Grow Your Video Business with Ryan Koral

Isaac Haines is a composer in rural Alberta who sells his whole catalog straight to filmmakers with a one-time, pay-what-you-can lifetime license. Recording from his truck mid-elk hunt, Isaac shares how a tough year led him to launch the idea with paid ads, and how it's grown his audience and changed his family's life. He and Ryan also dig into pricing, value, and the role good music can play in making or breaking a video.

• Your old work might be an asset. Isaac's catalog was sitting on a hard drive until he packaged it into one product.
• Traffic comes from organic or paid. With only 452 followers, Isaac leaned into ads and built toward an offer that could run profitably.
• Price on its own doesn't mean much. Isaac built extra products and a $200 "regular price" so buyers could see what his $40 minimum was really worth.
• Before talking budget with a client, ask what the video needs to accomplish. That's where the value conversation starts.

Isaac Haines is a singer, songwriter, and composer from rural Alberta, Canada, creating raw, cinematic music shaped by solitude and the outdoors.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [06:36] Meet Isaac Haines

• [08:31] Music For Creators

• [19:23] Advertising

• [26:47] Understanding Value

• [34:44] Importance In Music Choices

• [39:10] Increased Income

• [48:13] Connect with Isaac

• [49:06] Outro

• "We all want to be paid fairly... there's a flip to that. We should try to pay fairly when we can." (Isaac Haines)
• "Price in isolation doesn't really make any sense." (Isaac Haines)
• "If you put trash music on top of that, it's just gonna be a trash video." (Isaac Haines)
• "Before we even think about your budget, what do you want this video to do?" (Ryan Koral)
• "Would you spend fifty thousand dollars to make a million? I hope so." (Ryan Koral

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Blue Melnick accidentally started a video business in 2008 when filming one event for a friend turned into five clients. Today he owns and operates Sage Event Management with his wife, Barry Baumgartner, running virtual events for Zoom audiences topping 250,000. Blue shares how they pivoted when COVID erased in-person events and why partnerships beat competing on your day rate.

• Your gear doesn't have to sit idle between gigs. Virtual events help in-person clients reach a much bigger audience without the hotel and AV bill.
• Two-way video is what makes virtual events feel alive. A big TV behind the camera for the Zoom gallery and a vertical screen for chat let speakers actually feel the room.
• Video production is a commodity. Packaging your work around what clients sell (like Blue's $3,500 event-to-DVD deals) makes you much harder to replace.
• Partnering with an ads specialist or taking a revenue share boosts retention, as long as you only do it with people you trust.

Blue Melnick runs SAGE Event Management with his wife and business partner, Bari Baumgardner. For sixteen years they produced the in-person events behind Russell Brunson, Jeff Walker, Tony Robbins and Amy Porterfield. Then 2020 ended live events. They rebuilt their model from in-person to virtual in three weeks, then helped the rest of the industry do the same. Clients have done over $1 billion in sales since. AI is an even bigger shift, the warning shots have already been fired, and most people are ignoring them (or don't know what to do).

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [05:52] Meet Blue Melnick

• [08:44] Virtual Events

• [10:22] Upgrading Gear

• [12:42] Zoom Events

• [17:40] Maximizing Use of Gear

• [22:22] A Good Virtual Event Setup

• [30:39] Partnerships

• [42:11] Course Creation

• [46:26] Connect with Blue

• [47:16] Outro

• "Video production is a commodity business, right? Anybody can pick up a camera and charge a day rate." — Blue Melnick
• "The stand that you put it on is probably gonna cost you more than the television." — Blue Melnick
• "If I'm not profitable, if I'm not creating new opportunities for revenue, I can't keep doing this thing." — Ryan Koral
• "You just gotta trust the people you work with. Otherwise, why are we doing this?" — Blue Melnick

Guest Links

• changecourse.ai (free AI training for course creators)
• poweredbysage.com (Sage's studio)
• Blue on Instagram

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John Meese has spent a decade helping experts get paid for their advice instead of their effort — and this conversation is a direct challenge to how most video business owners price and position their work. He breaks down the difference between running a professional business and an authority business, then walks through how one burnt-out nonprofit filmmaker built an offer that earned $20,000 before a single frame was shot. Along the way he builds an offer for Tell Studios live on the call, which was equal parts humbling and inspiring.

• Knowledge plus experience equals wisdom. Book smarts alone is just information. Street smarts alone is instinct you can't teach. The overlap is what people will actually pay a premium for.
• Pick a problem, not a demographic. You don't need to know if your client is a 35-year-old marketing director in Iowa. You need to know what they're trying to accomplish and what they're tired of.
• A promise is not a guarantee. A promise says here's what's possible if you follow the playbook. A guarantee is something you earn the right to make after you've got reps. You can make a bold promise and still keep your integrity.
• Group coaching is the safe middle ground. You get paid a premium to work with five or ten clients at once, and you don't have to build the whole thing before you sell it. Start with five spots and sell them out.

John Meese is on a mission to steward wisdom; to collect, protect, and multiply knowledge and experience—which is why he's so focused on helping you sell your smarts without losing your soul (or your Saturdays).

• [00:00:00] Welcome to the show!
• [00:05:12] Meet John Meese
• [00:14:55] Wisdom
• [00:22:40] Pick A Problem To Solve
• [00:35:33] Tragedy To Prevent
• [00:46:46] Coaching Meetings
• [00:52:31] How To Get Started
• [00:59:54] Connect with John
• [01:01:11] Outro

"I sell my life in one hour increments for five dollars. And I gradually raised the price of how much my life costs." — John Meese

"We live in a world where we have an abundance of knowledge, but a shortage of wisdom." — John Meese

"It's so easy to create a safe offer that nobody wants. Vanilla is a safe flavor, but there's also twenty different companies that sell vanilla. And when I'm buying vanilla ice cream, I'm looking at the price." — John Meese

"Today, no one pays for my effort. They only pay for my advice. My whole business is built off of that." — John Meese

"I think a lot of times people skip this human step of talking to humans about their products." — John Meese

"The tragedy is not your bank account. That can't be the answer." — John Meese

Guest Links

• soldoutquiz.com • free 5-question readiness quiz plus a crash course
• soldout.coach • the book, in print or as a video masterclass
• Sold Out Coach Club • John's group coaching program

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Beth Nydick spent her career behind the camera — the Tonight Show, national TV, producing other people's stories — before realizing she'd stopped creating for herself. In this conversation, she makes the case that podcast guesting is a six-figure sales system, and that getting booked is the easy part nobody should be bragging about. We also get into the thing most video business owners won't admit: we'll build a gorgeous brand story for any client who pays us, and then never make one for ourselves.

• Getting booked isn't the win. The interview is where the conversion happens — and that means producing your episode before you show up, not after.
• Your brand story does three jobs at once: it establishes your origin, your authority, and the transformation people need to see. Most creatives skip straight to educating instead.
• The fear that keeps you from making your own video isn't about quality — it's ego. You're comparing yourself to peers in your industry who will never be your clients.
• Name the awkwardness out loud. Telling a host it's your first time doesn't lose the room, it gets them rooting for you.

Beth Nydick Media exists for the founders and industry leaders who already have momentum but are leaving serious opportunity on the table because attention without architecture is just noise with good lighting. Beth spent two decades inside national television before she built this company around one truth nobody in the digital brand world wants to say out loud: visibility doesn't create authority. What you do with it does.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [03:36] Meet Beth Nydick

• [10:32] Getting Feedback

• [16:49] Get On Camera

• [19:10] Brand Story

• [28:47] AI Video

• [32:47] Importance of the Interview

• [33:57] Do The Podcast

• [43:13] Connect with Beth

• [44:31] Outro

"Podcast guesting is a six-figure sales system. You are borrowing somebody's audience." — Beth Nydick

"Getting on the podcast is the easy part. That's not the hard part. The hard part is actually having an interview that people listen to and take action on." — Beth Nydick

"My brand story creates my origin, creates my authority, and creates the transformational story that everyone needs to hear." — Beth Nydick

"Ninety-eight percent of those businesses do not have their own brand story." — Ryan Koral

"Nobody's gonna save your business. You create your possibility of success, and showing up is always the first step." — Beth Nydick

"Everyone talks about it. Be the kind of person that actually does it." — Beth Nydick

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David Hoyt spent nineteen years working alongside John Maxwell before landing at The Table Group, Patrick Lencioni's consulting firm, where he now helps leaders master the disciplines of organizational health. In this conversation he breaks down why politics, confusion, and misalignment show up in every organization whether you invite them or not — and what small-team owners can actually do about it. We also get into hiring for behavior instead of skill, why your first leadership move is admitting you've been getting it wrong, and the question David asked me that I couldn't answer about my own team.

• You have to be smart and healthy. Being world-class at the craft is table stakes. The moment you're running an organization — even a two-person one — leadership becomes the job.
• Ask people what they want. PPF conversations (personal, professional, financial) surface the fact that your people almost certainly want something different than you do.
• Vulnerability starts at the top. If you've been leading badly, saying so out loud is the first real step. Then baby steps, not a total overhaul.
• Interview for behavior, not just skill. Humble, hungry, and people smart is the floor. Editing chops won't save a bad culture fit.

David Hoyt brings over 25 years of experience in leading people and organizations. He is driven to see organizations create healthy cultures and teams where individuals can thrive. Prior to partnering with The Table Group, David had the privilege of serving as an executive leader with John Maxwell for 19 years. As part of Maxwell's inner circle, he ran a significant portion of John's business interests and served as President of The John

Maxwell Company. David works with CEOs and executive teams to help them master the disciplines of Organizational Health to consistently and effectively apply the concepts captured in all of Patrick Lencioni's books.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [03:18] Meet David Hoyt

• [07:59] Abundance Mindset

• [10:30] Coaching

• [22:36] Leadership

• [26:59] Vulnerability

• [28:24] Time Blocking

• [30:25] Discipline

• [35:48] Becoming A Healthy Leader

• [37:09] Hiring The Right Person

• [39:45] Connect with David

• [40:42] Outro

"We naturally assume people want what we want. And until we slow down and ask them what they actually want, we'll lead them that way." — David Hoyt

"Politics, confusion, misalignment. Those happen naturally. So as a leader, big or small team doesn't matter, a big part of the job is going to battle against those things." — David Hoyt

"Everybody wants to interview for the smart side, like the editing skills. What too many people don't interview for is the behavioral piece." — David Hoyt

"I don't get very high or very low anymore. It all comes down to discipline." — David Hoyt

"I need to block some time to think differently than I'm able to think day in and day out in the rat race of running your business." — David Hoyt

Check out The Table Group Consulting: tablegroupconsulting.com Contact David Hoyt at [email protected]

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Andrew Cardy spent nine years building a video company with his wife, sold it to a marketing agency in 2023, and walked away in 2025 to figure out what he actually wanted to build next. Now he's got a video business, a nonprofit collective, and a personal brand, and no idea how to talk about any of it online without diluting the others. So we turned this into a coaching session about the thing most of us get wrong: waiting until the mess is cleaned up before we let anyone see it.

You don't need three brands. You need one front door. A personal site can be the home base that points people to whatever project fits them, no more choose-the-right-business-card panic.

Your mission matters more than your mug. The logo, the website, the lighting, the camera, none of that is what's stopping you. Showing up as yourself is the cheapest, most underused marketing you own.

Talk about it before it's finished. Building in public invites collaborators, donors, and clients you'd never have found by launching in secret.

One weekly piece of content can feed everything. Ryan's newsletter becomes a blog, a 7–10 minute YouTube video, and a couple of shorts, one sitting, five assets.

Andrew Cardy has been a creative professional for over 20 years. His favorite part of this work has always been helping people learn the value and power of their unique stories. He has worked as a solopreneur, at a nonprofit, a church, a VP in a marketing agency, and in a little company he started with his wife. He's thankful to have worked with brands and businesses of all shapes and sizes, both nationally and internationally. Now, he's excited to be building some new collaborative brands with fellow filmmakers, growing a collective of creative professionals serving global missionaries, and being amazed at his daughter's shot composition skills.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [05:02] Meet Andrew Cardy

• [13:24] 1 Year Goal

• [17:31] Having Multiple Brands

• [23:04] Showing Up Online

• [24:31] "Know, Like, And Trust"

• [30:20] Just Do The Thing

• [37:29] Invitation To Collaboration

• [46:51] Maximizing Your Content

• [48:37] Connect with Andrew

• [50:27] Outro

"Your mission is more important than your mug." — Ryan Koral

"Nobody cares about the things that we're thinking about over and over and over in our heads. So let's just share where we're at, talk through the mess, let people come along for the journey." — Ryan Koral

"I love making spaces where people thrive. I build the sandbox, I'll put some sand in there, and then you bring the toys." — Andrew Cardy

"There's no other Andrew Cardy in the world. Your story is the strategy." — Ryan Koral

"Anavah is a Hebrew word that means rightly filling the place God has made you to fill." — Andrew Cardy

Check out Andrew Cardy's websiteFollow Andrew Cardy on LinkedIn

Links

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Lindsey Weigle has spent twelve years helping business owners navigate transition, and she recently took her own advice by narrowing Blue Water Advisory down to one thing instead of trying to be everything to everybody. In this conversation she shares the monthly reflection practice she's run for four years, why our brains sabotage big goals before we even start, and the zero-based approach she now uses for her business and her calendar. We also get into what happens when you outsource your thinking to a machine and why she's not in a hurry to do it.

• Saying a goal out loud gives your body the same chemical hit as accomplishing it, which is exactly why declarations feel great and rarely stick
• Your business, health, and personal life all pull from the same time budget, so reviewing them separately guarantees you'll keep ping-ponging between crises
• Willpower works like a tank you can actually grow, and small consistent changes are what expand it
• Reflection on your own hits a ceiling fast, you need someone who knows you well enough to push back on what you're telling yourself

Lindsey Weigle is an executive coach and co-founder of Blue Water Advisory, a leadership development and succession consulting firm. With a focus on training, executive coaching, and organizational growth, Lindsey helps business owners and leaders stop managing the life they have and start creating the life they want. She has a gift for asking the right questions — helping clients uncover the problems they can't yet see and find the clarity to move forward with confidence.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!
• [03:00] Meet Lindsey Weigle
• [11:18] Prioritizing And Reflection
• [16:21] Five Percent Changes
• [24:36] The Zero Budget
• [28:38] Having A Coach
• [35:41] Critical Thinking and AI
• [45:38] Connect with Lindsey
• [46:06] Outro

"Am I creating the life that I want, or am I managing the life that I've got?" — Lindsey Weigle

"Oftentimes we're just rearranging furniture on our back patio. I don't like it over here, I don't like it over here, as opposed to taking a step back and saying, do I like my patio furniture?" — Lindsey Weigle

"We never say I'm going to drink more water, we say I'm going to lose ten pounds. We never say I'm going to start journaling every day, we say I'm going to write a book." — Lindsey Weigle

"If what I was doing was going to get me there, it would have by now." — Lindsey Weigle

"We need to ensure we are not outsourcing our critical thinking to machines." — Lindsey Weigle

"You create the destiny you lean towards." — Lindsey Weigle

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Ricky Norris spent a decade shooting documentaries overseas before trading the airports for a San Diego studio, a wife, and three daughters. Now he's running Kilometer Zero and wrestling with the thing nobody warns you about in film school — that you're not just a filmmaker, you're a business of one, and nobody handed you the manual. In this conversation we dig into why a wide net catches the wrong clients, who to hire first when you're finally ready to stop being an island, and how to structure a week so the work stops following you to the dinner table.

• A wide net isn't a strategy. When you'll take any project that pays, you end up with a patchwork of unrelated businesses instead of one real one — and no clear reason for anyone to choose you.
• Your first hire probably isn't creative. Admin, calendar, inbox, and fit calls buy back more hours than another editor, and those hours are what let you work on the business.
• One plus one should equal three. Hiring isn't subtracting salary from revenue — done right, the accountability and capacity should multiply what the business can actually produce.
• You'll never reach the bottom of the list. There's always another email, another marketing task, another lunch you could book. Time blocking and daily themes beat reacting to whatever hits the inbox.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [06:08] Meet Ricky Norris

• [08:31] Ricky's Story

• [16:51] Handling Multiple Roles

• [22:31] Tailoring Your Business

• [24:36] One Man Band

• [36:26] Building Client Relationships

• [38:11] Event Booths

• [42:07] Finding Balance In The Work

• [52:04] Connect with Ricky

• [52:52] Outro

"Everybody thinks their problems are unique to them — in work, in marriage, in family and life. And when you pop that bubble, everything decompresses." — Ricky Norris

"It's a really big net, and none of the right fish are going in, because it's too wide." — Ricky Norris

"There's no HR company. You are your HR company." — Ricky Norris

"If I'm starting to hire my first employee, it's not going to be a shooter or an editor. It's going to be somebody that's going to help me on the administrative side." — Ryan Koral

"Don't let the next three hours be dictated by what comes into your email." — Ryan Koral

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Mark Ostach is back on the show, and this one wanders in the best way. We get into why our attention spans are measurably shrinking, why he's "pro-presence" instead of anti-tech, and how showing up as your actual, unpolished self does more for your business than another funnel ever will. Then Mark makes a case for treating events and in-person rooms as a real line item in your marketing budget — with a couple of examples that'll make you rethink where your ad dollars are going.

• Presence is a business skill now, not just a life skill. Mark's Law says our attention spans drop by two seconds every decade since 2000 — and that "life lagging" shows up in how slowly you do everything, including your work.
• Know like and trust starts with know. The behind-the-scenes, slightly goofy stuff you're afraid to post is exactly what makes people want to work with you — and it repels the clients who were never a fit anyway.
• Budget for rooms, not just algorithms. Figure out what an average client is worth, decide what you'd pay to land one, then spend that on getting in front of actual humans instead of hoping the feed cooperates.
• You don't have to be on social to build a profitable business. Posting feels productive. Knocking on doors, buying someone lunch, and showing up at the event is productive.

"I'm not anti-tech. I love my phone, I use it often, probably sometimes too much. But I'm pro-presence." — Mark Ostach

"We've made the funnels and all of the things so much harder for people to buy from us, because we're not showing up as our real selves." — Ryan Koral

"Be where your people are, get in the room with the people you aspire to be like, and that'll pay dividends for years to come." — Mark Ostach

"How much would I pay for a $17,000 client? I'd spend a thousand dollars every day of the week." — Ryan Koral

"You need to believe in your work as much as she did — not because you want the picture, but because you believe someone needs what you have." — Mark Ostach (recounting speaker coach Bill Hampton)

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!
• [04:04] Meet Mark Ostach
• [07:48] "If You Really Knew Me"
• [12:01] Generative Dialogue
• [21:47] Life-Lagging
• [31:12] Authenticity
• [35:10] Be Where The People Are
• [41:12] Marketing
• [53:17] Connect with Mark
• [54:19] Outro

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Mark Ostach's Book is now available for pre-order on Amazon The Gift of Connection: Reclaiming Presence In the Age of Distraction

Tara Turkington has spent a decade building a photography business, and now she's eyeing the jump into video — but she's stuck on the same things that trip up almost everyone: no portfolio, no contracts, and a recent client who walked off with her ideas. So I coached her live on the show.

We get into pricing your expertise instead of giving it away, what a discovery call should actually accomplish, and why the portfolio problem is way smaller than it feels.

Free ideas don't get valued. If you're brainstorming concepts before a contract exists, you're doing unpaid consulting — and clients treat it that way.

Charge for the thinking. A paid discovery workshop reframes you from vendor to strategic partner before a single frame gets shot.

Contracts aren't just for paid work. Free projects and trade deals need them more, not less, because that's where expectations get fuzzy fast.

Your first portfolio piece is hiding in your current client list. You're already on their sets. Ask for access, sign an agreement, make the thing.

Tara is a born-and-raised Michigander, based in Détroit, Michigan. Her photography journey started unexpectedly in 2016 while she was finishing her first year of law school and raising her, now, eleven year old daughter. After a spontaneous trip to Colombia, Tara shared photos online that caught the attention of an established photographer, who invited her to shoot behind-the-scenes content for ABC's The Bachelor's, contestants.

Once those images hit social media, opportunities started rolling in—from brands and businesses to municipalities and individuals. Somewhere along the way, Tara realized photography was what truly lit her up, so she took a leap of faith, left law school, and never looked back.

Now Tara spends her days meeting incredible people, capturing meaningful moments, and helping clients bring their ideas to life. No two days are the same—and she loves it that way.

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [04:02] Meet Tara Turkington

• [11:37] One Man Show

• [18:10] Emotional Buyers

• [25:21] Creative Directing

• [26:37] Contracts And Intellectual Property

• [37:41] Building A Team

• [39:28] Ways To Build a Portfolio

• [48:33] Connect with Tara

• [49:13] Outro

"People who pay, pay attention." — Ryan Koral

"As soon as I put a $2,500 price tag on the workshop, now it's like, okay, we believe Ryan — they really want it to work because they've already invested money." — Ryan Koral

"So I think where I went wrong is I basically gave a workshop for free." — Tara Turkington

"I don't think you need three projects. You do one that's kind of good, then the next one is going to be kind of gooder." — Ryan Koral

"I'm still thinking with 2016 mind, and it's like — you have a literal decade of experience." — Tara Turkington

Check out Tara's portfolio at taraturkingtonllc.com

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