3 Reasons I Choose The Window Seat

I travel a fair amount for work. That means a lot of time in airports and on planes. If you're a just a casual traveler on an economy airline like Southwest, you might not always get your first choice of seat, but I'm writing today to tell you that the coveted window seat is worth fighting for whenever possible, and not just for the obvious reasons.

(Of course none of this applies when a nice, attractive lady asks to sit next you. You did offer her the window seat,  right?)

So you're lucky enough to score a window seat and you did everyone else a favor by emptying your bladder pre-fight. Now what?  Sure, it's always fun to update Instagram with the obligatory #wingshot and yes, the inside seat offers at least a somewhat tolerable place to rest your head, but those aren't the only reasons I usually snag the first available window.

1. EASIER NETWORKING.

I have made some great personal and professional connections on flights. Striking up a conversation with your seatmates is one of the best ways to have the time in the air fly by (no pun intended). The advantage to being in the window seat is that people in the middle and aisle have a natural proclivity to look in your direction. The first time they glance out the window is usually the easiest time to make an introduction and ask them about their trip. Because the aisle is usually the next seat taken, this means you already have a good conversation started by the time someone finally climbs into the middle seat. Rather than be rude and continue your conversation over the top of them, take the opportunity to ask their name and why they're traveling. Introduce your other seat mate by name if it feels appropriate- a great memory recall exercise. If either of them are business professionals, your subtle assertiveness and attention to detail will impress. Now you have two people engaged in conversation with you and you never have to turn your head away from one or the other.

2. MEDITATION/DEEP THOUGHT

Sometimes you won't be sitting next to the warmest people, or if you're a natural introvert like me, sometimes you just need to decompress and recharge, which is often the case after a busy work trip. The window seat is great for this too. No matter how many times I fly, I never get tired of staring out the window during takeoff and landing. There is something about getting into a 90,000 lb metal tube going 500 mph and lifting into the air that will always excite the little boy inside of me.

Once things are settled down in the cabin, people are sleeping, reading, or otherwise minding their own, that's when I make the conscious effort to quiet my mind. I will either do this simply by putting in ear plugs, closing my eyes, and focusing on my breathing, or with the help of a guided meditation app like Headspace. The act of meditation has many proven benefits, but for me it's mostly about relaxing and letting go of any pent up stress before moving onto another stimulating task like listening to a podcast or writing. The reason the window seat is important for this is because if you're a novice at meditation like me, you'll find your mind wandering, wondering whether you're touching either of the people next to you, or worse, disrupted if one of them has to get up.

Looking down over our beautiful country also has the added benefit of serving as a constant reminder how small we really are as individuals and that it takes the effort of tons of people coming together to make businesses, cities,  and infrastructure.. Seeing mother nature's beauty from the air also encourages me to to get outside of the big cities and enjoy her more often. I encourage you the next time you're flying to appreciate all the cool patterns in the landscape and weather,  and observe where and how we're also continuously scarring it.

3. NO DISRUPTIONS

Of course there are those flights when you just need to get some sleep or get some work done. Sitting in the window seat means nobody climbing over you to use the rest room, or taking a stray beverage cart to the knee or elbow. If you're like me while reading or writing, it's hard to get back into a state of flow once someone interrupts you.

On the flip side, if you end up in an aisle seat, there is the added benefit of being able to stand up and move around any time you want which can be nice on longer legs (again, no pun intended).

No matter how you travel, as an Active Freelancer, it's important to make the most of your time spent commuting. Let me know some of your commuting productivity tips and tricks in the comments!

Running a Lean 80-20 Service Business

While in college, I remember reading and becoming fascinated about the concept of the Pareto principle. The idea that in many situations, roughly 80% of the desired outcomes come from just 20% of the input or effort. I quickly learned that nowhere is this more true than in business. It was around this time when I discovered Tim Ferriss' book, The Four Hour Work Week. In it, he dissects work flows, routines, and business models into their essential parts and shows us how to optimize the return on investment of our most valuable asset as business owners, our time.

Getting the most out of our time and effort is critically important when running a service based business. However, Tim and other online entrepreneurs mostly talk about selling tangible goods, info products, or software as a service technologies that don't require much additional personnel or sweat equity to service each order. And who can blame them? Scalability and passive income is sexy. It is fantastic click bait and sells books. But what if your labor of love is labor intensive... like a food truck, plumbing, consulting, or video production business? Skilled trades all require our personal touch to deliver our brand's promise of quality and customer service.

So how can the 80-20 principles be applied to a service business? Well I've found a few ways.

CHOOSING YOUR CUSTOMERS

Especially when starting out, it's easy to make the mistake of thinking anyone who can use your service is a target customer. When sales are non-existent, there is a tendency to want to say yes to everyone. When I first started my business, I would make a video for anyone who called me. Friends of my mom who needed home video of their mother's 90th birthday party edited, local skateboard and wakeboard contests, mom and pop businesses that wanted a video but didn't yet have a working website. And while those projects might have been good learning opportunities or fun at the time, they did nothing to actually grow my business, or my bottom line. 80% of any larger market are people who are going to price shop you to death, be a pain in the neck to work with, don't truly understand the value of what you do, and won't help you attract more of the clientele that you do want. It is important to take the the time to really narrow down who your ideal customers are. For me, that has turned into medium to large size businesses or agencies. They are the ones who already have a marketing or communications department to provide some direction, assets like logos, fonts and color palettes, and immediately see the value in what we do. They are also less price sensitive than individuals or small businesses. Find clients or customers that don't require you to reinvent the wheel, who let you focus on your core competencies, and are more profitable. If 80% of your profits come from just 20% of your customers, you need to be chasing and delivering over the top service to that segment.

PICKING THE RIGHT PROJECTS

Just as finding the right targeted customers is important, so is focusing on the right types of projects or solutions for them. Likewise, just because you could or can take something on, doesn't mean you should. It is proven to be far more lucrative to do a couple things very well in an industry, than do a ton of things mediocre. What do you do extremely well that your competition can't really compete with you on? Make 80% of your projects, that type of project. The other 20% of projects can be passion projects, or other smaller odd jobs. Just make sure they're low stress and/or not as resource intensive.

At my company SmartVideo.pro, we don't make million dollar television commercials (though we appreciate them), nor do we make many product feature/benefit videos (though we do on occasion). Our strength is in our ability to understand our client's industry, organization, and culture while making their people feel comfortable enough on camera to share their best practices, challenges, or success stories. The result is videos that are more raw and real, but create instant value for our clients and their customers. If a new best practice is replicated across operations or sales of a large organization, that one video can easily save or make the client hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is value selling 101. By being selective of the types of projects we take on, price of the video practically gets taken out of the equation and the conversation becomes more about execution. Before accepting a project I take the litmus test of asking myself, "if I were in my client's shoes, would I be making this video and can I see the return on investment?"

HIRING ROCK STARS

Take a close look at how you're spending the time working on your business each day. If any one task is eating up more than 80% of your time and preventing you from doing other important business development activities, it's time to consider hiring out for that task. Are you the best or only person who can do this job? No, I want you to really think about it. Are you? I doubt it.

This is something I have personally struggled with for years, and still do. I think most entrepreneurs have a hard time relinquishing control, especially when our reputation and livelihood is on the line. Video editing used to be one of my favorite pastimes. I really prided myself in my ability to tell the story in a compelling way, finding the perfect music, cutting between shots or camera angles at just the right times. And it was fun. Until it hurt.

Once business picked up to the point where I was consistently turning down or postponing projects because I was back logged, I knew I had to change my mindset. I read about wedding videographers who had a 6 month or longer turnaround time on their videos during their busy season. The entrepreneur in me knew that was absurd and I couldn't be one of those production companies. So I took the plunge and started hiring freelancers.

Don't be fooled, there will be an adjustment period when you first start to hire someone to do your trade or service for you. For starters, finding the right candidate can be tough. Some might be a great personality fit for your company, but their skills aren't quite up to par. Others might produce a great end product but procrastinate, have a tough time communicating or taking direction. Take your time to find the rock star who can not only do the job like you can, but enjoys it and can do it better. Once you do, pay them well and pay them often. My grandfather always said, "fast pay makes fast friends." You will see your capacity for work, and revenue, increase almost overnight.

PURCHASING NEW EQUIPMENT, TOOLS, SOFTWARE, OR OFFICE SPACE

What is the camera (vehicle, wrench, software program) that will get me 80% of the results I want at 20% of the cost of the other professional cameras on the market? The big AHA moment came for me as it did for many other video professionals with the introduction of the video-capable DSLR (For a full list of the production gear were using today, check out our 80-20 Gear List). Since 2008, this form factor has kept our costs of equipment down while also giving us the distinct advantage of traveling light. allowing us to film for clients in their offices, branches, and other states. Before buying any new piece of equipment, I ask myself, "am I going to use this on 80% of my jobs?" If the answer is no, it is probably a specialy item that you are better off renting or borrowing on those rare occasions you do need it.

Office space or studio space is a huge monthly expense to take on as a small business just starting out. My suggestion is to avoid it if at all possible. You can get by simply by setting up shop in a spare bedroom, garage, or office in your home, or renting one from your landlord. In the instance that you need a larger facility, meeting space, or fully functional studio, just rent one locally by the hour or day and build the added cost into your project. This has helped my keep my monthly overhead extremely low. I am then able to pass some of that savings onto my clients by keeping our prices affordable with our profit margins still equal to or better than our biggest local competition.

MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS

Last, but not least, the 80-20 rule also applies to marketing your video production or other service business. The key here is to pay attention to your customers and do what works well for you. Every business, industry, and brand is going to be different. Don't be tempted to copy others in your field just because it's something everyone seems to be doing. For example, if your best customers are marketing or communications managers of large companies (people with extremely busy inboxes), a weekly email newsletter is probably not going to be very effective. Instead, just drop them a very quick personal note or phone call every couple weeks. Rather than being noise to their day by trying to sell them something, try to add value. Show them something they might not have seen that a competitor of theirs is doing. Share with them an idea you had for their upcoming meeting or trade show. If nothing else, it lets them know that you're thinking of them and their needs, as opposed to a very impersonal news letter.