Weddings, Corporate Films, and Education: Getting To Know Your Sherpas w/ Matt Davis & Ryan Koral

A little over a year ago we (Matt and Ryan) launched this crazy idea we had, called Studio Sherpas. Since then, we’ve put out our Selling Like A Sherpa course (which we will be relaunching soon!), launched this here podcast, and created a whole bunch of other content to help filmmakers take control of their creative businesses, move in a direction that inspires them, and charge what they’re worth.

You might be wondering though, “Who are these guys, and why should I listen to them???”

In answer to that question we decided to record a podcast focusing on us, Matt Davis and Ryan Koral, co-founders of Studio Sherpas, passionate storytellers, creative business veterans, and dedicated family guys.

Between the two of us, we’ve experienced pretty much all of the highs and lows that working in this industry can bring. We wanted to take a moment to share our own stories and hopefully provide some insight into what it’s taken for us to build our businesses from one-man wedding film companies, to fully fledged teams focusing on weddings, corporate, education and more.

Can you relate to some of the struggles or successes that we’ve had in our careers? Do you feel like you’re on a similar path? Also, who do you think would win in a thumb wrestle between the two of us? Leave a comment below (especially for that last one).

Quotes:

“I’ll always love having a camera and filming and creating. But for me, my long term goal was really to have a business that could support me, my lifestyle, and my family. Sad enough as it might seem for my pride, the people that are on my team, the people that we hire today are better at filmmaking than I am. Better at shooting, better at editing. So one of the smart things that I did was sort of step back and let people lead instead of me, in those areas.” [13:06]

“We hear from so many people, ‘I’m just in a small market, I’m just in this farm town out here in Idaho. I’m trying to do weddings, but there are no venues, there are no whatever. And I believe that that’s a lie, I believe that that’s an attack that’s keeping your business from where it should be.” [27:36]

“Try to find a quiet place, and say ‘what are the voices and the lies that I’m believing, that just aren’t true?’ That’ll set you free.” [41:20]

In this episode:

- The importance of viewing other videographers as allies rather than competition
- How each of us expanded into corporate films after getting our start in wedding films
- Hiring strategically to grow your business
- Why you need to define your vision for your business early on

Links:

Wedding Film Retreat
Matt’s wedding rap video
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

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Follow Matt on Twitter and Instagram  
Follow Studio Sherpas on Twitter and Instagram @studiosherpas