Sharon Sobel is the owner of Picture This Video, a video production company in the metro DC area, which has been in business for over 20 years. Picture This Video develops creative video products and strategy to businesses and organizations by listening to their clients’ goals and respecting their budgets. With a background in all aspects of video production, they can not only see the big picture, but consider all the brushstrokes required to get there. They help their customers create authentic, engaging and targeted videos that get seen and deliver results.

• CEO Hack: SaneBox for email management
• CEO Nugget: Don't worry so much
• CEO Defined: Wearing too many hats and outsourcing what you're not good at

Website: http://www.picturethisvideo.net/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/picturethisvideo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonsobel/

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

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.

[00:00:29.80] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Sharon Sobel of Picture This Video. Sharon, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:39.10] – Sharon Sobel

Thank you so much, Gresham.

[00:00:41.10] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Sharon so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Sharon is the owner of Picture This Video, a video production company in the Metro DC area, which has been in business for over twenty years. Picture This Video develops creative video products and strategies for businesses and or organizations by listening to their clients' goals and respecting their budgets. With a background in all aspects of video production, they can not only see the big picture but consider all the brushstrokes required to get there. They help their customers create authentic, engaging, and targeted videos that get seen and deliver results. Sharon, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:22.09] – Sharon Sobel

Absolutely.

[00:01:23.29] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So to to get everything started and hear a little bit more about you, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story and let us know how you got started with your business?

[00:01:35.90] – Sharon Sobel

Sure. So I was a very young CEO. As you can tell, twenty years. Come on.

[00:01:40.79] – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. You were just born.

[00:01:45.20] – Sharon Sobel

I started my business while I was still employed, by Fairfax County Public Schools. I was looking eventually to take my business full time but was just kinda dipping my toe in the business waters there, so to speak. And so I started with, personal events, things, and things like that just because of the scheduling. I had a daytime job, and it was personal events were happening on the weekends and evenings when I had availability. In two thousand three, though, I decided to take the leap into owning my business full time. And, that was the the real gist of figuring out where am I gonna go next. So I left the personal events behind and decided to focus completely on, businesses, nonprofits, and organizations.

[00:02:39.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. And I think so many times when we hear or see, like, all the awesome work and, you know, the end, I guess, a product of what you provide to clients and all the great things that you do, we forget and don't see kinda, like, the steps it takes to get there. And I think so many times people don't realize even whether it is the expertise, but also the business itself often can evolve and change. And you start sometimes part time, and then it starts to evolve into doing different services. So it's great to kinda hear a little bit more about that evolution.

[00:03:08.19] – Sharon Sobel

Well, let me speak just a little bit more about that then. Because, before I was ready to make that leap full-time, I realized one of the things I didn't actually have was business skills. I had gone to high school and college, studying TV production, getting a major in that, but I'd never taken business classes, and I recognized that as a weakness. So, in two thousand two, I made a strategic pivot, if you will. I left the school system, and I took a job as a production manager and office manager at a production company in Alexandria, Virginia.

And they knew that I didn't really have the skills, but they told me we're willing to train you, while you're here. And so it was a perfect opportunity for me to learn about what it was like to be on the other side of the desk, not the freelancer side of the desk, but the side of the desk that writes the checks, hires the freelancers, manages the production budgets, all of that. And so I took everything I could from, a year of that until I felt I was ready to leave this place. I wanna do this myself. And I really learned so much during that that strategic turn. It made me feel much better when I, went full-time with the business in two thousand three.

[00:04:39.00] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. You hear so many times, you know, to be able to to to get that expertise, especially if you're able to do an internship or externship or have a job to be able to get that experience. Because when you were mentioning that, just part of me was going back to, you know, a lot of people might have heard the book The E Myth and how important that is where sometimes you love what you do. But when you run a business, that thing that you're passionate about, that you love doing, whether it be video or whatever that might be, is often not what makes up your day. You have to do so many other things, so you have to have that business experience and understand those kinda of behind-the-scenes aspects. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to drill down a little bit deeper. And could you take us through how you work with clients and how exactly that process works?

[00:05:25.19] – Sharon Sobel

Well, even that has evolved over the years. When I first started, and for probably the first fifteen years almost, I was just doing the videos that my clients requested the way that they wanted them done. And it always it didn't match up with my creative vision, but my creative vision might not have been in their budget. Right. So I needed to respect that. And, I I started learning though when I would follow-up with those clients and ask them, you know, do you need a follow-up video done or whatever? They would say, well, nobody really saw the first one that we did, so we're not really too energized around making another one. I was like, oh, well, you know, what you what did you do with it? And I say, oh, we put it up on YouTube.

And then oh, we put it up on YouTube. And then, there wouldn't always be a follow-up. And I realized that there was this this hole where people were kind of checking the the box. Their boss had asked them to get this video done, but then they didn't actually have a distribution or marketing plan with that, and I didn't know that because I never asked, because I never saw myself as a marketer or distributor. I always assumed that was covered on their end one way or the other, and I was wrong.

And so as I just decided, I'm not doing my my clients any favors by not asking those questions and being able to provide a partner or some resource for them to make sure that the videos get seen. So that is part of my process with my clients initially to ask them what they had in mind for their video. But just as important, where are they gonna put the video? What are they going to do with it? Especially now, there are a lot more options besides just putting a video on your website. Putting a video on social media means that there are different formats. It might need captioning. So all of those additional follow-up questions also have to be asked.

[00:07:28.80] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's extremely powerful. And I think it obviously speaks to, you know, every industry, especially, but, obviously, video as well too has evolved in, you know, so many different ways that you can leverage video. But it's so funny when you're saying that too. I have this post I think I wrote where I said if you build it, they won't come because I think so many times as you create a video, you create a website, whatever that might be, you think people would just run, you know, to you virtually to be able to knock down your doors or watch your videos and listen to that. But in reality, that's one aspect, and it's a very, very important aspect. But you have to be able to drive those people there as well too, which is, if not equally important, definitely very important.

[00:08:08.00] – Sharon Sobel

I might have to steal that question. That was pretty awesome.

[00:08:10.19] – Gresham Harkless

There you go. I'll send that over to you later. So, I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for yourself personally or your business. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:08:22.19] – Sharon Sobel

Well, from what I can tell, I think that I have spent the past few years really honing in on my business skills and putting myself in line with not just being a freelancer who goes out and shoots something and does that for you, but really, I've taken on the idea of, you know, CRMs and the networking and all of the other things that that normal business owners do. Mhmm. Instead of just producing the project in my little silo, I'm very keen on being on the pulse of the business community to understand, you know, what their pain points are, where I might be able to fit in and help them with those pain points. Sometimes it's with videos, sometimes it's not. But just trying to to get an idea of how they can grow their business with the use of video, particularly in ways that they may not have thought of, and trying to create products around that.

[00:09:23.10] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. 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, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:09:35.10] – Sharon Sobel

Okay. I've been for many years now using I hope I can promote another company, a tool Mhmm. That I'm using. But, it's a tool called SaneBox. Mhmm. And it's, it's like an email manager

[00:09:51.70] – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:09:51.89] – Sharon Sobel

But it makes me look like a rock star. It's my secret sauce because what I can do is, I can send a message basically back to myself on a certain day, and I can even do it, like, every Tuesday, put this message in my email box. So if I have a customer that's like, oh, I can't make a decision, but get back to me in a month. I don't have to remember that. All I do is I take that email, and I send it to next month at sane box dot com, and I put it out of my head. And so a month later are involved in that, and I can filter things into specific folders. So that's my hack.

[00:10:33.70] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can hop into a time machine, what might you tell your younger business self?

[00:10:44.29] – Sharon Sobel

Oh, I guess it would depend on what time the time machine

[00:10:49.50] – Gresham Harkless

Machine stopped.

[00:10:52.39] – Sharon Sobel

Well, I will say, three years ago, I had a part-time job, for fourteen years that really helped give me a steady income every month. And it was it was a great job for that reason, but mentally, it was killing me.

[00:11:11.10] – Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:11:11.50] – Sharon Sobel

And, that job ended not by my choice, full disclosure. And at the time, I was I was kinda I was blindsided, so I was a little devastated and I didn't know what was next. And so I think, you know, at that time, I would have told myself, and I did learn it. Don't worry so much. You now have a hundred percent of your time to devote to this business that you opened up full-time fifteen years ago. This is an opportunity, not a problem. It's an opportunity. So I did learn that, and my business has really flourished since that part-time job got out of the way. Mhmm. But at the time, I really needed to hear that very strongly from the time machine.

[00:12:06.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And you're not the only one. When your time machine stops there, be sure to stop by my time machine because having, you know, gotten laid off and experienced that, you know, that frustration personally, you know, now you can say, oh, bad door closed, but another one opened as a result. But at that time, you know, you're seeing it as, like, a frustration, a problem when in reality is really a gift and an opportunity. And once you understand that or the quicker you understand that, I should say, then that really allows you to to go ahead and put the pedal to the metal to get, you know, exactly where we wanna be.

[00:12:40.10] – Sharon Sobel

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:41.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you 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, Sharon, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:54.29] – Sharon Sobel

Okay. Let me stop a second. Let me be okay. So for me, being a CEO may not be the same as being a CEO of other places, but for me, it's it's wearing too many hats, honestly. It's and, you know, it's understanding that there's the marketing and the bookkeeping and the accounts payable and the accounts receivable and the actual production work. All of that for me is my job, and I outsource the stuff that I'm not so good at. So I think that would be a good CEO to source what they're not good at.

So I have a bookkeeper and an accountant. And when there's, video stuff that I don't consider myself an expert in, I bring in the experts to subcontract that work too. So it's it's knowing what you're good at, knowing what you're not good at, and making sure you bring those people in on your team, even if they're not an employee, to to represent your company in the best light possible.

[00:13:57.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's absolutely powerful and it's it's so funny because, you know, you think that even if you're capable or aware of or able to do all of the things, you don't wanna do all of the things because that's why you have experts. That's why you have people that you can call on for video production or a CPA or accountant as you kinda talked about as well too. And I think it takes a incredible amount of leadership and even humility to understand that this is my zone. This is my lane. This is what I do best. And the more time I get to spend time in my zone of genius, the more opportunities I get, the better I can, you know, impact the world, impact the clients that I work with as well too.

[00:14:32.60] – Sharon Sobel

Right. Don't be greedy. Just give the money out, and help the economy. Some people do it better than you. Just give them money. Just give it to them.

[00:14:40.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yes. And, I think there's a very powerful principle as well too is when you have that mentality and you're not greedy and you understand there's a tremendous amount of abundance in that opportunity that is out there, not only do you give away those opportunities, but you get better opportunities, I find, when you have that mentality. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Sharon, truly appreciate that definition. Appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all awesome things you're working on.

[00:15:15.00] – Sharon Sobel

I just wanted to say, I guess, that, right now, I'm creating lots of packages that are very easy for business owners to take on depending on what specific thing they're they're working on and struggling with. But I'm still open to, producing the things that clients already have on their, on their desks. So that's still on the table. And the best way to, get in touch with me is through my website. It's got all my contact information, my telephone number, my email, and more information about my background. There are some samples of work that I've done there so you can get some ideas of the kinds of things that I've produced.

[00:15:59.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And and to make it even easier, we will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you there too. But truly appreciate all the awesome things you're doing and the value you provided today, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:12.50] – Sharon Sobel

Alright. Thanks, Gresham. I appreciate it.

[00:16:15.70] – Outro

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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