Our video agency Celadora Studios just crossed 7 figures in annual recurring revenue, only about 8 months after we started it. Today I’m going to share with you some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way that will be applicable to your business as well.
Let’s go:
1. Obsess over your customers
The key to a successful business is knowing your customer, understanding their pain points, and solving those paint points to a high degree of consistency.
Too many “digital marketers” completely miss this part of the equation.
Marketing and sales are taught in spades, and it seems like nobody talks about actually having a good product that your customers love.
And the way to have a really good product is to know what you customers want.
We spent dozens of hours on the phone with potential clients (and even more with current clients), asking them what they wanted, what their goals were, and how we could help them best.
It was grueling to be honest, but the payoff was well worth it.
2. Productize your offer
Once you’ve done the work to get to know your customer, now you create a product just for them.
Not five products, not two… one.
We went through dozens of iterations of packages and pricing to find the right fit. We productized our offering down to one single package that met all of the needs of our ideal clients.
The goal is to create a system that is flexible enough that your clients can get everything they need, but rigid enough that it doesn’t break every time you onboard someone new.
A productized service has clear onboarding and service steps that get followed every single time.
It make the business much more scaleable and gives your clients a much more consistent experience.
I love the book Built To Sell if you want to learn more about how this works.
3. Always be the buyer
You’ll be tempted to take on any client who has the money and wants to work with you, but it can be a fatal mistake.
We got extremely picky about who we work with. We only work with entrepreneurs who are serious and care about getting the highest quality.
We created an application process (which btw, is a real application, not just an attempt to look like we care), and we vet our clients before onboarding them.
We’ve even had to (lovingly) let go of a few clients who we realized were not right for us.
More clients = more money, but it’s not worth the headache if they’re not the right fit.
When you know exactly who your clients need to be in order for them to have success with you, only work with those people.
It’s morally the right thing to do, plus it will skyrocket your business’s results.
4. Systematize everything
Part of creating a productized offer is systematizing everything.
We wrote SOPs. And more SOPs. And more SOPs.
Most entrepreneurs struggle creating daily videos for themselves. We’re creating daily videos for all of our clients.
We run almost everything inside of Notion. Every client has a database and a content planning system where we track the status of every video we shoot.
It also holds all of our SOPs, templates, and project timelines for internal projects.
5. Maintain extremely high standards
We didn’t want to be seen as just another agency that creates mass-produced, AI-generated fluff for their clients—there’s a million of them out there.
Our team is really good. We opted to spend more to hire talented creatives vs. outsourcing mass-produced work to VAs. We set high standards, and we let our team members achieve them.
We obsessed over every detail of the production process, like the exact angle of lighting in degrees, and the number of seconds between edits.
Being good is hard. That’s why there’s very little competition at the top.
6. Grow slow
I’ve made the mistake of trying to do everything all at once, and taking on every new client that has money. It’s a recipe for burnout and a bad customer experience.
Instead, we take on one client at a time. We give them a high-touch, white glove experience.
Sometimes this means we overspend on payroll to make sure we have more capacity than we need.
A lot of businesses fail because they take on too many clients and the quality of the experience suffers as a result. Fulfillment gets worse, clients start leaving, and churn goes through the roof.
So to build something lasting, you have to make slow, calculated moves to make sure as you grow, your product doesn’t get worse, but it actually gets better.
7. Prioritize the brand
Our business, team, and culture are built on clear core values. They are the filter through which every decision is made.
Should we take on this client? Values. Should we invest in this opportunity? Values. How should we handle this client question? Values.
This creates a culture of team members who are on a mission together. And that culture translates into your company’s brand.
What do you care about? What are you passionate about? What’s the greater cause of your business? Why do you do what you do? What’s important to you? What opinions do you have on the industry?
Discover your answers to those questions and build around that.
8. Product over marketing
To date we’ve spent $0 on ads (and we’re not in any rush to change that). We’ve done very little marketing, besides a few organic posts and personal networking.
Most of our new clients come from word of mouth from our current clients. When you obsess about creating a positive customer experience, clients multiply.
You can’t outmarket a bad product. Focus on creating a quality product first, then start marketing it.
To wrap up…
I shared a short version of this newsletter with someone else and their first question was, “Yeah but how did you get clients?”
My answer: “Read it again.”
I know this isn’t your typical “put one dollar in, get two dollars out” advice, but this is what our company is built on.
When you stop pursuing clients, and instead focus on building something that is attractive to them, you’ll find that clients start pursuing you.
Attract. Don’t pursue.
