How To Scale With A Video Marketing Strategy With Michael Ayjian and Stephen Skeel

Scaling a business isn’t just about working harder—it’s about working smarter. In this episode, I sit down with Michael Ayjian and Stephen Skeel, co-founders of 7 Wonders, an Emmy-winning video production company that helps brands establish thought leadership through video marketing strategy.

Michael and Stephen share the key lessons they’ve learned in scaling their business, from navigating transparency in leadership to ensuring their services actually align with what clients need. We dive into the power of video podcasting, why sales must come first, and the role of trust in scaling a high-impact brand. They also reveal why authentic storytelling—not just high-end production—creates the most powerful marketing content.

If you’ve ever wondered how to make video work for your business, this conversation is packed with insights you can apply today. Tune in now!

Connect with Michael Ayjian and Stephen Skeel:

If you’re a business owner, thought leader, or entrepreneur looking to scale your brand through high-quality video content, you need to connect with Michael Ayjian and Stephen Skeel at 7 Wonders. They’ve built an Emmy-winning production company that helps businesses like yours establish authority through cinematic storytelling and podcasting. Visit 7wonders.com to learn how they can elevate your content

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to 7 Wonders
• 7:49 The Power of Authenticity in Video
• 13:12 Leadership and Transparency in Scaling
• 21:13 The Key to Sales Success
• 29:15 The Business Case for Video Podcasting
• 35:14 Metrics That Actually Matter
• 41:51 Scaling Beyond Founder Dependence

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:37

It is an honor today to have Michael Aijin and Stephen Skeel on the podcast. They're with Seven Wonders, an Emmy-winning video production company that they co-founded that is known for helping brands tell their stories through cinematic content. Over the past decade, seven Wonders has partnered with industry leaders like Nasdaq, the Atlantic, blackrock, comcast and AmerisourceBergen, crafting high-impact visuals that drive brand authority and engagement. Recognizing the growing need for thought leadership in today's content landscape, stephen and Michael launched Seven Wonders Video Podcast Program, a turnkey solution for businesses and executives looking to build authority through consistent, high-quality video content. The program combines cinematic storytelling with their Emmy-winning video production expertise, ensuring that clients don't just start a podcast but establish a powerful media presence. Their mission To make high-end video content scalable, helping brands cut through the noise and position themselves as industry leaders. Guys, I'm so glad you were here. Thanks for being on the show.

Michael Ayjian: 1:49

Well, thanks for having us and just before we get started, your voice, you could totally be a voiceover artist. I was listening to that, I was like that is amazing voiceover artist.

Stephen Skeel: 2:04

I was listening to that. I was like that is amazing, and one of the anecdotes that we have from running a video agency for 10 years is the amount of cold outreach we get from hopeful voice artists wanting to do a voiceover for a commercial. So many, so many. But if you had sent a sample we might actually consider it. Yeah Well, that's awfully kind Thanks guys.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:24

That's something I don't get a lot of, so I appreciate that yeah.

Michael Ayjian: 2:29

I was like, wow, this is good. Can we take this and put it in our oh, this is going to be a great conversation.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:34

I'm so looking forward to this.

Intro/Outro: 2:37

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:54

I would love for you guys to start by sharing some of your story with our listeners. I hit a couple of the high points, but I know there's so much more, particularly around your journey and your development as leaders. How did this whole thing happen?

Michael Ayjian: 3:08

Yeah, I think I'll get started, stephen, and then you can just cut in. Sure. So Stephen and I met right before we went to NYU, where we both went to college, and when we were there we developed a relationship and we started working together and we landed a couple of big clients and then we formed Seven Wonders and from there it just sort of snowballed. So it's not like we had a ton of experience doing leadership per se Before. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Stephen has entrepreneurs in his family as well. Both of Stephen's parents are actually published authors. A family of entrepreneurs. Stephen has entrepreneurs in his family as well. Both of Stephen's parents are actually published authors a little fun fact, awesome. So his family is very well-spoken and his dad's a professor, so he's used to speaking in front of large crowds.

Stephen Skeel: 3:54

Yeah.

Michael Ayjian: 3:57

I think it just sort of organically happened and, look, we've made a lot of decisions right and we've made a lot of decisions wrong. I think one of the top things for us was when we started working with big companies and we really started scaling up our team, learning what to share and when to share. It was an important learning lesson. Everyone wants 100% transparency and we want to be as transparent as possible. But sometimes we learned, if you're transparent too early in the process of certain things, some people can get ahead of themselves, they can get nervous. So it's really about how, when and where to share things and being as transparent as possible without affecting the organization in a negative way. Because that was just such an interesting learning lesson for us in terms of our leadership was just that.

Michael Ayjian: 4:53

I'd say that's the number one thing in my mind that comes to my head when I think about our leadership style and just learning to be who is it? Gary Vaynerchuk says lead with kindness, and I think there's this attitude or this uh notion that successful business people are gruff or mean or this or that, and what I've met has been totally the opposite, outside of a few specific industries which I won't name, but other than that, primarily, the CEOs of these companies, the C-suite executives of these companies, are really really nice people and the people who work with them and for them love them. I think that just gets you so much further than being mean and trying to force things through. So that was another really big learning lesson for us. Not that we were ever mean per se, but I think that was a big thing.

Stephen Skeel: 5:52

Yeah, I totally agree with all that that we've had in working and building Seven Wonders is a lot of our work allows us to engage directly with the highest level of C-suite executives at most of these companies, because a lot of times we are doing their video messaging, we're doing their corporate marketing, so we're talking with their whole marketing team at the highest level, or we're talking with the leadership themselves to do on-camera interviews, to do podcasting, to do whatever the case may be. So even just in dealing with them in those types of situations you can learn a lot, like how they treat us as a vendor who might just be seen as a peon to them, another meeting that they have, or when we have a little bit more of the seat at the table, how they consider our ideas and want to incorporate them into what they're doing to make the best thing possible. So I think there's been a lot of learnings from that and appreciate you reading that intro. I think a lot of what it touched on was kind of this idea of quality in video, quality in content, and really what we've found is that the quality is in terms less of the production value and the high-end cameras and the sets and all that and more. It's really about the authenticity and the relationship and the message that whoever is on camera is trying to convey, and it's less about the format.

Stephen Skeel: 7:17

And that's really why we've made a huge shift in our business. We still do high-end corporate stuff, high-end commercial, but there's been such a demand for this format is because a lot of what we learned interpersonally from these leaders and ourselves as leaders is we wanna be authentic, we wanna be true and we wanna share a message that's gonna reach an audience. And what better way to do it? In a conversational setting, a conversational format, so kind of weaving all the different threads together, a little bit about our history and a little bit about what we've learned. But I think that's why we're so excited to participate in things like this and offer things in a little bit of a different way to clients as well.

Dr. William Attaway: 7:54

And I think the key word that I heard from both of you through that the idea is quality, and from both of you through that, the idea is quality. You know what you are bringing is the quality that so many smaller businesses and entrepreneurs and founders can see and appreciate but has really not been accessible to them. You know they don't have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in a budget for such things, and so you just look at it and you think, oh, that's amazing, that's wonderful. Yeah, one day maybe, sort of kind of. And what you're doing is you're saying, hey, we can bring that same expertise and level. We might perceive it as like hey, what's going on here?

Michael Ayjian: 8:46

That person doesn't like us. But the more we started being in business, the more we learned it's just about is this the right fit? So it's real like dating. Sales is a lot like dating. It's like, hey, you have to find the right fit. Sometimes both parties say no and you can't explain the reason. Sometimes both parties like each other. But we totally learned on that journey about quality of storytelling, quality of relationships, like you're saying, is super important, and just the value of building trust as a whole. That's super important. Building trust and that's in a sales conversation, that's from a leadership perspective. Building trust with our team too, and it goes two ways. It's a two-way street. We have to trust our team. They have to trust us. We have to trust our clients, they have to trust us. It's a two-way street and that's the same thing with even this format too. How do you build trust with an audience of people that you've never spoken to before, so that they feel comfortable with you, they feel comfortable buying from?

Stephen Skeel: 9:52

you, which is a pretty notable executive recruitment, executive search firm and we were doing, like they're doing some rebranding and there's new leadership that's involved, and so we were putting some things together for them and they had a relatively new CEO who's very accomplished and a very impressive person. We did the interview with that person and at the end of it they said, man, like seven wonders, you guys never felt so comfortable standing on camera before, like I, I'm a, I'm a common, I'm an accomplished person and I've been on press outlets, I've been on news stations, I've been on this, I've been on that. But there's always this level of butterflies that that gets, even when you're doing this format. I mean, I have butterflies and I've been in camera related things for 15 years.

Stephen Skeel: 10:46

And when they said that it was so meaningful to us because we thought, well, that skill, that trust that we build with the client, that they can then, in turn, have confidence to develop trust with their audience and who they're messaging to, that is something that it doesn't matter what type of camera or format or where you are. It is a skill that we feel we can empower all of our clients with, whether it be a podcasting format or a corporate video and what Michael's talking about developing trust. It's kind of we're the epicenter and we need to develop trust with everything around what we're dealing with whether it be our staff, our employees, making sure that they feel trusted and believe in the vision, but then also clients and then also helping the clients develop it with their clients, which is kind of the next degree. That's been really meaningful to us as we've unlocked this new way of working with clients in a remote world in some ways and energy feeds energy, like when you have nervous energy, it feeds more nervous energy, which makes more nervous energy.

Michael Ayjian: 11:52

When you're calm, it gives the other person calm energy and we've seen that with our team. There have been when the team's frantic. More people doesn't necessarily mean better. Alex Formosi talks about this a lot. Actually, more people doesn't necessarily always mean more output. It all depends on the function of your business. Of course, you have to scale the team proportional to how you're scaling the business, but there are other ways to scale too. There's ways of building out a contractor network.

Michael Ayjian: 12:26

So you have to figure out what balance is right for your organization and make sure that when you're hiring, you're very intentional with the people that you hire and there are people that see the vision, will talk about the vision in a proper way, because, as we were scaling first, there was toxicity permeating in certain parts of the organization and people don't always want to be transparent with you about what's going on as a leader. I think that was. Another big learning lesson is, when you're the boss, people don't always want to tell you the hard things that they need to tell you. So you really have to figure out how to sniff things out without scaring people, because I think I would always think I'm not a scary guy. I mean I'm like Mr, like friendly guy, no one, no one's scared of me, but like people, oddly, are scared of me and like that just comes with the territory. And I remember like we used to be scared of talking to CEOs. We're not scared anymore, but when we first started we were.

Michael Ayjian: 13:30

So like as Steven was saying, butterflies like I used to get butterflies to be on an interview like this, not anymore. I mean, I've been on so many now that it like doesn't even faze me, but it's like it's just an interesting concept just thinking about. We can be that guy that people are scared of even though we don't do anything scary. It's just the position we're in.

Dr. William Attaway: 13:52

I like what you said about the energy that you're bringing. If you're nervous, you're broadcasting. I think we are all always on broadcast and other people are receiving what we are broadcasting, whether we're doing it on a conscious level or a subconscious level. I had a guest on the show a few months ago who shared a thought and I have not forgotten this one. This stuck. He said leaders create the weather.

Stephen Skeel: 14:15

Okay, I like that.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:16

The more I reflect on that and think about that. I think about when a leader walks into the room. They can bring a hurricane. There's wind and fire and rain, and it's just all the time. A leader can walk into the room and bring fog. There's just no clarity. You cannot see exactly what to do, how to go, where we're going. Or they can bring the bright sun and all of a sudden you can see exactly what's next where you're going and everybody feels the warmth of the sun. And all of a sudden you can see exactly what's next where you're going and everybody feels the warmth of the sun. Leaders create the weather and I think what you're describing is exactly that. We get to choose, as leaders, what we're going to bring to our team, what we're going to bring to our clients. We get to decide if we're going to walk in and be the nervous person that's going to broadcast that and everybody's going to receive and reflect, or we can choose something different.

Stephen Skeel: 15:03

Yeah, I like that a lot. I'm going to definitely be aware of that moving forward.

Michael Ayjian: 15:09

Spot on too. Yeah, that's a great saying.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:12

Yeah, it really stuck in my head when I heard it and I've reflected on it. I've shared that with clients since, because I thought I want them to understand. You get to choose what you're bringing into this.

Stephen Skeel: 15:23

Yeah, I. Another thought I had on that and related to something that Michael said earlier about hearing no in the early going, because I think the challenge with the responsibility of being the weather, bringing the weather is OK, but then how am I feeling empowered or confident about what I'm doing, like sometimes when I bring the hurricane? It's probably because I have a just reason to be frustrated about X, y, z and so, and one of those, one of the causes of those types of frustrations is hearing no. Hearing no on a sales call, hearing no from a team member, hearing no from colleague, whatever the case may be, and I think what Michael and I learned, especially in the more recent years, is for an entrepreneur and this is for a leader, but also just for someone responsible for building the business no is a tool.

Stephen Skeel: 16:17

No is a tool to chisel away at what you actually have that's of value. Tool to chisel away at what you actually have that's of value Because we were putting things together that we were trying to foist on clients like you should want this, you should want this right now, and they would say no and we'd get frustrated. And then we're like okay, but why are they saying no? Like, can we expand on that answer? Maybe, instead of getting rattled by it, can we ask a follow-up question. Can we understand and I think that that's really what led us down this road of offering something that's tremendously scalable and of value.

Stephen Skeel: 18:00

This podcasting format is hearing from that executive search firm hey, you guys really bring a lot of value to making me feel comfortable on camera Like, okay, there's something that they want. Okay, let's start there and not try to force something that they don't want. And I think that that's relevant both to clients but also to team members too. If team members are telling you no, sometimes you have to say, well, that's the world we live in and you're going to have to accept it. Other times, it's important to hear what they have to say and really workshop something as well.

Michael Ayjian: 18:31

Yeah, and I'd say sales always comes first was another thing we've learned too.

Michael Ayjian: 18:37

Like sales comes first over everything else at the organization, unfortunately, because there's no organization without sales. So as much as you want to do everything else for the business, if you don't have sales it's not going to exist. So that has to be number one in any organization. And I think the other thing is is you have to listen to what your clients want, not what you want them to want. Yep, oh, like there's really good.

Michael Ayjian: 19:08

So there's this big sense of like well, I wish my client would want this thing, but they don't. Then there's often a disconnect there. So you have to find out what the client wants and make sure they're happy. And that's the whole point of being in business is to make sure your client's happy. So even if that means you can help them, say hey and guide them in a certain direction and say hey, I think this would be a better solution, you.

Michael Ayjian: 19:38

But at the end of the day, if they want something very specific and you're like, if I were you, I wouldn't buy that, but if you really want it, let's go for it. I mean, it's our job to just make sure they're happy at the end of the day and be the best we can be at executing that job. I think we've learned that over the years too. That was something that frustrated us initially. That I say we've gotten a lot better at is just listening to what the client wants and making sure they're happy and pitching them ideas of their goals too, like what are the goals. It's not just like what they're asking for, but it's also like what are the goals. So if you can accomplish the goal in a different, more cost-effective manner, oftentimes the clients will be open to hearing the idea.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:28

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would think education and coaching is a very large part of what you're doing helping them to understand not just what they have in their head, but helping them understand that there is a better way, maybe a more cost effective way. There's something that's going to accomplish what they want to accomplish, but it may take a path that they don't know or haven't seen before.

Stephen Skeel: 20:49

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I think when we think about a project based initiative with a client University of Southern California, or we did some work with Yahoo and we've done work with all these big corporate brands, and they have these marketing departments within them that have different goals, like Michael said, and we get brought on often in those cases to produce maybe a singular video or a video with different components.

Stephen Skeel: 21:13

Maybe it's like a hero piece with several different supporting shorter pieces, something like that, or a series, or a series or like a general initiative, and I think what sometimes the clients underestimate is the level of like brainstorm that's going to be required to.

Dr. William Attaway: 21:30

That's good.

Stephen Skeel: 21:32

And educating, like you said, the people that are going to be on camera. They might say this executive would be great, but then there's a big effort put to. Okay, well, what do we want them to say and how do we want their tone to be and how do we want them to present? And our clients are great. I mean, we have great working relationships with all of our clients and these conversations happen very organically. But to your point, when you say they're a video production company, they just make the video. It's like, well, there actually ends up being this huge education component before the video is even possible. And that was where the light bulb went off for us, where we said okay, people know us because we make quality videos. They do, we won an Emmy, we've won these awards. But behind the scenes, our clients value us and keep coming back to us because they like the interplay and collaboration that happens before the video is even produced. Yeah, and it's not about the format, yeah.

Michael Ayjian: 22:32

And it's so much like you can hire anyone, right? Well, not anyone, but you can hire a lot of companies to make a good quality video. But one thing we've heard of clients to steven's point that work with us is we make it easier for them and we make their life easier. So it's good, it's all about making everyone's life easier. Even like systems optimization, like is something that we talk a lot about, right. So like we don't just add a technological component. To add a technological component if it's going to bog down the process. We only do it if it makes the client's life easier and our life easier, yeah, otherwise there's no point in doing it. The way we've been doing it traditionally is just fine. So that's how we think about a lot of the things that we do in the business. It's like how do we make everyone's lives easier and how do we just communicate across the board? Like Steven said, it's not like a lot of times what we would do is design a video concept under a certain initiative or something like that, but then we title it and that would become the title of the whole grand. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, that's happened so many times. So we're like wait, we're leading the charge and creating this thought leadership, but like and that's why they pay us but this doesn't show up at all in the final result that we're doing. It just looks like we took a direction and then it turns into a final product. So I think what we're doing now with more of the thought leadership content like Stephen mentioned the podcasting is we're helping people develop themselves as thought leaders. So it's like that's good.

Michael Ayjian: 24:25

You have the component right from your business which is helping people develop themselves as leaders. What we do is then take them and help people communicate right. How do they communicate their messaging? How do they seem calm on camera? How do they present themselves in a really nice format? And then we help them come up with the ideas and do all that stuff. So it's almost like being a showrunner yeah, for like a TV show or something like that. I think it clicks a little bit more with a client when we talk about it too. That makes sense. I understand what you're doing versus hey, we do a video for you. They don't really like Stephen's saying, they don't really know the full breadth of what goes into a video. It's like a lot of education, a lot of conversations with people, especially at these big organizations, it's never just one decision maker.

Michael Ayjian: 25:22

We've been on calls with 16, 17 decision makers and it's like they all have different thoughts. So we might have one or two people from our team on a call and they have to wrangle all the decision makers, help them make a decision on what direction to go in. And we're all on a deadline and these budgets aren't huge something and they want to bring that value to other people.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:08

And you help them to present that in such a way that that that expertise shines through clearly. Yeah, so that they're not having to figure out hey, I've got to make sure I stay on top of things with my area of expertise and I got to learn all this other stuff too. You come in and say, no, we can handle that for you and actually help you level up Exactly.

Michael Ayjian: 26:27

It's like hiring a trainer when you go to the gym, you don't have to think about what you're doing at the gym. You just show up and you work out.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:35

Absolutely, and you know the end result is going to be like better this is why people hire me right. They hire a coach because they want somebody who's going to help them go farther right In a faster way than they could have on their own.

Stephen Skeel: 26:49

Well, and I think there's also a component to it which I'm sure you see in your business, where the leaders that are hiring you appreciate that there's an external perspective reflecting on them that they can't see themselves.

Stephen Skeel: 27:01

That comes into play a lot for the video podcasting format as well, because sometimes entrepreneurs and leaders at all different levels will say I can figure this out, I can get a camera, I can get a ring light and a microphone. And yes, you can, and we empower you to do that. We have resources on our site to encourage people to do that, because we really believe in this format. But the consistent feedback that we get when we start working with clients is I didn't even know I had that facial tick, or I didn't even know. I said I said a lot. Or I said you know a lot and I didn't even know that if I were to put a hook at the beginning of my episode instead of just going into it, it's like that's where we give you the feedback. We put things together for you, we do the editing, like Michael said it's you show up and then you're chiseled chiseled abs when you walk out.

Michael Ayjian: 27:53

Yeah, and coming up with the ideas too, right. The part of storytelling is what is the inception of the idea? Right? If the whole point of the episode isn't good, no matter how good you are at speaking, yeah, it's not going to be good and no one's going to want to watch it at the end of the day. Anyway, yeah, so true, we make sure to check all the boxes on that category. I mean, there are a lot of boxes to check. As you know, you have a successful podcast, yeah, but but you're, you're spot on and having that external perspective, somebody who can help. I mean, there are a lot of boxes to check.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:22

As you know, you have a successful podcast, yeah, but you're spot on and having that external perspective, somebody who can help you see what you cannot see when you're in it. You can't see the whole picture when you're in the frame, having somebody who's going to hold up a mirror and say, hey, have you noticed? Did you know? Have you seen, have you heard? Yeah, that's insanely valuable because you're never going to do that yourself.

Michael Ayjian: 28:46

Yeah, not at the same way, in the same level exactly, and that's why all these big organizations that have unlimited resources hire consultants. It's like, yes, well, comcast didn't need to hire deloitte I don't know if comcast works with Deloitte Like they could just hire all of the Deloitte consultants. Like they hire Deloitte because they want an outside perspective. And we're offering that for big companies, but also for smaller companies or individuals who are like hey, at an affordable cost too.

Stephen Skeel: 29:23

I think to add on to that, when you go to our website, which is being reb being rebranded, by the way, and we're going to get the new one up soon, hopefully when this episode comes out it'll be out but there's a perception that because of our accolades and some of the clients that we work with and the quality of our work, we're not for everyone like we're only of an upper echelon type of clientele. That was really troubling to us, because we genuinely think we have things of value to offer to different businesses at all different levels. We say I think we're working with businesses that do 2 million a year all the way up to hundreds of billions, like Comcast does insane amounts of revenue. So the spectrum is wide. But what's really beautiful about this format is it is accessible from a budget standpoint for small businesses, and small businesses know that they need to be on social platforms types of businesses and it's been invaluable for networking, for visibility, but, most importantly, for authenticity and thought leadership. As we said at the beginning, love that.

Michael Ayjian: 30:31

And it really troubled me for a long time. I come from a family of small to mid-sized business entrepreneurs and it really troubled me to think, wow, we couldn't help them with their marketing for a long time because there's nothing that would fit what they needed. It's like those are the companies that need help the most and we're not helping them. So that really, like Steven and I would always rattle back and forth about that and think about that a lot, and now we finally have something that's accessible to that audience, which is really cool. And we're actually helping my family's business doing podcasting and social content for them now, which is really exciting. They're one of our clients.

Stephen Skeel: 31:20

And we're having a lot of success. We're having a lot of success with this smaller business crowd Like it's not. I mean, as I'm sure you've experienced at the different levels of your podcast, launching it and getting it going. It's not always about the view count, it's not always about the listenership, it's about who were you able to talk to that day and did that person talk to someone else. And our goal is to achieve our clients' goals. It's not to get vanity stats necessarily. I mean, if there's 100,000 views, amazing, but we're not going to promise that to clients. It's more about did it open a door for you in some way, shape or form? And it has for us. It really has doing our own show open doors.

Michael Ayjian: 32:00

I, I said the other day was I think we got 500 views on one of our social clips, which is okay I mean that's not over the top or anything. But I ended up getting someone messaging me saying hey, I want to work with you guys from just a 500 view video and it's like you could have a million views and not get one lead, or you could have a hundred views and get one lead.

Stephen Skeel: 32:29

If it's the right audience, right, yeah, yes, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 32:32

Because we Exactly.

Stephen Skeel: 32:33

We did a music video for Disney in August of last year. It's closing in on a million views on YouTube. It was number one on Billboard. The album was number one on Billboard. We got some interest from clients. Just wow, that's so cool and it was a really cool experience. It really was. It was a lot of fun. But it's so funny that in a million view video for one of the biggest powerhouses in entertainment, they've started one or two conversations and here Michael's showing his 500 view video. Like it's just. It's cool to see that the dichotomy like we've done work for the biggest brands in the world and gotten the huge view counts. But it's really about are you hitting the right audience and are you making yourself accessible?

Dr. William Attaway: 33:18

Yeah, and does it convert? Yeah, I mean yeah, views, don't deposit in your bank account as a business owner? Yeah, and does it convert? Yeah. I mean, yeah, views, don't deposit in your bank account as a business owner. Yeah, is it converting? That's really, I think, what most thought leaders and business owners are after. Yeah, it's not the vanity metrics, and I love that phrase.

Michael Ayjian: 33:35

Yeah, I mean, and at the end of the day, marketing is all about getting more leads to the sales team. That's the whole reason marketing exists Like and brand awareness right, like I mean the whole point of brand awareness. I know it's like top of funnel, but it's like the whole point of brand awareness is hopefully eventually to get people to buy more. So it's like the better you can do that, the better everyone is and, of course, the more cost effective you can be doing it, the better it is also. So, absolutely, I mean I would say we've. I mean I don't know if this is true as for right now Stephen might dispute this, but like I'm going to say, within the next probably two months, we will probably have gotten more leads from our podcast than we will from winning an Emmy and saying we won an Emmy.

Stephen Skeel: 34:27

Yeah, I mean it's kind of hard to measure, but I would like, because you know someone might have seen that on our website and been compelled to reach out, but I would agree that I would. I would frame it as two or three months from now, the podcast will be the clear number one lead generation mechanism we have, I would say for sure. And I know, William, you've said that about yourself too. Hasn't it become that Absolutely?

Dr. William Attaway: 34:50

Absolutely. You know there's so many different venues that you try to push out. You know social, right, I speak on a lot of stages. Right, I write, I coach people and there's referrals that come from all of those different places. But the podcast has opened more doors and started more conversations and resulted in more conversions than anything else we've tried.

Stephen Skeel: 35:09

Wow Now as just a curiosity, because we're analyzing these stats for a lot of our clients. Where do most of the leads come from from the podcast? Is it people that have just seen an episode that reach out? Is it just the people that you had as guests that then say I love that experience, or is it just kind of a mix?

Dr. William Attaway: 35:27

Yes, it's all of the above. It's even guests who will tell other people, who then reach out after they go, listen to an episode, wow, and then come back around and complete the circuit. I mean it's fascinating because it's really about relationships. Yeah, I mean it's fascinating because it's really about relationships. You know, when I'm talking to a group from a stage, you know, I mean it could be 500 or 1,000 people, it doesn't matter. What are you trying to do as a speaker? You're trying to build a relationship, right, you're trying to make a connection. And make that connection and people feel it then after the talk, when they see you, you know, in the hallway or whatever, and they want to have a conversation because they feel like they know you. That's exactly what a podcast, I think, does, but writ large. You know you're not limited by geography, you're not limited by by you know where you physically are located. All of a sudden, now you have the ability to build those relational connections with anybody.

Stephen Skeel: 36:24

Yeah, especially because it's on the channel right, like you're. You're doing it audio only, you're doing it on YouTube. You're doing social content, you're doing blog content. I mean, that was always a challenge for us with the project-based work is, we would spend months and months putting this incredible video together. It looked beautiful, it's okay, it's amazing the nicest lenses and we give it over to the client. They'd be stoked about it, they'd love it, and then they'd say, okay, so what do we do with this now? And we say, gosh, like. And then it'd get posted on YouTube and get like three views and we'd be like you need to have a plan in place to to have this get to the right audience. But we don't. You know, our system isn't built to get you that plan, whereas with the podcasting it totally is designed for that. It's designed for a multi-channel release. It's designed for multi-format release too. Static content could be generated blogs, newsletters.

Michael Ayjian: 37:17

And we're doing the social posting for our clients too.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:21

And we're helping with all that stuff.

Michael Ayjian: 37:22

Now, when you have one video, you have to do all this complicated media buying and stuff to make sure that you get the ROI from the video. But when you have it like this, you can do some media buying but you also do, like Steven said, omni-channel release and it's just organic that things start to pick up a little bit more. So it's really exciting.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:45

Okay, how do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that your team, your clients, are going to need you to have as you are leading them into this? I would say largely to this point, especially in the last couple years, maybe the last five years?

Stephen Skeel: 38:23

we have been servants to the organization as opposed to the organization serving us, and the reason for that was because, with largely project-based work and we're in an industry that goes through a lot of fluctuations obviously there's strikes in the union world and all this other stuff related to the entertainment industry that makes it volatile it's very hard to predict, like, where you're going. Luckily, we've been very fortunate to continue to grow and have stability, and I think that that's something that Michael and I put a lot of thought into. But the way that we were able to have that stability is because Michael and I put on our sales hats and we get to work, we put our nose to the grindstone and we really, really work hard and we're serving the organization. The biggest change, the biggest thought change in the past year or so, and really especially as we've been doing this offer that benefits clients in a much more recurring type of way where they get ongoing, consistent value as opposed to a flash in the pan type of value that's gone in a second is it allows us as leaders to be freed up, to be outside of the business and building it from the outside and not be servants on the inside. And that change based on benefiting clients long term in an ongoing way and, obviously for us, internally recurring revenue, more predictable, streamlined processes.

Stephen Skeel: 39:47

We are poised for the next five years to focus 100% on scalable sales and systems optimization that will allow us to be better leaders. So much of our energy over the past five years has been consumed with. The business needs this, the business needs this and we need to jump in and we need to jump in versus now. It's okay. We're building a structure that will benefit clients long-term. Our systems will be on a conveyor belt. That doesn't necessarily mean we're not going to have white glove service. It just means it's going to be a lot more strategic and repeatable. That allows us to be freed up, to really be architects of the future and be better leaders to our team, better consultants to our clients and better just overall people. I think too, because we're not so bogged down. Yeah.

Michael Ayjian: 40:38

I completely agree with that. I think, like when when a leader is overly involved in the business to the point at which they like have to be involved or the business will fall apart. I think that does sometimes cause some problems for client fulfillment, unless it's a really small shop, right, and then that's a different category of business. But for us, when we're thinking about the clients getting the best results, it's not necessarily always Stephen or I who are getting the clients the best results. We have an amazing team that can get the clients the best results. So when we can systematize things, more clients are going to get more out of the money that they're spending with us.

Michael Ayjian: 41:24

It's all about maximizing everyone's time. Like I was saying earlier too, it's like maximizing Steven and my time so that we can think about what are additional offers that we can give to our clients that are going to give them value. How do we get our team to be as optimized as possible so that they're happy when they work with the clients? Because at the end of the day, when you're crunching a timeline and you're crunching all this stuff and you're crunching the numbers, the clients end up happy-ish as happy as they can be, but it's not always they're enthused about the product. The employees end up complaining and Steven and I end up crunch.

Michael Ayjian: 42:04

So it's like everyone kind of loses in that scenario. So there are business models where everyone wins. So it's as much as possible for us, like Stephen was saying, to find a scenario where everyone wins. And I remember taking a negotiations class in college and the guy was a doctorate in negotiation and sort of the end thesis of the class was the best negotiation is the negotiation where everyone wins. And that's just so true. It's like every time everyone wins, that's the best scenario, and if one party's not happy, the whole thing's going to. The whole flywheel is going to fall apart eventually.

Dr. William Attaway: 42:48

Yeah, that's so good.

Michael Ayjian: 42:50

Yeah, so that's the scenario. We're trying to create as much as possible, and I think that that'll show in our leadership qualities. I think hopefully we'll have more things for our clients to purchase from us, because we do have a lot of value that we can bring, but we don't have time to bring that additional value when we're so focused on just getting the one single thing done.

Stephen Skeel: 43:13

Yeah exactly.

Michael Ayjian: 43:14

I think that's going to show through in our leadership and hopefully a calmer leadership style too. Yeah, like when we can think clearly about the future. Like you said, our team can think clearly about the future, our clients can think clearly about the future. It's all connected and it all cycles together.

Stephen Skeel: 43:35

Yeah, be the sunny day coming into the room, not the hurricane like you said. That's right, that's it.

Michael Ayjian: 43:40

Yeah, exactly yeah, and so that's sort of where my head's at in terms of the flywheel.

Dr. William Attaway: 43:46

It's just keeping that going as much as we possibly can, I think that's incredibly smart, because when you're at the center of the spider web, where every strand connects to you and you're responsible for every, every decision has to come to your desk, not only are you setting yourself up to fail, because that doesn't scale, but you also are setting yourself up to never be able to exit. Yeah, yeah, you know, because if everything is dependent on you, you can't sell you. Yeah, you know. And when you leave, the whole thing falls apart. When you go on vacation, I mean, that's not anything I think most healthy entrepreneurs want to build.

Michael Ayjian: 44:21

Yeah, I mean, stephen and I always laughed. Our vacations were never really vacations, they were always even. Hey, I'm signing off. Well, this client emailed me. I have to put together this SOW. I'm inreece, I'm on a boat in greece. Let me put together the sow and send it to the client. It's like, yeah, hopefully, and that reflects in us too and like in our level of like. Sometimes there's like a certain level of frustration with like never having the ability to take off so so exactly Like it's been 10 years now.

Michael Ayjian: 44:56

We haven't really gotten any time off. So hopefully in the next few years we're going to get some time off.

Dr. William Attaway: 45:02

You will and I think, with that intentionality of building something that is not focused on your immediate attention and time, you being the decision makers, I think that's how you get there and it's a process and you've got to be intentional and committed to it. But if you are, you will get there.

Michael Ayjian: 45:18

I have no doubt about that for a while, but we're still relatively young, so I think we're excited to be in this next phase of the business, with all of our clients, to really bring some tremendous value to them, to bring value to our team ourselves.

Dr. William Attaway: 45:46

I think it's just a great combination of things and I'm excited to see what's next for you guys. Every time we talk, I get lost in the time because I'm learning so much, and this has been no exception in this conversation. I'm so grateful for the two of you sharing so generously and so openly from your experience and your journey so far. I know our listeners are going to want to stay connected to you and learn more about how they can get engaged with you and what you're doing. What's the best way for them to do that?

Michael Ayjian: 46:18

I'd say the best way is just to visit our website, sevenwonderscom.

Dr. William Attaway: 46:20

I'm not sure if you'll have a link at the bottom of the we will. We'll have it in the show notes. Okay.

Michael Ayjian: 46:23

In the show notes, but it's the number seven, not seven spelled out wonderscom. We got that domain a while ago. It was very expensive, so please, please, use it.

Dr. William Attaway: 46:35

Don't put it in vain. Yeah, that's outstanding. We'll put that in bold or something, so everyone yes, yeah, exactly yeah.

Michael Ayjian: 46:45

We paid more than we wanted for that one, I can imagine.

Dr. William Attaway: 46:52

You guys. Thank you both so much. This has been a joy and I know you've shared stuff that our listeners have really benefited from.

Michael Ayjian: 46:59

Thanks for having us, really appreciate it. Thanks for having us. This is great.

Dr. William Attaway: 47:03

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 47:39

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. If you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 48:23

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.