The Challenge of Attributing ROI in Creative Industries | Mark Wonderlin

PROFITABLE TALKS...

Mark Wonderlin, owner of Mosaic Media Films, shares his journey in the video production industry and the challenges of balancing expenses and sales volume. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on the aspects of the business that bring joy and outsourcing the rest. The conversation also touches on the difficulty of attributing ROI in creative industries and the need to connect the dots for clients. The episode concludes with a discussion on the misconception that growth is always the best path for businesses. In this conversation, Christian Brim and Mark Wonderlin discuss the importance of profitability in creative businesses. They emphasize the need to be intentional with money and to focus on profit first. They also discuss the challenges of scaling a creative business and the importance of clarity and focus. Mark shares his personal journey of going from nothing to owning a successful video production company. They also touch on the pitfalls of getting caught up in the pressure to scale and the constant need for new equipment. Mark shares his vision for the future, including expanding his company to multiple cities and leveraging AI tools.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Focus on the aspects of your business that bring you joy and outsource the rest.
• Connecting the dots for clients is crucial in creative industries to demonstrate the value of your work.
• Attributing ROI in creative industries can be challenging, but looking at the overall impact on the bottom line is important.
• Growth is not always the best path for businesses; it's important to consider what truly brings fulfillment and success. Being intentional with money and focusing on profit first is crucial for the success of a creative business.
• Clarity and focus are key in scaling a creative business and defining one's zone of genius.
• Avoid getting caught up in the pressure to scale and the constant need for new equipment.
• Manifesting and envisioning success can help drive personal and professional growth.
• The goal is to create a business that exists outside of oneself and can be managed from the top.
• AI tools may play a larger role in the future of creative businesses.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.441)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the internet where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. My name is Christian Brim, your host. Today joining me is Mark Wonderlin of Mosaic Video Films. Did I do that correct? Mosaic Media Films. Damn it. All right. Well, welcome Mark.

Mark Wonderlin (00:20.964)
Media Films.

Mark Wonderlin (00:26.904)
Well, thanks so much for having me.

Christian Brim (00:29.453)
So give us the lowdown on what you do, what your business does.

Mark Wonderlin (00:36.142)
So, yeah, absolutely. So I live in Austin, Texas. I own a video production company here. I've been in the video world for the better part of 12 years, but now my team and I, create kind of marketing style videos for clients. So we'll work with anyone from, you know, a solopreneur all the way up to big, huge brands. About 75 % of what we do is marketing videos, but then we'll also do some

educational content for like master course courses, and then we'll even do some event related content as well.

Christian Brim (01:09.945)
Perfect. And Mosaic's been around for how long?

Mark Wonderlin (01:14.574)
The better part of 12 years I've been in the video business, yeah.

Christian Brim (01:16.537)
Okay. Okay. Well, I heard 12 years, but I didn't know if that was all on your own. So you, you did just start out in, the film, as an entrepreneur, you didn't, do it for somebody else before.

Mark Wonderlin (01:34.806)
Yeah, well, I actually, when I first started with video, I did work in the corporate world, but it wasn't video was just one of many jobs that I did. So I did video photography, SEO, print advertising, website design, packaging. did everything because it was a relatively small team. And then through that, I kind of went into video by myself as a solopreneur during the kind of, you know, early days of DSLR filmmaking.

Christian Brim (02:03.033)
So why did you gravitate towards video of all the things that you were working on?

Mark Wonderlin (02:09.612)
Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of it was the influence that I had for my CMO at the time. And he really said video is an emerging, you know, skillset. And I would highly recommend you spend more time focusing on that because that's where the market's going. And I really took that to heart. And then also noticed through my research that a lot of the video content for businesses at the time was really just broadcast companies. They would, you know,

come in there and they would work with businesses that would do a 30 to $50 ,000 ad buy. They would do, you know, what most broadcast companies do. They kind of pan zoom, get in there quick. And that's what they would say, say, we'll also do something for your online site. You know, it was kind of like a afterthought. And I really came in, you know, with the DSLR style and really looked at it more.

Christian Brim (02:53.186)
Right.

Mark Wonderlin (03:00.142)
from a cinematography standpoint. So like, how can we tell compelling stories that are going to resonate with people, but with that marketing background, understand the goal here is to connect with the audience so that the audience wants to take the next step or convert. So it's beneficial to the business. So taking that background in marketing and then that creativity side of video and kind of merging that together, which, you know, 12 years ago, that was not very prevalent. It was just done by broadcast companies.

Christian Brim (03:29.453)
I think, I think I see, in a lot of creative industries, this, well, I'd say it's not just creative industries. It's all entrepreneurs, but, the change that's happened is that, whereas before you were in a creative industry and you had a certain skill or your company had a group of skills,

Mark Wonderlin (03:38.702)
Hey

Christian Brim (03:59.833)
it's now gravitated to where it's more around the value that you're producing because, you know, in your case with video last 12 years, you know, the do it yourself model has become much, much easier and cheaper. And, and so there's kind of this perception that

those skills aren't as valuable, right? I mean, it's, I guess what I would say is it's more like the skill has become less important than the strategy behind that. Would you, does that resonate with you?

Mark Wonderlin (04:47.404)
Yeah, absolutely. think a lot of times too, it depends on the type of client, right? So I'll usually, you know, tell my team or people that will ask me about it is like, man, no one wants to pay this much for video and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, the people that don't want to pay it much or the do it yourselfers, they're never your client anyway. You need to focus on the people that do value it.

Christian Brim (05:03.927)
Right. Right.

Mark Wonderlin (05:08.474)
and the people that do, you know, use it as a tool. you know, it's pretty obvious, but the bigger the company is, the more they'll value it, the more they can use and leverage it to have a return. And that's the thing that I really like about working with businesses is that this isn't like an expense.

It's more of an investment in their marketing that's going to help them. So we create videos that really, the majority of the content we create, they're gonna use and leverage, you know, for five plus years on multiple platforms and multiple ways. So the ROI is pretty good, especially if they're selling higher ticketed items.

Christian Brim (05:27.321)
Mm.

Christian Brim (05:38.008)
Right.

Christian Brim (05:45.731)
So who is your ideal client?

Mark Wonderlin (05:48.078)
So really the ideal client for us is doing about $3 million plus a year. We've worked with some that are over 100 million. We've worked with some that are less than a million. But usually around three to five million is about average as far as the overall revenue. And a lot of it depends on the number of team members they have. Usually it's someone that has a dedicated marketing team. They're relatively smaller, but they have the internal resources to use and leverage the video or the video content in an effective way to get an ROI.

So one of things that I do that's very different than a lot of video companies is instead of just producing the video and walking away, we try to have ongoing touch points with the client to see how the video is performing. So we can kind of help them with best practices or make any tweaks that will help increase their conversion because really, you know, when you're working with businesses, they're not really buying the video per se, they're buying the result that the video is going to give them. You know, it's going to help them build trust, build credibility, increase conversion, increase the speed of, you know, you know, to close

Christian Brim (06:40.95)
Exactly.

Mark Wonderlin (06:47.58)
jobs. That's really the metrics that they're looking around to say, was this an effective, you know, marketing expense or investment.

Christian Brim (06:57.721)
It reminds me, I had a marketing agency client and they were working with actually a mutual client and they were doing lead generation through, I think it was social advertising and this mutual client came back and said, this isn't working and they...

dug in the agency dug in and provided all the data and like, well, here are all the inbound calls. Well, it turned out that the sales process on this mutual client was completely broken and these leads were just going into the, to the void. And I think what you said is helping, helping the.

end user realize the value of what their intent is, whether that's building trust or lead generation or, you know, brand awareness, whatever it is, is, is a crucial piece. can't just have the skill anymore, right? You've, you've got to connect the dots for them. and that sometimes, you know, like this client of mine, they didn't do sales consulting. didn't, you know, handle, any of that.

Mark Wonderlin (08:08.27)
Thank you.

Mark Wonderlin (08:12.22)
Thank

Christian Brim (08:17.945)
And so it was kind of a lose lose situation because they did their job. But the third party client couldn't utilize those leads. And so it was like everybody lost. it's to me, it's more about, okay, well, you may not do sales consulting. You may not be able to fix their sales process problem, but do you have somebody that

Mark Wonderlin (08:31.924)
huh.

Christian Brim (08:47.317)
you can can work with to help them solve the complete problem, not just the piece of the problem.

Mark Wonderlin (08:51.746)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of that is like determined after those kind of subsequent meetings, what might be the bottleneck that's hurting. Sometimes it's traffic. Sometimes it's on page conversion. And then like you're saying, sometimes it's the bottom of the funnel where they're just not able to close the job. And there's a sales issue where the video can only do so much, right? So there, there is some limitations, but the, the idea of the video, depending on the way that you're using it in the funnel and system, it's to help.

generate leads, you know? So if it's a product, you want it to help close the job. If it's a B2B high ticket and you need to have that consultation, then you know, the video can get you all the way up to that point, but the salesperson has got to put it in, you know?

Christian Brim (09:39.809)
Yeah, and you know, I know some salespeople that would disagree that it was a gimme putt, you know what? You know, salespeople, they're all lazy, right?

Mark Wonderlin (09:46.528)
You

Yeah, that's how salespeople are. It's interesting because, you know, they want high salary, high commission and endless stream of warm leads that are ready to buy and don't really need any, closing or competition. so yeah.

Christian Brim (09:57.933)
Yes. Yes. Yes. well, one of the things this, kind of makes me wonder about is, and I've had some conversations with, other creative industries around, attribution and ROI. You, you mentioned re return on investment. I know as a business owner,

this whole direct marketing model, if it ever really existed, doesn't exist anymore because you like in our case, can I point to how many people become a client because they read the Maybe, but that's not the sum total of the effect of the book, right? So the book

just being published, being out there has an impact on the market, whether someone buys it, whether someone reads it or not. And so, you know, sitting there and saying, OK, is the money and time invested in writing a book worth it with ROI? It's it's it's hard for business owners to make a direct correlation, right? What I advise is that they look

at it in totality. this is how much I spent on marketing and advertising for all channels, all dollars. And then how much did it move the bottom line? Right? And I can't get direct attribution that way, but I can at least tell that what I'm doing is moving us in the right direction. Now, if that goes the other way, I can't specifically point at

Mark Wonderlin (11:40.002)
Yeah.

Mark Wonderlin (11:45.326)
Mm

Christian Brim (11:52.825)
Well, this is the problem. This is the problem. This is the problem. We might, you know, I kind of compare it to alchemy. we're not really sure how it works, but it does work. we're just going to keep doing it.

Mark Wonderlin (12:05.631)
Yeah, that's one of the most challenging things when it comes to marketing and digital marketing companies will tell you that if you're doing a mix of things, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what is the attribution because it's usually a combination of things. So like they may have searched for you online, found you and then left and then came across one of your videos from retargeting. then there, you know, later on they download a PDF and that document is really helpful. And then they watch another video.

Christian Brim (12:16.995)
Right.

Christian Brim (12:26.455)
Right?

Mark Wonderlin (12:33.644)
So where do you attribute it to? Is it the video, the PDF, the first in search? So it's usually a combination of things depending on the type of buyer and the intent they have and where they're at at their pain level. So, I mean, we've had situations where people literally have Googled us, found us, called and closed like immediately. And then we've had other companies that have gone through that longer sales cycle of downloading and watching and...

Christian Brim (12:33.805)
Right. Right.

Christian Brim (12:46.519)
Yeah, eh

Mark Wonderlin (13:01.612)
researching before they actually set up a meeting to have a conversation.

Christian Brim (13:05.921)
Yeah. And as a business owner, you know, especially analytical people like accountants, they, they want to, they want to understand it. I'm, I'm kind of, I I've just devolved to calling it witchcraft and sorcery. And I don't, I don't really know how it works, but, know, but it's, it's hard to say, well, you need to do more of this or you need to spend more money here because there isn't that direct.

Mark Wonderlin (13:23.502)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (13:33.047)
you know, what is the thing that actually moves the needle? And I would say that a lot of times we don't know.

Mark Wonderlin (13:41.612)
Yeah, and I mean, depending on the type of business you have, you know, if you're in the creative services, you know, chances are you're not doing a massive, huge volume of hundreds of clients per month. So having that conversation with them can give you a little bit more detail than just trying to look at a spreadsheet like an accountant would.

Christian Brim (13:57.817)
Yes, yes. Client interviews are extremely helpful. They were in our business. I'm going to pivot here for a second. What's been the biggest financial challenge in your 12 years in business?

Mark Wonderlin (14:01.676)
Yeah.

Mark Wonderlin (14:19.65)
Yeah. So biggest financial challenge, you know, now having a team producer, three editors, admin, website person, multiple marketing companies that I work with. That's the biggest challenge in and of itself right there, managing expenses with overall sales volume and trying to create that balance, you know, because what I found out when I first started, I was a solopreneur. I could get one or two jobs a month and I would be fined financially. I'd be able to pay for all my bills, pay for all business expenses, but

Christian Brim (14:31.564)
Hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (14:49.88)
you know, you're kind of in this conundrum where your hands are handcuffed when you're filming, when you're editing, and then you're trying to find your next job. This is the constant problem that most creatives have. And what I quickly discovered was I thought, I'll just hire somebody and they'll be able to do these three other jobs. Well, that's not the case. I needed to hire basically three or four other people for the things I was doing. So they're very focused on that. So it's like, you know, let's say for instance,

just for easy math, if I had a $10 ,000 project, for me to do that by myself was very easy. But then when you ratchet on, okay, what was the marketing expense for the company to manage the ads? What was my ad spend? What was my closing rate? Okay, so that's taken out. Then what is the cost for the producer that I have on payroll? The cost for the editing team that I have on payroll? The cost for the filmmakers that I have on payroll, right? And you see how it keeps ratcheting, ratcheting, ratcheting up.

And then you figure there's also all these additional business expenses like taxes and software and all these other things that you have to pay for. that $10 ,000, there's no longer $10 ,000. It's like negative five, right? if, if not more, so that's the biggest challenge is trying to balance the volume of sales that you need to upkeep the talent and skills that you need to have, you know, either on retainer or payroll to maintain, you know, positive cashflow.

Christian Brim (16:00.291)
Right.

Mark Wonderlin (16:16.674)
month after month. And, know, we're project focused. It's not like we're, you know, some digital companies have retainers. We've just never been able to crack that nut as far as video is concerned. So, you know, we're always looking for next opportunities or repeat projects where we can maintain relationships with clients. So it kind of smooths things out over time because it is a little lumpy throughout the year, you know, towards the tail end of the year. You know, we work with businesses and they kind of, you know,

Christian Brim (16:20.994)
Right.

Mark Wonderlin (16:46.094)
around Thanksgiving, Christmas, they're kind of, you know, MIA. They're just not thinking about stuff. Yeah.

Christian Brim (16:50.349)
Yes.

Yeah, I don't know if you've heard of Vern Harnish, author of, okay, so.

Mark Wonderlin (16:58.506)
yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with the scaling up book. I'm in EO, so I know all that stuff.

Christian Brim (17:03.769)
Okay. Well, so do you know, Mona Monica or I don't know how to pronounce her last name or or Staski. So Polish name, I think she's in the Austin EO chapter. well she was, I don't know. I I've been in for 13 years and, I met her, several years ago, so she may not be in there anymore. Anyway, she does. She's in the same industry. anyway, Vern.

Mark Wonderlin (17:15.104)
Okay, okay.

Mark Wonderlin (17:19.363)
Nice.

Christian Brim (17:30.745)
w that was the very first EO event I went to and, he had, a group of us in there, probably 30 entrepreneurs. And he asked the question, you know, how many of you feel like you could shrink fire people have more money and be, happier and like virtually everybody in the group raised their hands. Right. And

I think you nailed it with the, as the complexity of the business grows, it's not a linear complexity growth. It's an exponential growth complexity. And it does sometimes feel and is real that you're doing more, potentially working more, but you're making less money.

Mark Wonderlin (18:21.858)
Mm

Mark Wonderlin (18:26.094)
Mm

Christian Brim (18:26.825)
Did you run into that in your journey?

Mark Wonderlin (18:29.614)
Absolutely, several, several times. And there's definitely times where it's really stressful, where you feel like you've made a lot for the month and you're like, you look at the P &L and you're like, we actually lost $15 ,000 this month because the expenses. And that's really challenging. I think what's really important for creatives to understand is like, what do you really enjoy and focus on that? Because a lot of times,

Christian Brim (18:52.503)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (18:56.066)
You know, we're constantly told from all these gurus and marketing people, how you're going to scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, you know, grow, grow, grow. When it's just like, sometimes that's not the best for companies. Sometimes it's best for, you know, if you enjoy the craft of creating and it fires you up to film, it fires you up to edit, then focus on that and then outsource the things that maybe you have less excitement in.

Like maybe you don't like most creatives don't like the sales and marketing side. Can you get someone else to handle that? And that's your only expense. And you can just be the creator, the craft person rather than trying to be the business owner that's got a scale, scale, scale. And that's really, you know, what I would suggest to people, depending on just pursuing the passion that you enjoy in the business.

Christian Brim (19:47.671)
Yeah, I mean, I know that's, that was my journey. mean, I, I, I spent a lot of time on that growth wheel. and, and really didn't know why I was trying to grow. you, you, you mentioned EO entrepreneurs organization, where, know, the, the qualifier is you have to have a million dollars in revenue to, to join. And it's, it's funny.

Mark Wonderlin (19:55.074)
Yeah.

Mark Wonderlin (20:09.517)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (20:15.501)
there's no conversations around entrepreneurs around how much money did you make? It's always the number of employees or top line revenue. it, but nobody ever asked the question, well, yeah, but how much money did you make? Right? Maybe that's a rude conversation, rude question to ask, but

Mark Wonderlin (20:27.384)
Mm

Mark Wonderlin (20:34.519)
Yeah. No, not at all. It's so interesting because that's a lot of it. You know, I'm very fortunate in the Austin chapter that people are very welcoming and kind and understanding. But a lot of times people miss site of like, of like, what is your bottom line? You know, because you know, the phrase I think in EO is like, top line is like vanity and profit is sanity, right?

Christian Brim (20:54.306)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (21:01.325)
Yes, yes, and cash is king. Right.

Mark Wonderlin (21:02.766)
So it's just like, yeah, know, cash is king, right? So it's like, you know, a lot of times it's like, it's cool if, you know, I was always the personality where like, I'm not going to be the type of guy that's going to go to a cocktail party and just be like, Hey, I have, you know, 27 employees. How many do you have? My top line revenue is 2 .7 million, blah, blah, blah. But then a lot of people that live that life, they're constantly stressed because you have so much overhead expenses that stressful.

Christian Brim (21:19.843)
Right.

Christian Brim (21:28.345)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (21:32.59)
I know an agency in St. Louis that my friend is really good friends with the owner. And he was telling me, you know, they're a big, huge agency. They work with huge, massive brands and they do about 23 million a year. So they have these, you know, $1 .2 million projects with like Coca -Cola or like, you know, a car brand. And they say they eke out with like 10 or $15 ,000 a profit because there's so much overhead with like.

Christian Brim (21:44.535)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (21:58.83)
you know, 40 plus employees and all these creative directors. And then the client, because they're paying a half a million dollars for the project, they want to see a dog and pony show where you could do, you know, a pretty good project for a fraction of that with a smaller crew that, you know, is more profitable. So for me, I've always been like at the end of the day, where's the profit at and where's my happiness in the type of work that I get to do.

because I've clearly defined that, where other people I think get caught up in the, know, look at how many employees I have, look at my, you know, top line revenue when inside they're like crying, you know? So.

Christian Brim (22:39.671)
Yeah, yeah, it can get very miserable very quickly. And to me, what my problem was, was that I didn't know why I was growing, right? Like that was just the default. Like you turn on the entrepreneurial machine and the default is grow, right? And without ever thinking through why and what that might look like.

Mark Wonderlin (22:43.256)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (23:07.545)
But to me it's and this is really what profit first in general is about is it's it's about being intentional with your money like not not just reactive So do you have any experience with profit first have you used it in your business?

Mark Wonderlin (23:28.162)
Yeah, absolutely. I always try to think about profit first as it relates to the project itself. cause it individual project expense. And then I try to look at the overall overhead. I think what happens is, you know, I'm in a position now where I have several, you know, several, you know, payroll employees. have, marketing expenses month after month. And then sometimes things can kind of run away from you, you know, like reviewing my credit card statement, you know,

Christian Brim (23:33.558)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (23:53.079)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (23:56.876)
more regularly as a practice that I try to get better at, but I'm not much of an accounting person. But you'll, you'd be surprised like how often when you start to grow, things just kind of like add up like software expenses. Like the amount of money that I spend on software is crazy. You know, you figure I got zoom, I got Calendly, and then you got the website maintenance and then you have like hosting and then you have, you know, the, you know, you have to have Adobe creative suite and then there's the CRM and then there's the landing page software and

Christian Brim (24:09.208)
Yes.

Mark Wonderlin (24:26.36)
You know, it just starts to add up and before you know it, you're spending like an exorbitant amount of money on, you know, software. And, so it's, it's important to do like a good analysis of that so that you can have profit. And then if you need to be flexible with your pricing, with, with clients in order to get the job, you know, where your numbers are at and you know what you can and can't do, within the effort and the time that takes to create something.

Christian Brim (24:28.195)
Right.

Christian Brim (24:50.253)
Mm

Christian Brim (24:57.335)
Yeah. And I think that a lot of creative entrepreneurs, don't want to know their numbers and, or, or worse, they think they understand their numbers and they're, they're working on false assumptions. but you can't be consistently profitable. can only be accidentally profitable if, if you're not, looking at those numbers. So, so let's, let's.

walk through an example like you're going to pitch me on some video. So we've agreed basically on what that's going to cost. Like what is your process internally to determine whether that job's profitable to you?

Mark Wonderlin (25:45.718)
I have to go through a process of understanding what's the scope of work that we're going to be doing. I look at what are the fixed expenses I have and what are some of the variable expenses that I might have relating specifically to this project. Is there a studio cost involved? How many people are going to be needed for the project? How much time is going to be allocated for my producer? How many days do I think that it's going to be to edit the project?

Christian Brim (25:55.317)
Mm

Christian Brim (26:00.91)
Right?

Mark Wonderlin (26:13.184)
And then are there any additional things outside of a traditional project that we're going to need to spend time, money, and effort to get it completed? and you know, basically I can get a range that will give me a specific profit margin. That's going to be my target. And then there's always this kind of untangible thing that happens. Right? So like, it's almost like a sixth sense. Like, you know, like, is this going to be a difficult client or is it going to be an easy client? You know, and just doing it for a lot of time, I hear like,

Sometimes I'll hear like red flags, like when a client says, it'll be easy. just be two hours of filming. That's usually a red flag. You know, if they're looking at it from like, I'm just going to hire you for two hours, then they're probably not the right client because they're, they're already right away, minimizing your effort skillset. And they're looking for the lowest possible thing. so usually like things like that will tell me, that this probably isn't going to be a good project for us.

Christian Brim (26:49.996)
Right.

Christian Brim (27:02.499)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (27:12.588)
or not. What we specialize is like, how are we going to create something that's going to be compelling for your audience? That's going to give you the intended result that you want the video to do for you. and that's what we're trying to do. And we're scoping out really the amount of work that's involved, the amount of value that we provide to the client and overall how they're going to use and leverage this video to be successful.

Christian Brim (27:25.859)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (27:38.467)
So I wrote a whole chapter in the book on value pricing and I recently recorded an episode walking through that. Tell me how you do your pricing. How do you approach pricing?

Mark Wonderlin (27:43.854)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (27:53.954)
The way I approach pricing is probably a little bit different than a lot of other video people. I look at it from the perspective of we're going to do everything we can to make the best possible video for you. And based on what we've scoped out, which is planning, however many meetings you need, and then filming, we're going to do one day and we're going to get, you know, these main things, interviews, live action, drone shots, whatever is needed.

And then we're going to edit it with the deliverable of this video, which is a two to three minute video, blah, blah, blah. That's the way I do it. And I scope it as a solid price. Now I don't do so a solid price. So this is the result. This is what you're going to pay unless it goes wildly outside of this, which is like another day of filming additional videos or like, you know, tens of thousands of revisions, you know, I usually will give them two sets of revisions. so unless it goes out of that, this is the price.

Christian Brim (28:50.563)
Right?

Mark Wonderlin (28:50.83)
I do not do what I think a lot of video people do is they'll do like price anchoring or they'll itemize everything. Well, if you want me to use the red camera, it's going to cost you $300 more. You know, if you want me to have an extra this, it's going to be this. You want me to do an extra, this is going to be this. I never do that. I don't like that. Just from my perspective, I hate to see that when I'm doing a bill. It's just, what is the total? And we're always like, listen, if you need another camera, we'll get another camera. We have two, three, four cameras.

Christian Brim (28:57.601)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (29:02.2)
Right.

Mark Wonderlin (29:20.566)
Whatever makes sense based on what we're doing will do. And that's the way we've always looked at it. That's the way I've always looked at it at least.

Christian Brim (29:29.259)
Yeah. And I think I don't think this is a, I don't think this is a creative entrepreneur issue. because I see this in a lot of businesses where they, they pile a bunch of stuff into the pricing or the proposal with the thought, I think that they're trying to, to justify their price. Right. but the reality is as, as the buyer,

I don't want to know how the sausage is made. I, and, and, and quite frankly, like to your point, it turns me off, like, because that just raises more questions like, well, do we need that? Do you know? And, and so I think in pricing, I think the clearer that you can be on, is the value we're, we're delivering with as few variables as possible. Yeah. You've got to have scope of work. You've got to put guardrails around it. you know, accountants are.

are awful about this. They want to go through some long calculation and this and that to give you a price. And it's like, I just, don't see the need for it, but yeah.

Mark Wonderlin (30:47.054)
Yeah, yeah, the best way that I've done it is I try to be as clear as possible and simple as possible. Cause a lot of people we're working with, this is the first time they're doing video. So I just say the price includes from conception to completion. You know, there's three main phases planning, filming, editing. Here's a general highlight of what we're going to be doing in each phase. This is just to give you a general idea what we're going to be doing. You know, I'm not giving them all 87 steps, you know, for editing, but I'm giving them the highlights.

Like we're going to create the story. We're going to do, you know, we're going to make it look pretty. We're going to do graphics and animation, and you're going to get two sets of revisions. It's just a very high level of what they're getting. And then we're always like one of our core values is one 10. So we're always trying to go above and beyond what's already expected. So, you know, if a customer needs another set of revision, we're going to do it. If a customer wants a little bit more animation, we're going to do it. I don't want to nickel and dime them. I want to be like, this is what I'm saying it is, you know,

hell or come high water, this is the price that we're gonna give you unless it's dramatically outside of that, like an additional filming day or additional content.

Christian Brim (31:53.337)
All right. I'm going to pivot again. what is, what is the thing that you are most proud of accomplishing so far in life, business or personal.

Mark Wonderlin (32:03.854)
Well, actually there's one thing I'm most proud of is about five years ago. well at this point it must've been six years ago, six years ago, I actually was going through a difficult, divorce and I literally had like nothing. And, basically I went from that to where I am today, where I was a solopreneur. Now I own a successful video production company, the Austin's highest rated with over 175 star reviews. have an amazing team.

I was able to go from nothing to now living in an awesome house and having a place where my kids can kind of grow up in. going from nothing to where I'm at today has been a huge accomplishment for me personally and professionally.

Christian Brim (32:47.895)
I love it. Yeah. That's a pretty quick run in six years to go from nothing to, to that. What do you, what do you, what do you attribute the success to?

Mark Wonderlin (32:57.486)
Well, I think it's a lot of clarity and focus. did it in four years where basically I had, you know, less than $6 ,000 in my bank account where I was begging people to pay me on time and, you know, living essentially in an apartment and all I had was a mattress. had like no furniture, nothing. And now I have this beautiful, you know, beautiful home and everything like that. And I think that a big part of that, why I was able to do it was that was really focused and clear on what I wanted.

I didn't know exactly how I was gonna get there, but I just took it one step at a time. And I think a lot of it was, not to be too frou -frou, but a lot of it kind of manifested in a way of having this projection of what my life was going to be like, where I wanted to be, and just thinking about that every single day and just taking one step ahead of time, just taking one step at a time and just moving closer and closer and closer to that goal.

Christian Brim (33:49.681)
You talked about manifesting and I use the word envision, but they're the same word. So I think a lot of creative entrepreneurs struggle with this idea that the...

Mark Wonderlin (33:57.486)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (34:15.778)
The stuff that they want to do, you talked about being true to what you were, what, what work you really like to do, is, is, is I guess a paradigm where on one end of the spectrum, you can do what you love and you may or may not make money at it. And on the other end of the spectrum is I'm going to do what I have to do and I can make money, but it's really not what I'm passionate about.

Have you struggled with that paradigm in your 12 years?

Mark Wonderlin (34:49.58)
Yeah, absolutely. So I've always thought of myself as the business owner, as the entrepreneur. I've just used video as the craft, but equally I do enjoy, you know, connecting with people when I'm filming, creating something that I'm really proud of when it comes to an edit. But I've always kind of had one foot out the door.

Christian Brim (34:59.116)
Hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (35:12.214)
and always looking toward the future to being the business owner, the operator, the person that's kind of creating the systems, the process and the people and putting that in place and building something bigger than myself. So if I lost it all, I could easily go back to filming and editing and enjoy it and have fun. But equally, I'm happy where I'm at today, even though it can be a little bit higher stress level because of what we were talking about earlier from the expenses side.

Christian Brim (35:14.637)
Mm

Mark Wonderlin (35:40.32)
I enjoy the type of work I do now with connecting with people, working with them on projects, seeing my team execute and being a part of that process and seeing the end result that the clients get. So yeah.

Christian Brim (35:52.641)
Yeah, yeah. I love that because I think to me the shift is, okay, I'm an accountant or I'm a videographer to which to me is more of a self -employed mindset to I'm an entrepreneur or a business owner. If you don't like French, and I have a certain set of skills, right?

Mark Wonderlin (36:00.856)
Mm -hmm.

Mark Wonderlin (36:13.879)
you

Christian Brim (36:21.815)
but you're a business person first and you have some skills that you can bring to the table. And that creates what you, to your point, something that exists outside of you. Not that there's anything wrong with being self -employed and doing what you love. Absolutely. That's totally fine. But that mind shift that as my colleague calls it, an entrepreneurial inflection point where you have to

Mark Wonderlin (36:39.032)
Yep.

Mark Wonderlin (36:50.21)
Mm

Christian Brim (36:51.881)
make a decision to be something different is huge. And I don't think a lot of people get beyond that. That's a tough nut to crack.

Mark Wonderlin (37:05.868)
Yeah, I think a lot of it is just really soul searching and like, what do you find the most joy in? What do you find the most happiness in? So a good friend of mine, incredibly talented cinematographer, he started off in the wedding world, has done amazing videos for brands as well. He probably makes more than I do as an entrepreneur. And we're doing probably five times the amount of volume because he's a one man guy and we'll hire a couple of assistants and things like that. But he is so talented.

that he could charge the same amount that we're charging as kind of like an agency because he's so good, but he loves the craft. He loves filming. He loves editing. He loves putting it together. And because he's in that zone of genius and he's really defined on like what he likes, he's doing really, really well. And he's made a huge name for himself. Whereas with me, I enjoy the craft of filming and editing and creativity.

but I really like the business and entrepreneur side where like I like talking to people about marketing strategy. like kind of casting the overall creative vision and then having other people do the execution part of it. Well, I'm working on, you know, other things. I like the way my days are where I'm spending time like this, having, you know, engaging conversations about creative rather than being on a shoot, you know, for 10 hours. so I think it's really about defining

Christian Brim (38:28.929)
Right. Right.

Mark Wonderlin (38:33.442)
what your zone of genius is, what you enjoy, and then pursuing that with clarity and vision.

Christian Brim (38:41.239)
Yeah, and there's not a right or wrong answer.

Mark Wonderlin (38:43.106)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think the biggest struggle, particularly for creatives is just the constant bombardment of two things. The first thing is like all the intro, all the kind of info marketing people telling you, you need to scale, you need to scale, you need to grow, you need to grow, you need to do this. Well, you're not going to get business unless you do this, this or this. That's really tough to kind of shield yourself from because you're going to get caught into doing things that you don't really want to do and things that you're not passionate

The other thing that I tried to shield myself from as well, particularly in the video world is like getting caught up in the gear, you know, vortex, you know, so if you're in photography or if you're in a video, you know, it's like constantly new equipment, constantly new gear. And it's the same thing we're talking earlier about, like, look at how many sales I have, look at many employees I'll have, or look at the newest camera I have. I never ever got into that. I have a camera that I've had.

You know, for years, I just recently kind of gave it to my son and I was telling my son, like, this is an important camera because this camera built this house. This Canon 80 D is what got me our house right now. This, you know, just regular run of the mill DSLR, you know, less than a thousand dollars, you know, has done so much. So those two factors, I think are incredibly important to put in perspective for creatives is don't get too caught up in like.

Christian Brim (39:52.045)
Yeah.

Mark Wonderlin (40:11.116)
doing something that you don't wanna do that you're not passionate about because people on the internet are telling you and try not to get too caught up in the vortex that is constantly buying new equipment so you can't really move ahead financially when you're personally or professionally.

Christian Brim (40:24.409)
I think that's great advice because I think if you're not clear on what you want, it's very easy to be sold. Right? And so, you know, if you're not clear on what you want, anything that comes along will scratch that itch, but it doesn't, it doesn't solve the problem. It just makes the feeling go away temporarily. Right?

Mark Wonderlin (40:35.564)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark Wonderlin (40:49.134)
Yeah. Yeah. It's like you're constantly sold a new, you know, bag of goods online with someone that will grab your attention. Cause we're always, you know, I think looking for this one thing that will just change everything. If I just get this red camera and spend $12 ,000 and just wipe out my savings, then the seas will part. All the customers will start calling me and I'm just going to make a ton of money, you know, or just replace that with

any other thing online that you're being sold to. And that's going to be the thing. And then it, like you said, it works temporarily. You feel good. There's a big high, but then nothing happens. It's just crickets. And it's usually like we were talking about earlier, like attribution, right? It's magnitude of things, small things that compound together to make a shift and a change, you know? Just like when it comes to marketing, it's not one thing usually. It's usually a...

Christian Brim (41:29.815)
Right. Right.

Mark Wonderlin (41:45.954)
handful of things that are constantly working together to make that impact.

Christian Brim (41:52.117)
What is Mark doing five years from now?

Mark Wonderlin (41:56.194)
Yeah, so five years from now, that's a great question. So five years from now, I'd love to expand the video production company to multiple cities across Texas and ideally beyond. I want to be managing from kind of a top. So I'm kind of out of the sales side. I'm out of the marketing side. And I have an ever growing expanding team of contractors and employees that are going to be doing work all over the place. I think we're going to be leveraging more AI tools as they kind of emerge.

Right now we really don't use a ton of them because they're not there yet, but I think again There's gonna be opportunity for that as you know technologies is so crazy right now So yeah Yeah Yeah still in Austin, I love it I don't plan on moving here anytime moving out of here anytime soon But when my big lofty goal is when my kids are kind of out of the house and doing their own thing You know, I want to be able to have multiple companies

Christian Brim (42:34.039)
Yes, I love it. Are you still in Austin?

Mark Wonderlin (42:52.578)
that are kind of running by themselves and I'm living in Europe kind of, you know, going all over the place, of traveling around the world and things. Yeah.

Christian Brim (43:01.751)
Nice, I love it. How do people find you if they want to learn more about Mark?

Mark Wonderlin (43:10.412)
Yeah, if they want to learn more about me, they can just go to LinkedIn and do Mark Wonderland. Just search for that. You know, as far as video stuff goes, my website's mosaicmediafilms .com. So there's a lot of information about what we do and all things like that. So, but if you, if you're in the creative world, you're stuck and you you just want to chat or something, LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me.

Christian Brim (43:32.163)
Perfect. I really appreciate your time today. This has been a fascinating conversation. until next time listeners, ta ta for now.