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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.
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[00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to the very final episode of Drone to one K, season five. We're on episode 10, took us a little while to get here. Had some breaks between episodes eight and nine and nine and 10. We're finally wrapping up this season. We've actually already started recording episodes for season six and we'll probably be sending out an email soon to get some more applications to fill up Season six with 10 episodes.
I'm excited to bring that to you. But in today's episode we have Thomas Walinski of Ariel agents, Tom's got a, a great story. he was kind of brought into the drone launch community, by another person that we had on the podcast, Eric Keer. You're gonna hear more about that, later in this podcast.
But Tom's got a cool story because he went from. Just doing this as like a side hustle back in like 2014, was able to turn it into full-time income. Then he's worked for things like hbo, the nfl, like the Cleveland Browns. Lot of really, really cool experience. So I'm really excited to bring you his story, of working completely unrelated to the drone business and now does this for his, full-time job.
So I will, not hit you with a whole [00:01:00] lot more of announcements. You know, the drill. If you wanna hear our normal standard announcements, you can go back and listen to, another episode of, drone one K. The same things apply. You know, if you want a free t-shirt, you can send us a review, you know, all the other good stuff we normally talk about.
But we'll jump right into it today. Here is Tom.
David Young: Hey everybody. Welcome to the show I have with me here today, Thomas Wasinski of Ariel Agents. Thanks for coming on to the Drone to one K podcast. Thomas, happy to be here. David. So originally we got connected because you were kind enough to help out in our membership community that we have called Drone Launch Connect Community Manager.
That Air Dusty had you on, I believe as like an expert q and a guest. Is that right?
Thomas Wasinski: That is right.
David Young: Yep. Great experience. Um, awesome. And how did you and Dusty get linked up? I don't even know the backstory with how he found you or you guys got to know each other, one of your
Thomas Wasinski: previous guests. Eric Hellinger is an associate of mine and, uh, I believe Dusty reached out to him, said, Hey, do you know any other pilots in your community?
And Eric was kind enough to, uh, recommend me for that, you know. Okay. For that program. Yeah.
David Young: Sweet. And I, I [00:02:00] believe Eric has been on this podcast as well in the Drone one K podcast. So glad we're spreading the love here. Cool. Well, I don't really know much about you and I like to try not to do a lot of research on people, cuz like I was, like I was telling you just before, I don't wanna have to like fake being, uh, surprised or, uh, or your reactions to your story or, you know, questions or whatever.
But yeah, I'd just love to start from the beginning, tell people who you are about your company, and then maybe let's just jive into the beginning how you got started
Thomas Wasinski: with drones. Fantastic. Yes. Again, my name is Thomas Waki outta Cleveland, Ohio. I am a husband, a dad, a brother, a son. All the above. Uh, working here in Cleveland, Ohio, for all of my life before drones, I was in the automotive industry.
I was one of the first people to start putting cars online. This is when the whole world was transitioning outta magazines and putting them online. Uh, got started in that business for 10 years, mostly servicing dealerships here in northeast Ohio. Started with like five and grew that to about 220 dealerships.
[00:03:00] Had a lot of success. Started traveling the country and growing that market. And then kind of fast forward till about 2013, 2014 is when I started to get my hands on some of this drone tech. At the same time, the automotive industry was getting saturated with automotive photographers and car dealerships.
Were trying to do it themselves and kind of phase out the third party service. So I kind of saw the writing on the wall. The income started to decrease the, the couch started to drop, take it in house. At that time, I said, you know, I need to kind of sharpen my skills here a little bit. You know, something that cannot be replaceable.
And that's when I started to kind of iterate with the drone technology kind of starting at the Phantom one started as a side hustle. Started aerial agents as a side hustle back in 2014, and within nine months I was making enough to quit my automotive job and go aerial agents full-time. Wow.
David Young: And in 2014?
Yes. Wow,
Thomas Wasinski: that's impressive. Right on. Thank you. And I haven't [00:04:00] looked back since I've been my own boss for the past nine years. Awesome.
David Young: Very cool. Well, thanks for the, the quick overviews. I'm curious now, what do you do today? Like right now, what does your business look like and what kind of work do you do?
Thomas Wasinski: Yep. So aerial agents really is, is more of a content creator for third party companies and enterprise businesses. So as we know, every business these days has to be a media company. They have to have some sort of content and that's where I kind of help bridge the gap. You know, I work with marketing managers, work with content managers, and this is for the Cleveland Browns.
You know, I work for NFL films. done some work, uh, Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Construction, a lot, very home-based type stuff. But I also work with the State of Ohio in the Visitors Bureau to do some tourism stuff for here. if you're familiar with Ohio out in Lake Erie, there's many shipping services that need content.
I kind of just fill that gap for all them. Since my cameras can fly, I can go out above the water. I film sailing championships. Here out, you know, when they have this US sailing championship out here on Lake [00:05:00] Erie, I'm kind of the eye in the sky for that film. The Ohio State Michigan hockey game, the outdoor thing.
That was on a football field. They were playing hockey on a football field. Yes. Nice. I tried to fill that whole void. At first, I wanted to specialize, and now as I see I'm getting into it, it's more generalizing for everything. But you
David Young: are, you're kind of specialized, at least on the video production part of
Thomas Wasinski: it.
That and photography, that's the main service offering of aerial agents is aerial photos and aerial videography.
David Young: Yep. Okay, but you're not doing like surveying, mapping stuff or anything like that with your No.
Thomas Wasinski: No, it never got into that. That was an interest, but I never, I think it's
David Young: probably a good thing, right?
Cuz I think it's good to lock down your skills in, in one area, although you're the one who's been doing this for a decade, so you know, I'm not gonna be one to be giving you a, my thoughts on how to do your thing. Um, well that's very cool. That's very cool. And, and I love to see that. Tons of great experience to dive into here.
And if you've been able to have this business for almost a decade, doing it full-time, [00:06:00] obviously you've got a lot of wisdom to be able to share. A lot of people who listen to this podcast, and you may got a broad range of people who are doing this themselves full-time, or maybe they're in an industry and they have a job and they're just kind of flying drones for that job, whether they're in construction or something like that.
But there's also a lot of like, I'm checking it out. I wonder if I should get into something like this. So for them, I think it's helpful to go to the beginning, but it might be different from 20 14 15 to now. A lot of people struggle when they're first starting out to like find jobs, to find their place, to figure out how do I approach people?
What do they want? Like how do I make this a thing, you know? Or I can make money. A lot of people come in with the misconception of, I've got a drone, I've got my part 1 0 7, um, okay, where the jobs's at, you know, like, how, how do I, you know, start paying me. So yeah. If you were gonna go back on your story, how did you start turning this into a business and what did you learn about getting customers in the beginning?
So
Thomas Wasinski: there's two components to that and, and one is aerial agents actually started [00:07:00] with the concept of doing real estate. We have a lot of high-end homes. On the lakefront, but these backyards aren't so big. So in other words, even if you got to the back of the yard, you know, you might not even be able to get the whole house cuz these houses are so big.
So I'm like, how would that be to get the drone out over the water? So you show the cliff, you show it right out in the water. So I was really gonna go real estate heavy and I, I went try hard for about three to four years going to conventions and doing kind of samplings at the real estate offices for the agents.
And I did that really well for about. Three to four years. And I ended up with only two agents that were willing to pay what I was charging. And that was the main real estate agent on the east side of Cleveland and the main luxury real estate agent on the west side of Cleveland. Cause in Cleveland, that's basically, there's the east side and the west side.
They're basically two totally different worlds, but they're still connected. So in other words, I went that meanwhile, I [00:08:00] still have bigger ambitions of going to TV and film and stuff like this. And if I could go back to my childhood a little bit, I'm a big Cleveland Browns fan, so for me to be their drone pilot is like a dream come true.
Cause I can tell you, I remember as a young lad, my parents took me to a game. We're sitting in the stadium and this is the old municipal stadium and there was those bars all over. So like there's many bad seats where like, you know, you got the pull and you're just trying to see around it. And I look over and I see this guy, you know, do you remember those guys that used to sit in the chair with the big video camera?
Yeah. Look at that guy. He gets to sit in that nice comfy chair. He's got a great view of the game and he's getting paid. I want that job. And I was probably seven or eight or nine when I said I remember that. In the back of my mind, that's always been a thing. And then kind of tie in a little bit of, um, John Madden football on the PlayStation, you know, when the receiver catches the pass, uh, how the camera track tracks him to the end zone.
Yeah. And I was playing with my son that day. I'm like, that's it. And that was kind of in 2012 where all [00:09:00] these dots started to connect for me. So I'm still doing the real estate thing, but in the meantime, I am working on bringing this to the, the game of football. And it just so happens at the same time, I'm starting a youth football league in my community and I have all these young youth football players and I was practicing with them and they're catching passes and I'm tracking 'em with the drone and I'm like getting all these great shots.
And you may have heard this phrase before, but they say you want to post the content for the jobs that you want to get hired for. Right. And that's kind of how it worked for me. Whereas I was posting these football videos and then I. You know, I'm telling you, I, it might have just been magic or the universe working in my favor, but eventually the Browns called, they saw a video of mine that went viral on Twitter, and it was not even football related.
It was actually Christmas related. And the Browns called, said, Hey, uh, that video on Twitter, did you do that? I was like, yes I did. Uh, can you please come in? Would like to talk to [00:10:00] you? And then from there, that's when I got linked up with them. That was in 2015. And then fast forward to 2019, I'm still their drone pilot.
And then in comes H B O for hard knocks. The Browns practice facility is right next to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. I don't know if you know that, but that's, that's Class B airspace. I still had all the authorizations that I needed to fly there, so I was one of the drone pilots on hard knocks, which are, you know, no way.
Got eight or nine HBO o credits for that. That's awesome. Also filming another TV show called Building the Browns, which was kind of an in-house hard knocks. And by the way, I want one, a few Emmys with the Browns. What? Really? Yes.
David Young: That is awesome.
Thomas Wasinski: Four for the show, and then one, one for being a drone pilot.
And then maybe one more in the works coming this year. We'll see. I don't wanna, I don't wanna spoil anything. Oh, that's awesome. So yes, Emmy award-winning drone pilot here.
David Young: I did not know that. [00:11:00] Literally Emmy winning award-winning drone pilot.
Thomas Wasinski: Yes. And picking up the remote controls and, and trying it out.
Starting, we'll, we'll go back to the early days after, after this point. So in other words as the houses are kind of dropping off the real estate thing, I wasn't really feeling it. People weren't feeling my price. And obviously I'm doing a lot bigger stuff now, so my price Now were you
David Young: real quick on the real estate?
Were you trying to, like what were you charging? Like an intentionally premium price
Thomas Wasinski: there? It didn't start that way, but it did end up that way. Gotcha. I was actually really affordable I felt in the beginning, but there was still him and Han. Gotcha. My price,
David Young: you know. Sorry, I didn't mean to slow your story down.
I was just curious but you're saying yeah, real estate was kind of, you were getting outta that more into the football stuff.
Thomas Wasinski: Yeah, so I didn't, I, I kind of stopped trying, I stopped following up a little bit on real estate agents cuz it was a tough go and I didn't feel like they were really enjoying themselves so much, you know, with my, with my rate.
So then it morphed in from not only football, but then other professional sports and then [00:12:00] other community based projects such as, We have the lake, we have the river. Some, like I said, us sailing, the sailboats were having races and they needed coverage construction. Demolitions. On my website, I kind of show I've serviced over 65 different industries since I started and that, you know, demolition, landscaping, roofing building, construction, sports, live, entertainment,
David Young: art, all, all from some type of video production promo element.
Right?
Thomas Wasinski: Content. Content, yeah. Yeah. Content. That's how that went. And so here I am today still kind of servicing all of the above. The market is getting more saturated for me now, like it was in the car business. And a lot of these companies are trying to bring their program in-house. You know, construction companies are hiring.
Drone pilots and encouraging them to get their part 1 0 7. So it's a whole nother game. I mean, I felt this before. We'll get through it again. I mean, as you know, the market's getting saturated. There's more pilots and everything. On
David Young: that note, cuz you know, I hear people say from time to time, oh it's getting more saturated or it's no use [00:13:00] trying this and that.
People see opportunity and they see money to be made. People try to enter the market and. Then there's more competition. So how do you succeed and stand out in an area? There's one thing where the market is declining as in like there's less demand, like newspapers for instance, right? When the internet came out, that was more of just a demand went down.
It's not like a billion newspaper shops open, but for drones, still a good amount of demand for drone work. I would say. Just seems like since people know that there are more people coming into the market, so what do you do to. Maintain your kind of competitive edge when as more people are trying to enter?
That's a great
Thomas Wasinski: point. The drone jobs are getting more and more plentiful because people are seeing the use more so than ever before. And then also obviously more pilots, more accessible equipment. How I stand out is just by bringing the most value as I can to each industry and, and that is all respective to each industry.
So you say, how can I bring more value? Well, that's kind of our job as pilots to figure out from a [00:14:00] content standpoint, and that's when your pricing should be very delicate as far as like to what industry you're serving. The film and television, well, I should say film has a bigger budget than television does.
I know some folks that get hired to do the, the H G T GTV shows those budgets are very small, but when you're doing a, a movie for Netflix or something, those budgets are a little bit bigger. Right. Gotcha. Then there's. There's demolition jobs, whereas those budgets are a little bit smaller. Construction jobs, those budgets are a little bit higher.
So when you do this, you do want to kind of if you can offer more value for your service, and that could mean the difference between photos and videos. Then we could drill down to photos. Can you do panoramic photos and can you do 360 photos That can bring value because you know, Facebook and Google Maps is such a great interface for those 360 photos.
Where you can literally see all around you. That is one way to bring value. And then when it comes to the video standpoint, drill down. Can you edit them 32nd to 62nd [00:15:00] edits for their content or their shareholders, right? On construction projects or even development projects, understand that a lot of those have investors that are across either state lines or country lines, meaning they're not local.
So the shareholder of the project wants to send these updates. Out to all, all the other shareholders. And then some pilots could even make a subscription based service for that. Say, Hey, I'll come to your job every week, every other week, every month, every other month, update photos from the exact same location.
So now you're documenting the progress. The shareholders from across seas or across state lines are getting updates on what the pro, the progress of the project. And you as a pilot or you as a service provider, can count on that revenue because, you know, the subscription based model is a very good, you know, revenue based model to go off of.
And then from there, you could go to your bank and you can go to some of your investors and get a loan [00:16:00] based off of your revenue projections because you say, Hey, look how many subscriptions I have. Um, and that's still been a thing. So even though I do do film and television and, and you know, stuff like that, I will sell the subscription to construction companies because that service does bring a lot of value to many, many people.
David Young: Now in the, you know, kind of Cleveland area, what do you find is kind of a range that you're able to charge for some of these subscription construction
Thomas Wasinski: jobs? Yeah, so I could go about $225 per week. Okay. Or four 50 a month. I kind of keep it like there as, as long as we can make four 50 a month and let's say you.
You start getting a few under your belt now here we are actually building a lot. We have many cranes in the sky. Um, yeah,
David Young: I noticed that when I was driving around. They like the, what's the big paint company that you guys have there? Williams. Williams. Aren't they building like a huge headquarters there or something?
Or redoing
Thomas Wasinski: it? Yeah. Right. No, that I, that project I am actually not on.
David Young: Um, but I'm just saying there's one of [00:17:00] just a bunch of buildings I saw going out. Yeah, there are,
Thomas Wasinski: yes. I mean, And again, you're thinking say four 50 a month for one visit, one site location, one flight, and you're taking photos and or videos.
The service I'm talking about is mainly photos, but then you can even upsell from the 4 50 mark to 650 for HD video. And then you know, if you can tie them in, upsell 'em even further, say, Hey, I'll record this. I'll record the same flight path. HD video every time I come and at the end I'll stitch it together.
So we'll make 1 360 and it'll, you'll make one spin around the project and it'll look like by the time we get to the end of it, it'll be done. You know? So you edit it Yeah. To look like, you know, they're just breaking ground. Yeah. And by the end of it, the project is done like Oh. So if you could use your imagination and paint that picture in your client's head, get it for an upsell.
So now you're charging more per visit, and then you're charging more for the editing fee. That
David Young: leads me to a good point that you seem to be good at with, with sales. [00:18:00] I've found that most people who wanna start a drone business, this is nothing against them, maybe just from an experience standpoint, like, oh, I can fly a drone. But then you say, you know, all right, cool, go talk to a client. And they just, they have no idea how to, and isn't that sell as in like a sheisty way of selling, but like convincing, like communicating value? I think it boils down to a lot of times. Getting the other person excited about whatever is the vision that you have for what you wanna do for them.
So, you know, even just talking to you, I could tell, I could kinda like hear like the excitement in your voice and stuff like that. Like, oh, you can do this. You know, and I think that kind of stuff is, is contagious. So when you're talking to, let's say a construction company or, or a client, what kind of mentality do you bring?
Or if you're trying to help someone else who's like, Hey, I want to go to a construction company, or I wanna go to a client. And get a job with them. Like what would you say to them about how to do that and like coach '
Thomas Wasinski: em up? I would say first, again, it goes back to the value. So if you even have a company that's interested in your services, they may [00:19:00] be thinking of one component to your service.
They might say, Hey, I want you to just post Instagram videos. You, you're like, that's cool, and we will do that. But what else? We're gonna have photos. Can you, do you wanna maybe open up a newsletter or email marketing tool to send to all your clients to send them updates about your project? Okay, you're gonna document this project.
Can you use this data to then pitch another project for your company down the road? Now that you have this nice sample size. So then this kind of where you're right, I mean this is where it comes down to the, the sales side, where it's like you really kind of have to think. 10 steps down the road is how can they use this content to the best of their benefits?
So when it comes down to you sending them a quote, the quote is, is almost insignificant because you brought so much value to their job. So again, I wanna make sure I'm answering your question correctly. Do you say, how could I help another drone pilot pitch their
David Young: service or, yeah. I mean, I don't even know if you realize you [00:20:00] might just do this naturally.
I can tell you're like a good salesperson because you're like, Oh, you could do this and it, it could look like this. And by the time you're done with it, you know, um, you're able to kind of paint that picture of, oh, here's what it could be. And the other person gets excited and goes, Ooh, I want that. You know what I mean?
And that they're more likely to say, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. So I just didn't know if, if you have any intentional ways of, Hey, let me think through this and help them get excited about what I'm gonna do for them. Or if you're just naturally that kind of person and it just comes out,
Thomas Wasinski: it, it does come down to value.
And I, I will tell you, I always, always, always try to go above and beyond. If they hire me to film a set, I'm gonna sneak in a photo and I'm gonna send them a high res photo at the end. Or if they hire me to film just a 32nd clip, I'll send them a 360 photo. Oh, by the way, when I was on set, I got this 360 photo.
So in other words, like, oh my gosh, this 360 photo is almost as cool as the stuff you recorded for me. Yeah, so then it makes a no-brainer. Now you're bringing value. Then [00:21:00] at the end, For a lot of these drone pilots, if you did get paid by someone to do a job, I would suggest that you do a handwritten thank you note to them maybe on your company letterhead, maybe.
What if some of these drone pilots go out and get a great picture of their city skyline? They get a couple thank you cards made. They get it. They say, Hey, thank you so much for helping my small business. This means a lot to me. Please keep me in mind for anything. And, and here's, here's a gift card for a restaurant.
In other words, you always wanna be giving, giving, giving. I know many pilots with that maybe aren't good at sales. They think that it's, it's all receiving. They need the biggest funds, they need the biggest rate. They need the check. But once you get paid, you have to hurry up and get that out and, and give it back, or else it's not gonna come back.
So in other words, sales is a big game of give and take. And I learned this from the car business and uh, yes, you're right. I, I am very. Fluent in sales, but it comes from having to cut my teeth [00:22:00] in the car business, cuz I don't know if you know anything about it, but it is very, very cutthroat and very hard because again, I was a young kid selling services to the dealership owner.
And how are you gonna sell a car dealership owner, right? Mm-hmm. He's like the biggest
David Young: sales. They're the salesman. Yeah.
Thomas Wasinski: They're the biggest sales sharks of all time. And, and I got bullied, you know, I got, I got beat up. I, I was at the bad end of many sales jobs cuz we were charging 'em per car, so, you know, okay.
They would just beat me up. So it just comes with it. But that is a very good point that you make about other drone pilots, whereas like, they need to realize if they're gonna start their own company, you have to learn how to sell yourself,
David Young: sell your services. You know, we're in business and I've talked to so many drum business owners, it seems like it becomes a lot, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like it becomes much easier to sell the more you understand, uh, that person's business that you're talking to.
Right? Because if you're just assuming, oh, hey, I can give you some pictures. If you [00:23:00] don't know like why they need those pictures or what they're gonna do with them, or other issues or problems they have. You can't really, like do what you were saying, like propose other solutions and, all right, what else?
You know, what else are you gonna do with this? Oh, hey, we, we have this content. Maybe we could pitch other jobs. Like you're kind of showing them how all this stuff can be used for other things. Because ultimately, if you're pitching to someone, you gotta think, what do they care about, right? If it's the business owner, they're like, okay, cool.
How's this gonna, what's the ro? Like, when am I gonna get my money back on this? And how is this gonna make me money? Right. Or if. You're pitching to like someone in the middle, they're like, how is this gonna make me look good to my boss? You know? So you gotta think, how do I help them do whatever it is that they wanna do, um, to get them to, to hire me?
It sounds like you know, you, you're really good at that.
Thomas Wasinski: Sure. Yeah. And that's what it takes. And so as I've been able to serve all these different industries now, I'm kind of like the foremost expert in droning for the landscaping companies or droning for the roofing companies because they know. What we're looking for.
Some people wanna showcase safety and [00:24:00] how their guys are being safety when they're working in the rafters of building a steel building. So getting that perspective right. Yeah.
David Young: So let me go, you know, that was a little bit more general on, you know, sales tips and lessons. Cause I could tell you're good at that.
If we were gonna rewind back a little bit when you were switching from real estate and some of these other things, you mentioned the Browns found you just by you posting something on Twitter. Did you have any other type of intentional. Outreach to find clients at that time or were you just throwing stuff on social media?
Kind of what was your back then when you were making that transition out? Yes. Of real estate?
Thomas Wasinski: Yes. Kind of threefold. One, sharpening my skills. Two, growing my audience and And creating content. And then three, yes, kind of prospecting and putting some lines in the water to, you know, to catch something. But the video that went viral, Cleveland puts up a Christmas tree in our public square every year.
Mm-hmm. I just took my drone. It was a Christmas lights. No one was there. I mean, it was cold. It was November in Cleveland dark. You know, it gets dark at five. I just went [00:25:00] out there by myself, flew my drone around, did some SPRs around the Christmas tree, you know, went over. I. It, it got retweeted many times.
This video, a one Twitter video in 2015 had 1.5 million views. 2015? Yes. Wow. And had like, that's how it got on everyone's radar. Yeah. So not only did the Browns call me, that was the best call I got at the time. Yeah. But at that time it was far and away. All right. Business is rolling, you know. Gotcha. My phone would not stop and I'm still on my personal, I'm still running the business off my personal cell that I had back from 2012.
David Young: I was gonna say on that, on the social media stuff, were you, did you have a habit of just like, Hey, I'm just gonna go out and film stuff and post it, or was this like the only thing you ever posted? What was your like social media frequency that
Thomas Wasinski: back then Frequency was pretty regular and that's where I was kind of looking for content.
I kind of just took the two things I liked Cleveland and Christmas. We took the Christmas tree Show people a view they haven't seen really before. This might have even [00:26:00] been the Phantom two at this point. You know, I got started on the Phantom one. Phantom two or Phantom three, and the consistency was pretty regular, but it was also dealing a lot in houses, you know, and, and some construction.
David Young: I think there's something to be said about that too. You never know when it's gonna happen, like when something like that's gonna happen for you. Not to, everybody's gonna have a viral video, but if I'm, I get to sur see a survey across a lot of successful drone pilots and. You know, and just business in, in general, right?
People who are usually, who are consistent about doing the actions, right? The inputs of, I'm gonna go fly, I'm gonna put this up online. And even if nobody's looking at it, you know, if you're, you're doing that all the time, you don't know when either something's gonna get a lot of views or a particular person's gonna look at it and that's gonna work.
Um, but I just feel like so many people get discouraged much too early on in that process of, oh, there's. Posting something on Instagram or Twitter or, [00:27:00] or you know, whatever they're, they're putting up and putting out into the world. I feel like people quit often. Pretty too early. Way
Thomas Wasinski: too early. Way too early.
You know, and, and I, I know Gary V is probably the foremost expert on this subject, if anyone's ever listened to him, but he said, if you're starting a podcast, do the first 50 before you let anyone listen to 'em so that at least you can have your 50 ready to go. So maybe by the time the 50th, you'll have two listeners.
You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So in other words, you don't quit because if you do one podcast and then you check to see who did it, oh, no one was,
David Young: oh no, you did two, you're speaking to the void,
Thomas Wasinski: right? You're speaking to the void. Everyone's gonna give up. But if you do 50 and then put 'em out, be like, oh, well they're done.
I don't care. You know, they're recorded. So in other words, I want some other people to have that same mentality, whereas like, just cuz you're no one's seeing it, doesn't mean
David Young: that no one's seeing it. Yeah. I think that's it. I think that's a great point. It's just a natural human thing, right? When you put something online, you instantly are looking [00:28:00] for some type of validation or some type of feedback on it, and we don't get that.
It's like, well, why am I, why am I even doing this? You know what I mean? There's some great tools out there now for Instagram, Twitter, all that stuff. I mean, even podcasts, right? So we actually just switched our hosting to, uh, transistor fm. There's tons of podcast host, but you can record everything. You can put it in there.
You can just put schedule dates for like all of your. Podcast episodes for Twitter, you can use things like Hype Fury, where you could write one post a day for Twitter for two months and then you could just put 'em all, and then you could leave it. And then you're, now you're posting on Twitter every day for two months.
Now you might not grow because you're not necessarily interacting with anyone, but you're not, it's not like every day you're gonna go through the, the mental exercise of posting and being discouraged going, what am I doing this? No one's gonna look at this. You know what I mean? Yes.
Thomas Wasinski: And, and can I share a story with you and this please.
This may have been what Dusty he shared with you. On the last podcast, do you know how I got started? I was actually kind of, uh, I didn't appreciate the validation or [00:29:00] lack thereof for some of my images on social media. I said, where can I go to post my images and just not get a reaction, but just bring value?
And they, they came to Google Maps, right? Okay. So I used my Google Maps account and I posted photos for every fire station, park, police station, university bus stop. Everything. I literally, dusty did not tell me about this. Okay. Yeah. So I, I photographed everything. And so at the time when Google Maps was getting started, you know how they would have a cover photo of an Yeah.
Of a place. I had the cover photo for every location here in northeast Ohio. Yeah. School, my views went up to 160 million views. I was getting 2 million views a day. What, yes. 2 million views a day and my phone was ringing off the hook cuz I have the, my, my company name, aerial agents on all the photos. And then they caught iron.
A great idea. They, they banned me from, from Google Map. They said businesses [00:30:00] aren't allowed to add photos of other businesses. And I said, oh, but I'm a photography business and these were good photos. I'm telling you I was not spamming. These were actual, I was going at sunset. I was waiting until cars were in the parking lot.
These were good photos and, uh, they, they banned me. But
David Young: could you do something like that under some other type of account, like a personal account without you, I mean, obviously you wouldn't get the same type of necessary like exposure, but maybe, I don't know, there's, is there some other way where you could get your photo up there and maybe get some people reaching out to you?
Yeah.
Thomas Wasinski: So now you would wanna do it under your personal account? Mm-hmm. And I don't recommend maybe putting your company name. And now Google, I don't know if you noticed, but Google Maps has kind of made more of a social profile where it shows how many photos you contributed. It shows how many reviews you go out.
Yeah. Yeah. So I would even encourage other pilots, like not only do you leave photos, but also go ahead and leave reviews for other businesses. I don't recommend leaving negative reviews, but go ahead and leave positive reviews because there is some interaction on that now. [00:31:00]
David Young: At least from just me looking at reviews.
Right. It seems that they, they try to boost reviews that have pictures with them too. Like when you leave pictures with your review, they kind of give you more bonus points for that and maybe your review shows up higher. So if you have a legitimate review, throws some pictures with the review and stuff and, and it's exposure that way.
Yeah. Yeah. I would've never thought about the Google Maps and that's a great idea. Yeah. Cause I, I look at Google Maps, the photos for Google Maps all the time, especially if I'm like, Go and do a new area. If I'm like trying to stay at a hotel, like, let's say I'm gonna go somewhere with my family, like I just went to DC uh, for a work thing, but I brought my son with me cuz I was like, we'll have an extra fun day.
And I was trying to look around. I used to live there, but we were looking at other new places and I'm trying to get a feel for like what stuff is like at like a hotel or a different place. And so I'll go to Google Maps and I'll look through all the pictures that people have taken. And most of them are just like, Terrible cell phone photos of like, you know, it's blurry and upside down or whatever, right?
But, uh, but it is helpful to get a feel for like what's there. So I think that's a great tip.
Thomas Wasinski: And now they allow you [00:32:00] to add video clips to that too. Yeah. So you can add video, video clips to places now too.
David Young: So. Sweet. That's an awesome idea. If you've listen to this podcast, a lot of what you know, the guests will say is, Hey, Got there and just capture a bunch of stuff and either send it to people for free at first if you're like brand, brand new or try to post it everywhere.
So if you got taking it anyways to put it on your website and other stuff, might as well throw it on, throw it on Google. Right. So, right. Great tip. Well, what's next for your business? Like what, what's your kind of plans for the future and you know, where do you see aerial agents going from here?
Thomas Wasinski: Yes. I wanna continue to focus on photo and video.
However, I know you've probably noticed the emergence of drone shows. The drone swarms and the light shows. I'm kind of doing some research on that cuz I would love to bring that to my community. I have a lot of clients that would benefit from this. I just read a study, and maybe you can speak to this, it's one of the fastest emerging sectors of the drone industry, uh, in terms of a adoption.
So
David Young: in Lakeland, where I'm from, this is a [00:33:00] big, huge air show, sun and fun. Every year. It's like second biggest. General Aviation flying next to Oshkosh. They do a big drone light show every year there, you know, and you see 'em, I mean, you see 'em all over the, like Olympic, whenever there's like big shows, obviously it looks like it's a bit more of a, at this point, at least, it's more of a investment probably in technology and uh, waivers and all that stuff.
But people love it. I mean, it's really cool
Thomas Wasinski: with company logos, and I don't know if you know this, but you're able to make a QR code in the sky. So now, You know, if you see a drone swarm flying who is not gonna pull out their phone, you know? Yeah. And as you immediately go to take a picture of it, it's gonna link you to the site.
And what if it's a fundraiser site? Well, hey, donate 20 bucks for this drone show. You know, I'm not saying I would make money that way, but yeah, for other people, I am a sponsor of Make-A-Wish Foundation, which is kind of very near and dear to my heart, where I kind of shoot their events either, well, it, whether it be aerial or ground.
You know, with the Make-A-Wish logo and putting maybe kids' [00:34:00] names in the sky that just had their wish granted be a cool concept. And that's kind of where it comes with the giving back. I wanna make sure if I get paid, I want to make sure and get that money back outta my hands as quick as possible. So the drone shows one thing and then also we, aerial agents has recently implemented F P V, whereas we brought Eric Hellinger an FPV pilot on board, where now he's kind of our, our in-house F P V expert.
From there, we've done some really cool jobs with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and some other things. So gonna continue to focus on the photo video, F P V, then get into some drone shows and then see what else the future holds. I do have a shadow program for kids that are in high school that do want to learn.
I kind of let them come out, look over my shoulder, show them what I'm doing. They get to hold the, the remote, you know, I'll even let them change props, change batteries. Fly a simulator, so I'm, yeah, very cool. Help the, the high schoolers in our area that are interested in this and then still reaching out.
I went to a vocational school for digital design. I'm kind of [00:35:00] speaking to them, students kind of bringing them up for their, you know, they're getting Adobe certified. I don't know if you've been to the Adobe Suite lately. But Adobe service offerings are incredible, whereas I can't even keep up with them.
So I do wanna reach back and bring up some of these kids that know exactly how to use Premiere and Lightroom and Rush and, and and InDesign and Photoshop and yeah.
David Young: Yeah, man, that's awesome. That's great that you're doing that. Hey, sounds like you're always thinking ahead and kinda looking what's next. I, that's obviously a big part of the reason why you're finding success and still have it in this area.
Um, well I don't wanna take up too much more of your time, but real quick before we go, if someone wants to kind of find out, I dunno more about you or look you up, what's the best way to do that? Like social or website, what are those?
Thomas Wasinski: Yep, perfectly. And I was just gonna recommend LinkedIn is also a good platform now to also share your work cuz it's the least saturated.
I would say for drone traditional content, they can contact me on LinkedIn, I'm Thomas Waki, or they could find my company aerial agents. I'm also on [00:36:00] at Aerial Agents on YouTube, Instagram, and that's it. I did get permanently banned from Twitter for using one of Kanye West's songs on a, on a song. So you'll, you'll go to aerial agents and it's permanently suspended.
So I gotta DM to Elon to see if he could help me. But, uh, so far no doubt,
David Young: man. No luck. Yeah. All right, dude, well, we'll link everything else up in the show notes to make sure people can find you. Sure. But with Thomas, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story. Loves talking to you, and I'm, I'm sure everybody got a lot of great wisdom outta this, so I appreciate you coming on.
Thomas Wasinski: Thank you, David, and keep up all the great work at Drone Launch Academy. I know it's a tremendous asset to so many pilots coming up, and you guys are doing it the right way. So thank you for having me, and I'm glad we could do it.
David Young: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Tom Walinski of Ariel Agents. that wraps up season five for the Drone one K podcast. we are actively recording for season six, so right now it is July 7th, 2023. So if you're listening to this, anytime in the next. Two months after July [00:37:00] 7th, and you think you know someone, or maybe you yourself are a good candidate for the Drone to one K podcast, uh, we'd love to have you on as a guest.
So my personal email address is david drone launch academy.com. My assistant Daria is also in there in my inbox and helps me manage it and helps me manage that. So if you think you know someone or you. Would like to be on the podcast, just shoot me an email, david@dronelaunchacademy.com and, we'll get back with you and see if we can get you scheduled, if we think you'd be a good fit.
We're also gonna be sending out an email to our email list to start taking applications for that. So I'm excited to get, recording, get to meet more of you. and we're probably gonna also feature a few people who have been through our drone one K program who are now past their one k per month mark, and are having success with their drone business too, to kind of feature them for doing all the hard work of getting it going from the ground up.
All right everyone. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everybody who listens to this podcast. It's been so much fun to create over the last several years. Really looking forward to doing another season of this. and I hope that you all tune in. please feel free to [00:38:00] reach out if there's anything we can ever do for you.
Take care. Have a good one.