Transcript:
Hey, everybody, it’s Craig Lillard. And yesterday I gave you a story idea and the story idea was a risk. And today I’m gonna show you how I tell my story. And the whole goal of this is for you to tell your story, okay? And if you go over 100 stories by the link below, you can have over 100 story ideas that you can use to interact with your audience to build your audience and your influence. And I don’t recommend you set it up that way. Just get out there and tell your story. But I’m saying that because obviously I just presented that idea to you yesterday.
So, the idea yesterday was, are you a risk-taker? Do you take risks? You avoid risk. And what was a time in your life when you took a risk and did it pay off or did it not pay off? About 20 years ago, I was doing web development on the side. I had another job, a salary job. I have a wife and kids and I am doing this web designer really liking it, but it’s just kind of a part-time deal.
THE BARTERING…
And I met this guy who told me that he was bartering. He was trading his expertise for various things. One of those things was a hummer. Remember, the big original hummer was big massive tank-looking trucks. He had bartered with a hummer dealership and had gotten a year-long lease on one of those crazy machines in exchange for managing their website. And I remember being just blown away by this. So, at the time I wanted to get a video camera. We had our first child. I did not have a decent video camera to video that, and I just was like, I want to get a video camera and this guy had inspired me so much that I thought, you know, I’m going to see if I could barter for this video camera.
My $8000 proposal
So this nonprofit organization that I had, I had made a website for I put together this proposal, and it was, it was like an $8000 proposal basically what I told them was that I would make them a couple of professional-level videos if they bought me all the stuff I needed to do that. So, video camera, computer, editing software, lighting, audio. This was at an interesting time when video gear was had just started to get affordable. And so for them, for them to go out and have two professional videos made probably would have cost a lot more than $8000. So, I presented this to them, and I made a guarantee. I said, look, if you don’t like these videos, I will pay you back. The amount. Return the gear, I’ll get you your money back. And at the time, that was a pretty big risk for me because I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I don’t know if it was gonna work in my head, though. I was pretty confident that at the least I would be able to make the video the way they wanted it. And I wasn’t a video guru, or I mean, I hadn’t really shot any professional videos at all at that moment, but I did major in video and film production in college, but that was, several years but probably about seven or eight years ago. So they agreed and signed off on it. And I remember it was like Christmas in June, I’m out ordering all this gear and everything, and I ended up making their videos and they were totally happy with them. And now I had all this gear and really with that gear, I started my first, full-time company.
So that risk that I took launched me. And here I am on my third, video-related start-up in 20 years. And if I had not taken that risk, I don’t know where I would be, but it’s been a crazy, wonderful journey. And that risk that I took was well worth it. So, in the comments, tell me about what risks you’ve taken. Do you like risk? Do you hate risk? Do you dive right into it? Or do you try to avoid it at any cost? And if you do try to avoid it, how do you get to the next level if you’re not a risk-taker?
Alright, thanks, everybody for listening and watching. This is Craig Lillard and go out there and take some risks and I’ll see you on another video.
