IAM575- Founder Creates Content to Drive Sales for an Annual Price

Trevor Rappleye is the CEO and Founder of CorporateFilming.net- a national video production creating monthly content to drive sales for one simple annual price. He started his first company at age 13 and loves what he does. CorporateFilming tripled in revenue in 2019 due to his focus on selling, niching and the customer experience.

• CEO Hack: The effort you put into your business will yield results
• CEO Nugget: You're forgotten the second you hang up your phone – Follow up every two weeks
• CEO Defined: It's not about you but your team and clients

Website: https://www.corporatefilming.net/

https://www.corporatefilming.net/in-the-media
https://www.corporatefilming.net/founder-story

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corporatefilmingusa

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Trevor Rappleye of CorporateFilming.net. Trevor, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Trevor Rappleye 0:39

Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

Yeah, super excited to have you on, and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Trevor, so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Trevor is the CEO and Founder of CorporateFilming.net- a national video production creating monthly content to drive sales for one simple annual price. He started his first company at age 13 and loves what he does. CorporateFilming tripled in revenue in 2019 due to his focus on selling, niching and the customer experience. Trevor, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Trevor Rappleye 1:09

I love that you summed it up in a fantastic way.

Gresham Harkless 1:12

Yeah, absolutely. Well, now I can just drop the mic so to speak. But before of course, we do that I wanted to kick everything off and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to get started with your business?

Trevor Rappleye 1:23

Yeah, man, it's so funny. I'm 29. Now, I mean, the story of when I really began, I mean, it was like I was 13 and I bought two DVDs to remember dotnet, which let me actually pull this off my wall one second. So for people that are on the podcast, I just pulled this off, I've never actually shown this, and I and like I should. So my mom saved this. This was from 2003 and I don't know if you can see it, my brightness is a little bad but it's basically my pricing sheet from when I was selling a DVD for like 15 bucks at tape, keyword tape, you guys tape.

That's when it all began, I've always been a techy guy and to be honest, I just always wanted to have the latest Gameboy or the latest RC car or the latest. I just didn't want to ask my mom and dad for money. So that's what began I'm like, How can I make money? I was like, people want to convert their VHS to disk and that's how it all began, long story short.

Gresham Harkless 2:34

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that and definitely, obviously to have that hanging up on the wall as well to probably bring back a lot of great memories, as well.

Trevor Rappleye 2:43

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 2:44

Absolutely and I know that there's just always say, I guess, I think if you just said find something you love to do you never work a day in your life, definitely sounds like you nailed that and were able to do that and create that. As the mediums and of course technology of change. It sounds like there are definitely some core principles that you've been able to do to skyrocket your business this past year. But also sounds like you did it when you were 13 years old as well.

Trevor Rappleye 3:07

Yeah, it's funny. I was reading a book the other day, and I think people are confused about that. If you do what you love it's somewhat easier, but it's actually not, it's the flip. It's hard. But you happen to love it. So doing what you love is not easy and I think people have that flip that I'll just find my passion, it will be easy. I'll sleep until 10 am and I'm like, it's the opposite, there is a direct correlation with CEOs, and how much they work on their business, not just in it. Right. So, advice I wish I would have told my younger self was, that it's okay to not check email 24/7. Like, get out in the world, go meet people sell something, close something, just get top-line revenue, because that's really the only thing that matters when you first begin.

Gresham Harkless 4:05

Yeah, that definitely makes so much sense. I think Steve Jobs said something along the lines of – You don't have to love what you do but you probably want to love what you do. You're gonna work so damn hard at it that Oh, you're gonna wish that you actually love it, and if you don't love it, it makes it 10 times as hard to get through that. So I know we've kind of touched on it a little bit. But I wanted to hear a little bit more about the thing that you love to do. Can you take us through what you do for your clients how you work and what you feel kind of sets apart?

Trevor Rappleye 4:29

Yeah, corporate filming, we create ongoing videos of their people and staff to really drive top-line sales. We used to just make one video we'd say bye and we'd never see them again and about a year and a half ago, I was like, How can I get them back? Right because all of us owners work so hard to nab somebody to grab them and then yet when it actually comes time to retain them we forget. So one of my favorite things that we started doing is instead of offering one video a year, we're like, Hey, how can we create ongoing video content? Right? So what we specialise in, is creating videos anywhere in the US. We don't charge travel, we don't charge hotels and then every 30 days, they get new videos in their inbox.

Marketing teams love us because they can just text us and say, Hey, can you go to Michigan? Can you go to LA? I think the reason why it worked so well is people don't want to be nickel and dimed. So we never nickel and dime clients who work with us. So corporate filming clients on our subscription model, it's it's a pretty high revenue ticket, right? So we don't charge them travel hotel. But we are literally a phone call away to get their CEO on film, to get their customer on film, whatever it takes to drive a sale. We found that to be the most successful when you highlight the story and passion behind why someone works for you. Because people want to work with fun people. So we tell people, Hey, let's let's highlight your people before we highlight what you're trying to sell.

Gresham Harkless 6:29

Yeah, that makes so much sense especially with a medium like a video, probably unlike other mediums, you don't necessarily get that I guess human connection as much. To be able to, as you said get to introduce and know persons, team, and they're the people they're going to be interacting with outside of what they're doing. Probably get that opportunity to build that connection before you even pick up a phone call.

Trevor Rappleye 6:53

Yeah, and I think you really hit it on the head. It's like, who am I working with? Right? With digital everything. So digital these days. No one really has time, at least the people we are targeting, to drive into our office, spend a half day in traffic, sit in our office drive back in traffic, nobody has time for that. So the way that companies can jump above that is by getting a video of your salespeople, of your CEO, of just who am I speaking with. I feel like business owners and people listening would just have that mentality of just humanizing themselves as the business owner.

Even if it's a cell phone video saying, hey, it's Friday, I'm here at the office, just who the heck am I emailing back and forth? If people just tackle that, you will see your sales close five times faster, because like, oh, it's Trevor. He's so nice. He's so passionate about what he does and you would never get that from an email.

Gresham Harkless 7:59

Yeah, that makes so much sense. That's why it's such an exciting time. Because you have that opportunity. Of course, if businesses do it, or if they're working with your team, you and your team have that behind-the-scenes interaction that looks into why people are so passionate about what they do, and why they do it on a regular basis. Just some of that access allows that opportunity to really humanize what it is that we're doing.

Trevor Rappleye 8:23

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 8:24

Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Trevor Rappleye 8:38

I feel people are gonna think this is really cliche, or they're gonna say, Oh, he's right. It's both to be very honest. It's both, it's cliche, it's corny, but it's also correct. The amount of effort you put into your business will yield the result. Like it's, if you work for four hours a day at what you're trying to create as your sole income, in my mind it will never fully scale. The minute you can set aside 16 hours a day, 12 hours a day, like even to this point, I work from six to six. When we were first beginning, the first two years, people thought we were so rich and we never told them we weren't.

But we weren't paying ourselves. Yeah, we'd work six to six. People like to take a break. We're working so hard. It's like Sunday. I'm like you I know it's Sunday. Let's get some work done and I feel like it's honestly really simple. I get very passionate about this. If the more work you put in, the more strategic work you put into your business, the better your business will be. That doesn't mean checking email. That means vendor relations. That means updating your website, that means sending out 20 emails, and more importantly making 20 phone calls.

Gresham Harkless 10:00

I definitely appreciate that. That was that hack. I know you touched on this as well. So I didn't know if you had anything else here. But I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, which might be like a word of wisdom, or a piece of advice might be around video and brand name, but what something you would need to tell your younger business self or even maybe telling a younger client that's just getting started?

Trevor Rappleye 10:21

Honestly, the first thing that came to mind, which is why I laughed is you are forgotten the second you hang the phone up. It's literally that simple. So your sales call the person you're trying to nab, the person you're trying to hire you are forgotten the second they say bye. So what can you do to stay top of mind and with us, it's falling up every two weeks? It's an actual phone call. It's leaving this thing called a voicemail, which people think has gone out the window, but it hasn't left an eight-second voicemail. Hey, it's Trevor corporate filming can't wait to chat by bam.

It's some sending them a thank you card, something they can actually hold and put on the side of their desk. It's so that would be my one nugget if you're forgotten the second you hang up the phone. So what can you do to stay top of mind?

Gresham Harkless 11:16

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I think from like a marketing or probably even a sales perspective, I think it was always you need to have seven to 10 touches. But that probably has gone through the roof with all the technology and accessibility that we have that you do have to continue to do those things. Having a mentality that people aren't going to remember you unless you continue to follow up and continue to follow up in thoughtful and strategic ways. It helps you to stay on top of your mind.

Trevor Rappleye 11:40

Exactly, yeah.

Gresham Harkless 11:41

Awesome and so now what I'm asking my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Trevor, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Trevor Rappleye 11:52

That's great, I've never been asked that so directly so I love that. Honestly, what it means to be a CEO, it's not about you. It's about your team. It's about scaling something that is sustainable. Because if you grow so fast, but then you can't sustain quality, then you shouldn't have grown in the first place. So honestly, the best CEOs are the ones who realize it's not about you. It's about your team, it's about your clients and it took me years to actually realize this years where I say, to my team, what do you think you should do?

Not telling them 100 times a day, I'll do this, it's, well, how would you counter that or how would you do that and I'm amazed because sometimes they come up with an idea that's 10 times better than I would come up with, so that I just stepped back. Alright, well, why am I telling them what to do? Right. So I would say that my one thing of advice is that it's not about you. It's about them.

Gresham Harkless 12:54

Yeah, it makes so much sense. I think a lot of times when you have a strong mission, as we talked about in the very beginning, but that penetrates everything you're doing from building the company in that organization, you start to be able to call upon that mission and become bigger than yourself bigger than us as individuals, it becomes the team it becomes the mission becomes the clients and their expectations and what it is that they're doing. You start to penetrate and create that corporate culture where every action that you're taking goes through that lens. So I think that's an awesome definition and perspective.

Trevor Rappleye 13:24

Yeah, and something else I want to leave people with is like, we just started this thing called the daily huddle. I was so against it, but it's a five-minute daily huddle, and you actually don't sit you stand up and you go around the room and say, what are the three things you did yesterday? And what are the three things you will accomplish today? It just gets everybody on the same page and it just reminds everybody what their big goals are. No one's ever goal is to check email. Because that's not a goal. That's like just the thing you do. Right? So that's something I'd recommend that I wish we would have started years ago. It just gets everybody ingrained in what the big goal is for that day.

Gresham Harkless 14:04

Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that. I think with so many times that we're so there are so many distractions and things that are in the way there's a lot of times it can be really hard to be focused when you start the day with a daily note and say, Hey, this is the three things we're going to tackle this is not the month, the small tasks sometimes that we take in order to reach our goals, but our actual goal, you drill down on that and that's when that starts to happen those dominoes start to fall, so definitely appreciate that as well. I wanted to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Trevor Rappleye 14:39

Yeah, my last piece of advice is no one wants to work for a like no at all. No one wants to work for a boss that knows everything. So I literally try and find moments in my day to say the words I don't know. Like, I don't know, what do you think, and sometimes I have no clue what they're talking about. So I'm like, what I don't know, you guys are in the weeds. What do you think is best? People think it's the flip, people think you have to be this smart CEO who's yelling at somebody and saying you're late, it's 9:01 and it's the opposite. I actually have no idea.

I totally forgot my fault, can you help me with this? It just gives your team the ability to also say, I forgot to or I messed up or I effed up, it gives them the autonomy to also say that. Yeah, I love leadership books are one of my favorite things. So someone else I'd like to read, as well. But yeah, we are CorporateFilming.net. Our website is corporatefilming.net. You can find us on Instagram, Corporate Filming USA and my personal Instagram is Trevor Loves Story because we are storytellers and my direct email is trevor@corporatefilming.net.

Gresham Harkless 16:00

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, again, Trevor. We will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I appreciate the reminder as well to have being able to empower everybody on the team so that they're able to make decisions. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room because none of us want to be that if we want to be successful. So I appreciate that reminder and all the great things you're doing out and I hope you have the phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:23

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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