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In the Drone to 1K Podcast, we take an inside look at how successful drone business owners got started and scaled their company to making $1,000 per month and beyond. Whether you're just looking to make a little side cash with your drone or you want to turn your passion into a full-time career, we hope that the Drone to 1K Podcast will inspire you to take the plunge and succeed with your own drone business.
[00:00:00] Welcome back to season six, episode four. Very stoked today to talk to Blake score in this conversation. One of my favorite things that we talked about was how Blake actually just got out there and made it happen. He was very strategic and outgoing with his outreach efforts. He wasn't scared to call people, talk to people, just.
Called up a random ski resort and said, Hey, can I come film? And so I think it's just good inspiration for what can happen if you just kind of set fear to the side and go after what it is that you're trying to do. And another thing I thought was awesome is at least when we recorded this a few months ago, he was only eight And so it sort of takes away that inexperience excuse and more relies on the actions that you're just going to go take in order to make things happen. So hope you enjoy this interview with Blake today. Wanted to remind you, if you want a free drone launch t shirt, we just ask, Hey, if you leave us an honest review.
It doesn't have to be a five star, whatever you think of this podcast, leave an honest review, screenshot it, send it to us, [00:01:00] support at dronelodgeacademy. com. Send you a free shirt as a thank you. We just want to spread the word about the podcast for people who are enjoying it, and just get honest feedback out there.
So if you want that, shoot us an email, we'll get you a free Drone Lodge shirt so you can wear it. And they're actually nice. thanks for joining us. Let's talk to Blake.
David Young: Hi everybody. Welcome to the drone to one K podcast. I am David young here with Blake score of CT aerial photo, LLC. Blake, thanks for doing the podcast with me, man.
Blake Skor: Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to do this with me and invite me on.
David Young: Yeah. Blake's got a nice mic. Sometimes we get people doing these podcasts and they're coming at me with a cell phone, which is fine.
That's all you got. But, hopefully you got some nice audio quality on each side of us, this time. So, Blake, Tell us a little bit about yourself, your business, kind of what you do.
Blake Skor: Yeah. So my name is Blake. I'm from Connecticut. I'm only 18 years old. so I probably started my journey with drones around two years ago. I got one as a Christmas gift, nothing fancy, you know, one of those little toy Walmart drones that doesn't really do much, can't fly it past your yard and it kinda, [00:02:00] you know, I really enjoyed them.
So I saved up working fast food jobs. And I was able to get a mini SE about a year later, and that's where you really start being able to take off when you have a drone that could, you know, go far, return to home and everything. I liked it a lot. I practiced flying it all the time. And eventually it got to the point where, you know, I wanted to, uh, some extra money.
I didn't enjoy working fast food jobs anymore. And it turned into, you know, how could I monetize this and turn it into an actual business? So I researched everything. I actually use some, uh, drone launch academies resources to help study for my part one Oh seven. And I realized I needed that. I went out, I got my part one Oh seven past it first time.
And I was able to kind of go all in and save up, get a DJ or two S. And from there it just turned into, um, you know, practice flying, uh, just cold calling, asking anyone I knew if they needed stuff, doing some free work for people just to build up a [00:03:00] little content on my website. And then it's turned into, you know, you start, the snowball starts rolling until you start getting more and more jobs and it turns into something that's actually, Income in a side hustle.
A snowball keeps rolling.
David Young: Yeah, man, that's great. for everybody that's listening, you know, I don't typically don't meet our guests until we actually do these conversations. I was just telling Blake right before we started, I was like that way. You know, I find out things for the first time and, and, you know, I ask better questions that way when I don't know everything in advance.
so that's really cool, man. yeah, I didn't want to ask you when, when you first came on, I was like, Oh, Blake looks young, but I don't want to, I don't want to ask you how old you are. I feel like it's rude, but 18, that's awesome, dude. so what was, do you remember what the first drone you ever got was?
What was it called? The little one, like
Blake Skor: the Walmart. The name, it was just some super generic name, little one. It had the little lithium ion batteries that would fly for like four minutes. It didn't even, you couldn't see it. Just had a little micro SD card in it. You couldn't even plug your phone into the remote.
David Young: Yep. And then you just kind of [00:04:00] see what you got when you come back down and plug it in.
Blake Skor: Yeah, I mean, you didn't get much. You couldn't go more than like 10 feet high, but
David Young: That's awesome So great story. So when did you start the actual business you have CT aerial photo LLC. When did you? Form that entity and start I guess really start taking the business side of it.
Seriously.
Blake Skor: Probably about eight months ago. I'd say six months ago around probably eight months ago. That's around when I Got my part 107 I did some work before that kind of in anticipation, you know, like setting up the website and everything before and just kind of putting it all on hold until I formed the LLC a little bit before I got my 107, but didn't take any jobs.
It's kind of like on hold. The second I get my part 107, it's go
David Young: time. It's awesome. Smart building it up beforehand. so you had like the little drone messed around with it. Got them in ESC. Could play with it a little bit more. and then, you said you got a Mavic Air 2S, which is great, great all around drone.
what are the, types of jobs that you've been doing with your, uh, Air 2S? I guess, what is your company sort of focused on? What jobs [00:05:00] do you typically see coming into you? So
Blake Skor: real estate and commercial real estate for, Online job networks. That was a super easy way starting off when, you know, you really don't have a lot of connections yet.
So, websites like droners IO and sold by air and stuff, those where you can kind of just go on and they'll kind of give you jobs. And it's even when you don't have a big portfolio and stuff, it's easy to get smaller jobs there. So it started off a lot with real estate, commercial real estate. and then it moved on to.
Knowing people who just needed a drone job here and there like, Oh, Hey, could you record my car for me? Or, Hey, could you record this event at my house? then joined the chamber of commerce, which I would recommend everyone to do. That's an amazing resource. It's almost everywhere. It has a local chamber.
It's like a hundred bucks a year. And the connections you meet there are invaluable for a hundred dollars. It's a steal. So I met people there and I was able to get connections to, Ski mountains, golf courses. So I [00:06:00] was doing, then I started to move towards more, um, marketing material for golf courses, ski mountains.
now I'm trying to stay in marketing material, which is, I like more, I like producing videos more than just photos and, you know, actually having a creative aspect to it with video
David Young: production. Yeah. That's awesome. you're in, you know, you're in Connecticut, so it seems like you have a little bit of a wide range of options there depending on if it's like summer.
Yeah, we have
Blake Skor: some pretty all seasonal events and all seasons. Yeah,
David Young: that's great. Well, I feel like you're doing, a lot of the, the right things too. You know, like you're only 18, but you're talking about cold calling, joining the chamber of commerce, all that stuff. It's awesome to hear. I feel like a lot of people would be terrified to do any of that. So, it's cool to see you stepping out and finding success with it. let's go talk about your first ever paid job. What was that? Even if it was from like the job networks, do you remember kind of what that was and how it went?
Blake Skor: My first ever paid job was actually, it wasn't even supposed to be a paid job. I remember it was a local. Also a ski mountain before [00:07:00] and just DM to them on Instagram gave them my little pitch and I said I would do this is when I was doing work for free, okay, and I told them I would do entirely free.
I was going skiing at that mountain anyways that weekend and I'm like, let me. Would you mind if I brought my drone along and took some pictures and everything? And I went, took pictures and stuff with them. We went back to their office and looked at it. They loved it. They're like, could you stay and keep doing more videos and pictures?
And they ended up giving me 100 for the day.
David Young: So you were like, just going to go do it just for a portfolio building thing. And then
Blake Skor: ended up getting paid. And that's been a connection I've had now and
David Young: hopefully returning this winter. Awesome. Now, do you mind sharing? what was your pitch on, on Instagram?
What did
Blake Skor: you say? Do you remember my pitch? It it was for free work, so it's kind of like I'm gonna be there anyways and I could bring my drone along with me in verse. Really no risk to you. You know, I'll bring my drone along, I'll give you all the [00:08:00] materials, and it's like I'm just a local, young kid.
David Young: they weren't worried about I just didn't know if you got any like pushback on like, oh, we don't allow drones at our ski resort or, oh, it's liability or anything like that.
Blake Skor: so I did have a little pushback on the liability, but I got a cheap certificate of insurance online.
It was like, it was like 20 for the whole day. Okay, nice. Or a million dollars of liability and I
David Young: them like, who was that through like Sky Watch or something or, or something else? Similar. It
Blake Skor: some, yeah. I, I literally just googled drone liability insurance, , and I think I chose the first one. Like, I need this quick, I'm going in like two days.
David Young: So were they like, yeah, we're interested, but you're gonna have to do X, y, and Z kind of thing? Or what? Basically, what did that
Blake Skor: go like? Basically? Yeah, Because my pitch was kind of, uh, there's no risk to you if I come and do this. So then they were kind of trying to, you know, mitigate all the risks of you need a certificate of
David Young: insurance.
They were like, well, unless you go run your drone into a person or ski lift or something. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So you got some insurance, 20 [00:09:00] bucks or so you got to go out there. Now, were you any good at this point or were you still like practicing? I mean, I don't like self assessed because you know, sometimes people are like, I'm going to do this free work.
you can't expect to get paid if you're taking the free work strategy. but if you're like really good, you know, people oftentimes will move you on or, or want to pay you or do things like that. and if you're terrible, they'll be like, okay, thanks for these. And then they'll just stick those in a file they'll never use.
So some people are just like, I don't know. I've talked to people before. And they're early on, but they're like, I don't understand like why I'm not getting jobs. And I look at their side. I'm like, well, to be honest, like this, your work kind of stinks at this point. Not to say I won't get good later, but like it just takes kind of reps and getting, getting practice.
So where were you at this point? how good did you think you were, taking those pictures? Did you think they're really good? Were you proud of them? Were you kind of like, wow, these sucked. I can't believe they paid a hundred
Blake Skor: dollars for these. Back then I thought they were a lot better.
Definitely back then that was kind of like, wow, this is the best work I've done yet. But now that you move past it, you're like, wow, that really wasn't my best work.
David Young: Yeah. Well, at least, okay, compared to like what you can do [00:10:00] now. Yeah. It definitely wasn't my
Blake Skor: best work, but you know, I was, I was satisfied with them.
But it definitely wasn't anything impressive.
David Young: Had you been practicing a lot before then or was that kind of like towards the beginning? Like, did you have any portfolio to show them when you reached out to them to be like, Hey, here's some of my past stuff that I've done. Can I come take pictures for your skewers?
No
Blake Skor: commercial portfolio. Before that was entirely my portfolio was just like, you know, local like bridges and,
David Young: you know, something for them to look at. You're not completely awful or anything. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's one of the things that my friend Cody, he's also on this podcast, his episode. I think comes out a little bit before year.
So if you guys are listening to this, you can go back and listen to Cody Relic, one of his big things is like trading services. So he'll be like, Hey, can I come out here and do this? I'll swap you a couple of nights at your hotel and I'll take videos of your golf course or whatever.
And it works all the time for him. And I'm like, how does he get so, he got like a free garage [00:11:00] door. He got a free invisible fence for his dog, like all this stuff. Uh, that's like his go to. So I'm like, gosh, how does he do all this stuff? And I realized like, well, his page is full of like really good videos and a lot of password.
So anytime he reached out on Instagram, they tap it and they can instantly see, Oh, this guy's really good. This would be worth it. Whereas, you know, my Instagram is mostly full of like Chick fil A. Uh, and so people would be like, uh, what is this guy? You know? So I wasn't sure kind of where you fell in that, in that range.
So you got a hundred bucks I'm sure that pumped you up a little bit. And then what happened from there? Definitely.
Blake Skor: That was the moment where you kind of see like, wow, I could actually make something out of this and there's actually potential in this.
And after that, it's like spent so much time editing that. And after I finished up that job, it was just like, you know, reaching out to everybody I could just kind of like in over my head, like I actually see. Potential in this?
David Young: I feel like when you start to see, oh, here's how it works and oh, I could do more of this.
It kinda like fires you up to, to do more. So were you trying to reach out to other mountains at that point? Or who were you trying to [00:12:00] call or talk to? I
Blake Skor: was calling other ski mountains. I was calling local, you know, car shows I was calling, um, any outdoor event I could find. And it was, it was hard at first.
'cause you realize, you know, Most cold calls, you have like a 1 percent success rate and I got lucky with that mountain. So then you realize maybe this isn't so repeatable and you start getting a lot of no's and you're like, what's the difference between, ski mountain I did and these? Like it's the same pitch and you kind of realize there's that 1 percent like success rate with a cold call and I just got lucky on the first one.
David Young: Yeah, well, then you got to get through 99 more to, you know, find your next one. Yeah, and it's a lot of times it's maybe just like, not the right moment for whatever organization or company, you know what I mean? Maybe if you come back to them a year later or like they see you still doing stuff, then they're like, Oh, you know what?
Actually, it would be nice to have this or, you know, somebody's boss says, do we have any pictures? We have this event coming up. We need, you know what I mean? And they're going to go, Oh, crap. The drone guy called us. Let's call him back. You know, So [00:13:00] you called around, we're hitting some walls.
What was the next kind of job or next good thing that happened after, you know, calling around with not much success?
Blake Skor: The next one would probably be when I started really doing the online job sites, and I started actually utilizing those. And I figured out how to, you know, you could put your portfolio on websites like droners.
io and sold by air. And I actually started getting sold by air emailing me like, Hey, we have this local job. Would you like to go do that? And 150 a piece and droners. io just applying to the different jobs on and submitting my bids on jobs and starting to actually get. Responses on those mostly just real estate, commercial real estate.
David Young: And were you only doing the aerial footage or were you doing, any like ground stuff too, for real estate?
Blake Skor: very light ground footage, most of it was, um, just aerial, but I would also bring just my DSLR along and just snap a couple ground pictures along the perimeter.
David Young: And were these all photos or did you, were you doing video
Blake Skor: stuff too?
All photos at this point, it was, they [00:14:00] had kind of like set directions like, Oh, we want all the cardinal directions and they'd have like a preset, just shot list of photos.
David Young: Gotcha. Man, did you have to edit the photos? It was
Blake Skor: just raw. No editing required. It was just raw photos. you would just take a free burst so they could do HDR and you just sent them the raw burst.
Damn. Okay. So pretty, pretty sweet. Easy deal at first.
David Young: That was for sold by air for, uh, droners. io
Blake Skor: mostly sold by air is what I was doing because they would come to you with just, it was 10 a month. I think to get the priority over other pilots in your area. I paid that and they just start emailing you like, Hey, we have this local job, 100, 150 bucks.
You just go. It takes you half an hour to snap all the shot list and just send them for off photos. Uh, droners. io. It depended on the person. You know, some people were raw. Uh, Some people want you to do editing.
David Young: So with sold by air, I'm familiar with that website, but I don't know about like how the process works.
are they a marketing company [00:15:00] themselves where they are like producing all the photos and videos and handing it that to like the real estate agent or broker? Or are they just kind of like a marketplace directly connecting you to those agents and marketing companies?
Blake Skor: They're kind of a middleman scenario. So like real estate agents and brokers will go to them asking for a photo shoot and they have a direct contract with a real estate agent and then they'll kind of send it out one of their pilots, pilot sends back the raw photos, they edit it and they deliver it.
Okay. So,
David Young: so they are acting almost like a marketing agency in themselves. So they're, they're doing all the edits and stuff internally and then they're turning it over to the agents. Interesting. Cool. That's cool. I was, yeah, I knew that you could get jobs through them. I've never done a job through them, but I, I had seen their website, so I was interested.
Um, that's interesting. That's cool. So you did that for a little while. How much money did you make going through droners and sold by air? I
Blake Skor: was probably, maybe I was taking up maybe like two free jobs a month just on the weekends. Uh, still in, still in [00:16:00] school. So just on the weekends I would take up a job or two as they were available.
So I was probably getting like two to 400 a month for a couple of
David Young: months. So you're doing that, getting some good practice. Some good portfolio building stuff. what happened, you know, from there? Like, did you start, it sounds like you started kind of doing your own networking and branching out, getting your own clients.
When did that tell us about that kind of transition?
Blake Skor: I was definitely closer to the beginning of the summer, kind of like June, July. That's when I started, you know, I'm out of school. I have a lot more free time. I actually am seeing I'm getting steady little passive income from this. And that's around when I stopped working a restaurant job.
And I'm like, I want to really pursue this, put all my time into this. I started, um, Doing more networking, I already have some connections just from passively attending chamber of commerce meetings. I was able to start getting ultimate Frisbee games, recording ultimate Frisbee games the whole time for the league they'd be like two hours long, maybe.
So you're [00:17:00] starting to get like the money that I would have gotten a whole month before. From just doing little real estate jobs and just one job. And it was great connection at a local golf course and country club, which has been my biggest one recently. And that's what actually pushed me over, but one K mark in a month.
Nice. Um, when I had that, thank you. That's what my connection with them. They a FPV drone, a DJI Avada. So it started off where I was just going to fly over some holes for them. And then I offered, you know, I got this, uh, Vata recently, you know, I'd have some great ideas of stuff we could do. And then that turned into, they took me up on it and they, you know, it's great to have, find that first person who really trusts in your work and lets you do some new experimentation and flying through like their new pavilions and their pro shop and stuff, and started doing a lot of work for them.
They were very happy with it, asking me to come back and do more work for them. [00:18:00] So that's really what, once you start making your own connections, that's what pushes you to the next level from just online jobs.
David Young: Yeah, when I talk to people and explain it to it's like the value that comes in business, right?
It's kind of like you think about it's like this circle, right? Whereas there's all these different pieces of Business that create value like doing the work or like capturing the data if you will sets like flying There's only like one sliver, you know because then after you capture whatever that is, right if you're getting video or photos or if you're mapping stuff you got a Process it, or you have to edit it, turn it into something useful.
So that's like another pretty good chunk, but then there's all like the somebody, either your time, or you got to pay somebody else to do. Billing and, you know, back office stuff, and then somebody has got to go out there, you either had to pay someone to do business development, or you have to spend the time and money to chamber of commerce events or meet people.
You know what I mean? So the, everything is either time or money in each one of these slots. And so when pilots complain sometimes about like, well, that's such, I'm, I'm only [00:19:00] getting paid. You know, 100 to go do this one thing. I'm like, well, yeah, you're doing like one little piece of the pie. Like you didn't find the client.
You didn't build a website that brought them in. You're not editing the photos. You're like not doing any of the other things. Like if you want to make money, you got to figure out how to like do the whole wheel, you know? And so it sounds like, yeah, when you. Oh, if I just get these clients myself, I can make a lot more money.
Exactly. Yeah.
Blake Skor: It cut out by middleman and just build those lasting connections too. Cause that's also how you get repeat work and that's how you start getting referrals to other people.
David Young: Yeah. so you did work for these golf course and what was the other one you mentioned? Like he's a golf club and ultimate Frisbee.
lead to other referrals for other things? Or you just were speaking in like in general? that
Blake Skor: was just a speaking in general. Those were my more, I just recently crossed probably like two ago, that big mark with them. So now hopefully it is going to lead to more actually the, um, golf one did lead to a referral, the local golf course is owned by an agency that [00:20:00] manages.
Golf courses throughout the entire Northeast and the director of the Northeast agency was he loved the work I provided for them and so hasn't led to anything yet, but he what is he's interested. We're setting up a meeting to talk about potentially doing the rest of his golf courses. That's awesome.
That potential referral definitely got referred. Hopefully it leads to work.
David Young: Yeah. Yeah. That's great, man. at the very least you have a lead now where you can follow up with them every once in a while and just check in. Um, so is your, is that video that you did of the Vata, the FPV, is that like.
Online anywhere did they use that or I just wondering if people can see that if we can link it up for them Um, I
Blake Skor: have it. It's I haven't checked their website if it was linked up yet they have a whole process with their web development. They were going back and forth with me about video You know, we have a 500 megabyte limit So then I would have to you know, compress it and then send it back.
They've
David Young: got a 500 megabyte limit
Blake Skor: 500 megabyte limit on their website. And the [00:21:00] video was like two gigs. So that took your
David Young: time for me
Blake Skor: to keep it, keep it web optimized and looking good. So I think finally they have it sorted out and they'll, um, post it on for website. I could definitely send that to you later.
I have, that's the one thing I have to. Keep up. I don't keep up my social media is in my portfolio enough
David Young: anymore. Yeah, you gotta throw it on there, man I
Blake Skor: know I definitely I haven't updated my Instagram and so long It's kind of you know You do a job and then the next one you forget to along the way keep posting on your Instagram and your LinkedIn Yeah,
David Young: we go back and through and every once in a while and kind of yeah That's why I have a
Blake Skor: whole dump of content that I have to update on to my Instagram
David Young: you go on to Metta, if you have a business account on Metta allows you to, you can, so you don't dump it all in there at the same time.
You can just sit down, you can schedule it out. Cause if you can, you can schedule Instagram, Instagram stuff, but you have to Facebook platform. Yeah. I've never
Blake Skor: used that tool before.
David Young: Well, I'm only telling you this because I recently discovered the same thing.
Blake Skor: That's a, definitely [00:22:00] a great
David Young: tool. Yeah. I mean, a person was like, Oh yeah, I can schedule out the YouTube stuff, but I can't, I have to go in every day and like post the Instagram.
I'm like, there's a way. So anyways, we found that you can say, I want this to go on meta and Instagram or just one or the other, but you can do reels, you can do photos, video, whatever. Um, put your caption in there, all that. So you can schedule out as far as you want. So, so that way you sit down, you know, you got your dump of stuff, you can chop it up and maybe have something go out every day for two weeks or something.
You I'll
Blake Skor: have to, I'll definitely have to go on and do that and just schedule it out
David Young: for the next couple of weeks. Yeah, you should. what was the month that you crossed the, uh, one K mark? You said that was the summer? Uh,
Blake Skor: yeah, July, I believe. Okay. Across
David Young: the one K mark. Awesome. And then what's your, uh, what's your plan for the future because it sounds like most of your work has come from you kind of being proactive and reaching out and making connections and stuff.
Um, have you seen or like from your website or do you use like Google business at all or any of that [00:23:00] stuff, uh, to get leads coming into you?
Blake Skor: I have a Google business set up. I need to. Work on it a little more and hopefully SEO my website a little more to get more leads. No leads coming in from Google
David Young: business or anything.
Dude, I'm telling you, you should, you should, you put a little bit of time into that. It'll pay off. I've seen so many people where they, they get that Google business, like throw some good photos, like a couple of portfolio photos or videos up there and then ask some of those um, clients to leave you a review on your Google business specifically because if you get some reviews, it bumps you up.
In the search results. Yeah. If anybody church like Connecticut drone, dude, like they'll always prioritize their thing. So you can go in there and you can like say, get review link and then you can text it to them and say, you know, Hey, would you mind, you know, I'm working on my, my Google profile. I'd love it if you could just leave me like a one sentence review real quick.
It'll make it easier. I did it for somebody the other day. You just click on it. Just like opens it right up. You can just type it in, hit five stars. You know, submit, it's real easy. [00:24:00] You can
Blake Skor: make it easy. I'll definitely have to put some time into that. Yeah. I kind of forgot my Google business existed to be honest
David Young: with you.
And I know, well, people, it's like an easy thing to overlook and it seems really simple. You're like, ah, I don't know how much of a difference is going to make, but yeah, I'm telling you, I've. Really do it and come back to me in six months and
Blake Skor: tell me if that works. I will, I'll, I'll go update my portfolio on it and everything.
And I'll, you know, send out, uh, my previous clients, just if they wouldn't mind,
David Young: I can't tell you how many people will just tell me. Oh yeah. They found me through the, you know, Google business profile, tons of them, even people who are like newer. there are so many drone businesses people set them up, but they just kind of gone inactive or they just don't respond. if you look alive and that you can do stuff and you actually answer an email or a phone call or whatever, it's surprising, but for a project I was working on, I had to reach out to like several drone service businesses and I reached out to like three or four.
I got responses from zero. So to finish that, I had to call my buddy who I knew had a drone service business and he's like, Oh yeah, I can tell you that info. Um, but there's just so many people that just. Won't even answer an email. I [00:25:00] was trying to get a quote for something. So
Blake Skor: I mean, you forget to the first place people look for stuff is Google.
No, someone wants a
David Young: drone pilot. That's
Blake Skor: for anything. Your first stop is always just Google it.
David Young: Yep. Yeah, I agree. So tell us what you're thinking for the future. I mean, it seems like a relatively new, venture for you, given that you just started ramping up in the last few months, do you have more school to do, or are you done with school?
What's the future looking like for you? I do,
Blake Skor: online classes. for what development pro I like everything technology, some programming classes online. So a lot of free time. So it's kind of hoping, snowball keeps rolling and keeps growing and more, you know, referrals start coming in, but you still, you know, you still have to be proactive.
So, you know, still cold calling and emailing and Instagram DMS and meeting people at chamber of commerce is what started getting me clients. So if that's working, keep doing that.
David Young: Love it. So is your goal to kind of just focus on this business and build it big and like a full time thing? Or are you hoping to kind of just use it, continue to kind of see it as a side thing and build a [00:26:00] career into something else?
Blake Skor: I mean, that'd be of a dream if this could turn into full time, that'd be the dream and hopefully it does.
David Young: Yeah. Okay, sweet. It's awesome, man. You know, if there's anybody out there that's listening, you think you can do something for Blake, you know, hit him up. he's a good dude. If you were going to give some wisdom before we go, I'll say this. If you were going to give some wisdom to somebody else who is just getting into this, you know, who's just a little bit behind you, and you were trying to help them shortcut some time, what would you, one or two things you would tell them?
you
Blake Skor: can't be discouraged. you have to stick with that. not, everyone's looking for the service you're offering. And just because you're getting those doesn't mean it's a reflection on you or your business always. It's just, some people aren't. Interested or not interested at the moment. And it's just, you have to keep making the cold calls.
You have to keep making the emails. You have to think if there's half a percent of people that would say yes to my service, that just means I have to call 200 people to get one. Yes. If, and it's [00:27:00] just, you know, it's statistics. You have to keep making those cold calls. You get more comfortable as time goes on, people are, you know, it's hard starting off to pick up the phone and you know, the first couple of calls you stutter when you start talking and you hang it up embarrassed.
You're like, I already ruined the pitch and you hang up and it's, you know, you have to, you hung
David Young: up on yourself before, like you're pitching and you're just like, Oh, I'm
Blake Skor: butchering this and you just hang up. I've done it once starting off, just like, you know, it's hard starting. It's hard starting off. It's just, it only gets easier.
You know, you realize. You really refine your pitch. And as time goes on, you realize people lose interest at this point, you figure out how to get that past that point. And you just keep learning how to keep them until you close the deal. And, you know, eventually you get it down and it becomes just a, you know, how to close the deal, start to finish.
David Young: So let's pretend real quick so people can hear what it's like since, you know, you've been doing this probably more than other people. Pretend I'm a ski resort, right? I'm like a, you know, ski mountain with some trails [00:28:00] and you're cold calling me, um, you know, Dave's Mountain Resort, right?
You know, and you're going to call me, you're going to cold call me to get, uh, see if you can do some drone work. What's that sound like?
Blake Skor: So initially just calling them, you know, you don't hit the number at the beginning. You know, I, I call, I pick up and you answer as like, hello. And I'm like, hello, hello.
This is Dave's ski resort. And I say, Hey, I don't know if this is the proper contact to talk to, but I was inquiring about a partnership. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction. And typically, you know, right off the bat, it's never the right person. It's some front desk. So normally I get a email or a call back, you know, I keep it very.
Very vague at first about what it is. Cause I don't like to start off with the drone photographer. Like I'm calling about drone photography or videography because sometimes they just think straight off the bat. That's not something I'm interested in. So I just leave it generalize a partnership and that always [00:29:00] gets a call back or an email with a phone number of the proper contact because they're interested in about what is his partnership.
Yeah. And eventually I'll call them. I'll say, Oh, hello, this is Blake score. I spoke to you, uh, your front desk about a partnership a week ago. And I said, I was looking at your website, Instagram. I noticed you didn't really have any aerial, photos or videos or your videos were outdated.
And I try to reference specific things on there. I do. Back research into them. And I see like, Oh, they have this great lake and they have no marketing materials of this lake. Um, I'll say, I noticed you have this amazing lake, but I couldn't find any of marketing materials for it online. I was going to be in the area, uh, next week.
And I'd love to come down with my drone and provide you with some materials. I think, you know, showing this off would really bring in more clients and stuff. And I tell him, I try to find that one. area that they're lacking and I could really highlight something relevant to their business.
David Young: Nice. That's [00:30:00] smart.
And I'm telling you, like I get cold calls, I receive cold calls a lot and cold emails. And I can't tell you how many of them are just like, you know, zero research, there's zero looking at anything. It's just a, just a blast of, Hey, you know, let me do this X, Y, Z. And I'm like, a lot of times they'll be like, Hey, let me help you, you know.
With your, uh, component manufacturing. I'm like, did you even look at my website? Like, I don't manufacture anything, you know? so the fact that you actually give them something specific, like, Oh, Hey, I saw this, you know, and you're complimenting him too, right? Like, Oh, you have this great link, you know, they're like, Oh, yeah, great.
I'm listening to your pitch. I'm like, shoot, I'd, I'd hire you to do that stuff. Yeah, I think that's smart. So kind of doing research, being, being specific now, how do people typically respond to that?
Are they just like, Oh no, we're not interested. Do they just give you a cold shoulder right away? Or will they usually hear you out? Or how does it normally go? Typical response
Blake Skor: would be hearing it out completely and saying, you know, we'll be in touch and a lot of times they're never in touch.
David Young: Yeah. it's the
Blake Skor: soft letdown. Oh no, [00:31:00] it's the soft, it's the soft letdown. Definitely. Then, you know, sometimes people do, you know, I always try to follow up with people after two, after the soft letdown, like, you know, Hey, there's great web, this upcoming week or something. I'm going to be around the area anyways, or something
David Young: and try to follow up.
I like it. keep up the good work, man. Uh, and I think you have great advice about, you know, doing it, not getting discouraged I think people need to understand, like you seem to understand, like no matter what business you're going to start, there just are no businesses where it's just like guaranteed to be easy.
You know, like my sister called me or I was talking to my sister today. She said, Oh David, I was seeing something online about. This like Airbnb arbitrage business where you don't even have to own the properties. Like, do you know about that? I'm like, yeah, I have like a small rental and people try to call us about doing that all the time, which I'm not opposed to it.
Right. Um, I don't think it's like a bad idea, but you know, everybody tries to make things sound real easy when they're advertising stuff. You know, like, Oh, you just, I was making 10 grand in a month doing this. And it's like, yeah, you probably [00:32:00] had to work a lot to get that to that point. It doesn't matter what business you're in.
it's work to figure it out. Cause if there's a really good business and a really easy way to make money, people figure that out real quick and that opportunity dries up. So it always gets hard no matter, no matter what it is. So if you're just willing to put it in work like you're doing, like anybody else's successful business, like it'll, it'll work.
There's so many things that will work. It's just people quit early on, you know, definitely they get discouraged and
Blake Skor: they don't, they don't stick with it through the hard part because it only gets
David Young: easier. Yeah, have you ever read the book The Dip by Seth Godin?
I have not. It's about kind of like every, every business and most things that are worth pursuing the long run. It's like, yo, I start off with I'll jot that down to read. Yeah, I think it's a pretty short book.
I think the audio books are like an hour or two long. Um, but like I resonate with this so much. It's like when you make your initial plans of starting out, you get really excited about like the future prospects of, Oh, I'm going to start this business. I'm going to get paid to fly my drone. This is exciting.
So your brain's like all jacked up like, Yeah, we're going to make money. We're going to do this thing, right? And you get [00:33:00] like initial excitement and then you get into it and you realize. Oh, I'm getting no's or, Oh, actually I realized editing videos, time consuming or like, you know, arbitrage with real estate.
Oh, I called 40 landlords and they all said no to me leasing their place to do Airbnb or whatever. that's when you start to go into the dip. And that's when you have to decide, like, is this opportunity worth pushing through this dip for the longterm gains of sticking through with it? Or, should I quit this now?
Like, is this not worth it? Cause he does make the point, like some things are just truly. Not a bad idea, but if you kind of believe in the long run, then it's worth it to push through that dip. And then that's kind of like on the other side, it's more like stable and growth and stuff. So, so whenever you look at that book, yeah, just kind of helps to remember if you're having a sucky day, be like, this is just part of the dip.
You know what I mean? This is normal. It's just got to push through. This is where most people quit.
Blake Skor: That's definitely good. That's, that's an important mentality to have and [00:34:00] just keep pushing.
David Young: Cool, man. Well, Blake, thanks for coming on. where can people find more about you and see this Instagram that you've promised me you're going to update?
Blake Skor: Absolutely. My Instagram is ct. ariel. photo and my website is ctarielphoto. com.
David Young: We'll link that up if you guys want to, um, say Hey to Blake, hit him up. tell him you heard him on the podcast, but I really appreciate you coming on, Blake, hopefully we can get you on in a future season and you can tell us about, uh, all the awesome stuff you're doing.
Blake Skor: Absolutely. Thank you for taking the time to have me on.