that is the other aspect. It's more so it's.

Dave Lisowski01:13:31Isn't that the, it's the full circle where we talk like we've been burned by somebody in the past, you know, I bought hats and they sucked and then I was nervous to buy hats again. It's the same thing.

Kyrill01:13:38Yeah.

Dario01:13:42Yeah, full set, we're back at the hats. You gotta buy the hat first though to find out.

Kyrill01:13:42You gotta bite, you gotta go through it.

Dave Lisowski01:13:46Hahaha

Kyrill01:13:48Someone's got to be the guinea pig, you know, that's what this industry is. Someone has to be the guinea pig, you know, that's why…

Dario01:13:52I'm proud to say I've never been the guinea pig for a course though. But I am curious about your course, you gotta send it over, I wanna check it out.

Dave Lisowski01:13:56Well, and here's the –

Kyrill01:13:56Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the other thing. Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:14:02Yeah, dude, I'll just give you access. Because here's the thing, if there's so many people who are like, they stop doing video and they just shift into courses, and part of me is like, fair enough, respect the hustle. For me, the courses have never been my main source of income. It's like, I'll see something come in and I'll be like, cool, hell yeah. And then I'll email or message the person and be like, hey,

Dario01:14:45Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:14:59I did, dude, I oversold the hell out of that. I was like, you'll get, or I over offered, I was like, you'll get, yeah, yeah, I was like, you'll get four weeks of individual calls and also a group call every week. And like all this stuff, like dude, I was just like, I just wanna make sure this is great. And then the next one I did, I was like, no charge. I was like, I just want people to come in and test this stuff and make sure that it works. So like, that's the thing. If you were just,

Kyrill01:15:04Over delivered. Over delivered.

Dave Lisowski01:15:28launching out into the world and you saw it from someone else you're like alright I could charge five grand and put this offer out there I need guinea pigs it's like dude come on like test your shit

Kyrill01:15:37No, no, no, that's, yeah. It's like when you're starting in the industry as a videographer or as a video production professional, the very first videos you're charging, you're not gonna be able to charge five, 10 grand per video. The very first video that I made money on, I charged like 100, 150 bucks. And that was like the system for many months. It's like, all right, I'm just going to learn an experiment and try new things.

Dario01:16:46You know, at the beginning of the year, I just remembered this. I pitched Kirill on creating our own course, but we were going to, we were going to just do a free end. Like the whole purpose of the course was actually to find out how to improve our process. Cause I was like, we have a process, but it hasn't been put like down to paper yet. So I was like, this would be a good way to force us to put it on paper. And then we would look at it and maybe get feedback on it and see where we would improve. But when anything else in our business, it always got like side swiped.

Kyrill01:17:24but it's just your system.

Dave Lisowski01:17:30Yeah, it's kind of like, it's, it's, there's multiple layers to it because it's like, so for example, to give some context to it, like the most recent course that I, that I dove into, and then I still kind of a continuous process of building out, but it's for testimonials. And it's my just five part framework for like, testimonials that are designed to kick ass, it's called score. So it's

Kyrill01:18:04Nice.

Dave Lisowski01:18:29And so it's just kind of like a deep dive into that. It's something I've run with for years, but I was like, OK, I know this works for me. People have asked me about it. I've told them about it. They've loved it. Let's finally, like, put it into play. And so when I was just getting people to test it, it was mainly like, look, I know this works for me. I'm not necessarily I even told people I'm like, look, when I look for your feedback, it's not necessarily on the actual framework itself because

Kyrill01:19:14Yeah.

Kyrill01:19:26Well, it's like the way you're going about it is definitely, it's a unique one to you, right? Like everyone sometimes needs feedback on their systems and their approach from like outside perspective, because you never know. And here's the other thing. What people need to realize is that the system is going to constantly be improving. You're never done figuring out your system, right? And like there's always other factors. Like I'm just even like…

Dario01:21:06Time intensive?

Kyrill01:21:13to like the first or second draft a lot of the time, right? Getting all the footage organized, getting everything kind of cut together with the music. But sometimes what really adds the spark of a business is like, you know, having your own input, right? So systems have to improve. You have to think of like, how can you elevate your business, you know, in terms of like changing things up constantly. Darya, like I was just mentioning to Dave how like,

Dario01:22:09Yeah, that would be good.

Kyrill01:22:10Again, it all depends on the projects you're working on, the clients you're working with, but there is no, I'm finally done with my process. That's the system. Like even when you have yours fully packaged, even ready to go for other people to work, you're going to be like, I figured this out. Like, let me change this up.

Dave Lisowski01:22:27It still changes dude. That's one of the things that I actually have on the one course landing page is like, this continues to improve. The first one I put out has been out for like two years, a little over two years at this point. People, like Tom's a great feedback and I still am like, hey, there are things that I continue to improve upon with my own process, with the resources here.

Dario01:24:06You know, there's the…

Kyrill01:24:06Sometimes teaching others, sometimes teaching others can actually help you learn, like remember and retain things a little bit better as well. And like that was something that was always recommended when we were in like university or something, like sometimes show someone else a whole process or teach them something. And then that way you'll be like, that also makes more sense to me because of explaining it to someone. Sometimes that's just what it is. And funny thing though is that anytime someone says those who can't do teach,

Dario01:24:35who can't teach.

Dave Lisowski01:24:39hahahaha

Dario01:24:43Yeah, do you know that the problem we have with a lot of the the people that that offer courses or you know That stuff it's not so much the teaching aspect. I think I just realized what it is. It's the fact that they're promising Something because they're always saying you can get this much a month You will get this much a month stuff like that. I think that's where the main issue comes in It's that they're promising something

Dave Lisowski01:24:45you

Kyrill01:24:58Yes.

Dave Lisowski01:25:03Yup.

Kyrill01:25:07Promising results that are unrealistic is the biggest red flag for a lot of these. There's very few courses out there where you can just, where they'll tell you this is what you're going to learn from it and you're going to learn how to do X, Y, and Z. They're not saying you're gonna earn. I think also, yeah, I think the problem is once you start attaching dollar values to what you're promising, that's where

Dave Lisowski01:25:07Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:25:14Yep.

Dario01:25:27They're pulling a Jordan Belfort, that's what they're doing, otherwise.

Kyrill01:25:37that's when things get a little bit more sketchy. I think being more upfront and honest, it's like these things will help you improve in your business. I don't know how much, it really varies. And that's the thing that people need to drive the point home is that your business is unique to you. What worked for me might work for me, but that doesn't necessarily, it's not necessarily gonna work for you. So this is why it's always tricky when it comes to selling systems or processes or things like that, because we all have very different.

Dario01:25:39Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:25:44Yup. Yup.

Dave Lisowski01:25:52Mm -hmm.

Dario01:25:56Might not work for you.

Kyrill01:26:05circumstances that you can't really provide a one size fits all solution all the time, right? And the funny thing is that we've, Dario and I have really solidified this by doing this podcast because we've talked to so many different companies and almost everyone has had a completely different approach with how they've gone into the business. There's like small things that are consistent between everybody, but there's no like…

Dave Lisowski01:26:09Exactly. Yup.

Kyrill01:26:31A to Z of pre -production, production, post -production, sales and delivery that you're 100 % gonna be successful like me if you just do that. It's never been like that.

Dario01:26:41That's like my main qualm with a lot of these, a lot of books that offer that kind of stuff. So not just like forget the courses that people are offering, but just like books in general. Cause it's always like, they mentioned, I did this and that to get to where I am and you can do the same. But they forget to mention that, you know, their dad was a billionaire or like they were given, you know, their uncle was like an executive at this big ass company. I gave them all these contracts. They forget to mention all that stuff. Like it's.

Dave Lisowski01:26:41Exactly.

Kyrill01:26:59haha

Dave Lisowski01:27:07Yeah, with a small touch of generational wealth and a bit of nepotism, you too can find the success. Yeah, yeah, dude, it's you hit the nail on the head. That's that's the thing is like that's always been my beef with with systems too. It's like so many so many courses and programs are like if you follow these, just follow the system. Just do this to a T.

Dario01:27:13Yeah, silver spoon.

Dave Lisowski01:27:34and you'll get the success, we guarantee it. And they're even like, we'll give you your money back if you do all the steps and it doesn't work. And my thing has always been like, yeah, I mean, my thing is, yeah, if you've ever gotten your money back, drop it in the chat. But that's the thing is, for me, I mean, if it hasn't…

Kyrill01:27:40No, they're not. They're not giving money back.

Dario01:27:42Has anyone gotten their money back? I'm curious.

Kyrill01:27:50Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would actually like to know. Did they actually?

Dave Lisowski01:27:57come through at this point yet. I'm like, I always need to do things a little bit different. I want to do things my own way with a unique stamp of approval. And for me, I was like, I don't want to just plug into an exact system. Like I've, I've gone through, cause I've, I've bought my fair share of like courses and stuff too. And there's, there's one that I won't name that is very, very, very popular, longstanding one that I bought into and

Dave Lisowski01:30:11It's a here's when you're when you're doing the things that you do. Here's maybe a different way to think about it that you might not have before. And then you it's on you to integrate it how you want into what you do. Because it's yeah, if you just say, here's the playbook go. It's not a right fit for everybody, and they're not going to get the success.

Kyrill01:30:33The funny thing is it's like when you think about it though, sometimes though people are also, they might think something they can't buy into it unless they're gonna get some kind of result out of it, right? It's kind of like those classic business sayings where it's like, you need to identify your target market, you need to understand your niche, you need to do this. Like a lot of these concepts and principles, they are very general. But the thing that people don't realize is that you won't understand them and learn them unless you really are able to

Dario01:31:00Unless you're in it.

Kyrill01:31:01figure out personal, yeah, unless you're in it and you figure out personally how to apply it to your business because so many times, you know, as you've been running a business for a while, you figure out how these concepts really apply to you and why they make sense and why they're so valuable. So it's gonna be very hard to charge money for a system or course where it tells you like, you have to be doing pre -production for your business. You have to do a script, you have to do a storyboard, you have to do this. Okay, great, yeah, that's general.

Dave Lisowski01:31:34Go to YouTube for that.

Kyrill01:32:00business practices, you know, that they could probably find somewhere else. It's like, it's, it's going to be hard to, it's going to be hard to, to sell that. So it's, it is like a fine balance, a little bit of like kind of what you got to find that will work. And unfortunately, the, the bullshit artists, they're really driving home the, the dollar value outcomes that will come from buying their courses, because that's what people respond to, especially people just jumping into this, you know, like imagine you're a

Dave Lisowski01:32:26Yup.

Kyrill01:32:29a filmmaker just jumping into the industry now and then you're thinking, like I need to get like five, $10 ,000 a month, you know, just to kind of stay afloat. Boom, you Google that you're going to find all those guys selling you. So it's, it's tough.

Dave Lisowski01:32:42Yup. Dude, it's not a sexy cell talking about like, you're gonna get an understanding of like the frameworks and like, to clarify to you know, the stuff that I put, it dives very deep into the things. It's like, okay, here's the understanding of the, like, it's not like you need to do pre -production. It's like, hey,

Dave Lisowski01:34:52I don't want to be that guy that's like, dude, you really need to go through this course. But then other people bring it up and tag it. And I'm like, I guess I'm doing something right. That's cool. And that's not as profitable to do it that way. But when you're an Instagram course seller, you want to blow it up as much as you can. So you're going to make the bold claims, I guess.

Dario01:35:22I think if we get any dislikes on this episode we'll know who it's from. Yeah, okay, we're… Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's late.

Kyrill01:35:22people.

Kyrill01:35:27Yeah. People that don't want to buy into something sexy, essentially, that's what it is. But that's I think that's a good point to to leave it at. But, Dave, I know like this this conversation went like Dario had had to take a little quick bathroom break at one point, and I'm already reaching that limit to.

Dave Lisowski01:35:28Hahaha

Dave Lisowski01:35:37my lord.

Dario01:35:44I couldn't take it, bro. Like 10 minutes into it, I was like, I think I need to go. But I'm like, let me hold out. I was like, it'll be an hour, right? Hour 20 minutes. I'm like, my God, I'm dying.

Kyrill01:35:49Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Lisowski01:35:53Damn.

Kyrill01:35:55But Dave, thank you so much for chatting with us and sharing.

Dario01:35:59Where can people find your course?

Dave Lisowski01:36:02davelisowski.com, there's, or davelisowski.com forward slash courses. I don't even have like, I have just specific landing pages. I have to make the page and then I'll send it to you. So, shows how little I promote my own stuff, right? foxalmedia.com, yep, is the…

Kyrill01:36:12We'll link it.

Dario01:36:16Okay, all right.

Kyrill01:36:16Send it to us and…

Dario01:36:24F -O -X -A -L. Which, how did you come up with that name, Foxal?

Dave Lisowski01:36:29The short story is that I had way too much time when I was first starting the business so I could think about it, but the short story is it's basically an English translation of my last name. Lisowski means of foxes and this kind of means of fox. So yeah, but the long story is for another time.

Dario01:36:45really? Okay. Was it because like someone in your… Okay. Someone in your family must have like had to do with foxes or something, you know, like fox hunts or something.

Kyrill01:36:46Nice. That's cool.

Dave Lisowski01:36:56It means somewhere far back in Polish cultural stuff, we descended from like somewhat royalty, I guess, I don't know. But none of us in recent generations have seen that type of wealth.

Kyrill01:37:02Okay.

Dario01:37:05okay.

Dario01:37:10Okay, perfect. All right. Well, thank you so much, Dave.

Kyrill01:37:11Nice. All right.

Dave Lisowski01:37:15Yeah, thank you guys, appreciate you having me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.