Continuing the them of “New Beginnings” I’ll be speaking with Tyler Edic of Crate Marketing and the Creative Truth Podcast.
Tyler recently quit his 9 to 5 and went into business for his self, and today he’ll discuss his reasons for doing so and how he was able to do it successfully!
Check him out:
– https://www.cratemarketing.com/
– https://savannahrealestatevideo.com/
– https://www.instagram.com/cratemarketing/
Transcript
Tyler Edic (00:00):
So today to continue the theme of new beginnings, I have a great guest, my best friend, my best friend. Well, one of my best friends is what I’m going to say.
Tyler Edic (00:10):
Yeah,
Tyler Edic (00:12):
I’ll saw it a second. What about best is I got a lot of them
Tyler Edic (00:16):
Two of them. Anyway.
Tyler Edic (00:20):
So today we’re going to talk about new beginnings with my buddy Tyler EDIC and Tyler is the, let me see if I can get him up
Tyler Edic (00:28):
On screen.
Tyler Edic (00:32):
I need a, I need a producer. All right. Tyler is the owner of Tyleredic.com cratemarketing.com and Savannahrealestatevideo.com he produces some of the, some of the best videos he works for. You know, he’s worked for who have you worked for? Jay Leno, not Jay Leno, David, Letterman in the past. He does amazing real estate videos and all throughout Savannah. He is a real estate investor. And here we go. I’ll just, I’ll just show you now.
Tyler Edic (01:03):
Yeah.
Tyler Edic (01:04):
Yeah. So you’ve done a lot of cool stuff, man. And admire your work.
Tyler Edic (01:09):
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
Tyler Edic (01:16):
Recently you quit your nine to five and you went out on your own and started your own thing again, you’ve done in the past, but you took some time off and just focused on working and building your skill set and meeting people in Savannah and moving to a new city. So, so how’s it feel to be the new Tyler, you know, out on your own now?
Tyler Edic (01:37):
Yeah.
Tyler Edic (01:38):
Let’s see. I’m like three and a half weeks into it, something like that, but it’s been awesome so far. Yeah, I was working just a regular stable job as a full-time videographer, which is great, which is what a lot of people that I went to school with and that are in videography that’s like the most they could ever ask for is to have like a stable, decent paying job doing video. So to some people it’s pretty crazy to, to take the leap and go out on my own, you know, but for me it was kind of just a matter of time. And when I was doing this the first time working kind of through grad school, even though I basically lived off loans, but my first time, my first little bout of entrepreneurship was part-time and I was just kind of getting my feet wet, but I knew I didn’t want to lay my roots down in New York because it was just too cold there.
Tyler Edic (02:36):
And I didn’t want to commit to getting to know the business community and and establishing a business and building a client base and a network. And so it wasn’t until after I had been in Savannah a couple of years where I got to know a lot of the players in town and have kind of a team of, of other videographers and, and your yourself with the podcasting as well as video production that I was able to, I was actually finally ready where I had the client base and the confidence and had saved up enough money to take the leap of faith. And so far it’s been good. Yeah. I, I liked the way you did it, you know, I, I liked how you, because I’m the opposite. I just jumped in. I don’t really think about finances. I just, I’m not afraid to take a leap.
Razz (03:26):
You know, my wife hates that, but it’s worked out for me so far, but I do like the way you did it, you know, you, you paid off the vast majority of data. If not all of it, you had clients lined up before you jumped. So like, what was the, what was the mindset to do it that way rather than just listening to what experts say, taking the leap? Well, I definitely didn’t pay off all my debt that’s for sure. Still a lot of student loans to get through, but I started by just creating a spreadsheet of all the things I would need. So that included like a camp. I already had a decent computer workstation, thankfully, but a new camera. I knew I needed a gimbal for a walkthrough videos. I knew I needed a drone. I knew it needs certain lenses, but I, I went on like the lean startup model and I just what’s the bare minimum I need.
Tyler Edic (04:22):
And then you had already gotten, we had the, we had the pod box one together, and then we moved over to the pod box 2. And so we were kind of established here, which you were the one that took the leap of faith on getting us a a dedicated workspace. So then when you left, I thought, well, it doesn’t really make sense to have a rent payment month to month starting out when I don’t have business. But it will make sense in like three months or whatever, or four months when I’m making money. So I can just eat the cost of rent for a couple of months and then, you know, versus giving giving it up and having to move everything out, just so I can move back in when I’m actually cash flowing. So that was like a little bit of a risk.
Tyler Edic (05:16):
And but it’s worked out so far. I mean I’ve been profitable already in January and February. So, so the next step is figuring out how to scale. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s hard to scale when you have you know, when you offer a service, especially like videography, you know, so it’s kind of hard to scale. It’s not, not impossible, but it’s not like having an app that you just need more users and marketing dollars, you know? Totally. It’s the first, I mean, it’s pretty pretty, self-evident like, I’ll eventually I’ll need an editor or editors and a second shooter, another, another producer as well. And then you and I are pretty like-minded. So it’d be great to have like either an executive account manager or, or like a business administrator or somebody to just basically dot all the I’s and cross the T’s.
Razz (06:11):
Yeah, yeah. I need that as well and working towards it. Yeah. yeah, so, yeah, and I mean, you mentioned that, you know, I took the risk for PodBox one, but you also helped a lot with it. You put a lot of time, time and effort into building it up, sweat equity, a lot of sweat equity. Yeah. Yeah. So recently you relaunch the creative truth podcast when we started together, what, two years ago now? Yeah. Coming up on two years. Yeah. Two years ago. And you relaunched it because we, we slacked off, I slacked off and stopped producing the, edited the circles or putting out but also had a third child. And it drove me crazy for a little while. Anyway, so you recently relaunched it and you’re doing interviews now with creative professionals from right now, all over Savannah, but really all over the world because you have, you’ve interviewed you know, some of your, your friends and associates from all over the nation. Right.
Tyler Edic (07:06):
I had one guest on, in San Francisco. I have a guest next week from Sandy San Diego. I have friend in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that’s coming on Denver, Colorado, Charlotte, yourself. And then I have some people from Atlanta and then a bunch of artists and creative entrepreneurs from Savannah as well. So yeah, it’s pretty exciting. And I, I know I’ve mentioned it to you, but for the before I even knew what a podcast was, I mean, I had heard of them, but I’d never listened to one. I had this idea of starting a blog called conversations with creatives, and I had actually conducted an interview with with my friend, Alex in San Diego back in 2015. And I was trying to, I had recorded the audio via phone, and then I was going to transcribe it and there was no Tammy back then.
Tyler Edic (07:59):
So or if there was like, AI was not what it is now. Right. And so I was just like, I’m going to have to transcribe this hour long phone call, and that sounds miserable. So I just dropped the project. And so then when I met you and we were talking about the creative truth, I was like, Oh, I could just record the phone call and then put that up because people will listen. It’s the podcast. So so yeah, it’s been awesome. It’s been awesome learning from, from you and getting to know what kind of works and the longer form content people are. People have the attention span despite the popular belief. And I then helped launch a podcast for my former employer visit Savannah about Savannah, Georgia. It’s called Savannah, Georgia, anything but ordinary nice. And and I actually they’ve contracted me to continue on producing that podcast.
Tyler Edic (08:57):
So I have a, I actually I produced that one. I’m not the host. And then I produced it. I’m the host of the creative truth, but you are still the other half of the creative truth whenever you’re, whenever you’re available and your episode just dropped. So yeah. So creative truth is, is it’s been fun. It’s been, I haven’t made, I haven’t made any money or there yet, but it’s been fun. Yeah, it’ll come, it’ll come. What so what have you learned from, from lots of going and doing all the editing and production and interviewing yourself? So I know that in one of the last, so I have six episodes done and edited and loaded and ready to release. And I know in one of them, one of my guests looks at their phone and they lose their train of thought. And I literally have tried to listen to all of them start to finish and I can’t find it.
Tyler Edic (09:50):
So, so I, somewhere in one of the upcoming episodes, my guests loses their train of thought and I was supposed to edit it out. And I say like, yeah, I’ll edit this out. And then I’m, I’m not going to, it’s just going to be in there. So, but my approach is since I’m not making money I’m just trying to streamline it as much as possible. And definitely at first, what I was doing was batching my production, which is a advice from a guy that we met through the Savanna podcast network Hendrix. Yup. Yup. And so shout out Henrik if you’re watching. And so that was, that was really good because it was able to crank out a lot of episodes, but something I noticed, and I wouldn’t have known this prior to trying it is by my third interview of the day, I was a little burnt out on just talking and having questions ready to go and lined up and just being like presentable.
Tyler Edic (10:51):
So in that scenario that particular episode, my energy levels a little down. And so, so learning how to kind of I mean, sometimes you have to fake it and put it on that showbiz baby, but but I, I think what I’m going to do is just space out my recordings a little bit more. And then the per the post-production I need to do more work on, but mostly in the backend of distribution and marketing materials, like I’m going to pull clips and create the audio grams and little like teaser clips and still graphics with quotes and stuff. And that stuff all takes time. So I want to improve more, but it’s rather than make it perfect. I’m just trying to get it up and get it out there.
Razz (11:41):
So, yeah. And that’s the goal, man? Just, just to do it, you know, a lot of times it’s more so about consistency than actual quality, honestly.
Razz (11:51):
Yeah. Yeah. You talked about being burned out after batching a bunch of episodes and shows and stuff like that. One tip that I have is to like, just get moving before the show. Like even before this episode, I walked slash random mile on a treadmill, and then there’s been other episodes where I have a big guest or somebody I’m excited about. I’ll make sure I do some pushups or some sit ups or just jumping jacks or something just to get the blood flowing that way. You’re not so drained and your body is more attentive, you know? So.
Tyler Edic (12:23):
yeah, that’s something I need to get better about is like just getting, cause I’ll sit at my desk for like eight hours, you know, I was like, I need to get up every two hours and do a little lap around. That’s really good advice.
Razz (12:36):
Yeah. Even even little things, you know, like getting, getting a good night’s sleep the night before, if you can, if possible or drinking, drinking enough water the night before, make sure you’re hydrated. All this stuff helps the brain function a little bit better. You’re able to stay focused during the interview, especially a long form interview where it’s like an hour long or more, you know, 45 minutes to an hour. You want to make sure that you’re at least in the zone. And those are just things that I do, you know, not eating a heavy breakfast or super heavy lunch. So you don’t have the, they don’t have the itis, you know, and dosing off beforehand is all, all this stuff. Yeah. So, so what are your, you relaunched the podcast. What are your goals with it? What do you hope? What do you hope comes from it?
Tyler Edic (13:19):
Well, I’m really kind of falling in love with the podcasting business, because I mean, it is videography. But it’s the thing is as a host, you don’t have to be the expert on a subject matter. You’re just an expert on extracting information from people that are the expert in their subject matter. So, you know, to benefit others and to share the knowledge that we all have within us. And a lot of people, you know, we talk about this all the time. People love to talk about themselves. So, and, and I’m good at you and I both have the gift of gab and we can make conversation with anyone and I’m just a genuinely, genuinely curious person. I’m a lifelong learner. And I know a little about a lot, which is part of what makes it easy to talk to people.
Tyler Edic (14:20):
You know, I’m not a car guy, but I can read like, Oh yeah, my family had a 54 Chevy. And like, it wasn’t until 52 that they started splitting the curving, the glass or whatever, like all the car guys like get their, you know, their dad and like, Oh yeah. So anyway with guests, it’s like my skill set is just getting them to open up and talk and, and doing that. I’ve really been enjoying telling these stories through my lens of the world. And you know, talking about why some things that you might not consider as creative careers are actually you know, took a creative route and creative mindset to get there, you know, because there’s so many ways, even the term photographer could mean so many things. Like it could be a real estate photographer like me or a landscape photographer, portrait photographer, wedding photographer lifestyle, product, I mean, and all of those have architectural is different than real estate.
Tyler Edic (15:28):
Those are both buildings, but they’re, it’s a different business practice altogether. So people, people think, Oh, I want to be a photographer. Let’s like the creative truth is about helping people niche down and find success early on. So they’re not having to do everything I had to do to, to reach a certain level of success or at least streamline that process, speed it up. And and that’s going for like all different career paths. So yeah, you can like, I I’m in love with it and with podcasting and what like to make money and get paid to, you know, get not, not get rich, but just make enough money to cover the costs and that my time, and just to be able to tell more stories and and you know, I don’t want to say like, make it, I don’t, I’m not worried about getting regionally or on the internet famous.
Tyler Edic (16:29):
That’s not the goal is just to get paid, to get paid enough, to justify the time I spend talking to people and telling their story. And like, I’m definitely been learning a lot about cross-promoting. So getting on other people’s podcasts as a goal of mine and just continue to grow it and actually figure out who, if there is an audience for this, like who they are and figure out how to engage with them. And, and I would love to hear from somebody that, like, I listened to your episode of the creative truth, and that helps me like, take the next step towards my creative career, my creative pursuit. Like that would be the ultimate affirmation that it’s like a valuable pursuit.
Razz (17:19):
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve gotten that. Not a lot because I always stop before I get it while I’m doing it. But so anyway, my first podcast was a real estate podcast, the new agent edge, and probably, I guess we were in a, had to be five years later, somebody reached out to me, you know, and said, how, you know, how it really helped them and inspire them to keep going. And I thought that was, I thought it was pretty cool. You know, it, it definitely made me feel good about something, you know, that somebody actually listened to it
Razz (17:50):
And it actually helped somebody. So I, I totally agree. You know, that’s the one thing I remember. Yeah. Luckily enough listens that, you know, trolls came in and told me a whole bunch of negative stuff, but I did get the haters. Yeah.
Tyler Edic (18:03):
Well, the people that listen to podcasts are podcast fans, and if they don’t like it, they’re not going to commit to spending an hour on it. So they’ll just find the next thing, you know, so I feel like it’s a little more constructive of a community than, than YouTube, you know, like the, all the little 12 year olds dropping comments and just being very negative, like that kind of thing. Right. But I was going to say too, that the posterity of it is pretty cool, pretty cool factor. Cause I’ll actually be listening to a podcast about Savannah that was recording, you know, three, four years ago.
Tyler Edic (18:38):
And it’s like scrolling through the names and it’s like, Oh, Rasmus shirt. I didn’t even when I didn’t know this podcast existed till, I didn’t know you were a guest. And so I listened to you on Oh it was the Savannah morning news difference makers. Yes. I listened to your episode of difference makers and you recorded that back when you were, you had just moved to Savannah. And so it’s interesting to hear where you were at then and where you were, where you were at now and yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you only had two kids at the time, so you mentioned that and you know, Savannah, Savannah business showcases transformed into the Razzcast. And so, and it was like, actually I think it was recorded like a month before we met. So it was like just a little baby Razz. It’s cool though. It’s, it’s cool that, that, that, that lives on in perpetuity and it’s kinda like benchmarking your life’s a little bit. Yeah. And as I, you know, change and become more conservative over life, you know, I’ll be able to look back at them and be like, wow, look at that little liberal guy there. That’s right.
Razz (19:47):
The joke. So yeah, so I think that’s it, man. Yeah, I just, I just like to do these podonthego SHOWs short, you know, so we’ll keep it short and sweet, you know, how can people reach you? What’s the best way for people to reach you if they want help.
Tyler Edic (20:02):
So you mentioned Tyler riddick.com. That’s kind of like the catch-all there’s nothing, there’s something on there other than links to all my other websites. And but I’m on like all social media and you can find the creative truth on every major podcast platform and YouTube as well, that comes out every Tuesday morning. And yeah, you feel free to connect with me. I’m here to answer questions. If you’re, if you know somebody that’d be a good guest on the show or you yourself are creative professional or need advice, I’m here to help. So yeah. Thanks for having me on hold, man.
Razz (20:40):
Yeah, no, thanks for doing this last minute. You know, I actually, you know, we were going to record a Monday as some technical difficulties and then we’re like, yeah, let’s do it Friday. Let’s do it Thursday. So yeah. Yeah.
Tyler Edic (20:52):
Let’s, let’s do it live let’s, you know, we’re going to have, it’s going to be better that way. It’s gonna be easier.
Razz (20:59):
It’s definitely a lot easier. Yeah. I don’t have to go back and edit, which is the reason I’m doing a daily show now, but I’m just live streaming it because if I had to record and edit it, it’s not going to happen, you know?
Tyler Edic (21:10):
Yeah. And you can, you can build an audience that way too, because people that are watching are watching it like as it happens.
Razz (21:16):
Yup. Yup. Okay. All right. Well, cool man. Thank you everybody for watching. I’m Razz the owner of pod on the go. If you want to find a podcast studio near you, you can go to podonthego.com. If you want help with producing or launching a podcast, you can go to you can send me an email info@podonthego.com and we’ll work something out. So thank you guys for watching and we will talk to you tomorrow.
