Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 270. The Lie Solopreneurs Believe About “Overnight Success”

Transcript

270. The Lie Solopreneurs Believe About “Overnight Success” · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: What if the real reason you're not seeing results isn't your strategy, but your volume? In this episode, filmmaker and brand strategist Jake Isham joins us to dismantle the get rich quick myths dominating online business culture. Jake reveals why most content creators and solopreneurs quit too early, what it actually takes to build momentum, and why focusing on consistent action beats obsessing over outcomes. We dive into practical strategies for becoming a media minded business without burning out, how to build authority without being fake or salesy, and why your personal story is one of your most powerful business assets. If you've ever felt behind, discouraged, or overwhelmed by content creation, this conversation will reframe everything.
• 0:43
  Because as Jake puts it, volume negates luck. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving. I'm Carly Ries, and along with my cohost, Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one. As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things solopreneurship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work. If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you.
• 1:24
  But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back. Jake Isham. I swear in another world we were supposed to cross paths. when I was growing up I wanted to be a talent agent. Like, all of my college internships revolved around that. Worked at CAA for a hot minute. I was just like, this is the path I wanna go down. And I feel like you're in that world, but now I'm bringing you into this world, which we'll get into in a second.
• 2:06
  But before we do, we ask all of our guest just an icebreaker question to get the ball rolling, which is, what do you wish you had known before becoming a solopreneur?
• 2:17
  Jake Isham: I mean, just the sheer volume it takes to be successful. I literally just had a friend DM me on Instagram, and she was like, hey. I'm just messaging a few friends to, you know, feel free to be honest and truthful with me. Like, is there anything I need to improve? Is there something, like, do I not dress right? Is my quality not good enough? I was like, look. There's nothing you're doing wrong. You're just not doing enough of it. And it's been the hardest lesson that I've had to learn.
• 2:49
  Like, the sheer volume of work it takes is unfathomable.
• 2:59
  Carly Ries: Because you keep seeing, like, there are good get rich schemes online or, throw up an Etsy shop, and you'll make $20 grand in a week.
• 3:07
  Jake Isham: Throw up some videos on TikTok and do TikTok shop, and you'll make 6 figures.
• 3:11
  Carly Ries: Yes. Exactly.
• 3:15
  It happens.
• 3:17
  Jake Isham: I was talking to him on the TikTok shop thing, just again, show you quantity of views. For a brand to start really making money on TikTok shop, they need 25,000 videos to start making, real money to, like, break a million, I think, on TikTok shop. but again, that's top line. That's still not profit.
• 3:35
  That's not shipping. they're making a 15 to 25% profit margin on that. Like, for a brand to crush, they need 25,000 videos online on TikTok. So people just don't understand the sheer volume it takes.
• 3:53
  Carly Ries: So doing the math, we're on like episode two seventy five. How many more videos
• 3:59
  Jake Isham: No. But I mean that shows you right there. Episode two seventy five. that's amazing.
• 4:08
  Like, that shows you guys have put in the work. and you guys still go probably, hey, we got a lot more to do. And you got 275 episodes. That's amazing.
• 4:23
  Carly Ries: Yeah. it can be so discouraging for people. hearing that stat and knowing you still put in the work, it can be a like....rrrrr.
• 4:31
  Jake Isham: That's the thing. If you're just willing to just grind and just put the head down, and really look at not the one year goal, not the six month goal, but like what is the five year goal? And if you're willing to just look at and this has kinda been my big shift of view in the last couple months, which is less looking at I wanna make a million dollars. I wanna make this amount of money or this achieve this milestone. It's less, what are the actions I'm willing to do?
• 5:01
  Like, what are the actions that I put the target in terms of actions done rather than an achievement achieved. That's not a great way of saying it, but
• 5:13
  Joe Rando: Jake, I just wanna second what you're saying. You know, this is kinda my third big thing that I've done since I started going into business for myself, and it's taken at least ten years to even get good. I mean, the last one I started in 2004, sold it in 2020.
• 5:34
  I mean, that's sixteen years. So this you know, get rich in six months thing, yeah, sure, it can happen. But for the most of us mere mortals, we're grinding it out.
• 5:46
  Jake Isham: But the get rich is you saw only the last twelve months. You only saw that 2019 to 2020 of that business. You didn't see it from 2004. I know it from, I'm not an athlete. I grew up playing sports, but I don't call myself an athlete.
• 6:05
  But my brothers were both athletes. Like, one of my brothers played d one college ball. And if you look at any of these pro athletes, you know, they're playing pro ball at, 22 years old. Whether it's baseball, football, basketball. Right?
• 6:21
  You know, their early twenties. And you're like, wow. Overnight success. But you don't see that they've literally been doing this since they were like four years old. so they've literally been doing it for twenty years.
• 6:34
  And it's the same thing in business. It's the same thing across any industry.
• 6:39
  Carly Ries: It is so true. Well, you had to put in those reps. You were talking about the 25,000 videos. And you know what you're talking about because you are a filmmaker, so you know what it takes to create the content.
• 6:50
  And you also say along these lines that every business now must be a media business. So for a solopreneur with limited time, because they're doing so much, what does that actually look like in practice?
• 7:03
  Jake Isham: Well, I'm gonna give two angles on this. First is the caveat is no, you don't have to be a media business. At the start. You need to just first find a marketing channel that works for you. Now that can be media, but it doesn't have to be.
• 7:21
  But to build a brand, a long term brand, you need to become a media company. And that's kind of, you could say, the small asterisk to that comment. Now it all starts with a gradient. Do what you can. Right?
• 7:39
  The cliche, Rome wasn't built in a day. You know? MrBeast started at zero subscribers. Like, all of the big greats that we admire, whether it's the Grant Cardones in the business space, you could say the Grant Cardones, the Alex Hermozis, like, they all started with zero subscribers. they all started with zero following.
• 7:57
  And it starts with just putting out a video, and harks back to what we talked about on the icebreaker question, was the willingness to just put in the work, and put out the next video, put out the next video. If you could do a 100 videos in a year, even if they're just one minute videos, amazing. That's two a week. That's all that is. Take your phone, make a two minute video, a one minute video twice a week, and put it up there.
• 8:26
  The next year, you're gonna get a little better. The next year, you're gonna get better. And if you're willing to just put that in terms of a five year trajectory, you're gonna have a brand. And so you could say, from like a very nuanced tactical standpoint, this has kinda been my secret way of telling everybody is look at it like the gym. Can I dive deep for a second?
• 8:46
  Deep. We want high level?
• 8:47
  Joe Rando: No go go.
• 8:48
  Carly Ries: Deep. Okay.
• 8:50
  Jake Isham: So I'm gonna say Monday, but your Monday is just day one. Right? This is a seven day routine. This is my social media workout plan. In the sense of, in the gym you go, I always compare social media to working out, because to me it's the best one for one.
• 9:06
  And you know, where people are like, oh yeah, chest and biceps on day one, legs on day two, back and arms on day three. I don't work out. And so I don't know that. But I know from a social media. Monday, ideation.
• 9:19
  Come up with at least 10 ideas. Ideally, 15. And there are a lot of different ways to do that, which we can get into later. Tuesday, you prep. Okay.
• 9:28
  Do I need any props? what locations have I gonna do that? What gear, lights, etcetera? Great. This all should be about an hour.
• 9:35
  No more than an hour. Day three, you shoot about seven videos. If you can do 10, it'd be great. But seven videos, and you can do that in sixty minutes. That should be very easy.
• 9:49
  Day four is you edit and you take out all the ums and erhs. You know, get a really good what's called a radio edit, where it's really clean and a good performance. Thursday or Friday, you do the captions. Take the time, put in the captions. Yes.
• 10:06
  You could do that on the day before, but again, we're spending as little time as possible over a period of times. Friday, take a schedule like Buffer, Social Pilot later, Hootsuite, you name it. Schedule all your posts on all your platforms. Again, should be less than an hour. Sunday, you do analytics.
• 10:24
  You go and there's certain you know, I have different opinions about what analytics to track and why you should track certain ones. And then you repeat. Less than an hour a day, you have a post going out on every single platform once a day, every single day.
• 10:42
  Joe Rando: That's a really, really cool recipe, but I wanna make a clarification. you talked about the gym. one of the exercises I do is I lift weights. And lifting weights isn't just lifting weights. There's good form and there's bad form. And if you do good form, you get great results. If you do bad form, you're just wasting your time mainly. Right?
• 11:05
  So when it comes to doing the videos and things, I mean, yeah, we can do them, but there has to be more to it. There has to be something the analogy to good form in terms of making videos that you are thinking about, and know about, but didn't mention in that description.
• 11:21
  Jake Isham: 100%. But realize the hardest thing in my opinion is first just showing up to the gym. From personal experience. And so many people, the first thing is just getting your butt to the gym. And if you work with a light enough weight, you improve the form over time.
• 11:38
  So a 100%, in terms of the form for videos and whatnot, the hook. And that's where a little bit of that ideation and that prep time in those first one, two days is so important. Is that hook, the first three seconds, that first sentence is you live and die by it. The second thing is the quality of the video is, like, in the sense of, make sure you have a little bit of, the video looks good. Make sure you're kind of well lit.
• 12:07
  You don't look bad. Like, as simple as this, look at me right now versus, no. I don't look as professional. I don't look as good. Alright?
• 12:16
  Do I look like I know what I'm talking about? Well, you're distracted by the fact that I'm really dark.
• 12:22
  Carly Ries: For listeners tuning in on audio, he turned off the lights.
• 12:26
  Jake Isham: Turning on and off the light in front of me. Right. And where for the people watching the video and I put the light back on now, and I look more professional. And so it's just a little bit of like the brand and those little nuances. Additionally, we you could say a contrarian view of mine right now is that views and followers don't matter.
• 12:46
  They really don't. Because we are right now in such an interest based social medial era.
• 12:53
  It was the TikTokification, as they say, where nobody follows and nobody views but if you speak to your audience, they'll connect with you. Like, all you have to do is make videos that's to your audience. And so knowing that, to your point, Joe, is so important. That's part of that good form, is knowing who are you speaking to.
• 13:19
  Carly Ries: Well, so on that note, so I said you're a filmmaker, but I mean, I'll call you a storyteller through that. I mean, you are a storyteller. Could a story be intertwined throughout all of this? Or what mistakes do you see people make? Because my assumption is you're gonna say, yes, story is very important for a brand.
• 13:39
  But how do you intertwine that story with these? is it separate? Tell me everything.
• 13:45
  Jake Isham: Sure. So story can be the overt like, I'm gonna tell you a story. But also storytelling is just how you structure something. A good hook is part of storytelling. Where I can say, if I look at Aesop Fables, or any of the amazing stories that we know. Take the classics, or not even, you could say the big movies of our generations, which is, you know, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, where it's like, okay. Great. This guy blew up the Death Star.
• 14:19
  Who? Why? Why do we care? Who is this dude? so it's like, okay, great. In a galaxy far far away. And, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Oh, okay. We're setting the scene. That's the hook. Or there's this ring that controls, you know, I forget the power of the ring, but you get what I'm trying to say. And so the first element of storytelling I look at is just the aspect of how do you communicate this message. How are you communicating it? Is it interesting? A good story is just interesting.
• 14:54
  And so you look at great podcasts, for example, like Diary of the CEO. Number two podcast in the world right now. And they have a fantastic intro that hooks you into this hour and a half episode. And that's just good storytelling.
• 15:14
  Then, obviously, that's the first element of storytelling that I talk about and I work with with clients. The second is your stories are your stories. They're only for you to tell. A client that I work with, she is a motivational speaker, wrote a book, and working on building out her brand. And she used to be in music publishing, meaning that she helped put the songwriters and the artists together and created big songs.
• 15:43
  One of the songs and the career she helped launch was Christina Aguilera with Genie in a Bottle. She put that whole song together, and that's only her story to tell. Like, none of my other clients, you guys, I can't tell that story because it's her story to tell. And so one of the things I also push with clients is, what are your experiences that are native to you? You know, for me, I left film school, and I was a broke, starving artist.
• 16:12
  Didn't know how to do this. I went to film school. They don't teach you business in film school. I'm the cliche solopreneur. You know?
• 16:20
  I wasn't thinking about business. But at that time, my youngest brother, who's five years younger than me, is making $90,000 a year making videos part time in college. And to add insult to injury, his camera would be on auto. He didn't know camera settings. But on the weekends, he started making $90,000 a year.
• 16:49
  And I'm like, what is going on here? And I realized, he was a business major, and I was a film major. And so that's what got me into business. And that's my talk about storytelling. Right there, that's their story. but also that's also my story to tell. you both have your own stories to tell. And all of the people listening have their own stories to tell. So it's understanding what those stories are. I tell that story pretty much on every podcast, but it's also because that's how I got into business. How I became an entrepreneur.
• 17:23
  Carly Ries: So on the business side of things, going back to the whole media thing, somebody might be interpreting that Like you said, start with one channel. But then if you're a real media company, might need to expand to other platforms, and that seems very overwhelming. So how can you become like a quote unquote media company and beat that overwhelm?
• 17:48
  Jake Isham: Totally. Again, my opinion, it all starts with gradients. Start with the if you could do one video a week, do one video a week. a mentor explained it beautifully to me, which was to start making any content. Whatever quantity that you can sustainably do, start there.
• 18:06
  Then increase the quantity to what you can do. As you start to delegate other sides of the business out, okay, great. Maybe you're starting to make more money if you don't cook and clean, but you're doing Uber Eats. So you're able to leverage a little bit more time to make some more content.
• 18:24
  Then from there you can use a scheduler, like again later, SocialPilot, where you upload it once, and it goes to all your platforms. So it's the same piece of content across all platforms. And then from there, you can then improve the quality of the content, and go, okay, great. For Instagram, we're gonna make a little bit more like this. For LinkedIn but again, this is over time.
• 18:47
  This could be year one, year two, year three, year four, year five. It doesn't all have to be, okay. I gotta make a 100 pieces of content on every piece of channel, because you're not gonna be able to do that.
• 18:57
  Joe Rando: Question on that though. I can see how you can and especially now with some of the technology, it's easy for the systems to reformat it to match the particular platform's video, specs and things. But responding to comments I think, part of the overwhelm is like, okay. I'm you know, if I'm on LinkedIn, okay, I gotta go into LinkedIn and see who's, responding to my posts. Now I gotta go to Instagram and do that, I gotta go to Facebook, and I gotta you know, TikTok.
• 19:27
  I don't even know how TikTok works. So I'm you know? But, anyway, I think they have comments. And the bottom line is, that feels overwhelming to solopreneurs.
• 19:39
  Jake Isham: 100%. And I hope that you have that overwhelm. That's a good problem. If you're having that many comments that you're like, I'm overwhelmed, realize that that is a great problem to have. And one of the things I constantly stress, not only in my own agency, but with my friends that are entrepreneurs, and my family, like we're a bunch of entrepreneurs ourselves, and is we want better problems.
• 20:04
  We don't want the problems of being broke. We don't want the problems of our phones not ringing, and we not getting emails. We don't want those problems. We want the problems of I have too many emails. I have too many clients who wanna work with us.
• 20:15
  I have too many comments. I have so much to do, I can't handle it. That's the problems we want. If your videos aren't getting comments, it's because either you're not putting out enough videos, or you're not making videos good enough. These are great problems to have.
• 20:33
  And that's the way I try to really reframe it, is these are good things. These aren't bad things. These are good things.
• 20:43
  Carly Ries: Good answer. I like it.
• 20:44
  Jake Isham: And then we go, okay. Great. Hey, you know what? We all use the restroom. You got five minutes while you're using the restroom. Handle some comments. You get to what you can get to.
• 20:57
  Carly Ries: And don't pretend you're not bringing the phone in the bathroom.
• 20:59
  Jake Isham: Exactly. You know, there's that. There's, hey, you know, you're eating while lunch. Okay? Instead of watching YouTube and consuming content, reply to some comments there.
• 21:10
  Maybe don't watch four episodes of Netflix at night. Maybe watch only three episodes, and you have an extra half an hour to reply to comments. Like, audit your time. And it's something that I try to do and I go, where? Oh, okay. I just played games on my phone for two hours today.
• 21:29
  Okay. That wasn't the best Use of my time. but also at the same time, wanna just say like, look, it depends on your ambition level. it's okay to not be overly ambitious and to have friends who are more ambitious, but it's also okay to be massively ambitious. And for those who are massively ambitious, you gotta work harder because it takes a lot again, going back to what we started this whole podcast, but it takes a lot of work to be successful.
• 22:01
  Carly Ries: So with this content, you talk about, PR as, like, perceived reality. But how could people go forward with perceived reality without being fake or salesy? And how much should you lean into that versus vulnerability and authenticity? Like, what's the fine line between fake it till you make it, and being your true self?
• 22:24
  Jake Isham: Sure. my perceived reality is not faking shit. I'm not about faking it but what I am about is presenting the right side. Right? I'll give you my example of how I actually kind of came up and realized this concept of perceived reality as PR, is that right after college, I started working with a couple of nonprofits, and I was very fortunate to travel around the world shooting for them.
• 22:51
  Now it wasn't glamorous. you know, we slept in very small hotels, and we ate very cheaply, and I didn't make any money. They paid for the travels. So it was amazing adventures. And while I was there, what they would do is they'd give me one day to kinda go off and shoot whatever I wanted for me. okay. Great. You know, we've flown you out to Japan. You get basically one day to shoot. Otherwise, I'm shooting about fifteen hours a day, shooting content with the person I was traveling with.
• 23:21
  And in that day, I would shoot a bunch of stuff. At that time, I was really focusing on being a fine art photographer. I would shoot all this amazing content, and this was early days of Instagram. I'd come back, and I'd post it over the next month. And I clearly remember sitting on my couch one Sunday morning and scrolling on Facebook.
• 23:41
  This was when Facebook was still cool with millennials. And I saw a bunch of photos from a friend's party. And this is again still when the days you post photos on Facebook of parties. And I texted my friend. I was like, yo, What the heck?
• 24:00
  Where was my invite? He's like, I saw your Instagram. You're in Japan. I was like, dude, I've been back for two weeks. and I realized like again, this was early days of social media. People weren't really like saving and scheduling posts, and you were posting kind of in real time. I realized, holy crap. That is the power of social media right there. And the same thing happened just this last year for fourth of July. I posted an old fourth of July photo of when I lived in Florida and taking photos of fireworks.
• 24:33
  This was like July 3. And then I had a bunch of friends who lived in Florida, were like, oh, are you out here for this year? I was like, no. That was four years ago when I was out there. And so it's still true to this day. so that's where it's like, just talk to your clients. Your perceived reality is if you just, again, position yourself as I'm an authority on this. I know what I know. And don't again, don't fake it because people will call you out on it. Just don't lie.
• 25:02
  But those photos were my photos, and I was in Japan. Those photos were my photos when I was in Florida. But they represent me authentically. I go, this is my work. The same way I go, hey, this is this information.
• 25:17
  You know? I'm not saying, oh, I run a, $100,000,000 agency. Because I don't. But I have friends who run, $5,080,000,000 dollar agencies, and I can say, hey, from my friend who runs a $50,000,000 agency, this is what I've learned. So again, that's where that just like perceived reality is just like really set yourself up as the pro you are.
• 25:41
  Carly Ries: So speaking of being an authority, what's a first step that people can take to coming off as an authority when they're kinda going from unknown expert to I'm the voice of this space?
• 25:55
  Jake Isham: Sure. Really simply, give away the most basic data that you know. You're gonna be so surprised. for example, the tip that I gave earlier about the seven day program. I was talking to a buddy of mine who's got a big social media following, who literally, that's how he makes his income, is through social media. And has been doing it for five, seven years or something like that.
• 26:22
  And he was like, this is genius. I never thought of this. And then I also mentioned, yeah, just get a schedule tour. And he's like, what's that? I was like, have you been manually posting all your content across your channels for like eight years?
• 26:36
  And it's that simple, obvious information that can create you as an authority. You don't realize how simple and how obvious the information is. But it's that stuff where people that go, oh, okay. Because again, the whole goal of social media, in my opinion, as a business owner, is to become known and build trust. The old business cliche of, you do business with people you know and trust.
• 27:03
  So you get attention, and you're building trust. That's all you need to do as a business owner on social media.
• 27:10
  Carly Ries: So we've been talking about social media a lot. Would you say that is the only content people should be creating? Or should people be focusing on blog posts, audio? I mean, we were talking about media. are there any other areas you think they should focus?
• 27:28
  Jake Isham: I guess I consider it all social media. If you're making a blog post, it's gonna go on Facebook, it's gonna go on LinkedIn, it's gonna go on your blog. To me that's all social media. Where I always start with clients, it's like what do you like to do? Do you wanna just talk and no video?
• 27:45
  Great. Start an audio podcast. Are you okay with being in front of camera? Do you wanna be in front of camera? Great.
• 27:50
  Let's start with video. Do you like would you like to write? Great. Write. it really doesn't matter.
• 27:58
  Carly Ries: What if people know they have to do video, but they hate being on camera?
• 28:02
  Jake Isham: Suck it up, buttercup. No. But kind of though. Like, honestly, that's why I have clients. To be blunt, that's literally why I have clients is pretty much every single one of my clients that I work with in terms of their personal brand, all don't like, you have a four k camera right here in your hand. iPhones, Androids, they're all four k cameras. They're you know, $1,200. I think the newest iPhone's $2,500 now. Like, you have a professional camera in your hand. You don't need someone like me or an agency to work with.
• 28:35
  You need someone or like a videographer, a filmmaker, an agency to help you for accountability, to know what to say, how to say it, and so that you keep showing up. And that you have the confidence and the validation. Okay. I don't sound like an idiot. I have a client who literally like was freaking out, rescheduled on me three times.
• 28:56
  But I kept going like, get on a call with her. Yeah. I wanna do this. I wanna do this. Three days later she cancels. Again I call her, hey, what's happening? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna do this.
• 29:06
  I wanna do this. She was so in her head. We do the shoot. And I'm like, okay. I don't know. We'll see how she is on camera. I don't know. She was unbelievable on camera. One of the best first time clients I've ever had on camera. But she had just so much noise in her head.
• 29:23
  And again, she sees the edits. What about this? I'm like, you look great. There's so much noise. And so the only way to quiet that noise is you just do the volume. You just outwork the noise.
• 29:38
  Carly Ries: All this is so helpful. I'm working on our twenty twenty six content strategy right now, and I'm like, alright. Just subtly taking notes while we're talking.
• 29:48
  Jake Isham: I think just from what I think the best way to do it is long form video podcast. Like a long form video content, exactly what you guys are doing, I think is one of the greatest strategies out there right now. that is what I recommend people to do. Like if they have the time and energy to invest in that, the time, money, energy, you know, it's those kind of three things. If you can do it, it is the greatest leverage tool right now, because you want people to live with you, live with your brand for as long as possible.
• 30:20
  And then you have the ability to cut short form clips from it and use those basically as trailers for the long form. They're natural ads that can get millions of views for free. There's never been a time in history that you can get literally millions and tens of to hundreds of millions of views for free. Like, think about the guy in 2020, dog face 420 or whatever, who was drinking the juice riding the skateboard and got like a 100,000,000 views. That and the juice company literally got hundreds of millions of views for free.
• 30:56
  For free. There's never been a time in history that a brand can do that.
• 31:02
  Joe Rando: Or a moron, unfortunately. Thinking about eating laundry detergent and things like that.
• 31:11
  Jake Isham: But I look at it as the business owner, and that's where it's like the staying on brand. It's like, look, you're not being an entertainer. Entertainers live and die by views. If you're being an entertainer, if you're being the Joe Rogan, the caller daddy from a long form podcast, or trying to be a TikTok influencer or just a YouTuber.
• 31:27
  A MrBeast. He lives and dies by views. He gets paid by brands for views. That is how they make money. The same way as the biggest movies.
• 31:39
  That's why directors like, as a filmmaker, you go to director jail if your movie doesn't do well because you didn't make your money back. You make money by the amount of views you get.
• 31:49
  Joe Rando: But for somebody like like us, you know, we are LifeStarr. We really don't care about a million views as much as maybe, a thousand views from the right people.
• 32:00
  Jake Isham: And that is exactly what I tell all of my clients. You do not need a million views. What you need is the right views. Because especially I work with a lot of b to b entrepreneurs or professional services, and I go, look, you couldn't probably handle 10 new clients this week. if your video got you 10 new clients, could you even handle that right now?
• 32:19
  I know in my business, if I had 10 clients sign up for my services this week, I don't know if I'm allowed to curse, but I would be Yep. Insert all of the words.
• 32:35
  Joe Rando: Just going back to the long form video. I was listening to a podcast a couple of weeks ago, and these guys were saying that, one of the things that's performing extraordinarily well now are these ultra long form, like three, four hour, I listened to a podcast I shouldn't say I listened to it. I put on a podcast that was four hours the other day. I slept through the last three and a half hours because it was bedtime.
• 32:58
  But, I mean, people are making these really long, long pieces of content, and supposedly, it's working.
• 33:05
  Jake Isham: People wanna live with the brains. And look, it takes commitment, it takes energy, but like that's when you know you have true fans, true buyers, is that they're willing to live with you for four hours. it's a commitment. So you could do the one week four hours, you can also do four one hour a week. It's the same thing if you think about it.
• 33:30
  And that's where the quantity. Again, it all goes back. I love that that's what we started with, because it is just such the titular foundation of this podcast, which is the amount of work it takes. Are you willing to even make a four hour long podcast?
• 33:52
  Joe Rando: We've never done it.
• 33:53
  Carly Ries: No. I think you're great. You know? But.
• 33:57
  Jake Isham: the amount of clips from it, the amount of work that takes to shoot it, to produce it, to edit it, to get it out there, to distribute it, that's a lot of work. I know because I'm the one who gets hired to do this crap.
• 34:13
  It's a lot of man hours. Four hours of editing, that's about forty hours of post production for the one video. on top of everything, like, maybe thirty hours on the fast end. and that's if you're hustling. but that's where you look at the brand. Like, there's another gentleman in my space who used to be the creative director for Gary Vee and Alex and Layla Hermozzi. I'm blanking on his name right now, and I feel like a butthead. But he focuses on long form solo videos, and basically delivering a master class every once a month on YouTube. He's made a video that was six and a half hours long, and just a full master class on personal branding.
• 34:57
  And it's fascinating because the people who are really dedicated will watch it.
• 35:04
  Carly Ries: I mean, I'd watch Wicked parts one and two back to back, because I'm that invested.
• 35:09
  Jake Isham: And if you're 100%. Look at us especially in the age of binging. We are in the age of binging content. Right? Oh, I don't wanna watch an hour and a half movie, but I will watch 10 episodes you know, that are each an hour long all in one night.
• 35:24
  Carly Ries: My husband has watched the entire series of The Pit in the past five days.
• 35:31
  Joe Rando: Oh, god.
• 35:32
  Carly Ries: He works full time, and he's a family man, if that says anything about how late he's been staying up.
• 35:38
  Jake Isham: My wife and I love the show called Slow Horses , it's on Apple. And we can't watch season five because we know we'll binge it. Because season four and season three, we watched all six or eight episodes or whatever it was in, again, forty eight hours. We just were like, oh, next episode. Oh, next episode.
• 35:56
  Because it's so good. And so that's where, again, improving the quality of content over time, also it's just making great content. But it's not gonna come from day one. Your content day one's going to suck. Probably your first podcast was not good.
• 36:12
  I'm assuming. I don't know. Maybe
• 36:14
  Joe Rando: I don't have the nerve to listen to it.
• 36:15
  Carly Ries: No. It's like, I'm assuming you are correct because it would probably be painful to listen to.
• 36:20
  Jake Isham: I know. I look at my first vlogs that I've done. I've gone on and off from vlogging for fun. I'm like, what was I doing? Or even like or not even I was gonna say actually vlogging from, ten years ago when I really actually started vlogging.
• 36:37
  Those are even more horrendous. And I'm a professional filmmaker. Like, this is what I do for a living, and it's horrendous. So it just gets better over time.
• 36:48
  Carly Ries: Yes. You gotta put in those reps like we were talking about from the gym. Well, Jake, I have no doubt that you will help some of our listeners or many of our listeners find success in this area because we all need that little boost of confidence and a little bit of direction. So we ask all of our guests this question as it relates to success. What is your favorite quote about it?
• 37:08
  Jake Isham: I mean, I'm just gonna take an Alex Hermozi quote that's on my wall right here, and it's probably, again, the theme of the episode, which is volume negates luck.
• 37:17
  Carly Ries: Love it.
• 37:18
  Joe Rando: That's a new one. That is a new one.
• 37:21
  Carly Ries: I think Alex knows what he's talking about, so I'll take his word for it.
• 37:27
  Jake Isham: I'll give a little extra treat, which is I got two more quotes that are literally on my wall in front of me, which is it just takes doing the hard work, and the path of an exceptional person is one of exception. All three, Alex Hermozi.
• 37:40
  Joe Rando: Okay.
• 37:41
  Carly Ries: That guy has got quotes. Been successful, some would say. Take his advice. Well, Jake, if people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
• 37:52
  Jake Isham: LinkedIn is great. Jake Isham on LinkedIn is fantastic. Otherwise, you could search my name on pretty much any platform. I unfortunately have like 12,000 pages because I have pages for my photography, for my filmmaking, for my agency. So feel free to search my name and DM me.
• 38:14
  Carly Ries: And all of that will be in the show notes. But Jake, thank you so much for coming on today. Like I said, we could not have had this conversation at a better time as it relates to my own planning for next year. So thank you.
• 38:23
  Jake Isham: Fantastic. And we'll do a follow-up with a four hour version of this.
• 38:27
  Joe Rando: Very good.
• 38:30
  Carly Ries: And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in today. As always, leave that five star review. It helps us spread the word with other solopreneurs. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube, with these videos, the longer form content, and whatever else we tell people. We'll see you next time on the Aspiring Solopreneur.
• 38:53
  You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.