We recently connected with Bobby Blevins and have shared our conversation below.

Bobby, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

The kindest thing anyone has done for me on the business side is Steve Horswill-Johnston took me in as an employee of Nashville Aerial when I was a starter drone pilot. Nashville Aerial had won four Emmy Awards and had worked with Dreamworks, NFL Films and other large clients. Steve always have me great advice even though he was busy, and with his assistance I was able to launch Nolensville Drone Production. This mattered a lot to me because it gave me a solid mentor for starting a business that I love. I started drone work during July of 2020 in the middle of Covid. I didn’t have a lot of direction as to how to acquire large businesses as clients along with basic drone fundamentals. Steve took time to teach me how to run a drone business, grow a client base, bring on assistants, and be successful. We haven’t worked together in over three years, but he is probably the biggest reason Nolensville Drone is successful today.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started doing video production in 1997 and have won 15 creative awards since then. I worked in college football for seven years, the NFL for four, in education for five, and private healthcare for two. In 2017, I was burnt out for video production and decided to focus on something else. I got into retail and worked at Home Depot from Dec 2017- April 2020. Working with people and not around technology was a lot of fun, but I still missed the creative aspect over a time period. I decided to quit my job as Customer Service Manager in April 2020 and get back into a creative field during covid. I found a job at Tennessee Tech that I qualified for, I thought since I was a graduate that they would consider me. Tech was using a lot of drone shots for their marketing, so I bought a drone to add to my already large group collection of camera and gear. I ended up not getting an interview or the job at Tennessee Tech. It really disappointed me as an alumni. So I tried to find other jobs and they just weren’t available during Covid.

I had a good friend Brian Snyder that I have a Nintendo NES to in June and he asked me what I was going to do for work. I told him I didn’t know. Brian was one of the owners of Wash 37135, a car wash in Nolensville. He told me to come out and shoot a commercial for his business for fun. So in July of 2020 I went and shot a commercial for Wash 37135 and the commercial ended up getting 5k views in two days. The car wash got me going down a path of helping businesses make advertising videos to stay afloat during Covid. The car wash was a retainer client with me for five years and one of the main reasons I survived. In fall of 2020 K2 Development approached me and became my second retainer client. There was a lot of growth during the first year. In May 2021 Bobby Hotel hired me to do a few promo videos. Nashville Aerial and I were already talking about possibilities of working with them. After the Bobby Hotel shoot they brought me on as a pilot, and from there they helped me form Nolensville Drone Production and we have grown to help over 200 clients since.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have complex PTSD and it does affect my stress and anxiety levels. This includes flashbacks to work that has gone badly in the past. So when I run into the same situation at work I have to fight through going into fight or flight mode or having a panic attack. It is difficult during stressful season when I’m assisting 15 to 20 clients at once. I’ve learned that bringing on extra staff helps me the most during the stressful season and allows me to concentrate on one job at a time. I have thought about quitting on several occasions because of this but after six years we are running a strong business and I want to keep growing it. I want to show that I am stronger than my disability through my work and the success of the businesses I work with.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn is you can’t do everything by yourself. When I was in college I worked seven year as the video coordinator of Tennessee Tech Football while going to school. I’d work anywhere from 55 hours to 75 hours during the football season on any given week. This gave me a lot of confidence in my abilities and I was giving two national awards from CSVA for my work. I was the youngest CSVA D1-AA Video Coordinator of the Year at age 20 in 2003, I then won again in Grad School in 2007.

I grew into a person who thought they could simply outwork anyone and everyone on any task. The truth is it’s a lot easier to work as a team and split projects between multiple people. The larger businesses I work with have people on staff that I partner together with to split the workload of large campaign jobs. This is a major help to me when I can pass off some of the work to someone else.

Moral to the story is work as a team member and not a Lone Ranger.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nolensvilledroneproduction.com
• Instagram: Nolensvilledroneproduction
• Facebook: Nolensville Drone Production
• Linkedin: Nolensville Drone Production