We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shane Faye. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shane below.
Alright, Shane thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
I feel like one of the lucky ones who not only was able to make a full-time living as a creative pretty quickly, but I can actually say that I have never made so much money before. Now, all that being said, it still has come with its challenges. Sure, I’ve never made this much money before, but I also still live in an expensive city (San Diego) and have a family to provide for with a single income, and have therefore still had to deal with the challenge of feeling like we’re living month to month. Yes, I’ve successfully been able to pay the bills exclusively with my creative work, but how do I grow my business to the next level of actually building wealth? How do we get past living month to month and needing to find clients every month? Those are questions I am still in the midst of figuring out how to answer as I take my business to the next level. It’s easy when you start off to think “If I can just make THIS amount of money, I’ll be set!” And that just isn’t true. As you grow your business and creative process, your expenses grow too. As the budgets for your creative projects grow, so do the expectations, the crews, the production design needs (in other words, the amount of people YOU now have to hire in order to take the quality, and, therefore your career, to the next level!) You never really *make* it as a business owner or entrepreneur in the sense of feeling like you don’t have to work hard or stress anymore. It’s always just on to the next question, problem, task, etc, as your business and career grow. The perks of owning your own business or freelancing are incredible, but it isn’t for the faint of heart! But if you’re anything like me, you’d take the excitement of building your own thing over slaving away for someone else 100 times out of 100.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello! My name is Shane. I started doing video production while I was in college in 2010 and have been doing it ever since. I start by filming a friend’s wedding and that slowly morphed into a wedding film career, then a career in commercial production at a local news station, and finally into freelancing here in Southern California. This year I transformed my freelancing business into a production company. I pride myself in not only working for my clients but in having it be my goal to make their businesses better. I don’t just want to produce videos for them, I want them to get the highest ROI possible. In fact, I want my clients to get paid to hire me. How is that possible? If they spend $5,000 on a video, I want their business to make $25,000 in profit as a direct result from producing that video. That only comes with careful collaboration and a proven strategy to distribute the content for the greatest ROI. All that being said, I am also a passionate filmmaker and storyteller with an emphasis on cinematic visuals and captivating stories. I aspire to work on feature documentaries and narrative films someday.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
I side hustled for almost 9 years before I went full time into freelancing. We definitely had some help in the form of subsidized rent from family, but we still had well over $3000/month in budgeted expenses when I made the jump. What helped me make the jump into full-time freelancing was having a decent amount of savings (3-4 months worth of expenses in a savings account). It still felt like a big risk though, because at that point I was only averaging around $1500/month in freelance income (I didn’t know my own worth and was under-charging quite a bit!) and had just moved to a new city. But I started hustling right away in the form of signing up for freelance websites, posting on social media, and sub-contracting for other video production companies. It only took me 3 months to hit my $3500/month goal, and within a year and a half (even during the pandemic) I was on track to make six figures. That was in 2021. As of summer of 2022, I average around $8500/month in income. I think consistency and hard work really paid off for me. Also, I attribute my success to really treating my clients well, communicating promptly, and strategizing with them from a marketing perspective as a fellow business owner. I have the mindset that if I can make every business and client better, then I am doing my job well.
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
One of the best things I do to foster brand loyalty is to follow up with every project and make sure the video is performing well for my client. This shows them that I am genuinely interested in their success, not just in making money off of a one-time project. This really stands to benefit me in every way anyway: if I have genuine feedback on my work, this it will offer a clear roadmap to make my productions better anyways.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shanefaye.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srfaye/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shanefaye/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-faye-908787150/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/shanefaye
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS-6NZXE8uJQgtYCYqf8Tkw
Image Credits
Photos taken by me and various crew.