Michael Angelo: Dedicate to finding yourself the highest paying job that puts a roof over your head, but preferably in your chosen industry. Because you need to be able to kind of do a little bit of both. If you can't do it in your preferred industry, then it at least puts a roof over your head.
Chris Do: Michael has a very interesting name. It's Michael Angelo and I was just telling people like, dang, somebody's parents had a good like sense about style and aesthetic or maybe sense of humor. Just before we get too deep into the episode and we're going to get into like how this very interesting arc that you've been on in your career, being employed and then breaking away from employment, everything you've learned.
And I think our audience is going to get a lot from your journey specifically, because you're kind of right in the thick and the character in the story being you are about to have a massive turning point and I'm like on the edge of my seat, like what happens next? I almost feel like this episode is about nine months too early because I think N2024 will be an amazing story. So maybe that's setting us up for a part two where we can follow up with you. But tell me what it's like, like growing up with the, with the name. Am I saying it right? Is it Michael Angelo?
Michael Angelo: It's Michael Space Angelo. And it's funny you bring that up. A lot of people do bring that up that my name is Michael Angelo.
It's actually very new. So my original last name or my original full name was Michael Angelo Gomez. And it wasn't until about a year ago when I got married that I dropped that last name and just went under as Michael Angelo because my first big like salary gig, like that guy, you know, he had a ton of applications for the job and he only remembered mine because mine, uh, you know, my video production name or everybody that I would, you know, I used to call it stage name until I was told not to call it that, but they're just like, yeah, just go under your, you know, your middle name and that's how he recognized me.
So I used it for so long and then, uh, like probably three, three, four years been using it. And I was like, you know, I'm just going to make it official when I get married. So it's actually a very recent thing that it's Michael Angelo
Chris Do: When you say make it official. What does official mean?
Michael Angelo: Like legally changing it.
Chris Do: Oh, you did legally change it. So from now moving forward, that's it.
Michael Angelo: Yeah. So starting 2023 fully legally changing it. And yeah, now, now it's like Michael Angelo, but I've been going by that for the past like four or five years.
Chris Do: Awesome. Okay. Well, Michael, for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself, like, say your name again one more time for us, and then tell us a little bit about your backstory, and then we'll jump into the questions I've got.
Michael Angelo: Yeah, so my name is Michael Angelo. I'm currently the owner of San Antonio Video Productions. I've been in kind of like the video space for the past eight to ten years. I'm 26 years old. So eight to ten years would be probably like when I'm 15, 16 years old, I started out freelancing a whole lot, you know, started out, you know, going through college, did that for a couple of years, did freelancing two to three years.
And then after a while, I landed a salary gig where it was in the outdoor television space here in Texas. Texas is pretty big on that, but you know, I'm not an outdoorsman, but it was the only thing that I could really do that was in my space and that had like consistent pay. After a few years of that, you know, I started freelancing again and really the rest is history.
I started my own business and I transitioned out of that space and now I've been full time with San Antonio Video Productions for the past three years now.
Chris Do: A couple of key points I want to touch on, but then I really want to get into the meat of this is what you're learning in the process right now. So transition number one is getting a full time gig. Transition number two is leaving a full time gig to do your own thing. So let's take it first, spend a little bit of time about this full time gig. What did it mean to you to have that full time job? What did you get from it? And is there anything that you want to share about that experience?
Michael Angelo: Yeah, I think that full time gig. So it was an outdoor television show. We did a lot of freelancing. And what was crazy was that it was a small team. So they produced two shows there, each with 26 episodes. So for any given year, it was 52 episodes across five team members, there was one host, one editor, I was like traffic manager, YouTube manager, Website manager and client portfolio manager.
So like they gave me a ton of like things to do. And I thought I was going into it as a videographer editor, but really I was editing like 40 percent of the time. Like I wasn't editing a whole lot. I wasn't shooting at all, but I learned a lot about just many other different positions that I feel like have helped me.
And I've just always been the kind of person that even if it's not something that I want to do, because I'm doing it, I feel like it's like a reflection on me. So I always did it to like my, to the very best of my ability. So like if I was, you know, working on a website or a client portfolio or managing projects or anything like that, like just because it wasn't what I originally came in there for, it was very important to me that I did a good job and, you know, a great job at it.
But yeah, that was definitely a big learning experience because before that, like before landing that job, I was doing nothing but freelancing and, you know, being a PA and a production assistant on like anywhere I can get a job, really.
Chris Do: So was that a transition period for you from getting intermittent, unpredictable work to having something that was solid, something you can count on and grow into?
Michael Angelo: Yeah, it was definitely one of those things where I would be a production assistant on all over the place, whether it was, you know, once a week or twice a week, and it was while I was doing like going through college. So it wasn't something like it was good for me during college because I could go to school and class, but I could still do, you know, side gigs and short films and just be in the space and learn the space.
But when college was nearing its end, now I have to actually like support myself and I have to find a job that's more consistent and long term. So yeah, it was definitely, definitely a transition period going from sporadic, no schedule, no set pay to like a nine to five. And it was a nine to five in New Braunfels, which I don't know if you know as much about Texas, but San Antonio to New Braunfels is about a 45 minute commute.
So my commute would be like an hour and a half for five days straight. So it was definitely a big change.
Chris Do: Looking back on it now, do you think you would have been better off continuing to freelance or was the full time gig the thing that you needed to take you to the next level?
Michael Angelo: Definitely, I don't regret and I feel like at the time I didn't feel that way at all because I didn't want to be in the outdoor television space.
I didn't want to have a nine to five and my position there, you know, at least for the first year, year and a half is funny. And my friends always called it like I was like a glorified secretary. I was doing everything, but you know what I wanted to do, but I learned a lot of like great you know, just business stuff in general, in terms of, you know, you know, client portfolios, managing client portfolios and trying to grow a YouTube channel and, uh, doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes.
And it also very much, it was also my first step really into the corporate space. So like I started working when I was 15, 16, but they were all like, you know, fast food jobs, retail jobs, but this salary position was my first step into the corporate environment. And I had to learn how those relationships worked.
You know, how to send emails, how to talk to people, how to not talk to people. Uh, I was very, I think I was like 19, 20 when I got in there. So I was very young and I really didn't know any better, but I learned a lot. I definitely learned a lot.
Chris Do: So it sounds like you learned a lot of valuable skills. You got consistency, maybe valid validation that you know what you're doing and continuing to not have to worry about.
Where the next gig is coming and you can just focus on developing systems and protocols and things of that nature, but at some point here in the story, I think you quickly realize that for one reason or the other, we don't have to get into it as you kind of capped out in terms of your salary in the period in which you're a full time employee, like you moved north like by $8000 a year, which isn't terribly significant. And you can see earning potential cap. So what, what is it that compels you then to say, you know what, I need to do this on my own.
Michael Angelo: Before I said I needed to do things like on my own, I had, you know, I told my boss at the time, right, you know, because it was a steady gig, they do film a TV show. So I told him like, I don't want to be in the office.
I want to be out in the field. You know, I want to be able to produce something. I want to be behind the camera. I want to edit. The TV show and they had two shows. One of them like was their main show was like the big thing. And the other one, you know, not so much, it was like their B show. It was like junior varsity kind of show.
And I did two seasons of that first before I felt like I had the knowledge and the gear and the experience to do my own thing. So it wasn't like one of those things where I went from being in the office to working for myself. It was definitely a ramp up. Kind of situation where I did produce two of their seasons before moving on to doing my own thing.
Chris Do: What were you prepared for? And what, what surprised you when you started on your own?
Michael Angelo: I feel like when I started on my own, it was just, I don't want to say it was a snowball, but it was, it was very much like, um, You know, I was working 50 hours a week at this salary gig, so whenever I had time on the weekend or in the evenings, and I would try to find any gig on, you know, either Thumbtack or Craigslist or Facebook or just try to find anything.
And really, it was just a learning process. Each client was a learning process. Like my first client was my first lesson into making contracts. Like I didn't make contracts at my old job. So like if I show you like a contract from like at the very beginning of my career to what they look like now, it's so sad.
It's so sad as to like what it what it started as and like what it looked like. But I felt like every client was a learning experience. And every client I added and continually added on to it. So yeah, that first year, basically, I think I did somewhere around like 50 or 60 clients before I had left, I was still working there, but it was like 50 or 60 projects in that year that I was doing both salary and freelance for myself. So I just kept learning and learning and it just got to a point where I couldn't do both at the same time.
Chris Do: Yeah, I mean, 50 to 60 projects, that's a project a week, a little bit more than that. So, were you working yourself to the bone?
Michael Angelo: It was very stressful. And yeah, it was definitely a lot of gigs. I priced myself extremely low back then. I didn't know how to price. I didn't, frankly, I didn't think I was worth a whole lot at the time when I was starting out. I always told myself, like, if I could make what I'm making equivalent to my salary. So at the time my salary was paying me equally to like $$200 a day. So I said like, okay, well, if I could make $$200 on a job, then I shouldn't be complaining about what that job is. Right. You know, they're going to get what they're going to get. Like they know I'm a novice, $200 bucks isn't a lot to lose for them, but you know, a lot of people booked me. It got to the point where on my second or third year of my business, there was a contract that I had booked from my first year, which was like a $600 contract.
And this was before I charged for travel. It was like a $600 wedding in Midland, Texas, which is a six hour drive. And I had no idea. So I just saw it, looked it up in my calendar. I was like, what in the world is this? So I was like, what is this? I booked this a whole long time ago, but I'm going to fulfill it. And I did, I did fulfill it. But yeah, that first year. I just try to get anything and everything.
Chris Do: Yeah, you did the honorable thing, by the way, I just want to point out that you made a commitment and despite looking back on it, you're like, this is a terrible commitment, but I'm going to go through with it because that's what people do.
They honor their word. And I remember talking to Jonathan Stark about this. He said, if you quote something and you decide later on that you undercharge them, he said, suck it up. Let that be a painful lesson for you. Something that a lot of people do, and they mistake this all the time, is they think, Okay, I'm gonna get a salary job.
And then when they transition into being an independent contractor, freelancer, they take their salary job and they divide that number by 52 weeks and then by, or however many days you can work in a year and say, that's my day rate. And that's kind of like what you did. Okay, I'm making about $200 a day.
I'm going to charge that. That's a mistake because what a job gives you is job security. Every week you get paid no matter what happens, you don't have to worry about it. Then they should also provide you some forms of insurance. They should pay some of your employment taxes if there are any, and they take care of your sick and vacation days.
So there's things that are added in there that most people don't calculate. So even if they're doing apples to apples, they've not calculated correctly. Opposite is also a problem where people have a day rate. And then when they go to negotiate a salary, they just multiply their day rate by 50, or you know, whatever number of days that you can work in a year.
And they think that should be my salary. And so the opposite is also wrong, because you don't take into account the taxes, insurance, vacation, sick, holiday, all that kind of stuff. So people keep getting this messed up. So for the record, everybody, if you're working a full time gig and you want to do a freelance gig, figure out a day rate, that assumes you won't be working all the time.
And that has to be higher than what you would be making if you're doing a full time. Because it's the only way you can sustain yourself. So in the best of all possible worlds, if you're booked all the time, you're still not going to be booked every single day of the month. It just doesn't happen. So you need to think about that.
And then on the flip side, if you're going from independent contractor and you're going full time, you can't flip that around because it just doesn't work. The numbers, the economics. Okay. So you're working a ton of hours, you're doing a whole bunch of projects, at least one new project every single week, and then you're burning the candle at both ends, your business and your full time gig. What happens next?
Michael Angelo: So at a certain point, I, and this is like contextual, so like I have to also bring up the fact that at the time I'm in like a four or five year relationship, and it's getting to that point where I need to go full time only because there is so much going on in terms of like being spread too thin.
So I had to go full time. And at a certain point, what I was making was above now my salary and I was consistently month after month. I didn't know where the leads were coming from really. I mean, in terms of like, you know, I was on Thumbtack, I was doing a lot of lead generation, but it wasn't to where like I can nail it down.
I just knew at a certain point that every single month wherever they came from, I was making X amount of dollars and that was more than my salary. I didn't factor in like profit or anything like that. It was just straight top line revenue. Like I didn't, I didn't look at any of the expenses, but the reason why I bring up the relationship is because I also was going to be engaged soon and I had to get a house.
I had to get a house. So the only way I can do that was through my salary gig. So I had to basically get a mortgage, transition out of the company, go full time, And then plan a wedding. So that was like 2022 where it was pretty much like, I feel like it was like hell on earth because I was doing so many things at the same time, but at the same time, 2022 was very much the year where I was now dependent on myself to do everything, you know, and it was very, very challenging, but I feel like it was totally worth it in the end.
Chris Do: Are we out of the pandemic in 2022?
Michael Angelo: I actually don't know. Maybe a little bit, but I feel like 2021 was still very much pandemic era. And, uh, during that time I was doing a lot of live streams. I started out kind of like family events. So a lot of weddings, a lot of weddings, you know, they would live stream their weddings because you can't have 50, 60 or a hundred people at a wedding during the pandemic and I always felt bad, but good at the same time about it because I always, you know, I, I always told people like I have the opportunity to grow during the pandemic when a lot of my competitors in town we're struggling because they had all this overhead. They had a lot of employees.
They had these giant teams where I was kind of like a one man band. I can go to all of these productions by myself, you know, despite covid.
Chris Do: Now we're going to take you to the story where we're at, where I want to spend most of our time now. By the way, before I do that, you had mentioned Thumbtack a couple of times. I'm familiar with Thumbtack. What is it?
Michael Angelo: Thumbtack is like a contracting directory, pretty much, where you can find like handymen, painters, photographers, videographers. They're pretty big with that, and it's pretty much just like a lead generation website. I feel like it worked really well when I first started out, before I started putting up my ads on, you know, Google Ads.
But yeah, Thumbtack was very big for me that first year, year and a half until their rates changed. And I feel like they killed photography and videography in San Antonio.
Chris Do: Okay. So it sounds to me like it's a job board. Is that pretty much like what it is?
Michael Angelo: Kind of really, it's more of a, I feel like more of a marketplace where you pay for leads.
Chris Do: Okay. You pay for leads?
Michael Angelo: Yeah, you pay for leads and it kind of averaged out. So like, I feel like when I first started, it was an average of like $20 a lead, whether or not they booked you. So it took me like eight leads for me to get one. And that was like somewhere around like $400 just for a single gig. So, yeah.
Chris Do: So that would have to be something you'd have to account for in your production because you're spending that money and you have to get that money back somehow.
Michael Angelo: Right, for sure. And it really was one of those things where if I could make that amount in that gig and then some, then I shouldn't have a problem doing it, you know?
Chris Do: And were these leads vetted? Like every one that you paid for was a legitimate potential job?
Michael Angelo: Yeah, Thumbtack at the time, you know, they, they are pretty good at giving high quality leads, but you are competing against five or six other photographers or videographers. So you have to be very quick at responding yet to be, you know, give a good offer quickly, answer questions quickly.
And I feel like a lot of people really value that. And you know, you also have to be priced competitively on Thumbtack because he, you know, you're going up against other videographers, you know, based on an hourly rate. So I would say like, Oh, yeah, I'm like $35 an hour. Like for the longest time I was $35 an hour. That was, that was me and my equipment as a videographer, which was extremely low.
Chris Do: Yeah. Okay. So it's an hourly rate, you'd compete against that. And you would throw in whatever you could throw in. If you had equipment, you would throw that in as well.
Michael Angelo: Yes. Yeah. For the longest time, it was just a per hour basis, you know, for equipment and that 35 over a year and a half, it jumped all the way, you know, 35 to $50 to a hundred dollars.
And then at the high end, it was like $250 per hour with all of my equipment, with the production that included like cameras, lights, nobody else, because I couldn't pay anybody else. But it was just me as a one man band that basically I told people like, I will get your video done $250 hour. And everything will be included.
And then of course I charged separately for post production, but even then those rates were really small. And yeah, eventually I stopped. I stopped doing that altogether because it was clearly not the way to do things, but it did help me build my portfolio. I feel like that was something very valuable that I got out of it.
It's one of those things where it helped me build my portfolio and at least still get paid for it. Whereas like, I do know a lot of people recommend working for free, but for me, I just thought about it as like working for what I'm already making at my current job. I didn't mind it at all. At least for me, like, if I was taking a day off or working on a Saturday and I was like, oh yeah, normally I get paid $200 a day at my network job, but over here I'm getting paid 400, 500. I was pretty ecstatic about it. Like, I thought back then, I was like, this is incredible.
Chris Do: It sounds incredible. I mean, depending on the context, what was the average size job that you could pull off of Thumbtack?
Michael Angelo: The average size job would probably be like, probably anywhere from a thousand to two thousand. There's an upper limit for sure.
Chris Do: So roughly like say fifteen hundred average size job.
Michael Angelo: Yeah, I would say so.
Chris Do: And you said something had happened. They started charging more for leads. What was the new rate? Was it the $20 is the new rate or is that the old rate?
Michael Angelo: So they had an average, right? So every lead can be anywhere from ten dollars for that lead or $25 or $30 for that lead.
I would average it out and it would be $20 a lead. I needed eight leads for somebody to book me. So that was $400. After about a year and a half, they had changed their rates to, per hour. So like ten dollars per hour. So like if let's say a client came to you for a wedding and instead of that being a $20 lead, it was that client reaching out for six hours.
So that was a $60 lead now because potentially that wedding is a $60, that's a six hour wedding.
Chris Do: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Michael Angelo: Yeah. So imagine the average wedding is like five to eight hours for videography. That's 50 to 80 dollars. And I knew I needed eight of them for, to get one yes. So that $400 lead spend turned into like a thousand to like 1,500 it that happened overnight and I had to basically transition out of using Thumbtack to using, you know, Google Ads and I was experimenting with Google Ads at the time, but that was really the catalyst for me to be like, I need to get off of this directory and just start advertising, you know, my website on Google Ads.
Chris Do: Okay, so before we get to Google Ads stuff, I just, I'm trying to sort all this stuff out here. So it sounds like Thumbtack basically brokered jobs that were buying units of time. So they knew, or did you have to tell them it's going to be six hours or eight hours, or who decided how many hours it's going to be?
Michael Angelo: The lead.
Chris Do: The lead. How would they know it's going to be a six hour gig?
Michael Angelo: So Thumbtack basically gives them a questionnaire based off of, you know, what, you know, they'll be like, what are you looking for? Is it a wedding or is it a promo? Is it like, how long do you need a videographer for? How long do you need a photographer for? And they'll just put in whatever number.
Chris Do: I see. So they had determined that and all you could do is be a person who would bid against that based on an hourly rate?
Michael Angelo: Exactly. Yeah.
And when it came to the bidding process, was it all facilitated through the portal? Did you ever get on the phone to explain to them what you do and how you do what you do?
Oh for sure. I feel like at the beginning, I did start off in their chat, you know, some text chat, but as quickly as possible, I always try to move things to email. And then after a few months to about a year, I moved every almost every meeting to a phone conversation, which now, I mean, I would call that a discovery call.
At the time, I just thought a phone conversation where I feel like I got to know the client better. I got to know what they needed, and it was very much trying to get them off of Thumbtack as quickly as possible and booking a call with them. I saw a better success rate with that.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Chris Do: Enjoying the conversation you're listening to right now? You're going to love what we have for you inside the Future Pro membership. From live group calls with myself and vetted guest experts to over 600 hours of pro exclusive trainings and monthly networking, you'll have everything you need to fast track your growth. Check it out at thefutur.com/pro.
The Futur: And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
Chris Do: What'd you learn about the client sales process and landing the gig?
Michael Angelo: I feel like only recently, and it's funny, you know, I've been already at this for about three to four years, but only recently have I been giving clients the final proposal. So pretty much I would get all of the information during the call and after the call, I would send them the proposal and get a follow up and an email back.
So I would basically assess everything that they need, draft a proposal and send it. But like nowadays what I'm doing is I'm like drafting it in real time and I email it to them during our like first Zoom call and be like, Hey, this is what we can do for you. This is the rate. Talk to me about it. You know, tell me yes or no.
That is a very new thing for me only because, you know, I've seen, yeah, I've seen a lot of your work, obviously, but I feel like the consensus out there is that most videographers photographers don't give their proposal right then and there, they'll tell them the price right then and there, where I don't really have like set prices.
So I have to actually draft a proposal every time and send it right then and there. But when I was first starting out, I would have the call, they'll tell me what they need, I would have set rates for it, create a proposal, send it after.
Chris Do: Is the only difference from then to now is you draft it while you're on the call?
Michael Angelo: Yeah, so I would take notes and draft it. But like now it's, it's a lot easier to draft it now because my proposals are built into my contracts. So my contract and proposal are one and the same now. I do understand that that is very different, probably very different than what most people do.
Chris Do: I don't know what most people do, but I would also recommend something a little bit different, but I'm not here to tell you how I do it. I'm curious how you did it, and people can learn from your, your success. And when you were talking to them on the discovery call, um, What do you think you did that got them to say yes more than no?
Michael Angelo: I feel like my portfolio of work. So I never really had imposter syndrome or anything like that going into it because I had a portfolio of work and Thumbtack reviews after every gig, I would send a review link and I would tell people like, you know, it was very easy to get reviews cause I was very consistent with my you know, I guess post review process.
So I would really like tell the clients, especially if we had a good time, like, please leave me a five star review. Like I didn't send them a link. I sent them a link with a five star view to help me with potential clients in the future. So I feel like my portfolio of work and I, uh, just, you know, having that on the back end and, you know, doing all of the jobs and already been through the salary gig and the freelancing kind of having all of that in my back pocket, really, I feel helped me land more jobs just because I've been through it, you know, even though I was, you know, really just starting out, I had a lot of experience prior to, you know, starting with clients.
Chris Do: I think you're saying what most people say, which is the portfolio either makes or breaks you and you had a good portfolio built on a lot of client experience, right?
Michael Angelo: Right. Yeah. And I had gotten experience at that salary job building, you know, websites, even though it wasn't a WordPress website, it was on Squarespace, but that's where I made like my portfolio.
And that's where I started hosting my videos. And I would just easily send that into a link. And I would have anything and everything that I shot, I would put it up there, whether it was a really low paying gig or a short film or anything that I did for free, I just kept adding to it and after a while, I just had so much on there that it's just one of those things where it's like, you know, and then I started making demo reels where, you know, once you have enough of a portfolio that you can actually shop around, because I have photographer friends and videographer friends, they have done a lot of work, but they don't want to make a portfolio.
And it kind of like boggles my mind that that's like the first thing you should do is make a space to make it easy for people to look at all of your stuff, which is like, it should be common sense, but the people that I've worked with in the past, you know, it's not always common sense for everybody. I don't know if you've had that experience, but it's not always common sense to make a portfolio.
Chris Do: What do you think the difference is between the Michael of $35 an hour, the Michael of $250 an hour, what's changed?
Michael Angelo: That would be like Michael starting from year zero to year one. I feel like what's changed in that point was just looking at other people's rates and at the time that was more photography so a lot of photographers for weddings their limit or their cap is 250 per hour. But that is like based on like the video production that I do now It's a completely different set of like rates and project, you know proposals. And if you're wondering about the difference, I would just say it's more so the experience level.
I felt like I was very inexperienced. So $35 an hour I thought was a very fair rate. The $200 an hour a day, I averaged that out too. I was like, okay, if I'm making $200 a day, that's my $200 a day rate, but on an hourly basis, I was making like $25 an hour, so I was like, Oh, $35 an hour. That's good, you know, so it was very different. Really, when I looked at other what other people were charging on Thumbtack, 250 an hour was kind of like the upper limit.
Chris Do: I think the lessons that you learned are applicable for someone who's in the creative space, photography, video or something like that, or editing. They can learn from this, which is what did you do on the call? What did you say, what did you ask in the discovery call that you think gave you a competitive advantage? I want to take away the portfolio, I want to take away the reviews. Because at some point everyone's going to say, I have a portfolio, I have reviews. But now I want to get into the diagnostic part of you where you're engaging in, in, in dialogue with your prospect.
What do you think you're doing that helped you to increase your chance of getting a yes?
Michael Angelo: I feel like because once you do enough projects regardless, you know, and you don't know everything and let's just take weddings, for example, because weddings were really big in my first year. Every wedding client that came through the door, they all pretty much had the same wedding.
You can only do about 20 things in a wedding, whether that's like in the ceremony, you know, the cake, the walking up the thing, you know, the cutting of the cake and the toast, the speeches, like there's really only about 20 different things. So I was just very thorough. I would ask about everything. I would ask about how long is it?
How long do you want us there? What is your budget? And I was, I was extremely thorough about it. That way there was like no surprises for both me and client. And I feel like because of that, they felt confident in my abilities and they felt safe because I brought the level of experience in the sense that like, okay, I've done hundreds of weddings.
This may be your only wedding, you know, your whole life you have, you know, two or three weddings, God forbid if they divorce, but like this is really like the only time that, you know, wedding clients, they only have one wedding. So they don't know they're not in the industry. They don't know everything that goes into it.
They don't know that it's more about the family. And instead of the bride and groom, the bride and groom are like, they have a lot of things to do on a wedding. You know, and I would say you're planning a party for all of these people. This is what all goes into it. And I just knew everything about it because I had done so many at that point. And I was just very thorough about it.
Chris Do: Moving on now to you running Google Ads as a new way of generating leads. What is the key insight that you got from running Google Ads that people can apply to their business?
Michael Angelo: So I feel like the transition from Thumbtack to Google Ads, it's always been led back to the same thing.
Like if I can cover my ads or cover my ad spend and, you know, one or two gigs, then I shouldn't have a problem paying for it. And it was really one of those things where, Thumbtack and Google were kind of competing for the longest time. And at that point I had done no social media, you know, no SEO, no blogging, none of that stuff.
And yeah, Google Ads, I just felt like it was consistently getting me work. So why didn't I consistently just keep adding more to it until I found like an upper limit? So it's, it's one of those things where you have to do what's working. And, you know, what is working, try to double down on it and try to really find out what is working.
And for me at the time, Google Ads was working very well for me. So I just kept increasing the budget on advertising. I just increased it, you know, all the way to $2000 a month, you know, just consistently spending that spend. And a lot of people think that's crazy. Like when I first tell people initially, like how much I'm spending on advertising, You know, they just think that's, that's like a really high number for a lot of beginner people.
And a lot of the videographers and photographers that I worked with, you know, they're very nervous about it. Cause they're like, I can't just throw away $2000 a month. Well, if one gig is $2000 and it only takes one day for you to, you know, fulfill that gig, then it pays for itself. You know, it's a no brainer almost.
Chris Do: What kind of ads are you running? Are you running targeted ads? Are you doing lookalike audiences? Tell me a little bit more. Cause I'm very unfamiliar with Google Ads.
Michael Angelo: Not even. No, no, no. Yeah. Google Ads is she's a fickle beast. No, not, not in that sense. It, you basically need, you need somebody full time.
Like if you want to run ads the right way, you do manual search ads. Which is you have somebody there that's full time or an agency or a platform that's really good at managing your Google Ads. And they do search ads and manual ads and they build them out. And they, uh, you know, they test them. They do AB tests.
They change them out every three months. Google has this thing called smart ads. You lose a lot of money on smart ads. And it's true. Like Like Google makes it very difficult for you to be a manual Google Ads person because their back end and their UI is extremely complicated. In reality, you have to think that Google is wanting to push you towards smart ads.
Now, for me, I already had to pick up a lot of skills in videography. I had to pick up a lot of skills in sales. I had to pick up a lot of skills in building my portfolio and websites and the client experience. But one thing that I don't want to pick up skills on is Google Ads and that whole back end stuff.
I feel like if I did Google Ads correctly, then it would just be me hiring somebody to do that full time because that is really the only way to do it correctly. And as a beginner videographer, I could not afford to do that. So I just did smart ads and I just factored that into the cost. That's just the cost of doing business.
It's going to cost me more than it would normally if I was doing it the right way. But I'm saving a lot of time and I don't have to pay somebody else to do that for me.
Chris Do: Let's get into this part where I think this is the meat of our conversation. You've got this blueprint on how to achieve your dream. Um, I would just prompt you to do that and then have you take it away.
Michael Angelo: Yeah, so basically, This past week or two, I've really been trying to dissect every stage that I've been on every year of my life for the past five years, six years, it's kind of like all a blur, but I created like a blueprint that kind of came, you know, because of that, you know, it's just based off of like the word dream and the first first letter is, you know, dedicate to finding yourself the highest paying job that puts a roof over your head, but preferably in your chosen industry because you need to be able to kind of do a little bit of both. If you can't do it in your preferred industry, then it at least puts a roof over your head. I feel like, uh, you know, step two would be refined. Refine your skills by learning as much as you can from that job and start to apply yourself and apply that, you know, to the outside world, you know, start freelancing, start getting gigs outside of your normal 40 or, you know, 50 hour a week salary or whatever puts a roof over your head because you got to start somewhere.
And the third one I would say would be evolve, you know, start to get serious about your business and seek mentorship. And when I say that, I say that because that first year I wasn't fully like serious about it. I avoided learning sales for the longest time. I avoided learning project management. I avoided client experience.
I avoided all the things that wasn't videography and photography. So you have to evolve eventually into a business owner. And the longer you avoid that, the longer you're never, you know, you're not going to go full time. Which is the next step would be to activate your full potential by committing and going full time.
And I, I, I say that to a lot of people, you know, I have another business owner friend, he's a, he's in the AV company, but he's doing, trying to do both and, you know, he's stuck in a salary position, but he has an AV company, but he's not going full time. And it's like, okay, you're complaining about sales, but you're never going to get sales if you don't commit yourself a hundred percent of the time to this.
And then eventually, which was a step five and dream. So multiply. Which is kind of the stage where I'm at right now is, you know, multiply your efforts by scaling beyond yourself and recognize that your time is limited and start buying it back.
Chris Do: Expand on that. I understand that concept, but somebody who's listening to this is like, what do you mean by my time back? How do I do that?
Michael Angelo: Yeah, so eventually you'll start to realize that your time is extremely limited. I feel like time for me, there's only so many gigs you can do in a day. There's only so many projects you can manage. And even if you were booked, you know, 30 days out of the week, which I wouldn't recommend because that's an incredible amount of work, you can only do so much.
And there's an upper limit and there's no time for relationships. There's no time for time off. There's no time for vacations. So you want to be able to start to train people around you, train in turn tire part timers and transition them into full timers. And eventually actually grow beyond yourself because and I always tell this to like my wife or my family.
It's like I have to start training people beyond me because if tomorrow I get hit by a train, the business goes like it's gone. There it is like so it can't live and die with it. You don't want to be a commodity. You know, and that was a selling point for me when I first started, I would tell my clients, like, yeah, I'm the one shooting your stuff.
You're going to get this level of quality from our portfolio because I'm the one that's actually on set. Whereas like, it was nice to some people, but you can't do that forever. You have to find a way to replicate your skills and you have to find a way to replicate your processes and make it official by teaching other people how to do what you do. And, you know, keep that same level of consistency and quality throughout
Chris Do: Spoken now like a true entrepreneur and you understand the key thing that most solopreneurs don't understand is the act of delegation and training people. I keep telling people to being an entrepreneur is synonymous with being an educator.
You have to teach people what you do because if you can't it all hinges on you. And if you have sick days, I mean, we don't have to go as dire as Duke Dine. But if you can't physically work, what happens to the entire company? You have to prepare for that. And a healthy business survives without its owner.
Are you at that stage right now? Tomorrow, if you get hit by a truck, Michael, heaven forbid, is the company in a place where it can continue to go on without you that your wife can somewhat remotely manage? Are you there yet?
Michael Angelo: No, no.
Chris Do: What percentage are you?
Michael Angelo: I'm like 20 percent there.
Chris Do: Okay. So a ways to go still.
Michael Angelo: So yeah, definitely a ways to go. I would say I'm like a year or two away from that where all the editing would take care of itself, but not any of the sales, not any of the project management, not any of the actual production, which my next step is training a creative producer. So eventually I did get a full time editor.
My next step is now doing a creative producer and it's so hard. It's extremely difficult. And I feel like it's extremely difficult specifically. I don't, I'm not trying to dog on like San Antonio, but like it's not Austin, you know, Austin is very, they're very video focused. They're very motivated to, to do that, you know, New York, Atlanta. California super, you know, you throw a stone and you'll hit like 30 videographers, but for me to find like a creative producer in San Antonio that can both shoot, troubleshoot, and talk to a client and work with the client and manage other people or know all of the equipment or fly a drone, I have to basically build everybody up to that around me. So like, you know, I did have a few interns at a certain point and I did try to find other people, but they only do one thing. Like they only either do photos, but no video or they do video, but no editing or they do video, but they don't know how to talk to a client. And they're super shy.
It's like, you kind of have to do everything. When you're out in the field, especially for like run and gun crews or one man band. So a way to mitigate that would be for like what I did, and this is partly because of like you and your advice, create a network. So I started inviting people and increasing my rates and I said, like, I don't want to do one man gigs anymore.
I'm going to tell my clients that, like, I have to have a few production assistants. I have to have camera operators, a separate person to do drone. And I just started reaching out on Facebook, online, other companies, you know, small companies reaching out and just saying like, Hey, white labor yourself, come under SAVP just for this gig and just hire contractors and plug them into your network.
And out of those contractors, I'm finding, you know, special key guys. And I'm like, I want to convert you to full time. And that's kind of where the stage where I'm at right now. But yeah, tomorrow, if I got hit by a car, no, not possible.
Chris Do: You've been working at a pretty young age and it's, it's hard for people to hear. Like me working ten years, it's only 26 years old. How could this be? So you started young, everybody keep that in mind. And your first. Full time gig. I think you were making about 52 grand a year based on your crystal ball end of 2024. What are you going to make?
Michael Angelo: So based on my crystal ball end of 2024, I'm probably going to make 300 to 350,000 dollars in gross revenue. So not profit, but gross revenue. Those are two wildly different numbers. And the reason why I believe that is because we just ended quarter one, which was March 31st. We're filming this on April 3rd. We just ended quarter one and I'm already cleared. Okay. 96, 000 for the year. So my processes have definitely changed from 2023 to 2024.
And I feel like I'm seeing like that hockey stick growth, and I'm just trying to find more, you know, I'm very data driven now. So I know where all my leads are coming from. I'm trying to find more avenues to like, get, you know, increase that because I feel like I can't make 300 or 350 next year and also get three or four salary positions under me.
I'm going to have to increase that. And that's why I'm starting to like starting to get into other revenues, like content marketing.
Chris Do: Where is your single biggest source of leads right now?
Michael Angelo: Right now it would be repeat clients. So, and this is just for context. Like I I'm not shy about like giving away numbers or anything like that. Like in 2023, I have a full year's worth of data. And during that full year, 101, you know, grand of revenue was from Google and about 50 grand of that was from repeat clients throughout the years, clients that just aren't paid, you know, Google ad leads, but right now in the beginning of the year, I feel like because everybody got their marketing budgets renewed, all my repeat clients, it's beating out my Google Ads right now. And my Google Ads, I feel like is at 26K and repeat clients right now are like, uh, 50 or 70.
Chris Do: That makes sense. And I think if you spend all your money in client acquisition, it's going to be a very costly endeavor. The idea is you spend some money in, client acquisition and then you turn them into sources of new business and nothing can beat the recommendation of a happy client that you're working with currently.
And that's a very powerful thing. So you can start to move away from that. You don't have to completely cut it off because you still want new leads because eventually your referrals will dry up too. But a combination of those two sounds like it's working for you. I just want to say congratulations. It's in a very, short few years, grueling years, you had your hell year, but you got through it and it sounds like greener pastures are ahead of you and I just want to just congratulate you and say good luck with how the rest of this goes because I'm looking forward to checking in with you at the end of this year to see like how it went because sometimes you start off with a bang and you, you actually even go bigger and you're like at 700 grand and it's like, wow, what an amazing turn or some unforeseeable thing happens and you have to kind of go back to the drawing board and fix a few things.
But you're still very early on in the entrepreneur journey and it's awesome for us to be able to catch you on the train as you're heading to wherever you're going. I appreciate you sharing that with us, Michael. Before I let you go, I want to quickly recap for people. Michael has been through some trials and tribulations as a full-time employee.
Then he split his time between full-time and doing his side hustle as we would refer to it, and to a point in which his side hustle reached a tipping point where it was making him more money than he was doing his full-time gig. And so then it was time for him to go all in and it's scary and he had a lot of things to to work through on a personal level, getting married, remodeling a house, all kinds of things in debt, craziness, but he got through it and he seems like he's figuring out how to generate consistent leads and also how to manage clients in such a way that they're happy with the work product while he's not hands on on every single thing that he's doing so they can grow in scale. And so that was awesome.
He came up with this acronym called dream dream. D. R. E. A. M. Really quickly dedicate yourself to finding the highest paying job or at least just put your energies against something. Refine. Once you find something, refine your skills, learn as much as you can. It's all about personal development. Evolve. And as you continue to grow, you're gonna bump up against other edges.
It's a signal for you to expand your skill set so that you can take on more responsibility. Activate by committing. You can't have your foot on one iceberg and another foot on another iceberg. You gotta pick one and just go for it. There's a lot of uncertainty ahead, but if you do so, you might reap the rewards of entrepreneurship because it's full of risk.
And lastly, probably the biggest lesson in entrepreneurship is to learn how to multiply yourself, to be able to delegate, to teach others, so that you can start to insure yourself against hopefully, catastrophic thing happening where you can't work for one reason or the other. You have systems in place that can run the business for you while you're on vacation, while you're recovering from being ill, or whatever else might happen.
So you want your business to be strong enough to live without you. Any last final parting words of wisdom, Michael?
Michael Angelo: No, I feel like you really hit the nail on the head. I'm still very much in a learning stage. I feel like a lot of the people that I work with or that I try to work with or I try to tell people in terms of like videographers and photographers, I try to like tell them what I do.
A lot of them struggle with putting, I would say, their own ego aside and not just learning as much as possible because those, you know, they'll be scared of clients or they'll be scared of asking too much for a job, or they'll be scared of just asking questions in general, whereas like if people are giving you advice on YouTube, you know, you have to commit to that advice and you have to see what works.
I tell people all the time. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Video's been around for a hundred years and people have made thousands and millions off of it. So like, why are you trying to like figure out how to start a business on your own and trying to reinvent business and reinvent video production when it's been around for so long? Just go anywhere online and try to learn as much as you possibly can.
Chris Do: Wonderful. What a way to conclude it. Michael, thanks very much for sharing your story with us. Best of luck to you.
Michael Angelo: Awesome, Chris. Thank you. I'm Michael Angelo and you're listening to The Futur.
The Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Futre Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts.
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