He Charged $3,500 a Day When Others Got $350 with Blue Melnick

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Overview

Blue Melnick accidentally started a video business in 2008 when filming one event for a friend turned into five clients. Today he owns and operates Sage Event Management with his wife, Barry Baumgartner, running virtual events for Zoom audiences topping 250,000. Blue shares how they pivoted when COVID erased in-person events and why partnerships beat competing on your day rate.

Key Takeaways

Your gear doesn't have to sit idle between gigs. Virtual events help in-person clients reach a much bigger audience without the hotel and AV bill.
Two-way video is what makes virtual events feel alive. A big TV behind the camera for the Zoom gallery and a vertical screen for chat let speakers actually feel the room.
Video production is a commodity. Packaging your work around what clients sell (like Blue's $3,500 event-to-DVD deals) makes you much harder to replace.
Partnering with an ads specialist or taking a revenue share boosts retention, as long as you only do it with people you trust.

About Blue Melnick

Blue Melnick runs SAGE Event Management with his wife and business partner, Bari Baumgardner. For sixteen years they produced the in-person events behind Russell Brunson, Jeff Walker, Tony Robbins and Amy Porterfield. Then 2020 ended live events. They rebuilt their model from in-person to virtual in three weeks, then helped the rest of the industry do the same. Clients have done over $1 billion in sales since. AI is an even bigger shift, the warning shots have already been fired, and most people are ignoring them (or don’t know what to do).

In This Episode

[00:00] Welcome to the show!

[05:52] Meet Blue Melnick

[08:44] Virtual Events

[10:22] Upgrading Gear

[12:42] Zoom Events

[17:40] Maximizing Use of Gear

[22:22] A Good Virtual Event Setup

[30:39] Partnerships

[42:11] Course Creation

[46:26] Connect with Blue

[47:16] Outro

Quotes

"Video production is a commodity business, right? Anybody can pick up a camera and charge a day rate." — Blue Melnick
"The stand that you put it on is probably gonna cost you more than the television." — Blue Melnick
"If I'm not profitable, if I'm not creating new opportunities for revenue, I can't keep doing this thing." — Ryan Koral
"You just gotta trust the people you work with. Otherwise, why are we doing this?" — Blue Melnick