Rob Sizer

Full transcript: Rob Sizer on London Real

0:04 I am here with Rob Sizer, recent graduate of the Business Accelerator. Rob, tell us about you. Where are you from? What do you do? Okay, originally I’m from Cornwall. I’ve always been into films, always loved films as a kid from about 8 years old. I wanted to get into special effects. There was nowhere really in Cornwall, not even for film or anything like that.

0:26 But the movies took me to places that I could only dream about. It was a place that connected me with me and my friends and family. And it was just these far off distant places that just took me. It was an escapism. It was a way out. And I just thought these stories were so powerful and they connected me on a real emotional level.

0:41 So I was like to my dad, right, I want to get in. I wanted to be a director. And he’s like, right, Rob, that’s like wanting to go into banking, you know, being a bank manager without working a day in a bank. You’ve got to work from the bottom up. You’ll get respect and it’s the only way you’ll learn every department. So I was like, okay, you know, did courses, and my journey sort of started from selling my car, moving to London, sleeping on a mate’s floor and working my way up in the industry to eventually becoming an editor.

1:09 And now my next journey is I’ve started, you know, I’m a founder of Be Different Films, where I tell stories of companies, startups, entrepreneurs, how they started, their passion, and getting that into sort of 3 minute, 5 minute documentaries. And yeah, just really getting those stories out there.

1:25 And how can I put it? I watch a lot of videos and they’re not great, and also I listen to a lot of people and they’re not passionate and it doesn’t come through. So I can merge the two together, and I think that really will be a powerful thing that moves people, engages people and gets those stories out there.

1:49 Nice. I find that people are a lot of times at turning points in their lives when they come to see us on the accelerator programs. Were you kind of having a turning point and thinking about going one way or the other when you came to us? Okay. Before I came to you guys, I was very clear about Be Different Films. I’d actually started it. I’d got the ball rolling, but I kept going around in a circle of there was something missing. I wasn’t quite there.

2:14 I kept, you know, I read a lot, Brian. I read all the books that you guys read and, you know, the team here read, and then, you know, I’m excited. I get buzzed. I’m like, “This is it. Come on, Rob.” And then go to bed, wake up the next day and I’m like, “Yeah, but what do I need to do now?” And what path am I on? So, I kept getting lost and I get frustrated.

2:37 And then your emails kept coming through and I put it off about doing the BizAcc, and then eventually it clicked and I was like, you know what, I’ve got a lot of respect for you and your team. You’ve been there, you’ve done it, you’ve grown this company, and I was like, I want a bit of that, because you’re not going to be as closely associated with the BizAcc, I don’t imagine, because you’ve got huge things coming up on the horizon.

3:00 You may not be as actively involved as you are at the moment. And that was a huge thing for me, was to glean knowledge from you, and that’s exactly what happened. London Real, how did you find out about us? Why London Real? A long time ago. It was with Geoff Thompson. He was the first person that got me connected with you, and that was facing your fears.

3:23 And I think ultimately that is what gets people moving, because we’ve all got fears. The world is a scary place, or it’s as scary as you want it to be. But you’ve got to conquer those fears. You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone. You don’t grow. I wasn’t growing doing what I was doing. I thought I was. I’ve come off the end of this course and I realised, man, no way was I pushing myself hard enough. I thought I was. I was kidding myself.

3:48 You know, night and day. I’m not the same person I was 8 weeks ago, and I can look at anyone in the face and say that. Anyone watching this, you change. But you’ve got to be willing to change you. You have to do it yourself, because don’t, you know, don’t be watching this and thinking the BizAcc’s going to hold your hand and walk you down to be in this company, cuz it doesn’t.

4:14 It gives you set tools. It gives you tips. You’ve got guidance from you guys, but you’re not babysitters. Because the course ends in 8 weeks, it’s all over. Yeah, we’ve got connections with you, because you put your effort and passion into people that meet you more than halfway. But I now know I can’t come to you week in, week out and be like, “Yeah, my autoresponder isn’t working,” or, “You know what? I wasn’t happy with that.” I’ve got to find those out myself, because that’s entrepreneurship. You know, that is it. You’ve got to find those answers within.

4:47 When you made that decision to join us, how did you finally make that final decision? It’s a big investment in money and time. What made you decide? Investment of money. It is a lot of money, but is it a lot of money? I mean, do you know what I mean? It’s sort of, you can go on the piss and spend a lot of money and not get anywhere, but you can be the best guy down the bar talking about all your, you know, aspirations and all of this, but you’ve got to invest in yourself in this world.

5:23 I’ve done a lot of courses. I think yours does differ because there’s the accountability. You’re learning from people that have done it, from the now. You’re not learning from a guy that set up a company 20 years ago when things were very, very different. You’re learning it from someone that’s done it with his team in the now, on social media, which changes like that. But you guys are so up on it that you can say, this is what works for us, this is what you need to do.

5:47 And we implement that, and you’ve got to take it to the next level. You’ve got to take ownership of it, as we talk about. But so the investment, yeah, it was a bit of a… But my friend told me this, cuz I had a chat with him and I said, “I’m doing this course. What do you think?” And he was like, “Well, yeah, it’s a lot of money, but one thing could change. You could talk to Brian and he could give you that one bit of information that totally changes your business, then it’s worth it.”

6:19 Well, I got probably more than one or two bits of information, but I am not the same person that would have sat here eight weeks ago and talked to you. I’m like, well, from what I’ve heard from you, I hate being on camera. That’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, I’ll be behind the scenes. Thanks very much. I’ll be in my little edit suite. I love that. You know, I’ll make people look amazing on film. I don’t want to be the one on film. But now I realise no one’s going to be as passionate about Be Different Films as I am.

6:51 You know, talk to me about that first three weeks. Challenges, the class you got to meet, being with me on those live calls on Tuesdays and Sundays. What are the things you remember? A lot there. You know, there’s so much that you cram in: the vlogs, the webinars, the setting up all your social media stuff.

7:12 Things that stand out: the vlogging, because to supplement me at the moment, you know, I do freelance editing just to keep in the game, to keep contacts. So I was traveling from West London all the way to East London. I think one of my vlogs showed that. So I start, I finished, start work at, sorry, leave my house at 10 to 8. I do a 12-hour day sometimes. I, you know, got back and then I had to record my vlog, edit it.

7:35 Now bearing in mind I’m a video production company, I’ve got to up my game. I can’t just do a quick, “Hey, hey guys, I’m on my phone.” I’ve got to put a bit of thought and a bit of creativity into it to really sell it. There were times and, you know, I was furious. I had tears in my eyes. I took it out on my fiancée cuz I got angry, because I’m passionate about what I do, Brian. Like, I love this and I had to get it out there.

8:02 And as a creative, you know, you’ve got all this energy and you’re precious about what you put out there, because it’s a bit of you you’re putting on screen. So, that caused a lot of frustration and I got angry, and a few F’s and this and that, and I was like, “Right, Rob, calm down. Get it done.” And I did and I got through it.

8:25 And later on, we learned about the word “good”. And at that time, I didn’t have that word. Now I do. And I realised, you know what, that resistance that I felt is good, because it shows that I’m passionate about what I do. It shows that I’ve got a love for it, because it really affects me. And ultimately, I want to show the best value I can to the people that are watching.

8:46 So yeah, so the vlogs was a huge thing for me. I kept toying with the idea, oh yeah, yeah, I’ll do a vlog, because I’m the, you know, look at Casey Neistat, look at Gary Vee, I’ve got to do vlogs, you know, Brian Rose, I got to do this. I would never have done it because I kept putting it off. And what’s been the response to your vlogs?

9:11 Amazing response. You know, I’ve had people commenting. I’ve got engagement going. I’ve got talk of, in the next year, doing a film with someone out in Ireland. I recently did a film yesterday, no, a couple of days ago, with someone from the course who loved what I did, and he got me involved with it.

9:28 And, you know, he’s a guy that’s, Dr., curing malaria in Africa, and he wanted me to show his next sort of venture about how if you keep sort of all this emotion inside you that it can cause illness. So it’s like, you know, you’re working with brilliant people from just being bare, being naked, and sort of showing yourself on screen. It opens doors.

9:55 Biggest challenge now that you look after the whole course, those eight weeks? What was the hardest thing besides the vlogs and putting all that stuff in? It was the autoresponder. It was writing copy, cuz again, I’m not very good at writing copy. So it’s, you know, you learn a lot. You read a lot. You pick other people’s brains from the course, because we’re all a team together.

10:22 I look at it a bit like special forces. We’re all in this together. We’ve gone through training. We’ve gone through this sort of tough regime of, we got to get this done. We’ve, you know, Chris Albert being our roll call master. You know, you got a real Marine there. That is powerful. You’re being forced to do this in a very short amount of time. So, you’re all there in it together in the battlefield and you push each other.

10:47 So, yeah, there was times when I was like, you know, this copy is tough. But I’ll say to people that are watching this, entrepreneurship’s bandied around these days too willy-nilly. You know, they see Gary Vee, they see people like Casey Neistat. It’s a buzzword. It’s tough. It is tough. You don’t just wake up and be like, I’m going to be an entrepreneur. It takes years.

11:13 You go back and look at the first Casey Neistat video. You go back and look at you when you first started. What you were then to what you are now is totally different. You shape yourself. You change. You chip bits off. You know, you have to adapt.

11:22 And that’s damn hard when you’re on your own. You know, you have friends that are there, but I always use this analogy of crabs in a pot. They can escape out of that hole, but other crabs pull them down. And that’s like what your friends do for you. “Oh, Rob, don’t do that, mate. Come on. People are going to laugh at you. Where you’re coming from? Who are you to tell me about video?” You know, “Who are you? Like, why are you doing a six week course teaching in business about video?”

11:48 Well, actually I do know about video and I am going to do it. And suddenly you start doing it and they see your vlogs, they see you doing webinars, they read your blogs, and they’re like, “Mate, I really liked what you said there. I didn’t know you had it in you.” Well, watch this space, cuz there’s going to be a lot more of that.

12:03 Speak on the community a little bit more. You talked about some of the members you’re already collaborating with. What did you see there? Were there some members that stood out, or what was the purpose of that community for you? Wow. Don’t judge a book by its cover. You know, you look around and you see these faces and they’re all over the world, which is incredible.

12:32 So, you’re getting people critiquing you all over the world, different experiences, different life experiences. But you do pick out certain people, and there was a lady, Marie, you know, elderly lady, or elder lady, and you sort of think she’s not going to make it. Suddenly she’s the one on the course telling us how to fix our internet problems, our Squarespace problems, our Mailchimp, and you’re like, hold on, you’re doing this. So don’t judge books, you know, by the cover.

13:07 Because you see people change on this course, and some people have come with no ideas and suddenly out the other end they’ve got a business, you know, the start of a business. I’m not going to kid someone that it’s a fully blown, because, you know, you can’t have that for eight weeks, but people are selling, people have learned so much, people have now got that path to go down. And I mean that, you tell me how many courses would do that. Not many.

13:38 They’ll give you ideas. That’s like reading a book, and I said to you earlier, books are brilliant. They give you knowledge, but they don’t have that tick list or that tools, or, you know, the tricks that you can use to keep you going once the course ends. So yeah, people on the course, I mean, it’s, you know, a band of brothers, sisters on there, and we all helped each other.

14:02 And I mean, just the variety of people, Brian. I mean, you know, it was just, it was powerful to be on there, and yeah, it was a fun time. Even though it was tough as hell, I had tears in my eyes when it ended. I mean, that is ludicrous. I missed those weekly calls that we had with you, because you gave a… and I don’t want to swear, but you did. You care.

14:27 And, you know, speaking to one of the other students last night, it’s, you go in with all this fear about, are people really going to help me? I think as a society, I think we fear that people aren’t going to help us, but people want to help. People truly want to help you. They want to let you achieve what you want to achieve. But you’ve got to show passion.

14:57 You’ve got to show that flick, you know, the in the eye, the sort of the energy that’s going to make it work. Then people all day long will be helping you out. So, I learned that a lot, that if you’re naked, people are going to come in and help you.

15:12 Yeah, I miss the calls, too. And I get a little emotional at the end, too, because I feel like I know you guys so much. Even though we just met a lot of us last night, we’ve already so many times before. You connect on a deeper level. Yeah. Biggest takeaways from the course that you’re going to use, you know, next year, the year after? What are some of the themes that you think you can take with you, you know, to build your business?

15:37 Yeah. It’s the “good” from Jocko Willink. Yeah, explain the concept. Yeah, sure. Okay. The concept is you face resistance. So, for me, it was my Squarespace wasn’t connected with my Mailchimp autoresponders, and I was getting really frustrated and it’s like, come on, how’s this working? And I sort of went out for help and like, come on, can someone help me?

15:52 And it’s like, no, this is good, because I actually need to learn how to fix it myself, so I don’t have to pay a web guy ridiculous amounts of money to, sorry, to fix the problem. What else? You know, webinars again. Oh man, things aren’t quite right. You deal with it. You just get on and do it and you get feedback.

16:18 “Well, Rob, yeah, I don’t think you should show videos in the webinar, because I want to talk to you. I want to see you.” Oh, okay. Well, I can change that for next time or so. You’re constantly getting feedback that you never would. And if I didn’t do webinars, I would never have got that. So, you’ve just got to sort of go, okay, this feels a bit, this is tough, but good.

16:45 And that one word changes everything. It refocuses you. It’s weird. And until you actually start doing it and really believing in that word, then doors do open and sort of you make those changes. Jocko is going to be proud of us. What does Rob look like today if he didn’t take the course? Wow, mate.

17:10 Yeah, it’s horrible to think what I’d be, because I think I’d be this person just going around in that circle trying to find that book that would give me all the answers. The answers are within you, but you need that road map. You need that little bit of guidance at the beginning to set you on the right path. And as I said right at the start of this interview, you’ve got to be the person. You’ve got to push yourself. No one can do that for you.

17:40 But tips, the tools, as I said: keep on doing the webinars, because you know that’s what’s going to sell your product. Keep doing the blogs and vlogs, because that’s what’s getting your name out there. That’s what people associate you with, and those ideas, and they all come to life. You know, Be Different Films is getting out there because people can see the passion I’ve got.

18:00 They can see I want to help businesses, and this is stuff I’m going to keep on doing. The people you meet, the joint ventures that I’ve got in the pipeline. And it’s just talking to people. I know my pitch. I’ve got my, you know, my hero’s journey. These are all very powerful things that people buy into. And ultimately, that’s what your company represents.

18:23 To someone who’s on the fence, not sure whether to join the accelerator or not, what do you tell them? Do it. I mean, Dan Peña is another guy that got me into you. And Nike use it. You know, again, three simple words: just do it. We all see it. But do it, because you live a life of regret. What’s worse? Doing it and failing and going, “Okay, you know, it wasn’t for me.” But I guarantee you won’t.

18:51 Because if you’re the guy, or girl, that’s got this business and you are on the fence, don’t be that person. Just try it. Do it. You know, invest in yourself and see where it takes you. And yeah, you may have one idea of a product which you may pivot into a business. You know, we saw that happen. People so fixated on a product. Well, that’s not a business.

19:17 You open it up, you get a, you know, a product ecosystem. You suddenly get a fully-fledged, fully working business that gets you, you know, people coming in from all sorts of avenues at different price points. It keeps it alive. It keeps it exciting. You’re engaging with different people at different levels.

19:36 And you know, if you’ve got a business that you really, really believe is going to help people, surely it’s worth giving that a try. Don’t stay on the fence. What if Steve Jobs stayed on the fence? What, you know, what have all these people that have really changed… What if you stayed on the fence? You know, we were at focus group last night, man. We heard stories from drug addicts that have totally changed their lives and they’re helping others, people that are helping refugee children.

20:08 I mean, these are huge things. They’re not, you know, they’re not small little, like, “Oh, you know, I don’t know, I want to create a t-shirt.” These are massive. They’re game changers, and we live in a world where we can do that now, and we blame politicians and we blame this and that. It is down to us to change the world. And if you’ve got a business and you’ve got a belief, don’t be the guy, or girl, that sits on that damn fence.

20:32 You’re a passionate guy, Rob. It’s been awesome having you on the course and awesome to be with you, just watching your vlogs. Again, you jacked the production value up, but like, they were helping the people on the course, like you were teaching them stuff, in addition to all the people that were watching your stuff online. And, you know, you’ve got great ideas. You pitched me on some of them, and I love a good pitch, and obviously your passion is there.

20:55 And you’re so right. People just, they want to see people that are passionate. And you made a great point, is that people do help people when they see them starting themselves and putting all their passion into it. And so you got to bring that to the table. And you’re right, entrepreneurship is not easy.

21:16 And so part of this course, and Chris Albert, our Marine team leader, he’s all about that. I got to hold him back sometimes. He’s like, “Brian, we got to go in hard this week.” He’s like, “These guys got to know, eight weeks from now, they’re not going to be on these live calls with us, and they’re going to have to fight all those hard people out there and all those hard issues on their own. We got to make it harder.” And I’m like, “It’s already…” That’s love. That’s love. Yeah.

21:39 Yeah, it is. It is. And so, I’ve loved watching you guys grow as a team. This has been our greatest class ever. So much amazing energy. You know, there’s 25 or 30 of you here this weekend from all these different places in the world, and you’re all like, you know, brothers and sisters. So, it’s amazing. But thanks so much for being a part of this, Rob. Thank you.

21:54 And, you know, Be Different Films, you guys are doing amazing stuff. You’re going to kill this. So stay in touch with the class, and let’s talk about your pitch next year as well. Definitely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.