Almost closed the doors, then added onto her studio.

Carla: I'm sitting here with Bonnie Keith of Video Magic Productions. How are you, Bonnie?

Bonnie: I'm fantastic. How are you?

Carla: I'm doing great. I want to talk about the big change that happened for you working with me and the program. Why don't you jump off with that?

Bonnie: I think the big transformation happened at a time when a lot of people were having them, but many of them in the wrong direction. That's when COVID hit, back in early 2020. I was working with you at the time. We were literally in the middle of working together when I said to you, I think I'm done. After 40 years of doing video, I went, I guess the universe is telling me it's enough. Stop. Because if I can't be out there filming people live, which I couldn't, that's it. I'm done. I can't do anything else. And you said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's not really true. You said, what I'm doing with my clients, and what I can help you with, is finding how to pivot. That became the big word back then. And it was like, yeah, but pivot to what? I can't film anybody. You said, well, we'll discuss it.

Bonnie: And you helped me realize, which I always knew, that I knew a lot more than I thought I knew, and I could do a lot more than I thought I could. And to gain the confidence to go, what are people needing? How can I help fill that gap, even though maybe I can't get to them live? We realized that people were on Zoom calls. Everybody was now online. One of the things I used to try to preach to people was how important it was to be online. I need to help them gain some type of presence online. And I discovered a way to help them get on Google's page number one within seconds of me loading any of the videos. I would take a screenshot of that and send it to them saying, you now have an online presence.

Carla: I remember the day you said it was over, and you were dead serious. And we said, no, we're going to find your new offer. You found it because I said, you've got to dig for it. What's the problem that we're going to solve now? The problem was visibility. They needed it before, but they really needed it now, because people who were only networking live were frozen. And it went from having to talk them into video to, where do I sign, how fast can I get this? That's the power of a power offer.

Bonnie: It was too irresistible. I had to stop. I couldn't handle all the people.

Carla: That was a great problem to have.

Bonnie: And another thing you taught me, because of the pivoting, is that there's never an oh well, that's it. If things change, people's needs are changing too, which is why maybe they're not calling me for that anymore. Let me see what they need now. And I'm much more confident in myself and my abilities. I don't care if people say no to me when I quote them a price, because maybe it's too high. I never did that before. I quoted someone the other day what I would have thought before, they'll never go with this. And I quoted it, and she said, oh, of course. So I went too cheap again, but I went higher than I did before. And these are people who have seen my work, they've seen what I'm doing for other people. They're coming out of the woodwork calling me now, like, I need to work with you.

Carla: Your confidence immediately started to shoot up. You're getting more clients, you're turning work down, and by the way, you have added onto your studio. Talk about what happens when your confidence goes up.

Bonnie: One of the things on my networking Zoom calls, when they went around and you do your little introduction, I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want people to go, oh, she needs work. So I would say, yeah, I'm Bonnie with Video Magic and I create videos. And no matter what I did, I'm getting little things in the chat box. I need to call you. Can you give me your personal information? I need you, I need you.

Carla: You're magnetizing.

Bonnie: I knew this as an actress, the whole desperate thing. And with your daughter being an actress, you don't get the work when you're desperate. You get it when you go, I don't need you, because I'm good and my work is good and it shows. And you want to work with me, fine. You don't, it really doesn't matter. I don't care if someone doesn't want to work with me. Before, it was like, oh my God. Now it's like, no.

Carla: When we were working on your pitch, I found out you were in a James Bond movie and did all this cool stuff as an actress, and I said, why are you burying the lead? I encourage my clients to use their secret sauce, the value nobody else can bring to the market. And I remember the words felt a little big for you at first, the way they do for a lot of people, because it sounds braggy in the beginning.

Bonnie: The pitch changed everything. I came into my own with letting people know that I'm a professional actress and a creative director and a video marketing coach and a video producer. And just those words was like, yes, I am a producer. I produce. I am a professional video producer. I've heard other people say that and I went, oh wow, they have a video producer, they're so big, they're so great. And now on some calls I show people some of my skills from my acting stuff, when I was in Days of Our Lives and on Charlie's Angels and movies at Universal. And they're like, oh my God, I think I remember you. It just brings the reality of, yeah, I've been around, in front of the camera and behind the camera. I've won awards.

Carla: Award winning.

Bonnie: Award winning. And I got it again for 2021. So it just continues.

Carla: We're sometimes our own worst critic. We don't know that the things we have, the gifts and talents that make up our special sauce, are exactly what the person who has that problem is looking for.

Bonnie: There was a meeting you were speaking at, the Pasadena meeting. Near the very end, somebody there for the first time raised her hand with a question about subtitles, captions on YouTube videos. And somebody said, that sounds like a Bonnie question. So I unmuted myself and said to this person I didn't know, I can help you with that, why don't we talk after.

Bonnie: She called me afterwards. She was working for a company whose video had been put on YouTube by another production company, who didn't do the captions. It was YouTube's captioning, and YouTube heard the company's name as vomit. A client called her to say, your video says vomit, you really should fix that. She had gone back to the video company and they said, you were on our standard package, we'd have to charge you for this. And I went, you've got to be kidding me. We're in COVID time. I don't play those games. And that would take them about 10 seconds to correct.

Bonnie: We ended up talking for two hours. I ended up doing their next company video. She has since started her own company, and she has me do all her videos. The next day she called and said, I'm telling everyone on every network call, I'm raving about you. And she had somebody she wanted me to meet right away, who leads their own network group with seven chapters in the South Bay, a different area than I live in. I am now their video person. She tells every single person she meets, and she meets lots of people, because that's our world. I've gotten probably 10 new clients from her.

Carla: And that's from one question on a Zoom call.

Bonnie: I want to tell this other story. When I was leaving LA, I decided to move to Charleston, South Carolina in the middle of COVID. You called me as I was literally driving out of LA. And of course, in my mind I'm going, am I doing the right thing? Big move. And I had to tell you, you changed my life.

Carla: You have no idea what that call did for me. You build and design the business of your dreams by figuring out who you are, how great you are, who you want to serve, and then putting together a power offer of that. We were just talking before we got on, and you were saying you can do interactive video, you can do captioning, you can do embedding. Now that everybody's on Zoom, the captioning helps people get their SEO ranking up, and you're not just doing it with the initial video.

Bonnie: You gave me a new lease on life, on business. I feel there's nothing I can't do now. But the biggest thing is I'm not that hungry and desperate. This is what I do. Like it, don't like it, doesn't matter, because I do damn good work. You changed the way I look at myself in terms of what I am to my business. And I offer so much more than I ever allowed myself to present or to think or to grasp onto. I create great videos, and it's my passion and it's my art. I make movies. I make something that emotionally people will feel. And you helped me really grasp that, so that I'm confident in my own work, and my business took off and never looked back. I told you just this last week, I've learned five more things. It's nonstop. And it makes me feel great and young and powerful.

Carla: And you look great and young and powerful. It shows. So if somebody's sitting on the fence and thinking about working with me, or joining the program, what would you say to them?

Bonnie: Let's get off the darn fence and start working with Carla, because she'll change your business and your life.