We recently connected with Joe Stoddard and have shared our conversation below.

Joe, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The best investment I’ve made as a business owner was spending money on online courses and learning the skills of the trade as a filmmaker. I first became interested in filmmaking a few years after college when I bought my first DSLR camera, the Canon EOS Rebel T7, and started doing product photography for a small business. From there, I started a business with a partner, offering real estate photography and business promotional videos. At the time, I didn’t know anything about making promotional videos, so I began researching the topic. That’s when I came across a YouTube ad for an online course called Full Time Filmmaker. I discussed purchasing the course with my partner, and he agreed it was a good investment. This course was the best investment I’ve made; it taught me everything I needed to know about the equipment, how the camera worked, and much more.

Shortly after purchasing the course, we secured our first client filming a promotional video for our local city pool. This led to networking more with the community and working with some amazing clients. Since my business partner and I were just starting out, we were still learning about our target market and realized there was a higher demand for promotional videos than real estate photos. We decided to focus exclusively on offering promotional videos to local businesses.

Later, my partner, who managed the sales and marketing side of the business, moved away, leaving me to take over the business. Since then, I’ve learned that creating your own unique brand to market to your ideal client is crucial. I originally thought that doing good work would be enough to attract clients, but that’s not always the case. To create a consistent income and go full-time, you need to know your brand and understand your ideal customer.

Once I figured this out, I enrolled in a mastermind program to guide me through the fundamentals of business, which has been another great investment. I believe the key to being a successful business owner is always being willing to learn new things to solve the problems you encounter.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started a business with my brother, where we offered real estate photography services along with promotional videos. Later, my brother moved away to pursue other things, leaving me the business, so I decided to get into filming weddings. Through a mutual friend, I was able to get my first wedding client. Filming my first wedding was one of the scariest yet exhilarating things I had ever done. I loved it! It was so much fun working with the photographers and wedding coordinators, not to mention celebrating with the bride and groom. That’s when I decided to focus on being primarily a wedding filmmaker.

I love filming outdoor adventure weddings and elopements. Loving the outdoors, it’s fun for me to hike to the top of a mountain for an elopement or travel hundreds of miles to a new forest to film a destination wedding. I believe that weddings are more than just ceremonies—they’re epic adventures waiting to unfold. The problems that are solved with a wedding video are that it preserves the happiest day for the couple to relive and share over the next 50 years with their children and grandchildren. It’s a piece of family history. Everyone remembers the most significant parts of their special day that stand out to them, but over time, those memories begin to fade. I believe video is an essential part of your wedding day because it preserves the fluid expressions of the people you love most. Whether it’s being able to re-listen to the prayers of your grandparents during dinner or the toasts of your close friends.

My mission is to create an authentic trail marker of my couple’s love story as they explore life together. To capture their passion and joy in the little moments as they start their married journey. I want to evoke the connection and emotions they had on their wedding day every time they watch their wedding film.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Absolutely there are resources I wish I would have known about earlier on my creative journey. Below is a list of the ones I have found really helpful

– “How To Film Weddings” podcast, online course, and their mastermind (https://howtofilmweddings.com/thecourse)

– ROAM course by Stanton Giles – this is the best adventure/destination wedding course I have found (https://filmsbystanton.com/roam)
– Full Time Filmmaker is just amazing covering pretty much any kind of video work you want to do (https://www.fulltimefilmmaker.com)
– The Filmmaker’s Guide to Audio by Brandon Bytheway – learn how to record and edit audio properly (https://www.audioguy.co/)
– Matt WhoisMatt Johnson YouTube Channel (@whoismatt) and his course Ultimate Wedding Filmmaker (https://courses.whoismatt.com)

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I would the best source of new clients for me as a wedding filmmaker would be from 3 different areas, which are referrals, instagram and being on The Knot/Wedding Wire websites. I see the potential power of social media marketing and am looking into that for the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stoddardfilms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stoddardfilms/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stoddardfilms
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stoddardfilms

Image Credits
Water and Whimsy