On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sid Graef sits down with John Eastty of Perfect Angle Studios, a videographer and visual storyteller whose career started in high school when he took a video production class, got a business permit, and immediately began booking wedding videos. Over the past two decades, John has grown that early hustle into a professional video business serving clients in both the Northeast and South Florida, with work spanning weddings, conferences, expos, and commercial projects.

What makes this episode especially useful for home service owners is that the conversation is not really about weddings or cameras. It is about marketing, trust, and showing up in a way that helps customers choose you faster. John and Sid dig into why video matters so much now, how even simple phone-shot content can outperform polished but empty marketing, and why owners should stop overthinking social media and start answering real customer questions on camera. They also talk about AI versus real content, how to think about authenticity, and why the best marketing comes from genuinely wanting to help the customer win. It is a practical episode for any business owner who wants to build trust, stand out online, and create better content without making it more complicated than it needs to be.

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Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer from North Carolina, we are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in.

The industry folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses and they want to help you succeed. Yep. No fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100% experience.

0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the Wild Journey of Entrepreneurship.

Let's dive in.

Hey, my friends, it's Sid with the huge Transformation Show. Thanks for taking your time to listen. This one's, this one's interesting and fun. I'm talking to somebody that's not in the home service industry at all. Matter of fact, they started their career as a wedding photographer, wedding videographer.

Now they have a professional video crew. But the way John thinks my guest is John Easty, the way he thinks and his bias for action and his very focused desire to serve his customer at a very high level is gonna be very insightful. To everybody and well, I'll tell you the rest on the episode. I hope you enjoy this conversation with John and learn a ton from it.

There's some great practical takeaways that'll help your business. With that, let's jump into our episode and conversation. Meet John Easty. Hey everybody, it's Sid with the Huge Transformations podcast, and we've got another great episode today. I've got my friend John East Easty, Easty, I'm saying it right, right, Easty.

Exactly, yes. Okay. Cool. In my head, I'm, I'm slightly dyslexic and I always wanna say Etsy and I know that's not right 'cause it's not Etsy Easty. Um, but John's got a professional videography company. He is Perfect Angle Studios, and he's in the South Florida area. I know you go back and forth for the, you know, the northeast, um, to South Florida.

But I, before we go any further, I know one of you guys listening or you're thinking. Sid, this is a show about home service businesses and power washers and doing that stuff. Why do you have a wedding photographer on or a photography company? Guy and I, and I will tell you why in advance and then we're gonna get into the conversation is number one, uh, John has been to the huge convention a couple of times.

John has done video work for some of our industry leaders like Ryan Lee that does, uh, lighting secrets and. Also, John, you've got some really keen insight into visual storytelling that we can all use, and then mostly your mindset and your bias for action. And I take it from the very first conversation we had.

So that's where we're gonna start. If I recall correctly, we talked about a year, maybe a year and a half ago, we were looking at coming to the huge convention. We were talking about different videography needs, and I asked you how you got started and you're like, Hey, I took a videography class in high school.

And most people that would take a class like that would go, oh, this is a cool camera. I'm gonna go start shooting stuff. And you said, I went immediately and registered a business license so I could shoot wedding videography. And so that's where I want you to start. And tell me about like, why did you start a business right away?

Why were you thinking that and how did you even learn how to run a business in high school? Yeah, good questions. And uh, you have a fantastic memory for that. Uh, it, all of that is correct. So when I was 16, I took a video production class. Uh, wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, uh, as far as my career.

Like most 16 year olds. 16, yeah. Yeah. Uh, but I always had an entrepreneurial. Mindset When I was a little kid, uh, I started writing business cards, printing business cards for neighbors, and I had it in my head that this was gonna be a great business. And, uh, I employed my grandfather, uh, my grandmother, my brother, and my babysitter.

Uh, that was when I was about seven or eight. And, uh, it, it didn't last that long. I had to fire my grandmother. Um, she had dementia and, uh, it just wasn't working out. And then my mom told me, look, you really can't fire your grandmother with dementia. Uh, so I learned a great business lesson right from there.

You gotta be kind to your employees. So I hired her back on, but the business didn't last too long. So years later, you know, at 16, uh, I just always wanted to work for myself. So I was working at typical high school. Job. I was a busboy in a restaurant and uh, the first day of this production class, the teacher told us, look, you guys can make a thousand dollars a pop filming people's wedding videos.

And I thought, man, you know, how many nights at the restaurant I'd have to grind to be able to make a thousand dollars? You know, at that age it sounds like an impractical number. Yeah. So I went to the town hall. I got a business permit, which I didn't really need. But, uh, I started advertising, wedding videography, uh, and that teacher was so kind.

He let me use the school's equipment even when we went home for the summer, use the school's equipment. Uh, and I had a hundred percent, uh, free, no overhead. The first two years, uh, all the school's equipment was mine to. Uh, I started contacting people whose engagement announcements were in newspapers back then.

That would be announced. Yeah. I'd write them letters. I'd send them a DVD. Uh, and that had a couple videos that I had filmed, uh, just as a practice, a teacher's wedding, a friend's wedding, a friend of my brother's. And so I had a portfolio told 'em, look. 250 bucks. I'll film your wedding. Uh, I'm working closely with a school advisor.

It'll help you. You're getting a cheap video. I'm working with an advisor, helps me, people wanna help out a kid. Uh, and so that's how I did my first view. And then after that, I just stopped telling people I was 16 and it helped that I looked older and. You know, my parents had to drop me off I think for my first wedding.

And then after that I got my license and I just, you know, it was actually kind of irritating to me how young I was because I wanted people, I always wanted to be older, Uhhuh. And so in April of this year, it'll be 20 years in business, 20 years since I started that business. No kidding. Okay. Great job.

That's cool. So I think, so there's so many things about that that are interesting to me. Not that you started business in high school, but that you actually. Looked for a, like a really good lead source. I mean, what's a better lead source than people putting their wedding announcement in the paper or wherever they post 'em now and just, and just calling them.

Did you, did anybody suggest this? Did you just come up with it? Like, I don't know, how do you find people getting married? No, I, I used to like to read the newspaper actually as a kid, which I think gives you some insight now into, uh, what a nerdy, uh, student I was reading the newspaper and going to apply for business permits.

Uh, I also liked to have fun, but, uh, I really was business minded. I, in fact, I convinced all the, all my friends in school, particularly in study hall, said, look, I've got a business you all are going to need. College business credit for...