Peaceful Profits Podcast Ep. 83 - How To Take A Completely “Unplugged” Vacation From Your Business
Synopsis:
In this inspiring episode of the Peaceful Profits Podcast, Chanelle interviews documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur Dan Edelstyn. Dan shares how he transformed his once chaotic, low-ticket business model into a peaceful, predictable, and profitable one—with the help of Peaceful Profits.
Dan walks us through his journey from selling thousands of low-ticket digital film event tickets to building a higher-ticket, sustainable offer around his unique expertise: helping business owners create short documentary-style films that anchor powerful marketing funnels. He explains the mindset shifts required to confidently charge more, the systems he put in place to step away from daily operations, and how he now takes “unplugged” vacations without his business falling apart.
This episode is perfect for creatives, filmmakers, nonprofit leaders, and service providers who want to break free from burnout and build a business model rooted in purpose, peace, and profitability.
Transcript:
Peaceful Profits Review: How To Take A Completely “Unplugged” Vacation From Your Business
[00:00:00] Chanelle: Hello, Peaceful Profits nation. Chanelle here with an exciting client spotlight for you today. Today, we're talking to our client, Dan Edelstyn. Dan, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:11] Dan: Thank you very much. Chanelle. I'm very happy to be here.
[00:00:13] Chanelle: I'm excited to talk to you. So you, your business is a little bit different than a lot of things that we see.
[00:00:19] Chanelle: And so I think this is going to be really fun. So Dan is a filmmaker. He's working on his third feature documentary. He also trains business owners to make short documentaries that start [00:00:30] off a marketing funnel. How cool is that? And train them in building their funnels. His films have been on Netflix, channel four and funders include the BFI.
[00:00:42] Chanelle: Dan is a return guest to the podcast and we're so happy to have him back. So we are excited to chat with you about your business, to learn more about the work that you do. So let's start. One of the things that you said. said is that before coming to Peaceful Profits, your business was pretty [00:01:00] chaotic, but now you would describe it as much more predictable.
[00:01:02] Chanelle: So I would love to hear a little bit more about your journey. Take us back to that time before Peaceful Profits, what you were doing and what felt chaotic at that time.
[00:01:14] Dan: Yeah. Okay. That's great. I think. It was about probably about a year ago that I joined Peaceful Profits and I think at that time yeah, I'd been running adverts for products and things like that.
[00:01:26] Dan: And quite successfully, we sold thousands of tickets for film [00:01:30] events and things like that, that we were running. But pretty much everything that I was doing had, it was low ticket stuff, I think, and so once you had for instance, if we did a digital screening or something, we sold some ticket, 1000 tickets or 2000 tickets, that was great.
[00:01:46] Dan: And it brought in a little bit of money, but then at the end of the month. Or the end of the next month, it was like, now, what do I do? My films gone out I've done the digital thing now. What, so there was no, there was nothing really actually [00:02:00] I do think that I had a membership site with a couple of hundred people in it as well, probably at that time, but again, that was a low ticket thing too.
[00:02:08] Dan: And and I was finding converting new members a bit tricky. And and we were getting random donations coming in and it was just, it wasn't bad. It was just like. It just wasn't consistent. I think that was the issue. And so because of that I used to have anxiety, like spending the same amount of money every [00:02:30] day.
[00:02:30] Dan: I my, my average spend every day was probably 200 pounds type of thing. But then occasionally I would get anxious. Oh my goodness, what happens if no one buys one of my sort of like more expensive artworks this week type of thing. And I'd have that. That type of thing. So when I but one of the big breakthroughs came when I went away on a holiday, this was about a year ago, actually.
[00:02:52] Dan: So it must've been like maybe a few months after joining Peaceful Profits. And and I built, I began to build like those systems, which Mike [00:03:00] talks about a lot and which, which obviously Towards the peaceful part of the profits. And I have a colleague who I started to get to work on those systems and was able to send the daily email for me and and another colleague who came in to do posting, who I'd hired.
[00:03:16] Dan: And interestingly, this was like August last year everything just kept running. I was still a bit stressed because I was in a place that I couldn't really see emails and check if I was winning or losing at my business at that point. So I still felt [00:03:30] anxiety and a little bit like that.
[00:03:31] Dan: But overall it was like a real breakthrough. I could go away for the first time and it wasn't like, I didn't come back from the summer holidays thinking, Oh my God, I need a job. Do you know what I mean? Which used to be the freelance position of, I've gone on holiday and now I desperately need to go and make a film for someone just to make the rent or not that I, but, is that kind of, but it was a different level of anxiety.
[00:03:53] Dan: It was more like, Oh my God, that seemed to be okay. And it's so things began to shift a bit. And I [00:04:00] think I was going through one of those steps on the, I think it's called the Kelly and Connor or Kelly O'Connor cycle of change. Emotional
[00:04:08] Chanelle: cycle of change.
[00:04:10] Dan: Yeah. So I was going through this step where it was like, is this real?
[00:04:14] Dan: Can this actually happen? Or is this just like marketing people telling me it will happen, and it wasn't like, so there was a shift in my own, internal belief, I think, cause, cause we all want to believe things, and we go into things hoping that they're true.
[00:04:29] Dan: [00:04:30] And yet we also have to bear that out with data. And then it's the going through that, bearing it out with data that then leads to the knowledge of this is going to work. And then that belief that yeah, this will work. It's definitely going to happen. And it's borne out by like daily data coming in and then, okay, there's something here that can work, but it just needs to be sculpted better.
[00:04:55] Dan: I need to start thinking about like better, clearer [00:05:00] and higher ticket offers and then consistency, as well. So I knew that I had the bones of something that could work. That's in my not for profit business. And then that gave me confidence also. I think to transfer that towards the book that I'd written before I joined Peaceful Profits, because I'd read Mike's book, I'd gone through his funnel like a while before I joined the main offer.
[00:05:24] Dan: And I thought I'm not going to buy. this program until I've written a book. So [00:05:30] that was so I've written it because I thought, the book writing will probably be the hardest part here, and then the running ads and stuff isn't so hard for me because I've already, spent a long time learning it.
[00:05:40] Dan: But I thought once I've joined that Peaceful Profits thing. I want to have the book in place type of thing. And then I'll build the kind of the higher ticket offers around that book, that was the way I looked at it. And it wasn't, so I should say as well, my journey in Peaceful Profits was like, it took me actually a lot longer to build those higher ticket offers [00:06:00] and to get that funnel into place than I thought it would, because I was just so busy on other stuff.
[00:06:06] Chanelle: Yeah. And that makes sense. That's something, we see because with entrepreneurs, sometimes their job is still keeping them busy on the day to day because they haven't implemented some of the things that we teach here in Peaceful Profits that make it more peaceful, that make you able to just go all in and add those pieces to your business.
[00:06:28] Chanelle: Now, there's lots you said in there that I [00:06:30] wanted to unpack, but I think where I want to start is There were a lot of things in your business previously that have shifted and allowed you to have a more peaceful business. So looking back at that chaotic time, what needed to change at that point?
[00:06:48] Dan: I think I would probably say Internally, a lot needed to change, I think the internal is probably the critical thing when it comes to any business owner, [00:07:00] actually, because it's knowing that if you build a high ticket offer, you need to build something that you really believe in and that you know is doing good in the world, effectively.
[00:07:11] Dan: And not feel and I think this is also partly to do with the cultural kind of landscape of entrepreneurship. That there are a lot of people selling things out there that are expensive and that they haven't really put much care into, when on the back end, if you like, or on the delivery of it.
[00:07:29] Dan: [00:07:30] And going through a journey oneself, wanting to have values inside of your business and really to make it actually something that will do something to transform the situation for someone in the world. And knowing that, you really need to believe that this thing matters to those people and that it will make that difference, and therefore being able to stand up for the value, of that thing that you're offering and also the price at which you're offering it.
[00:07:56] Dan: I think that's really important. And so I think a lot of the [00:08:00] transformation that needed to happen and I think this is really important is the internal. That it takes time to change, to become the person that can charge those amounts because you know that they really, that's making a big difference.
[00:08:13] Dan: And I think you can't really move on to actually create those products and then successfully sell them until you've made that psychological shift. So again, I think that was probably the thing that was really important. Let me
[00:08:28] Chanelle: ask you there, Dan, before you go on and talk [00:08:30] about other, like, how?
[00:08:31] Chanelle: Because I think this is really key. There is that psychological shift. psychological shift that does need to happen. How did it happen for you? What made the difference in, you were, you said you were charging low ticket. How did you change to be able to, do what you're doing now?
[00:08:49] Dan: Like for me, I think it took place a bit gradually.
[00:08:51] Dan: It's a bit weird because going back, I've had, I've made films, charging a hundred thousand pounds to people, et cetera, for years. [00:09:00] But interestingly, often those films have large production costs, so in other words, the profit that I would take from that would not be retained in the business, and so therefore it was a chaotic and ultimately stupid thing to be doing. You might think, Oh, look, I'm working with Kevin Spacey, which is not even a good thing to admit to at this moment but, you'd be doing that and then you'd be, but then you'd still be thinking like, and he was paid 70, 000 pounds for two, two or three hours.
[00:09:28] Dan: And then I'm paid, a similar amount, but [00:09:30] I'm carrying the entire production and a big crew and, all the rest of it. And you think that's not really a good business, right? Cause actually. It's an appallingly bad business actually, really. And I realized that, but I was still able to charge large amounts of money and, we were getting funding from channel four in the BFI and the, in the tens of thousands, et cetera.
[00:09:50] Dan: But then the idea of charging like an artist, a thousand pounds or 2000 pounds to come on a course or something that I was running. That [00:10:00] seemed really difficult. I didn't want to, I didn't want to charge people that much money. I felt it's that immediate thing that a lot of online business owners start with.
[00:10:07] Dan: I want this to be available for everyone, that, that old chestnut. And particularly if you're a, a purpose driven entrepreneur or an artist or a charity or a community interest company, which is like not for profit kind of company. Often we think we need to bring our prices right down to deliver on our social.
[00:10:24] Dan: Good. That social thing. Yeah. Actually, what I began to realize was that, and I looked around at [00:10:30] me when I was listening to a lot of these kind of recordings from Mike, and I saw that almost all the directors of these charities and these social enterprises around me were actually practically like driving themselves into the ground.
[00:10:44] Dan: They were, they were passing out, they were having serious health issues. And I realized that was because they had actually designed for themselves a kind of a living nightmare. They'd actually designed, their lives had become prisons effectively.
[00:10:59] Dan: [00:11:00] And that all the care and all the things they wanted to do had been, They were carrying all of that and they were delivering those services, but they were delivering them in their way in such a way that it was totally unsustainable. And so I began to think, this is actually right. This isn't just, this is absolutely the case that we need to redesign the care system for ourselves, because if we don't, then ultimately we can't sustain this type of work, and therefore the [00:11:30] impact on the world, this is a loss for those people that we really want to serve effectively.
[00:11:35] Dan: And so when I began to see that was a genuine philosophical reality, I began to think, hold on a minute, the offer systems that I have in place in the sales systems I have in place are actually letting people down. That I could be serving. And that was like when the moment hit, where I was like, I could do a lot better for a lot more people.
[00:11:57] Dan: If I actually followed through on [00:12:00] the advice that Peaceful Profits are giving me, and it's not just about like self serving, making loads of money and being able to drive the Lamborghini down the street, not by the way, I don't have a Lamborghini and that's not. part of my vision. But it is, my vision is to actually be able to help transform, people's, lives.
[00:12:20] Dan: Situations where they're not for profits, charities or whatever. And just to be able to help them actually have more impact and to help those people who are [00:12:30] carrying those businesses to be more peaceful in themselves as well. And I think that's only possible really through being able to charge more, at least for those high ticket clients that come through.
[00:12:40] Dan: And I'm still happy to have like relatively low ticket memberships and stuff. Because I think there are people that can really benefit from those. And as long as it doesn't wear me out doing it as well.
[00:12:51] Chanelle: Yeah, I love that. I think that this, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about, Wanting to believe I [00:13:00] think it's easy to you talked about, there's this wanting to believe that this is going to work for your business and then seeing evidence.
[00:13:08] Chanelle: And you were talking about that as you stepped away and went on a trip. And I think it applies here as well, that like we hear about, Oh, high ticket, it's going to be better for everyone. But there's this little in a lot of people, a lot of people like, Oh, is that really good? Should I really charge high ticket?
[00:13:27] Chanelle: And what I've just heard you saying is you [00:13:30] wanted to believe that, but then something shifted and allowed you to see it wasn't just about you. It allowed you to serve at a better level and for longer. Instead of burning yourself out and not being able to serve and do what you love doing and are good at doing and are helping people by doing.
[00:13:47] Chanelle: So I think that's so powerful, that shift that has happened. So thank you for sharing. Cause I think that internal piece, sometimes we gloss over, but it is, it's so important. Now, what are some [00:14:00] of the specific things that you started doing differently?
[00:14:03] Dan: The most recent thing that I've started doing recently is selling books, I joined having had the book ready type of thing.
[00:14:11] Dan: I think it was ready. Anyway maybe I hadn't printed it yet. Actually, I hadn't printed it. Yeah, and I hadn't probably designed it, but I had it ready on paper. So I knew I wasn't going to back out, and then, it's not, it's an, it's not an insignificant sum to join Peaceful Profits. So I think that I knew that if I was to spend that money, [00:14:30] It would be, I would have to follow through.
[00:14:32] Dan: Like I was like, do you know what I mean? If you put if things are relatively inexpensive, often we don't really follow through on them. We just, and I think there's an episode where Mike talks about that specific issue about charging high ticket, but then I just thought I'm going to start selling books and I'm just going to make this thing work.
[00:14:50] Dan: And there was an element of Oh, but we don't have everything ready, cause I've got a little team of people and I just started thinking, This could take years, like getting all of this video [00:15:00] material and stuff and this like audio material ready for the high ticket offer in the background.
[00:15:06] Dan: And so I started to say, I can't do all this on my own. I'm just going to start like investing and getting my team to help me actually, scripting these things and editing them, turn them into videos and getting them uploaded. And it was it was like, Oh my God, this is costing so much.
[00:15:19] Dan: I hope someone actually joins this thing, and I just thought, you know what, I'm just going to launch it. And it's not even going to be ready. I'm just going to do that thing that people recommend, which is just like launch [00:15:30] imperfectly and begin to meet people and talk to them and just tweak the offer as I go.
[00:15:36] Dan: So I did this thing that was like really ridiculous. Cause I felt under pressure. It felt ridiculous at the time. I just launched like a low ticket membership on the back end of the book. And I think I got 10 or 20 members of that. And it was like, 30 a month or 300 a year. And then I thought, I felt so dumb doing that because it was like, this is the opposite of what I should do, right?
[00:15:56] Dan: I shouldn't have a, what have I done? I've taken all of this video material. [00:16:00] It's cost me months of time and all the rest of it. I've just given them all the access. It's like, why have I done that? I felt really I felt a slight bit of ashamed of myself because I thought like, why have I undersold this?
[00:16:11] Dan: But then very interestingly, what I then realized was this is a super helpful and amazing deal for these people. For the first people to take it. And then I was having all these conversations with people and I was having a weekly group, one hour meeting, which was very minimal amount of time on my part.
[00:16:27] Dan: And then people started being like, I want you [00:16:30] to. Come and make a film and build a funnel for me, and so all of a sudden I started getting these like much higher ticket sales coming in. And I thought, yeah, that is actually the case. Selling people three month packages of some filmmaking some funnel building, some ads being run.
[00:16:44] Dan: In fact, I'm getting people ready for the, they're leap forward effectively. And in the last month I've sold like, I think 40, 000 pounds worth of that, so that's great. So all of a sudden there's like the high ticket has cut. Yeah. And that was, I was always thinking in my [00:17:00] head Oh, what is the high ticket?
[00:17:01] Dan: What exactly is it? Is it like 12 weeks of, one to one group coaching every day? It's no, these people are all moving at like different speeds. Some of them have. Businesses that are viable. Some of them are like, just beginning and it's going to take them a long time to process this.
[00:17:15] Dan: So it's good that they have a low ticket thing in the background. They can come in, they can get that community. And the ones who really want to move quicker, it's just a, basically it's an agency offer for them, which is a very rare kind of agency that can shoot a film [00:17:30] and put the adverts up for them and, and help them with the funnel building.
[00:17:34] Dan: So I think that's it's it's come out of the desires of those people who we have in the group. And now I can sell a low ticket backend membership. All day long to people, if I want, and I haven't been doing that because I've been testing it a little bit, but I think I will now and it's very much, there's really cool material in there.
[00:17:54] Dan: I know that it's valuable. I know it's a good price. It's not the same, obviously, [00:18:00] as anything else that I've seen out there, but it's it seems to be working. So I'll just keep following it along.
[00:18:05] Chanelle: Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad that it's working. And I think a huge piece of why it's working is what you said, that you're having conversations with people.
[00:18:14] Chanelle: You're listening to those people and to what they want, which is so key in business. We need to really pay attention. What is it they want? So tell us a little bit more once, what exactly is your high ticket offer for them? What do you do?
[00:18:29] Dan: [00:18:30] Yeah. So I'm just keeping all my ads running in Britain right now because it feels to me like the place where I can serve people the best is in Britain because I can't really, I can, but it's unlikely that someone say in America would want me to fly over and make a film when they could hire a local film crew.
[00:18:47] Dan: So You know what I'm so I'm running my ads here and basically what I'm doing is for the two clients, I've got like a kind of a three month package where they get to film days per month [00:19:00] and probably for editing days. I've got like a group of filmmakers that I work with all who are very close to where, I'm working at my house.
[00:19:09] Dan: So I collaborate with them, they go out, do some filming for me. If I don't want to do the filming or if I can't do the filming, I've got a team. And then I've got a team of editors as well. And then what we're planning to do, because it's a really fresh new thing is then just launch their adverts with this kind of standard Facebook, Instagram ad offer [00:19:30] and and build their funnel as well.
[00:19:31] Dan: Effectively. It's a, a short film documentary up on the internet with the follow up email sequence and and funnel basic funnel.
[00:19:41] Chanelle: Yeah.
[00:19:41] Dan: And so yeah, that's what we've sold. So it's a kind of three month service. And I sold the first one for 15, 000 pounds plus VAT. And then the second one I just saw.
[00:19:50] Dan: I sell this one for 24, 000 plus VAT, just try that. And that worked. And I was also, I've been reading the Jim Camp book, which Mike recommended in the group, [00:20:00] which is start with no, negotiation style. And I thought, yeah, this is great. I like this negotiation. I was terrible at sales calls.
[00:20:08] Dan: That was the other thing when I first started, I was like, I hadn't done the sales module and I was just chatting to loads of people. And I realized that I'm just talking so much and not listening to anyone. So I started to try and listen more than talk, I'm still not very good at that but actually it doesn't really matter because if people have a.
[00:20:25] Dan: If they really have a need for this they can't find it anywhere else. They're going to [00:20:30] go and get filmmakers to do one thing. And then they're going to try and find an ad agents another, and it's not connected up and it's chaotic. So really this is quite a unique offer and I think it's good.
[00:20:39] Dan: And because of that, I can charge for it, way more than the constituent parts would be. Effectively worth, if you because most Facebook ads, people are like 2000 a month or 1500 a month or something like that. And and for a short film, the type of short film that we're making, you get loads of filmmakers undercutting each other for two or 3000 [00:21:00] pounds, but I'm saying 24, 000 people are buying and it's good, and I worked out who my real ideal client is.
[00:21:08] Dan: And they're doing, at least Sort of 200, 000 a year. So those kinds of numbers to try, one of our clients is on a kind of a million a year type of business trying to get to 9 million a year. And on those numbers. If I can achieve, if I can help them get to that, the value is insanely good, so I think that's how I look at it now.
[00:21:29] Chanelle: Yeah. [00:21:30] Success for them and success for you. I love this that you have come up with this offer that is so unique and so needed. And I can see how For clients of yours, like what a gift that they can just come and it's a one stop shop and you can do all of those pieces rather than try to work with the film guy and the editing guy and the, ads guy instead to have someone who knows the industry.
[00:21:57] Chanelle: It's worth paying high ticket [00:22:00] for. To have all that expertise rolled into one. So I think that's genius. And I'm so glad that it's working out for you. And I think it's interesting this low ticket membership that has fed into, Something because of you listening and figuring out what it is that people needed and how you can serve them in the best way.
[00:22:22] Chanelle: Now, we love to ask for advice here for people who are not quite as far along in the journey as [00:22:30] you are. And especially you've mentioned you've done some things a little bit unconventionally, wrote your book first, you then had a funnel and put a low ticket in there. I'd love to hear what is your number one piece of advice for others who are early on in their journey?
[00:22:48] Dan: I think it's to keep on going basically. I think that's the critical thing. There's never, if you are, and I think this is a bit of advice really from Mike Recycled it is like building these. [00:23:00] Businesses and these projects is like setting off in a little boat, across a long a big voyage to see.
[00:23:06] Dan: And and you probably do set out in, in the smallest kind of crappiest boat there is, with a, just a paddle, and, but you have a map and that's the beautiful thing about Peaceful Profits. It gives you a clear map and it really does it, there's Plenty of material in there to help you no matter what part of that journey you're at, and you can just dive into it when you need to.
[00:23:28] Dan: And that map will get [00:23:30] you across that awful sea and to a more peaceful place. I'm imagining the journey from England to America for some reason, like weird one of those voyages from like the 18th century or something, but it's but I do think that, and I also think that you can't.
[00:23:46] Dan: As you go. I think there's never any plain sailing in it either, I'd say, and there's another point I remember Mike saying do business is always being built outside of your comfort [00:24:00] zone and things will go wrong. Even when they've gone right for months on end, there will be a moment where it doesn't go right.
[00:24:06] Dan: And it's to remember. At those moments where, the mast breaks or whatever it might be in the business, and it feels like an intractable, intractable problem that if you just, if you do just keep moving and you keep believing. And that's the most important part that you will get through that moment.
[00:24:26] Dan: We've had some, even as this thing's grown and we've had an exponential [00:24:30] growth actually, in the last kind of two years. Year or year and a half, even as we've 10 X our income and everything. And it's been like, wow, that's amazing. There've been problems that have occurred, which make you think I want to stop this.
[00:24:43] Dan: I just want a simple life, but actually, those moments, those down moments are like, okay, you've got to deal with that. But actually the next day, you've just got to keep moving. And and I think that's it. So keep on keeping on, that is the key thing.
[00:24:57] Dan: And there's so much support. If so, if these [00:25:00] people listening are members of Peaceful Profits, then they're in the right place. And if they're not, they should realize that, not all biz op membership programs are. I like, and some, there's good ones and there's bad ones and, they should join in, I think.
[00:25:17] Dan: And I would endorse it, a hundred times to people. It's brilliant.
[00:25:21] Chanelle: Thank you. I agree. It's been great. And I, and we just love seeing people like you who have had amazing success in their business. So [00:25:30] congratulations on all that you've done and continue to do. It's awesome. Where can people find you and See more of what you're doing.
[00:25:39] Dan: We've got so, so right now that we're building a power station, we're turning that our street into a kind of a solar powered and that's what our film is that we're currently doing. We're trying to fight the climate the climate problem, if you like and also try to bring, cause there's a lot of fuel poverty in Britain at the moment.
[00:25:55] Dan: So we're trying to distribute that. So that one is under membership. [00:26:00] power. film forward slash. join dash free. I think that's a lot to try to remember. And then the entry point for the the short films one, let me just, I think it's digital, just digital film bureau. com. And that has my book.
[00:26:18] Dan: But it doesn't have a link to buy my book, weirdly which is at a different URL, which I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'm going to add, I'm going to add in my book and [00:26:30] then some of the some of the component parts or the monthly membership. I'm going to put them all on that.
[00:26:34] Dan: website very soon. So digitalfilmbureau. com is the, it should be minimoviestomillions. com, but it's come out. I just haven't been attending to this website properly. That's it. That's the issue. So I need to attend to it. It should be minimoviestomillions. com, but it isn't right now. But it will be again.
[00:26:54] Dan: Sorry for the really terrible ending.
[00:26:58] Chanelle: No, it's good. [00:27:00] We will we'll dissect all that, pull that out, get the get the actual link so that it's clickable for people and and find those. So thank you, Dan Edelstyn. We appreciate you being here. Thank you everyone for listening. If you are interested in Peaceful Profits and having a business story like Dan's, you can go to PeacefulProfits.com/call and get more information. And we will see you next time. Bye.
