Video in Modern Marketing (ft. Mac N' Cheese Media)

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Kyrill00:11Okay, guys, we got a special treat for you today. Today on Creatives Grab Coffee, we got Sean from Mac and Cheese. And contrary to popular belief, it's not a food company. What do we do? We interview people from video production companies. So we got a unique name here, that's for sure. So Sean, just before we kind of jump into it, tell us a little bit about how you came up with Mac and Cheese for your company name.

Sean Webster00:39Man, I really wish it was a much cooler story than this. So my business partners are music people. They just got a record deal last year and they're out making humorous music, of like Weird Al Yankovitch style, Lonely Island, that type of music. So creating content with them was called Austin and Colin. So they should be, they're actually pitching the final record today.

Dario01:00What are they called?

Sean Webster01:09actually as we speak. So anyways, they've always created really humorous stuff. basically it was, we wanted to create a brand that was professional looking, but also, you know, kind of lean into our more humorous side of things that was just kind of fun because we just love to do the more humorous side of content. So we honestly sat in probably a room for

Dario02:32The media sold him on it. I thought he was going to say we were eating mac and cheese for lunch and then we're like, what about mac and cheese media?

Kyrill02:34The media did, yeah.

Sean Webster02:36and it was available.

Sean Webster02:43No, here's the thing. It has been probably one of the most impactful things that we did because it literally like anytime that we walk into one of our shoots and we've got shoots have got like massive noodles on the front of them. And everybody is always just like, where did you get that shirt? And I don't know, it's a stupid as simple as shirt, but it is literally the most memorable thing. And everybody's always like mac and cheese and they just, know, it's so it's stuck. loved

Dario03:45I've been telling Kyril for the past five years that we should be rebranding to Pizza Productions. And I think this episode has sealed it for us. And you know, the easiest way to pitch it is, well, know, video production is like a pizza. There are many different types, many different toppings, except for Hawaiians. Exactly.

Kyrill03:52What?

Kyrill03:57He's never mentioned this once. He's never mentioned this once.

Kyrill04:08Different ways you can slice it. Different ways you can slice it.

Sean Webster04:12That's true, that's Lord.

Kyrill04:16I will say though, it really does resonate your name. like, I remember when I first, when Dario first set it up and I saw the name of your company, I'm like, mac and cheese. Like I'm curious what kind of content they make, you know? I mean, I'm wondering, luckily I'd just eaten oatmeal before I went on. So I was already kind of filled, but you you're thinking about maybe I want to get some mac and cheese for later. Classic KD.

Dario04:26Did you feel hungry, Kirill? Kirill probably saw that and felt hungry.

Dario04:37I want some mac and cheese.

Sean Webster04:38Yeah. Well, I will say there are times when people will reach out and they're like, you know, do you guys like, are you guys are like food companies? So it does happen sometimes. so, you know, it is par for the course.

Kyrill04:52Yeah.

Dario04:53We've had that happen for time lapse. We've had that happen for time lapse productions or like time lapse videos. Like they'll reach out. It's like, guys do time lapses? And I was like, no, but maybe, Karel, we should.

Sean Webster05:05Yeah, we always joked that we were going to get branded like mac and cheese bowls that we basically could just like as we sign on a new client, like send them, know, like a branded mac and cheese with a really cool looking spoon and just be like, welcome to the family guys.

Kyrill05:05You know, I'm just throwing this

Dario05:17That's awesome.

Dario05:21Nice. nice. That's good.

Sean Webster05:25You know, we're not new around. True. It's cheesy. It is a cheesy. If you knew my business partners, it well, and they do that all the time. Like dad jokes are never, never not in just full amount around here.

Kyrill05:25That's a lot better than a mug.

Dario05:28Nittling around. So cheesy. So cheesy!

Kyrill05:32Are you?

Kyrill05:36This is nothing but

Dario05:46One of our friends just had a baby and he's been sending us like dad reels on Instagram and in the group chat. I don't know, we've been trying to tell them they're not too funny, but like he keeps sending them now and I've noticed like a descent into dadness that I don't like too much.

Kyrill06:04It just happens for

Sean Webster06:04Yeah, it happened. Well, and you got kids?

Dario06:09No, no, no, not yet, not yet. Couple of years.

Kyrill06:10Not yet,

Sean Webster06:10No, not yet. So I have four. So I at least I know. Yeah, four. Two of them.

Dario06:17You got a video crew in the future. You got DP, you got audio, you got PA, you got direct – director –

Kyrill06:18Wow.

Sean Webster06:26Now, I think one of them is going to be a politician, one of them is going to be an entrepreneur, one of is going to be a pastor, and one of them is going to be either a princess or a dog. Well, two of them are already in college. Two of them are already in college. So two of them are going in 40.

Dario06:36How do you know this already? I know. Huh? OK, OK. Dude, how old are you? Yeah.

Kyrill06:38They're all such different directions.

Kyrill06:45Wait, how old are you?

Kyrill06:51okay, yeah, but I wouldn't

Sean Webster06:51That means I had him at 20. Yeah. My 20, yeah, I was still a kid, still a very young kid, just figuring out getting out of college. It was difficult. I had twins at 20. Well, not me physically, but yeah. Yeah, so.

Dario06:51okay, okay, that's doable. But still, man, you had the miangay.

Dario07:02I can't imagine having a kid at 20.

Dario07:10What is that movie with Schwarzenegger when he gets pregnant? Could have been him.

Kyrill07:12In the…

Sean Webster07:16Yeah, yeah. God, what was that? No, but so I've got twins that are 20. I've got a 12 year old and then I've got a four year old. So my wife decided she wanted to start all over again. So I think the math works out. I'll I'll be, I'll be, I'll be 56 by the time everyone else is out of the house.

Kyrill07:17Hahaha.

Kyrill07:28Wow.

Dario07:32god yeah, wow that is a big gap.

Dario07:39Okay, that's not terrible,

Sean Webster07:42It's not bad. It's not bad.

Kyrill07:42curious, I'm curious having kids and two kids so early on in life, like how did you go about your career in that sense, you know, right out the gate? Like I know a lot of people in our space, you know, first work in the industry for a while.

Dario07:56They're waiting to get their careers settled before they have kids. You did it the other way.

Kyrill07:59or at least started, right? Like did your kids come before you jumped into video or like started your business or how did that

Sean Webster08:06No, dude, I actually kind of accidentally ended a video. So my background is in graphic design and marketing. And that's kind of like what I went to college for. You know, I had a colorful past, we'll just say I'm a recovering drug addict, alcoholic, you know, sitting over 16 years clean, but at the same time, you know, definitely having kids pushed me into really growing up.

Sean Webster10:2645 50 clients on you know monthly retainers of four to six thousand dollars a month and a little over two years and just you know loved it and I you know got to get into a lot of aspects of marketing because it didn't have the means to you know kind of hire on other people and I was avid I was learning I wanted to learn I was just consuming so much so and that was really when like social media was really starting to like get going and I was just learning all aspects of marketing of what that looked

Sean Webster12:41We know you know how to do marketing stuff, which you want to help us with our brand. We're doing video stuff, we don't know how to get it out there, we don't know how to distribute it, we just need some help. I was like, yeah, sure, I've got the time, let's do it. So we worked out a little deal, and these are guys I've built a friendship with over the years and just love the content and stuff that they did. And started having a lot of fun and really just helping them grow that brand, just add distribution for them and

Sean Webster14:57the content that I had to actually market with. So being able to be in this and actually like be a part of the process and like, you know, have it be informed by the marketing side of it. Like I was just like, this is just so much better. And then being able to like push it out into the world, look at the metrics, see how things were going, you know, make different cut downs of it, you know, put this stuff on the landing page and really just like build this holistic marketing plan built around the video.

Dario16:52You guys chose an interesting time, because the month after that, the world went to

Kyrill16:54Yeah, the year, not the month.

Sean Webster16:56No, it was, it was almost a year. Um, like just, just over a year, like we did foot in, like we did really amazing things in 2019. And, um, I think by the end of 2019, we had hit like almost $200 ,000 in revenue that first year, um, which isn't crazy, but you know, coming out of the gate, like we were like super stoked about it. Um, and then COVID happened and it was just like, Oh my God, what are we going to do? Um, but you

Dario17:15it's good.

Sean Webster17:25We basically just decided that, you know, we really loved working together. I, at that point in, decided that I was kind of done with marketing. Not necessarily done, but like, I just didn't want to like do full service marketing for companies anymore. And I really loved production. You know, my role typically in production for the majority of the time has been in producing or being an art director.

Dario18:39No, you mentioned that in the intro call. I don't think we have it in Canada, do we, Kirill? Do we? okay, okay.

Kyrill18:43We do, we do have it here. I've seen it at gas stations. I've seen it at gas stations.

Sean Webster18:43Yeah.

Sean Webster18:47You gotta get an IC man. That is like one of the most iconic things from my childhood. Dude, love IC. It was like one of those. It was one of those legacy brands. Like they've been around forever. You know, so like IC, Dippin' Dots, Harlem Globetrotters, you know, a lot of these companies that have been around forever, but never really used video.

Dario18:50He's still pitching for them.

Kyrill18:54That's, that's, yeah.

Sean Webster19:11And they're now coming into you know the age where it's like everybody's doing video It's like you have to do it so being able to like link arms with them and like really kind of lean into marketing and the just the overall Ideation process and coming up with content that can kind of service those goals man. That's what really drives us That's what we love doing like yes, we love you know creating narrative story based content We love doing the humorous side of stuff, but at the end of the day like we want to make sure that we're basically

Dario19:53You know, you mentioned how you used to work at a marketing agency and I'm just curious, because you were on the inside basically, right? How was the experience in creating video content being in a marketing agency and not having the background? And also, why do they always place it as a low priority?

Sean Webster20:16I mean, there's so many different things that are going on on the campaign side of things from strategy to managing customer budgets to distribution models and how we're going to get those things out there. PR pieces, building the social media strategy behind it, the email marketing strategy, prepping the landing pages. There's just so many little pieces.

Sean Webster22:41like no one trusts you. Like people are just gonna move on to the next thing. Like that's just the way it is.

Kyrill22:47It's funny because how you mentioned how like in the whole process of when you're creating all these campaigns and there are a lot of different moving parts, it makes sense that a lot of marketers are going to probably leave video sometimes to be like more of an afterthought because think about it like when you're running your own business, like you're going to be focusing on all the elements that you know and you have control over and try to put a little bit more emphasis on that rather than put all your eggs into a basket of someone else, right? It's

Sean Webster23:43Absolutely.

Kyrill23:46One thing I was actually curious about because you guys have been fairly new for so long and there and you've worked with so many different legacy brands, like you mentioned, how did you guys come about to start working with them? Because usually when it comes to really massive legacy companies, they tend to usually go straight to advertising or marketing companies. Is that kind of how you ended up working with them or was it a little bit?

Sean Webster24:08Absolutely.

Sean Webster26:01colleagues to random people that we weren't even 100 % sure if it actually was them anymore and they were like looking at the emails and we basically just started sending out emails then we would follow up with text message and phone calls and then it was like walking into these places and we just really started doubling down on like we don't have any other option and we want to do video and we want to keep going and we just we have to figure it out. luckily one of the first ones that happened

Dario26:35okay, nice.

Sean Webster26:57really, really cool companies. And my business partners actually went to high school with the marketing director of at that point, from the Harlem globe charters. And they basically were really leaning into their YouTube channel because, because of COVID. and they couldn't do like live shows anymore. So basically they were like, we've got to figure out our YouTube channel because we lost all revenue and we've got to figure it out now. So basically he reached out to us

Kyrill28:16Whoa.

Sean Webster28:23But it's on YouTube. It's pretty crazy. But so I mean, but that's what it So basically It was it was super fun. So basically it was leaning into those relationships So, you know fast forward a little bit We basically we've been using that tactic forever. It's like, you know, we basically do data mining we go

Kyrill28:26I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. I saw the video on your website. looked like fun.

Sean Webster28:46you know, companies and their email addresses and we just start reaching out. It's like there's no shame in it. It's like, are you going to say yes or they're going to say no? And you know, with IC, it was just right time, know, right place, right time. We sent out an email and they basically, you know, kind of checked us out a little bit and they were looking to do some fun content and we're local. And it just basically the first video they were going to hire us for, it never even worked out. But because we went to their location,

Kyrill29:22Wow.

Sean Webster29:44We've talked with some other people and we really loved what you guys were about, which you want to potentially kind of figure this out. And they pitched us an idea and it was a little outside of the scope of what we did, but we just said yes. You know, they wanted us to do a little bit of like live performance and video. So it was like we had the capabilities to figure it out and make it happen. But we just, knew it was such an awesome opportunity that we just said yes and we said, we'll figure it out.

Kyrill30:40Wow.

Sean Webster31:04that human interaction, especially when it's authentic, it really means something to people. And I think people can see it. They can definitely feel it when you're in person. And we really lean into

Dario31:14So what do you do when you show up to their office? Because they're not expecting you, right? You're just showing up out of the blue, right? What do you just say?

Sean Webster31:22Yeah. Yes, some of them. Well, it's really, it's really, so one of the things that I learned a long time ago, when I was doing, so the first marketing agency that I worked at was with a, a dental marketing firm. and it was doing dental, dental marketing. it was so riveting. but I learned during that time period that if I was going to talk to the doctor, I had to win over the receptionist. They had the keys to the kingdom.

Sean Webster33:43kind of chat about what your marketing goals are and just see if we can help you in any way. If not, no harm, no foul. Wish you guys the best and know that we'll continue to ruse you on from the sidelines. And it's really just, it's just repetition of

Dario33:59Wait, and you said you do a, can I just ask a question about the data mining, Cause you mentioned you were, do data mining and whatnot. So are you sending out like a ton of emails each day or like, is it very like targeted stuff? Like you might see a company and you're like, yeah, like I really want to get that company as a client. And then you just kind of focus all in on

Kyrill33:59It's funny, because,

Kyrill34:03Yeah, yeah, go, go. Yeah, go.

Kyrill34:16targeted outreach.

Sean Webster34:24So right now, it's the latter. It's the very targeted approach, of like not a ton of emails going out. I'm in a place right now where I just hired on an agency, and this was really hard for me because I am a graphic designer and because I can build websites and I can do those things, but I've just learned that my time is really valuable and not that I'm important.

Dario35:35It's not bad, you did a good job though.

Sean Webster35:50You know, just all the different production companies, like we're up there in the top five and I'm totally fine with that. But right now what I know is that my website isn't converting. The conversion rate optimization on my website isn't hitting the way that it needs to. Like I can track and I can see all the different things. And based on the analytics, it's just not, people are not able to really learn who we are, know specifically what we do and find exactly what they're looking for. So I hired this company to help me come in and redo all those things.

Dario37:21What's that?

Dario37:30okay, okay. interesting.

Dario37:40I see, Yeah.

Sean Webster37:45it cost me way too much to have him full time. so basically like as soon as this website's done, as soon as our, you know, new marketing collateral is done, we will be doing a lot more, ongoing outreach where we have, like we're building lists right now. you know, we're prospecting different clients, you know, based on the type of work that we've done and the things that we're trying to grow into. you know, we're really narrowing down the style of content we do. Like you, you guys know,

Sean Webster40:11you know, get revenue from these clients that only come one, two, three times a year. so it's like really just trying to lean more into it. So, you know, trying to get into that more holistic marketing, putting those things out there, but also then trying to offer the clients that we already have more expanded services. and this is not something that I'm putting on my website right now, just because we don't have the capacity to do it, but I started this company with my business partners doing ad distribution.

Dario41:34Is ad buying more so for stuff that goes on like TV or like billboards or is it also for social media? Is it? How social?

Kyrill41:41It's also social, it's also social, I think.

Sean Webster41:42Social media. Yeah, like Instagram ads. You can even do ad buying just on your organic social media. Because here's the thing, there's so many people online that are trying to get people's attention. And if everybody's doing messages, if you're not paying for it, you're only gonna get so much reach. It is just inevitable that you're gonna, you could post three times a day and different people are gonna see that message. The same person, the likelihood of them seeing the same message is so slim to none.

Dario42:19Yeah, it was just the term for me because I thought it was like, you hear people refer to it in different ways like video marketing or just paid marketing. And then ad buying was also referring to the same

Kyrill42:34Yeah, it's for that as well.

Sean Webster42:34Yeah, I mean, it's a generalized term. I think if it's more pointed into what it really is, it's just video marketing. And then you can really kind of encapsulate everything underneath that. video marketing isn't also the paid side of it, it's also the organic side of it. And knowing how to have proper SEO titles and keywords and stuff like that for your YouTube videos, or how to use hashtags, or how to look at

Dario42:36It's just a generalized term now, yeah.

Sean Webster43:04you know, analytical data to decide on when's the best time for you to post and, know, learning who your audience is and, know, what type of content would resonate with them and that, that full circle, full circle marketing and being able to close the loop on your content and it going out is so vital into creating the right type of content because I've worked with so many businesses that think they know who their target audience is. and how to kind of put that together.

Kyrill43:41Test

Kyrill43:51That's a good term, I like that. You really have to experiment. You have to experiment with the content. Even Dario and I, when we're just creating content for ourselves with our own SEO channels and blog content, there have been many times where we have to reshoot things because we're also realizing, the way we're doing it is not working, we have to test it out, we have to make it little bit more succinct. How we did it here didn't work, this is how we do it.

Dario43:51love audience. I like that.

Kyrill44:20That's one aspect, know, like an ad buying and ads is also another aspect of it as well where you never know what you're gonna do unless you actually try it and see how it performs, right? Like a 30 second ad might seem like is the right approach for you because that's what works for everyone else. But then when you put it out there, it's like, oh, in reality, we're only keeping attention for 15 seconds with our content. So we should probably do 15 seconds. Like this whole industry is a game of testing and a lot of people are afraid to

Sean Webster44:49It's in my backpack. Yeah.

Kyrill44:49straight up test. A lot people are just afraid to straight up test out things,

Sean Webster44:55Well, and it's not even that's what I'm starting to also realize is it's not even necessarily that they're afraid. They just don't have the money or the or the time. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Kyrill45:04That's what I mean. That's the thing. They're afraid because of the lack of resources, right? They're afraid because they only have so many resources, especially time. Like it's not just money. It's also the time aspect, right? And there's such a constant pressure for a lot of people within companies to be performing for their businesses. It's like, hey, like my boss needs me to nail some targets. Like I really needed a home run every run, you know? It's like, but that's not always the case. You you can't have a home run every time

Sean Webster45:56Yeah, no, and I mean, that's definitely, that's definitely, I mean, it's slow and natural with production right now. I think it's just kind of widespread. mean, you know, to your point, like, you know, we keep getting opportunities, but the budgets are just so small. And it's like, you know, we have to keep trying to figure out ways of being creative while trying to stay within these, you know, confines of the budget. And, know, and we're a little bit behind our targets this year. So I'm, I haven't really been able to kind

Kyrill46:43The Roofers

Sean Webster46:51And they've never been out there. And it's like, so we've spent the last six months, like really like getting together all of these assets and really kind of planning, you know, all of our content and all these things. And it's like, we're like this close to being able to like stay a month ahead in our post schedule and what we're going to be doing through, you know, the content that we're creating, you know, for us and the, you know, the types of things that we're interested in. And then also just like showcasing the products that we do for people. And it's like, you

Dario48:32Hahaha.

Kyrill48:33No worries. Yep, heard it.

Dario48:36Yeah, that means it's charging.

Sean Webster48:50And they're ready to launch it. And it's been, and development, you know, over this last year, and they're like, they're, they're just about ready to launch it. And, know, he came in with like five or six different scripts of some ideas and things that he'd already put together. And we talked about them. and we, you know, we love the ideas, but you know, it just, didn't, something wasn't right. And, through just continual conversation with them and talking about the marketing objectives and the goal.

Dario50:27No, no, who are they?

Dario50:36I'm Owen, brothers. Okay?

Sean Webster50:38Yeah, so, uh, squatty potty, pooperie. Yeah, those guys are, those guys are awesome. Um, and they have that, they have the testing methodology mindset and they do the distribution for their clients and they do like, they do massive campaigns. So we actually did some mentorship stuff with them back in, uh, 2021 and did some like one -on -one, some one -on -one coaching with

Dario50:41okay, yeah, I have

Dario50:53you're on it. Check out their website.

Sean Webster51:05I just learned a little bit of like how they do some stuff on the back end because you know what everybody sees from them is a viral video but what they don't see is that they didn't produce a viral video they tested into virality so they basically tested all of these little micro versions they tested headlines they tested thumbnails they tested different hooks and they basically found out what people resonated with the most

Kyrill52:49You have to really take what a when a customer or client is coming to you with like what they want to do a lot of the time. It's also your responsibility to let them know sometimes what might be a better approach than than simply doing what they want. Right. I mean, there are countless times where we where we have like a client come to us. It's like we want to do this kind of video that's like three to four minutes long that explains the X, Y, of the business, which

Sean Webster54:03Well, and with that in mind, just, think morally, I've had to walk away from some clients and disrespectfully say, well, I'm not going to do that. Because I know that, you know, when, when I do this, it's not going to produce the result that you're looking for. And when that happens, you're going to blame me and the video. And I know that's not what it is because you didn't have these other things there first.

Kyrill55:13Yeah, like knowing when to say no to a client or knowing when to walk away is always a challenge because obviously, yeah, like sometimes it could be, they could be coming to you at a month where it's like, oof, we do kind of need the money, you know, at the same time. So you want to see if you can make it work. know, sometimes, like I remember this, like one lead came through like about a month or two ago where they basically wanted to

Sean Webster56:48Yeah, no, agree. know, go

Kyrill56:53No, continue, I was gonna mention something else.

Sean Webster56:55No, I was just going to say, you know, I think that it's a superpower to learn how to say no. And I think, you know, for newer production companies or even just freelance videographers, you know, it's really hard to say no if it doesn't really align. But being able to say no allows for you to be able to say yes for the thing that does align. And I think there's been some times where I had to learn that the hard way.

Kyrill57:38Yeah, I completely agree.

Dario57:39Superpower to say no at certain price points. That's how I see it. Because there's always a yes. I even told some clients like, yes, but you know, cause money.

Kyrill57:43hahahaha

Kyrill57:51Yeah, a lot of the time it's like, yeah, like we can make it work, but we need more people. That's sometimes a lot of it, you know, it's a matter of manpower. That's usually like the biggest reason why a lot of companies might say, no, it's like, there's no capacity to take something on with that kind of constraint. And the reason there's not enough people is because there's not enough budget, you know? So again, every situation is different. You have to feel it out. You have to use your best judgment in that situation based on what you're doing and what the client is looking for and see if you can make it work.

Sean Webster58:20Absolutely.

Kyrill58:22I know we're like a little bit over the one hour mark now on the episode, but one thing I did want to just quickly mention again was that you're one of the very few people that we've talked to that seems like the cold outreach approach has really worked, you know, and especially in our industry, it's always a big challenge. Most people find their work like 80, 90 % of the time through word of mouth. And it sounds like it really works for you. And kind of hearing how you talked about

Dario59:03Ha ha

Sean Webster59:04Well, I don't want to make it seem like that is the whole shebang because let's be honest, the referrals do work. And that's still probably 60, 70 % of what we do. And that's kind of like how it comes back. But it's like those personal relationships and how we build those, that's either through our own network or cold outreach. Like at a certain point after so many years, like I don't have any

Dario59:34Hahaha.

Sean Webster01:00:00And we just, really care about being a video partner for those internal people that don't have, you know, video teams. And that's something that it's like, we understand marketing. So let us come help you do video and like talk with you on how those two things align. And you win by doing that. So it's, it's just really leaning into that, but there still is a good amount of like referrals and, know, making sure that we under promise and over deliver for our clients and then saying like, Hey, you guys got to use

Kyrill01:00:39There's such a truth to what you're saying and it's kind of like a scary truth that a lot of business owners have to come face to face with and I feel like Dario and I are probably gonna be facing that soon as well is that there's gonna come a point, like you said, where you're just gonna have to go out there and just talk to people and get in touch with new people and find new ways of generating business. You can't rely always on

Sean Webster01:01:55Well, and here's the thing. Referrals are not predictable nor scalable. So at some point you have to realize it's like, okay, if I'm ever going to truly hit the revenue goals that I want, I have to be comfortable with networking. I have to be comfortable with outreach. I have to figure out how to have those conversations. And I'll tell you like some

Kyrill01:02:06agreed.

Sean Webster01:02:21my biggest paying clients have come through chasing some really weird rabbit trails. mean, one instance, I literally drove out to a facility out in the middle of nowhere to actually just tour this facility for, it was for a nonprofit at the point, but it was a nonprofit within the company. And that's actually become through just basic, you know, networking and communication and relationship building.

Kyrill01:03:50There's something to that, because like if it wasn't for us focusing on SEO for a good portion of like during the pandemic, know, and just kind of like rebuilding the business in that sense, we would have our, not that the referrals dried up, but it's like in that sense where like you can't run a business on referrals, like you said, there's like, there's only certain size businesses that can only operate on referrals only, unless you're

Dario01:04:21Yeah.

Kyrill01:04:45I did a little bit of work. We did a little bit of work with them here and there. You know, just, was just there in the community, getting a sense to know a lot of people there to the point where finally a big project came through where it's like, we know Kirol, we know Laps, so let's hire them and they can produce it. And it was a great experience, you know, and like everyone was behind it because it's like, it's a no brainer at that point. You've embedded yourself within a lot of people in that community. Like what we need to remember as business owners, people are buying into us.

Dario01:05:43That probably just only works at scale, right? Like you got to send out like Indie rap. He sends out like 5 ,000 a day. Like it only works in large volumes, but I like, I like Sean's approach. It's more like tailored, right? Like he picked it out, picks out a company, reaches out and then even goes in person. Like that's, that's, that's the approach I would test out with us.

Kyrill01:05:44Whereas

Kyrill01:05:48Yeah,

Kyrill01:05:55I like

Sean Webster01:06:03Well, and think about it. Yeah, think about this too. The day and age of these massive marketing agencies and huge production companies, like they're just, they're dying out because video is such a, it's such a, it's a commodity anymore. Like everybody can do video now because of phones and DSLR cameras. Like it's just something that it's

Dario01:08:09Yeah, 100 % agree. I think now's a… Yeah.

Kyrill01:08:10Yeah. Definitely given us something to think about. You've definitely given us something to think about a little bit more because like last year was a lot of like us focusing inward. And this year we're trying to kind of figure out how to how to outreach more. And we're just getting more and more curious about what works for other people. And I think you're basically just telling us at this point, like we just got to do it. Just test it out, feel it out and just don't be afraid. know, yeah.

Sean Webster01:08:35All right, I'll leave you with this. I'll leave you with this one thing. So two years ago, I won a client through really interesting tactic. at that point, we had just relaunched our website and we had really focused on the SEO portion and we built out a marketing sales video.

Dario01:09:48Yeah, please.

Sean Webster01:09:57that said, watch this video. And then at the bottom of it, it had a picture of me and it had a little line that, like a little arrow that went to this thumb drive that I taped to it. And I said something about like, you know, it's okay, seriously, watch this video, you'll like it. And basically like we wrapped this up in a nice little bubble mailer and we sent it out to all 500 of these people.

Dario01:11:30Yeah, I wanna see this.

Kyrill01:11:36Yeah, just experiment.

Dario01:11:40Yeah, I agree.

Kyrill01:11:41Yeah, we're in an industry where we're always, where people in our industry are afraid of rejection. So it's just like, yeah, we just have to take a chance, go for it. then,

Dario01:11:49I was just unsure of our approach because I was like, how do we go about this in a way where it makes sense? in the last couple of episodes that we shot, everyone's doing a lot of outreach and it seems like it's very cold and like it's just mass emails and all that stuff. It works, but I was like, I don't see like, I don't know. I just didn't vibe with it personally for our stuff, right?

Kyrill01:12:09and it works for them, but it's

Dario01:12:17what you brought up today, I'm like, okay, I can see us doing that and I can see it working.

Kyrill01:12:22Gotta be creative with it, I think that's part of it, and be in person.

Sean Webster01:12:22Well, do this.

Dario01:12:26Yeah, the in -person part I really like.

Sean Webster01:12:26If you've, if you've got, if you can't be in person, do this, go connect with them on LinkedIn. If you're, if you're a video person and you're not on LinkedIn and you're not, you know, cultivating relationships there, you're really missing an opportunity. but like go on LinkedIn and find the companies that you want to work with or the people you want to work with and just start commenting on their posts and, getting into conversations with them. And you can find out other things that they're liking and you can find their network.

Kyrill01:13:11they know of you already. The key is to be for people to know of you a little bit more as well. I think that always does help sometimes, but I think it's just a matter of we just have to start.

Dario01:13:23No, no, you've given us an, like, I know how to grow about it now. Like you've given us enough of an idea of how to do it. It's just before we were just, I was like, eh, just cold, sending out emails. just didn't, it didn't vibe with me, but like, I like how, like, like I've already said, like you do the email, then you also try to, try to go meet them in person and all that. I like that. the extra step and trying to get in touch with them in person. I really like.

Kyrill01:13:29Exactly.

Kyrill01:13:33for the sake of it.

Kyrill01:13:49I think the difference is

Sean Webster01:13:49Well, and you can actually, I was gonna say like, if you do, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Kyrill01:13:50is that shh I was just saying Sean yeah go yeah I think it's the

Dario01:13:55Jinks.

Sean Webster01:13:58I have a delay on my side.

Dario01:14:02It's like that movie. What was that movie? 22 Jump Street? Remember the twins?

Kyrill01:14:04I can't tell. can't. Yeah. See, the problem is Sean's video is like delayed, so I can't tell when he's done talking or not done talking. Sean, go

Dario01:14:12I know right? Yeah.

Sean Webster01:14:19Yes, I was just going to say, if you do go in person, this sounds super cheesy. But like, take some cookies, you know, take, you

Dario01:14:30I made a mental note of that when you brought it up with the secretaries. I'm like, that's genius.

Sean Webster01:14:37I mean dude, mean we, and I need to get back to this, I haven't done it in a while, but like one of my interns made some noodle cookies and I'm like, I just need to start taking those noodle cookies out and just like making relationships with people. They're just in the shape of a noodle, like a macaroni noodle.

Dario01:14:47What are noodle cookies?

Kyrill01:14:50Get

Dario01:14:52okay.

Kyrill01:14:54It's like getting your logo printed on a cookie. Like you see those at events all the time. I'm just going to take

Dario01:14:57Yeah, yeah, that's clever.

Kyrill01:15:03logo cook. Yeah, there's big shops for it, but I think the biggest key takeaway that makes

Sean Webster01:15:10Well, you can have them, you

Dario01:15:16You guys gotta raise a hand and say can I talk now? I've seen the clot You know it's I'm pretty sure that that the delays not gonna show on the on the exported video So just in case you guys don't know what we're talking about It's just

Kyrill01:15:16This is happening again. But I can't because his video is delayed on my end. So I'm just now seeing him do the clap. I heard it, but only now I'm seeing it.

Kyrill01:15:36I know. people are going to be, people are going to be wondering why like Sean and I just keep messing up.

Dario01:15:43It's just a video uploading to Riverside and it's causing a delay but it's pretty funny.

Sean Webster01:15:48man.

Kyrill01:15:50The last point I was just gonna say, was that the key takeaway from this whole thing is that you're doing multiple touch points with these people, but in more genuine ways rather than doing like a one -off and then forgetting about it. I think that's why a lot of cold outreach doesn't work. And that's why it's clicking for Dario and I a little bit more right now. And we'll click for a lot of other people who are listening to this episode is that like you're picking out people and just like trying to be, trying

Dario01:16:01Yeah, yeah.

Dario01:16:08Doesn't work,

Kyrill01:16:18genuinely reach out to them and talk to them either through email, socials like LinkedIn, or even like going in person. And then the in -person is like, like, so that's who you are. It's like, it's nice to meet you in person maybe even or something like that. I don't know. We'll see how it is when we try it, but I think that's the key takeaway is that multiple touch points that are genuine and not salesy. And that's the mistake a lot of people make

Dario01:16:40And dude, I'm just getting ideas now even like the on top of you know, the cookies and whatnot like the mugs that we have that have been sitting in my garage for the past like six years we can start to offload those and you could put you like just throw in merch, you know, it's like, we're just in the neighborhood. Just want to check you guys out chat for a little bit. Leave a little gift like, know, drop like a gift basket of like mugs, some other stuff that has your company logo. And I just realized,

Kyrill01:16:51Yeah. Yeah.

Dario01:17:08We never put our URL on those mugs. We should have done that. anyways. But yeah, like stuff like that. That's like a fantastic. I'm getting ideas already. So like after this podcast, I'm going to call Kirill. All right, go ahead.

Kyrill01:17:14this for another

Sean Webster01:17:20All right, I got one more for

Kyrill01:17:23Go for

Sean Webster01:17:25So there's a, I don't know if I want to give this secret away. So there is a website, no, it's all right. There's a website called

Kyrill01:17:30Do want to do it offline?

Dario01:17:40RB2B, okay?

Sean Webster01:17:41So yeah, so this website will tell you 20 to 30 % of the website traffic that comes to your website. will send you, like I've got it set up to send me Slack notifications, but it basically every time, oh, does it? Oh, I'm sorry guys. It's crazy. So basically,

Dario01:17:54nice, okay.

Kyrill01:17:56USA visitors only.

Sean Webster01:18:08Every day, it basically sends me a notification about 30 % of the time of somebody that goes to my website. It'll send me their LinkedIn information and their email address and the company they work for and the website page that they visited. And I just use, you know, and I've been a little apprehensive to reach out to these people just because I'm like, I just feel so creeper. I'm like, you know, but I basically, you know, but

Dario01:18:19Clever.

Kyrill01:18:33I was wondering.

Dario01:18:34I know you just checked out my site.

Sean Webster01:18:38But you know what? I'm like, I'm at a point right now where I'm like, you know what? I don't even care. I'm just going to connect with these people, start having conversations and just see where it goes.

Dario01:18:46You should have said, you should have said, listen, there's no expectation of privacy in today's world. I'm reaching out. This isn't Europe.

Sean Webster01:18:53There's really not.

Kyrill01:18:54You know, it's one thing I will say before we let you go, one funny thing you mentioned with the whole USB thing. I was just thinking to myself, you know, I'm glad that it worked with a lot of people, but I'm trying to think the reason why it might not have worked with some people was, you know, when you get a random USB drive in the mail, you know, once you've watched Mr. Robot, you start to kind of be a little hesitant to throw that onto your computer randomly.

Dario01:19:15I was thinking Mr. Robot. I was thinking Mr. Robot. I was going to ask, did anyone call the cops on you? They say like, yo, I got a ransom letter in the mail.

Sean Webster01:19:21Yeah, so.

Kyrill01:19:24Hahaha!

Sean Webster01:19:25No. So we, that was something that we were like, okay, like this is a legitimate like risk. Some people are probably not going to put this because of malware and all the different kinds of things that they could be, you know, getting. They don't know who we are. But it was like, that's 500 bucks. Let's give it a shot. Like what's the, we were, we were thinking that because we had sent them, we had sent them,

Dario01:19:47Experimental marketing right? That's what they call that

Sean Webster01:19:51Facebook ads and LinkedIn messages and emails, but we had hit so many of them and we knew that they were opening our messages. We felt like the likelihood of them like getting, you know, scared and calling the police was probably slim to none. And we felt like that they would probably, you know, because we did do something, we minimize, you know, the weirdness of it by putting my, you know, my name, my phone number, my email and my picture on

Dario01:20:07You

Kyrill01:20:08No, that's fine, yeah.

Sean Webster01:20:17So there definitely was a lot of conversation about it, but you know, it was a risk we were willing to take and it paid off.

Kyrill01:20:18That's true.

Kyrill01:20:24Yeah, no, you gotta try different things. You never know. like, yeah, like that one, there was obviously no major risk. I'm just, I was just thinking about like why some people might not have like gone forward with it. It's like that exact thought. It's like, I'm not taking a DVD off a guy off the street. You know, I'm popping it into my computer, for example. So it's like, it's not anymore. No. Yeah, yeah, that used to be.

Dario01:20:43Not anymore. That used to be a thing eh? You go to Chinatown you get the pirated movies.

Kyrill01:20:52but anyways, Sean, we'll let you go. We appreciate you jumping on the call with us. You definitely have given Dario and I a lot of food for thought. you know, a lot of mac and cheese. yeah. Not, not, not with a lot, extra cheese. That's the beauty of it. You gave us some extra cheese. That's for sure. But.

Dario01:21:01A lot of mac and cheese for thought.

Sean Webster01:21:09Yeah, right. Awesome guys. Thanks for the call and look forward to connecting with you all further