Rai Cornell 0:02
Welcome to the Soar Podcast! The place for creative entrepreneurs with limitless dreams and unconventional stories, who want to build healthier, happier, more profitable, self employed businesses. I’m your host Rai Hyde Cornell, get ready to soar.

Welcome to the Soar Podcast. On today’s episode, we have Noah Hutton. Noah, tell our listeners what it is that you do.

Noah Hutton 0:29
Hi, my name is Noah Hutton. I own NTH Productions. It is a production company in Warsaw, Indiana, which is kind of Northern Indiana. And I kind of break up my business into three parts. So I do real estate media, sales listings, Airbnbs, rentals, construction, things like that. I also do events, so corporate events, mainly fundraisers, golf outings, conferences, leadership summits, things like that. And then the third part of my business is kind of the catch all area of my business. I call it corporate or commercial media. So that’s brand videos, that’s social media content, anything else that kind of I work with a business to do video and photography content.

Rai Cornell 1:10
So you have some very specific niche areas. And I want to get into that today. But before we do, tell me about how you got to this point, like, where did you start? And how long has it taken you to build this really successful, thriving production company?

Noah Hutton 1:26
Yeah, so I actually started, I’ll go back a little bit. So during sophomore year of college, I was in college right when the pandemic hit that was my sophomore year, and over the summer, I had an internship. And one of the things I had to do was graphic design. And I was terrible graphic design. So I wanted to learn graphic design, but I didn’t want to just do it because I wanted a purpose behind it. So I started a clothing brand to kind of put my graphics on the clothing. That business went nowhere. It wasn’t stressful, but it was it was still good. It was kind of my first jump in entrepreneurship. And I realized I really enjoyed it, I really enjoyed working for myself. And so my plan coming out of college, which was actually last May is when I graduated, so about a year ago, my plan coming out of college was move out to LA or move out to a different big city, work in a marketing agency work at a business, work in marketing, do real estate media on the side, because at the time, I just started doing real estate media back in March. And I really enjoyed it. So I was gonna do real estate media. And then once I got enough clientele, I would do my job and do my business. I never ended up getting a job anywhere-I didn’t get any offers. And so that was kind of, it came to a point in like August or July really but August was kind of when I was like, I’m done applying for jobs. This is ridiculous. I’m not getting anywhere, I had two interviews that I thought were really promising that didn’t go anywhere. And so I was just tired of the grind of changing my resume, writing cover letters, cold emailing people, messaging recruiters that the whole thing was just ridiculous to me. And I still think it’s kind of ridiculous the amount of work that people actually do to find a job. And so I kind of made a decision in August/September of last year to not do that anymore and just focus on my business, I’m still living at home now. But I had this I had to kind of that to go back on. But just focusing on my business and growing my clientele and I started to get a little bit of traction in the fall. But for real estate, that’s the slow time. So my goal all fall was build seeds, or plant seeds, find clients, find people that I could work with. And then this year has really been where that a lot of those seeds that I planted kind of have come about. And I’ve worked with a lot of clients now. So that was kind of my journey last year that kind of takes me into now of just not really having anywhere else to do so I was kind of forced to go in entrepreneurship in a way. But it was a tough decision but it was a good decision overall, in my opinion.

Rai Cornell 4:04
I love your story because it epitomizes so many things that I’m sure people who have listened to previous episodes of my show, hear me get on soapbox about quite a bit. When one is the system, the system is idyllic. It’s, oh, this is how it should work. But it doesn’t actually work out that way in a lot of people’s favor. And then the other part of your story is that you created an opportunity for yourself rather than waiting for an opportunity to come rather than feeding into the system that promises you opportunities but never delivers. You decided, no, I’m going to actually go and create my own opportunity by creating my own business. And you’re so new to owning your business and yet you wear your entrepreneur status with such pride and confidence. Where does that come from?

Noah Hutton 4:57
I think in the beginning It was just kind of like the I have to do this, I have to make this work. And so it was a lot of learning how to be confident. It wasn’t really. You know, I was like confident, I’m not an expert, I’m very introverted. I’m very much like, I don’t want to go to events, I don’t want to talk to people, I don’t want to go into groups. I don’t like going out, like all this kind of stuff. So bringing that confidence to the forefront was really hard. But this year, I can’t do that. I can’t just be like in the background anymore. I have to go out and like search for stuff. And kind of the story I tell that relates to that is, I got invited to a bunch of Christmas parties by different real estate organizations and brokerages and people like that. And when I would get there, I’m super introverted. I don’t like parties at all. So I’ll get there and kind of stand around waiting for people to talk to me and like, I was so uncomfortable. And like, I looked awkward people thought like, it was just, it was a bad deal overall. And so I got like, I mean, I’ve made some relationships and things have worked out from that. But it really I didn’t take advantage of it at all, like I was in a room by one of them with like 125 realtors, and like I could have met 50 realtors not thinking I met maybe one. And like it was just because I didn’t have the confidence that I didn’t actually like, enjoy going up people and talking to people. So this year, I’ve really focused on going to as many networking events as I can getting involved in my local Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Corporation here, meeting entrepreneurs, it’s kind of how I started my own podcast to meet other entrepreneurs. And just doing all of that to get out of my shell a little bit. I’m still super introverted, like I would go to like socials and events and things like that. Even if it’s a smaller group, like I’m still very introverted, and I don’t like to just like, introduce myself, but going to networking events, going to networking meetings, trying to meet business owners, and do all that kind of stuff is really like how I’ve made getting more confident and more social a forefront this year for my business.

I think that’s a really important lesson for people to hear. Because I’m with you, I am super introverted. And people don’t expect it when I say that, because they’re like, Well, you have your own podcast and you run to companies like – how can you be introvert? No, I’m introverted. I like my downtime. I like my alone time. And I hate parties and networking events. Yet, I built the agency side of my business through exactly what you’re talking about going to events, being face to face one on one with people. And I think even for introverted people like us, that works much better than something like a just blasted out to the world social media kind of strategy, because you don’t have the intimidation of being up on a stage, so to speak, even a digital one, you’re able to kind of read the room a bit better when it is just you and one other person. So where do you see your future business growth strategies in the context of what you’ve learned through doing these networking events, even as an introvert?

So I think I mean, it’s still going into as many events as I possibly can, like there’s a, the local economic development corporation is constantly putting on my entrepreneur socials. And a lot of them are kind of focused on the more medical side of things, because we are a big orthopedic area in my town. So there’s a lot of orthopedic startups and medical startups here. So they do a lot of that networking. But I mean, I still meet a ton of people. And a lot of the people that are in orthopedics here are very, like big, I would say the big players in the community, they have either money or they know people a lot, they know a lot of people. So go into those, even if I don’t really want to work in the medical industry or work with these companies. Not that I don’t, but if I even if I don’t like have that. That’s not my goal. meeting these people and introduce myself is great way to just get my face out there. And like if I meet, you know, the CEO of this company, like he’s like, oh, yeah, my friend has, you know, this lake company, he wants to, you know, work, get some drone video that like, whatever like I can. So I’m going to all of these socials, I also joined. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of BNI its Business Networking International. Yeah. So I joined our local BNI chapter. And that has really like skyrocketed my business. You know, having this group of like, 10 to 15 people where they know exactly what I do they know exactly who I am. I got one on one conversations with them. I’ve used some of their services. So there’s that trust factor there. And now, if they, you know, have oh, look, we have a friend at a golf course they want some drone video, their golf course, like they know exactly who to go to, as opposed to be like, I don’t know, anybody that’s drone, like my cousin has a drone. I don’t know if like he does this or whatever. Like, they know exactly who to refer to. And that’s been huge. Building this local group of people that really trust me to do the work that I do.

And then these people, you know, one of them’s a realtor, one of them’s a mortgage broker, one of them’s insurance. One’s financial advisor, like those are very like, well networked jobs. Especially the realtors being in real estate. That helps a lot to like he knows all the real there’s because he worked with half of them in the town. So going into this group has really kind of skyrocketed my business. And I’m still going to continue going to as many networking events as I can. And another thing that I kind of did really strongly in the beginning of the year that I kind of got away from as things got busier. And I also like kind of went through like an unmotivated streak in my business. But now like back to being really motivated, is going into businesses, either cold calling them before or sending an email before and saying, like, Hey, I saw you don’t have any golf courses, or what I’m really targeting right now. It’s like, Hey, I saw you don’t have any photography of your golf course, whether it’s drone, or just photography in the clubhouse. I’m a real estate photographer, I’m also a drone pilot licensed, fully insured the whole thing. So I would love to work with you get some shots of the course, whether it’s video/photography, if you have a golf outing coming up with for combat. So that’s something I really targeting-went to four yesterday, I’m gonna go to a couple more, probably next week when I have some more downtime, but really going into those businesses trying to find someone to talk to one on one because again, like we said, like we’re introverts, we do not like these group settings, like even if I see you know, the owner of the golf course or whatever in a networking event, like going up to him and talking to him is not my idea of good time. But by walking to the golf course, and he’s in the pro shop or whatever. And I just say like, Hey, I’d love to, I sent you an email a little bit back a link to my website, here’s my card, we’d love to get some drone video of the course let’s talk that’s way more comfortable for me to do. And so that’s really where I’ve been focusing my time is trying to get one on one face to face with people as opposed to calling because last year, that’s really what I focused on was cold calling, cold emailing, not going into brokerages at all. And like, if you get a call in here, say like, Hey, I’m a real estate photographer use me and your next listing, but I wasn’t that aggressive. But that’s basically what I’m saying. Like, nobody cares, like, nobody wants to use you. There’s no reason for them to use you. But if I walk into a brokerage, and I say like, Hey, I’m a real estate photographer, I sent you guys an email a while back, I have my website pulled up here, some of the work I did. That’s way better, it’s way higher likelihood of me getting to work with one agent or two agents in that broker. So I’ve been really focusing on using my strengths in one on one situations to create those meetings and create that opportunity to talk with them and show them my services, so that I have a lot higher likelihood of landing the clients.

And I think this really speaks to the way people like to do business the way people like to interact. And I think especially as introverts, we tend to think of ourselves as unique. And oh, we don’t like to be, you know, around big groups, or we don’t like social media or whatever the case may be. Not to say that all introverts don’t like social media, but that tends to be a trend that I’ve noticed. Anyway, what is interesting is leading up to COVID, people were getting more and more comfortable with the whole digital interaction thing. But then COVID was such a hyper concentrated period of being digita-only, digital everything, that now that we’re on the other side of it, and still things lingering around, but in our post COVID world, it’s like people are craving one on one and face to face in person interactions. And you’re leaning into that and saying, “Hey, I’m a real person. I’m not some bot or some guy on the other side of the world. I’m right here. Let’s have a real human old school conversation,” and people tend to respond really well to that.

Yes, absolutely. And like, when you when you were talking about that, like I was thinking of all the like, you know, PR and marketing companies that pitch me they’re like, we’ll get you 150 leads we’ll like do all this and I’m like, I don’t know how that like I don’t even I know it works for some businesses but like I don’t even know how that would work for me because like I don’t want to read I don’t want to cold email 150 businesses with that no personal touch like I just don’t I don’t get it when like these lead gen businesses and for some industries maybe what works better than others but like for me, like I have to be one on one because right now it’s only me like I’m not sending like I might in the future like send somebody else to go work on a project by a bigger company but right now like they hire NPH productions, they’re hiring me to go out and shoot the house shoot the golf course shoot with their business do some content there or work there but like they’re hiring me and only me so yeah, like I rely heavily on that aspect of it. Sometimes, you know too much because if I need to hire out you know, maybe that gets more difficult but right now, it’s only me and I really need to like focus on that and so yeah, I have a heavy personal touch my business and you know, I hear people telling me all the time, like if you want to scale you can’t be as personal like you have to add this and that and this, but like I am-it’s me, it’s only me and like that’s just how it’s been it’d be for a long time. And that’s kind of how I want to keep it for a while, as long as I can make a living with it. I’m perfectly fine with that.

Rai Cornell 15:05
Well, I think it’s a myth that you can’t scale and keep the personal touch. Because one of the things that I’ve noticed, especially on the marketing agency side, is that people are coming to Cornell for me, because it’s my philosophy on marketing. It’s my psychology background that they want. But that doesn’t mean that I’m doing every single thing in the business. But what it does mean is that when I have a sales conversation with someone, they’re not getting handed off to some project manager, and account rep, or whatever, and they’re never hearing from me again, no, I remain their main point of contact. But I delegate very well to my team. And nowadays, that’s what people want. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people who are like, wait, am I going to just be handed off? Or are you going to be my main point of contact because I really want to work with you. They’re tired of this model where one person sells them, hey like that relationship. But then poof, as soon as that company has your money, that relationship is gone, because that sales rep is on to the next relationship building. So people are craving relationships. And they’re craving that personal interaction but no other businesses are really understanding and providing that.

Noah Hutton 16:21
And that’s another thing that I’ve kind of thought about, as I’ve thought about this, and other people have encouraged me to get some sort of assistance to work on my business, whether that’s social media, or emails, or like finding clients, things like that. And I think I literally said, like, I need an assistant, like, I don’t have enough time to do everything. But I also like, I do not want to leave, make them like I don’t if they call my number, I don’t want my assistant to answer. I don’t want my system to be answering emails. So like, I’ve like tried to figure out a way to like, bring in assists the end, but internally to do internal things. Because, like, I just, I don’t want to lose that personal touch. And I don’t like, you know, if the CEO of a company is calling me, or if the director or VP of Marketing is calling me or whoever, like maybe it’s normal for them to get in this step. But like, when my company is, so personal attachments, like it’s my initials on the name, like it needs to be me answering the phone at all times. And so yeah, I just I’ve like, that’s something I struggle with. But also like I’m very strong on is like, it used to be me in my company and working on it. Because like you said, they’re hiring me, they’re hiring you. And maybe the actual work is done by somebody else. Like maybe if they hire me to shoot a video, I have an editor or I have, you know, somebody that’s doing the copy for social media or whatever we’re doing but the actual face of the company, the people they’re talking to everyday is me. So that’s kind of how I’ve been keeping my company. And that’s how I want to keep my company for a long time.

Rai Cornell 17:54
And I think a lot of entrepreneurs think of that as a weakness, they think, Oh, I’m not gonna look big enough, I’m not going to look experienced enough, I’m not going to look established enough if I don’t have a whole team under me. But really, that’s a myth. And it’s all about how you present yourself, which, that’s another thing I wanted to ask you about. Since you have built your business on networking events. The one thing that you really need, when you’re going to do a strategy like that. It’s not a website, it’s not a business card, what you need is an elevator pitch. And I swear that seems to be the hardest thing for a lot of entrepreneurs to figure out is how do I explain what it is I do, who I work with, and how I can benefit this company, rather than going into networking events and going Hi, my name’s Sally, so and so and I’m a writer, and leaving that you need to leave them with something that to your earlier point, they can then repeat to their network so that when someone is looking for, in your case, drone photography, or drone video, they think oh, I know someone and this is what he does and this is who he helps. How do you come up with yours?

Noah Hutton 19:03
So one thing that I kind of gave what I want to give my elevator pitch at the beginning of this podcast is kind of like these three aspects of our business and this is kind of where I’ve niched down and chosen to do my business. One thing that I have been doing very recently, and kind of will be doing going forward is when I cold email a business specifically, I will say like I’m a photographer, videographer from Warsaw, Indiana, I came across your website, and I think you could benefit greatly from drone video drone photography, or I’ll email like a golf outing that is coming up and I’d be like, Hey, I’d love to do photography and video for your golf outing. But like 90% of people don’t know what video could do for their golf outing, or what like photography looks like past just capturing photos of people. So my second paragraph in an email, like trying to keep it as short as possible, but also like providing enough detail is this is what photography looks like. Photography looks like capturing sponsorship, events, sponsors, signage, people at your event people on the TVs people on the greens, journal photography of the event, things like that video looks like a recap video of the event, social media content related to your sponsorship opportunities, or, you know, video of the golf course and just kind of some drone shots to kind of recap the event. So I will give them like specific things that I have in mind to deliver to them. And then if they say, Okay, we would love a recap video for the event, then I can actually like I already have that what they want. And it’s not necessarily a second call, like, Okay, what do you want? Because they don’t know what they want. They don’t know what video looks like, they don’t know what I can do. They don’t know. You know, I simply say like, I’m fully insured, fully licensed drone pilot, because they don’t know like, what that all looks like and that gives them like more confidence in me. So like all these like little details that I provide kind of help that conversation along. Or at least I’m helping you. Well, I just kind of tried out that first strategy now. But I think it will, because it already gives them a starting point of like, okay, we would love photography. Like we don’t necessarily need video right now that sounds expensive. It can be kind of expensive. So let’s just do photography right now. What are your rates? And we can go from there? Or, oh, yeah, we would love a recap video, this would be great. We’ve kind of wanted to do a video for a while we didn’t really know where to start. Let’s move on from there. And so I kind of have my elevator pitch of those three aspects of my business. Depending on where I go, it’s usually I only talked about one of them. So we have been going into a brokerage, I’m not mentioning about media, commercial media. And then if they asked, Hey, we want some social media content, then I can talk about it. But I’m going into a nonprofit talking about, you know, their award ceremony next summer or whatever, I’m not talking about my real estate stuff. So yeah, I just I basically had those three. And then I tried to find specific solutions that will fit the client and that kind of helps the conversation along.

Rai Cornell 21:54
You’re giving them those specifics that help them envision what they’re going to get out of working with you. And it makes it more concrete. I think that’s really important as someone is crafting their elevator pitch, the more concrete you can make it and less generalized, the better. So I want to dig in more to how you niche down into these particular areas. But we’re going to take a super short commercial break, and we’ll be right back.

Hey, this is Rai, ready to build a business that supports a life you love, a life you’ve always dreamed of. It’s time to stop passively dealing with what’s right in front of you, and start deliberately designing your own future. That’s exactly what we do in private business mentoring, you and I work together to create a completely custom to you business model that gives you everything you want and need while protecting you from stress and burnout. Ready to get started? Go to chironconsulting.us/mentoring to learn more. There you can also book a free call with me so we can start getting to know each other and see if mentoring is right for you. Plus, I love working with early stage entrepreneurs. That’s why my mentoring packages are priced so low, I want you to soar. So don’t worry about having to shell out thousands of dollars, not here. Just go to chironconsulting.us/mentoring to learn more.

We are back with Noah Hutton. So Noah, you have very quickly niched into very specific areas of real estate and commercial photography and video. A lot of entrepreneurs who are let’s say early stage, they’re afraid to niche, they’re afraid to get too specific because then they think they have this like FOMO tendency to think, Oh, I’m missing out on this opportunity or this opportunity or what if this industry is actually better for me? I don’t know I want to be a jack or Jane of all trades first. How did you decide to niche down first and foremost? What told you that was the right strategy for you?

Noah Hutton 23:59
So before I talked about the wisdom niche, I kind of I advertise my niches but I also will take on other jobs. So like, for example, like I got, it was kind of funny, I was I had a part time internship for two years. It was a year after college, I just left may 5, so I’m very fresh out of I’m full time in my business now. And they actually reached back out to me and said, Hey, we have a bunch of new people coming on our company, can you do headshots for us? I don’t advertise headshots. I don’t like shooting just portraits and things like that for people. It’s not really something I want to do full time. But you know, I have the stuff to do it. I can do it. So I was like, Yeah, sure. Here’s my rate and I may have like, I kind of pitched them a rate that might be higher than I thought they would accept just because it’s not something uncomfortable for it’s not something I want to put my time in. So I feel at this rate, and they’re like, Yeah, that’s good. Let’s do it. And I’m like,

Rai Cornell 24:46
You have to make it worth while for yourself.

Noah Hutton 24:49
Exactly. So I do that and I do projects like that. But there are certain areas I don’t even touch like weddings. I just will not touch because there’s just a lot of stress and it’s a lot of time but back to the niching thing. So, real estate this all the all the things that I’ve kind of niched into are just things that I had the opportunity to try. So, back in March of last year, when I got into real estate, it was just I had gotten out of a group in college called Dance Marathon that I was really part of, and I did a lot of video content, I led kind of the video team in a way, my last year there. And that was where all of my video work was coming from. Because we were a full year round organization, we were doing a ton of video work. And so after that, I try like graduated from Dance Marathon, which is first semester my senior year, I had no video work, I know opportunities to be video work, I wasn’t shooting anything. So I was like, I didn’t just start shooting and kind of get stuff on my portfolio. And my friends suggested real estate. And he showed me what he charged for real estate, which is insane. Prices can mean now but he was charging a lot. And I was like, that’s a really good opportunity. If I can land some of these, like that’s a lot of money. Fast forward to now I’m not charging his rates, because that’s his rates were way too high. But I was like, I want to try real estate. So I got a really nice house. It was a really cool, like Italianate old style house with a wedding barn attached. So it was like this really big plot of land with a business it is really unique listing. And I just emailed the realtor, and I called the realtor and I was like, Hey, I would love to your free video for your house or your listing. And she’s like, that’s great. So I shot, you know, three videos for that focusing on the wedding bar and focusing on the house, then the shorter social media one. I really enjoyed it. And then I got another one that I did for free. It was a listing that already sold, the house was still empty. So the guy let me in and shoot it. And so I got that. And I really enjoyed it. And so I it was just an opportunity to get to try these things, and then realized I really liked it. And then events came because again, this kind of goes back to like, I never thought I would shoot people because I just don’t like shooting people I don’t really tend to post. But events are very different in the sense that you’re just providing coverage for the event. Exactly, very candid. I tried to like kind of cool called like sniping basically a party where you have really long lens, and you’re trying to just like stay out of the way but get really cool shots, which are the best shots to get. And so I had in my internship, actually it was when they work with nonprofits. And one of them’s a really big international nonprofit. And so he, my boss had to reach out to me because he was on the team. And he said, Hey, we have a big conference coming up in New Orleans, we would have a really good opportunity for you to do the photography, would you be interested? And I wasn’t even interested in the event I just heard go to New Orleans and New Orleans. And so it was during Mardi Gras, which is even better, but so yeah, I said yes, I, we went back and forth on the rates, they finally agreed on a rate. It was my biggest project to date, I was really excited about it. And after that, like I had it was three days. And on the third day, I literally did the award ceremony and then was in an Uber to the airport. Like it was that quick, but I like I felt like I was drained. I was so tired after the event. It’s such a long day long nights. And but I literally would have gone on a jet to another event, like I would just done it again all over again. It was so fun and so exciting. And so that was really when like I really wanted to push events really hard to my business. SoI’m like really pushing like going to events and doing events. And I’ve got another conference that I did a month ago, maybe two months ago and that was really exciting. So I just started pushing events there.

And then the commercial media side of it that I chose, like I have this like a bear like part is really just any other opportunity I get. So like I have, I’ve talked to people that were doing like documentaries or like brand videos for like nonprofits or like videos for the golf course or videos for like real estate agents want social media content. So I talked to him about that. So like that’s kind of the catch all of my business. And so that’s kind of where I decided to niche into those three, but it was really just kind of I tried an opportunity, I really liked it and I put it in my business instead of you know, trying a ton of different things. And, you know, just trying to figure out what works like I had opportunities come up really liked it and decided to pursue it more. But I still am in that position where I’m like taking a ton of work maybe I don’t enjoy it like headshots like I’m not the biggest fan of doing headshots, but it’s an opportunity came up. And also like it would be nice to see my old wild coworkers again, so like, it’d be fun. So I did that. But I’m still in that position where I’m taking a ton of work even if I don’t enjoy it, but I tried to advertise what I really want to do and try to put a pitch or cold email cold call for those jobs specifically because I would love to like real estate specifically as an example where I don’t necessarily want to just be like doing 40 or 40 houses a month or whatever like I would love to do have five to 10 agents, builders, renters that I work for, and then not do anymore. Like I have a couple of right now that I love working for, they’re great. So I would love to just keep them and then maybe not have to pursue that because I have my events set up my business really taking over the financial aspect of it, the revenue side of it. Same with commercial media, I would love to find three or four organizations that really enjoy my work and I really enjoy their work and kind of bring them on retainer, and then only work with them, and then take them to events here and there. So I kind of pitch what I want to do but then if job opportunities come to me, I don’t necessarily say no, unless it’s like something that I either just have no interest in doing or I just don’t have time to do and don’t really want to make time to do.

Rai Cornell 30:47
I think that’s a really important takeaway for people to hear, which is that you can niche which helps you go after clients much easier, it helps you in your elevator pitch, because people will remember what particular industries you work in. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean that’s the only thing that you can do, you can still take on other projects, and be known for other things, and still allow that flexibility in your business. So you’re not worried about, oh, I’m gonna get so tired of real estate, if I have to do this every single day, you know, you still tap into multiple interests, you’re just allowing your business to be known for the things that you really enjoy the most and maybe those things will change over time. I used to niche specifically into the subscription industry at Cornell, our marketing agency, but I kind of got tired of that and now we’ve pivoted again. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It just allows you to target and focus for the particular period that you want. It’s not a life sentence in that industry.

Noah Hutton 31:52
Absolutely. And like for me, like I still get tired of the areas I want to niche into like real estate sometimes. So in the beginning of real estate, I was editing everything, all my photos, I still edit my videos, but all my photos I was editing by hand. And that was like, four hours at night. I was like if I shot and if I shot at like 6pm, especially now that it’s gonna look brighter outside longer. If like I was shooting six to eight, and I got home that was a nine to two in the morning. And that of all the photos and especially if it was a bigger house, like I think the most I delivered is like 71 photos on a house. And like, it’s a lot. So I saw I was like I was kind of burnt out in a way like I just don’t want to edit like I do not want to and I finally found an editor that I could work with that I could trust that was the biggest thing is finding editors that I could trust to do as good a job or better job than me in the editing. So that helped me offload that like I have a house today and shooting it like two. And once I get home, I’ll just upload the video or the photos to Google Drive. And he had some I get it back the next morning and they’re great. And so like that really helped me kind of when I was feeling burnt out on real estate and not wanting to pursue clients be like, Okay, now I can actually pursue more clients, like I have those agents I really like to work with. But there are other agents in town that don’t do any professional photography that can be really big for my business. Let me go out to them now. And I have that opportunity to like, maybe shoot two houses a day on our day, I don’t have an event. And then I can, you know, bring in the revenue that way. So I have burnt out on certain things in my business that I thought I wouldn’t ever get burned down on. But I’ve also pivoted like he said and found ways to adjust to how I’m working. Same with podcasting. So I have my own podcast. I got so burnt out on that and I’m like, I’m currently like recovering from that burnout phase of like,

Rai Cornell 33:40
I get it.

Noah Hutton 33:40
It was Sunday night. And I’m like, I don’t really want to edit my podcast episode right now. But I have to have it out on Monday morning. Like that’s when that comes out. And so now I kind of transition because like I was going all in on podcasting, I was doing the clips, I was doing the graphics, I was doing all the show notes in the world, I was doing the multicam I was doing everything and like, I really enjoyed the beginning because I learned how to do all that stuff. Like I didn’t know how to do multicam I didn’t know how to do all these things until I was learning all that. But I got so worked out on and especially when I had other jobs, and then I had to do my podcast. I was like, do this. And so again, transitioning how I was doing my workflow to make it a little bit easier on myself. And then maybe in the future when I like have more of a business built up that I want to get back into like really hard for podcasting. Like putting it as a focus to my business, then I can hire a producer or hire an editor and or hire a social media manager that does that kind of stuff. And push that out because doing it all on my own. That was again like a full day of work to get a podcast episode out and so yeah, just transitioning when you feel burnt out is really a good way to get out of a burnout.

Rai Cornell 34:53
And what I really want our listeners to hear in everything that you just said is this I think you really embody the spirit of entrepreneurship, which is, I’m going to figure out what I want, I’m going to go after it and make it happen. And I’m going to adapt my business to suit me and my life. That’s really what you’re doing. Because if you start feeling burnt out on something, you can pivot. If we’re in a traditional employment roll, we can’t do that we have to stick with the job, you know, maybe talk to a manager or supervisor hope they do something about it. But when you own your own business, you can pivot and adjust and edit your business to suit what you need. There’s no one telling you that you have to have a podcast out every Monday. So if you want to take a break from it, you absolutely can. And that’s the beauty of doing what we do. But you also have to have those other things. The tenacity, the commitment, and the I’m gonna make it happen attitude.

Noah Hutton 35:50
Yes, absolutely. And like that’s, I guess the thing I don’t miss the most about working a nine to five is, like I had, I was getting projects left and right. And I was like, I don’t really want to do this. And it was affecting my how I worked like it was like, it got bad at some points where like, I would wait two weeks to do a project that I could have done that I probably should have done last week or whatever, just because I had no interest in doing that project. But I didn’t have the liberty to choose that project. But now like if I choose a project is because I saw something in a project or I really wanted to work with a client, or I, again, chose to work with a client because they reached out to me and I accepted the job. So there’s kind of that element of it, as opposed to my boss sending me a graphic to make when I really did not want to work on graphics, or sending me a webinar to edit when maybe I wasn’t a fan of editing webinars on time. And so, yeah, I really like owning my own business for a lot of reasons. But the main thing is just being able to choose how to work and make those decisions and also not answering anybody I think that’s something that I’ve really struggled with is feeling like sometimes I have to answer to people, even in my own business, like my parents or friends or like people I look up to like, if I see them doing something, or if they like if they think that my business isn’t doing well, or I shouldn’t take that job, or I should take that job or whatever, I didn’t have the liberty to decline a job. That’s like, it’s a, you know, it’s, uh, can I say this? It’s like, balancing respect with also respecting yourself in a way like I respect people that I look up to in the business, I respect my parents, I respect my friends opinions on these things. But I also have to do what is best for my business. And if, you know, I’m like, especially with gear, like I think I know pretty well like what camera gear I need. And I do a lot of research and what I buy and things like that, where like, I’ll be like, Oh, I’m getting a new mic today, or I’m getting a new tripod today or whatever. And then I’m really excited about it. And like people look at me, like stop spending money in your business or whatever, like things like that. Like, it’s really hard to, like, kind of be okay with people not being okay with your business, in a way. And so I think I don’t really know how we got to this point. But it’s part of the conversation. But yeah, it’s just like, it’s focusing your business, being confident in your business and pushing forward. Because people are going there, people don’t understand, like, what the day to day is new business. And it’s really hard to get them to understand. So at some point, I just kind of am working on almost giving up on that in a way of like, respecting their opinions, but also just be like, okay, like I need to do is I need to do a work, I didn’t go send 50 emails I need to go, like I can’t go up to go see family in another state or go on vacation because I need to stay and like work on this project. So it’s a lot of kind of learning and transitioning and being competent in business.

Rai Cornell 38:42
Yeah. And I think that’s what it all comes back to with regard to crafting your elevator pitch, creating niches and knowing that you can adapt, it all comes back, showing up to networking events, it all comes back to confidence. So what advice would you give our listeners who are just starting out, they’re early in their business like you, but yet they’re nowhere near as developed in their business as you

Noah Hutton 39:06
I think one of the biggest things that I have learned is you have to be face to face, if you send an email, go to that business and follow up. If you call go to the business and follow up. If you get invited to a networking event, say yes to it. Say yes to every single event you possibly go to, invest in your business and invest in going to networking events, whether it’s like paying a ticket to go to an event or sponsoring an event and getting into that way, like invest in these things. Because being a face to face is really the only way you’re going to grow your business. You know, you can cold call and you can cold email, but that has to be a follow up with a call and then a face to face meeting at some point. Even if it’s on Zoom like let’s say your businesses in a way where you can work remote and you can take clients all over the country-have those zoom calls, don’t just have phone calls, or don’t just do it over email, because you’re not going to get anywhere and that you have to be face to face. And even if you it takes a little bit to drive out to the client, like drive to their office, like I’ve had a client, it didn’t working out, but they were like it was an Indianapolis realtor. And I’m like two and a half ways from or two and a half hours away from Indianapolis, but I was willing to drive down and meet with them, because it just has to be face to face for me. And so I think whatever you do make time to be face to face with potential clients, clients, city leaders, networking, people that you think can get you references, it just has to be face to face. And that’s something that I wish I learned really last year, because there were a lot of things that I probably could have taken advantage of last year that I didn’t. But now I’m, you know, doing that work. And it’s really paying off.

Rai Cornell 40:43
It’s a huge game changer. And I’ve seen that in my own businesses as well. So thank you so much, Noah, this has been a fantastic conversation, where can people check you out if they want to learn more about your production company?

Noah Hutton 40:57
Yeah, so I just got a new website built. So I’m really excited about that my new website is nthproductions.co. You can go there, check out all my real estate work, my events work as well as my commercial media. And then my Instagram, that’s probably the best way to again, see my work is nth_productions. And then if you’re interested in reaching out to me either through my website through Instagram or LinkedIn, finding me on LinkedIn, and that’s kind of probably one of the best ways to network with me and reach out and I will chat withyounger entrepreneur if you’re a potential client. Or if you’re just somebody wants to talk about entrepreneurship and business, or production of video production. I’d love to talk to you.

Rai Cornell 41:36
Awesome, and we will put all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here, Noah.

Noah Hutton 41:41
Thank you for having me this great conversation.

Rai Cornell 41:55
Hey, Rai here again. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please subscribe and rate us in your favorite podcasting platform. Want to be a guest on the show or know someone who has an amazing story of entrepreneurship? Apply on our website at chironconsulting.us/podcast.