Nomad Scripts “Stories that Matter” for B Corps

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Travel is a wonderful teacher, or at least it is for many of us. In today's Side Hustle School story, an aspiring storyteller travels the world, learning about citizen journalism and film editing. After she graduates, she freelances for a while, while building up a more sustainable business, working with B corporations to help them advance their cause. And you're like, hey, what's that B corporation? Well, a B corporation is not a nonprofit.

It is a business that exists to make money. However, in this voluntary structure, a company commits to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment. So there is a profit model there, but it's sometimes considered as a profit with purpose. Some examples of well-known B-corps include Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, and Kickstarter. Also, there's a concept known as zone of genius.

We're gonna talk about this a little bit too. Zone of genius, this concept popularized by Gay Hendricks. When you're working in your zone of genius, like the ideas you've got different zones that you work in, in your zone of genius, you capitalize on your natural abilities, which are innate rather than learned. And this is the state in which you can get into flow, find ceaseless inspiration, and seem to come up with work that's not only distinguished and unique, but also do so in a way that excels far and beyond what anyone else is doing. So for you out there, do you know what your zone of genius is?

The key phrase there is innate rather than learned. Your zone of excellence, by contrast, is the kind of work in which you are highly skilled, but you've acquired that mastery through lots of practice and experience. As a general rule, at least according to this model, did some reading about it before I recorded this episode, most successful people operate in the zone of excellence, but to truly thrive and go above and beyond, you want to cultivate your zone of genius. So lots of stuff here. B-corporations, zone of excellence versus zone of genius.

We're calling the story "Nomad Scripts, Stories That Matter for B-Corps," and that story is coming right up. From a young age, Oregon native Quinn Rose Schneider has been a visionary storyteller and dreamer. As a child, she would watch 60 Minutes with her parents and imagine becoming a journalist, documenting meaningful stories all over the world. Her love for storytelling later led her to attend NYU to study journalism. While there, she navigated living in a busy, bustling city while juggling academic studies.

But midway through her degree, she decided to take a year off to wander and film her way through India. With camera in hand, she was becoming the storyteller she always dreamed up. It might not have been on 60 Minutes, but for Quinn, it was just as exciting. She even began swapping her gorilla video skills for room and board at various ashrams. It was her first taste into bartering a life in exotic places.

Although she eventually headed back to New York City to finish her degree, that time in India showed her that she wanted to make a bigger impact on the world. One of her professors encouraged her to go to a rally against the Stop, Question, Frisk program, which for a time allowed police to stop, question, and frisk anyone they felt was carrying a weapon or seen as a threat to others, even without evidence, a program that research showed disproportionately targeted minorities. Quinn made a short documentary film that ended up gaining more than eight million online views in an age before Instagram. This was the moment that she knew she was pretty good at editing and producing video footage to tell compelling stories. Upon graduation, she resumed traveling, sometimes freelancing by helping businesses with copywriting and email marketing, but her video production work was where her real passion lay.

In Brazil, she stumbled across an opportunity on LinkedIn that led to her shooting courtside as a beach volleyball reporter during the Rio Olympics. It was an exciting life, but as they say, all roads lead back home, and Quinn's path was no different. She decided that she wanted to work for a B corporation, a growing trend in business that actively works to balance purpose and profit. She continued to do some freelance work as a copywriter, but over time, her new video-focused digital content business, story-based brands, began to take shape. Quinn returned to the US and began attending networking events, highlighting her capabilities as a video producer and director.

At the first event she attended, she landed her first client. However, at that point, she didn't really have much gear of her own. So instead of panicking, she looked for alternatives. That's when she stumbled across a community media arts learning center called Open Signal. They had a policy that would allow students to rent their gear for free if they were enrolled in their classes.

So naturally, Quinn signed up. The first client led to another, and to figure out rates for the various projects coming her way, she would get the specs and then call around locally to get a feel for what everyone else would charge. From there, she'd take the average of what everyone else was quoting and then submit her proposal. That's how she set the rates for those first two videos, one for a landing page and another for a product launch. This method was ideal because she could position her services competitively in the market and have the confidence she needed to submit her proposal.

For simple videos, she set her base rate to $1,500. For higher elements like 4K video or videos that required a substantial amount of editing, she increased that base rate. After a string of successful projects, Quinn upped her base rate to $3,000 and now makes anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 per project. Still, the process of setting those rates wasn't quite the rap she was looking for. There was a lot of trial and error, especially in the beginning.

Quinn learned that she had to set boundaries and restrict the number of client revisions she'd allow. Otherwise, she'd find herself working 100 hours on a short 90-second video. After her first major corporate client, Quinn was able to purchase her own video and editing equipment. She built a simple website using WordPress and eventually weaned herself out of freelance work to pursue story-based brands full-time. Since launching in July 2019, she's worked with over a dozen clients.

The journey didn't happen overnight. Quinn says she's more of a creative type than a natural business person and has had some struggles in particular with bookkeeping. She's also had to learn to focus on her own zone of genius in video editing and let go of areas where she is not as passionate or driven. She's working on hiring contractors to fill some of those areas. Now for anyone out there wanting to launch a similar project, Quinn recommends using the resources in front of you before investing in equipment, since gear can have a lot of upfront costs.

And when it comes to ensuring that what you're producing is in line with what your client is looking for, she says you should ask story-driven questions so that you can create something that resonates with their target audience. Understand what their values are and who the people are behind the company. While Quinn's childhood dream of becoming a reporter on 60 Minutes may not have come true, her dream of being a visionary behind the lens has scripted itself into one positive story. [Music]

What is your zone of genius? I've been thinking about this.

I'm not even sure I have a great answer myself, but this whole concept kind of reminds me a bit of a model that I used for a previous book called "Born for This," where I looked at these three qualities of joy, money, and flow, and talked about how in your ideal work, in your ideal career, you're gonna find some synergy, some alignment, some convergence between those three values. So you're doing something that you really enjoy. It's financially sustainable, like I talk about every day on this program, but it's also something that you're really good at. You find that flow state of work. Perhaps it is similar to this zone of genius concept.

And to me, the most interesting thing about this model is that the zone of genius is different than your zone of excellence. And you kind of think that they're the same thing. You think, "Oh, like I've trained in this thing. I'm pretty good at this thing that I do." That's actually excellent. That's not genius, right?

So it kind of reminds me a little bit about, there's a whole other model from another guy, a friend of mine named Michael Bunge Staneier, who developed a clear distinction between good work and great work. And the risk is that you end up kind of filling your time with good work, which is important work. It's what you are good at, et cetera. But you fill your time with it so much that you don't actually leave space for the great work. So I don't know exactly how all three of these models are related, but I do think it's something good to think about.

What is your zone of genius? What is the unique contribution that you can bring to the world? Or at least, if nothing else, where do you find that state of flow, that state of losing yourself where you're like, "Oh yeah, I can't believe the time went by because I was so immersed in this thing." Always a good thing to consider, and I hope you enjoyed this story. Today's show notes are at slantasleschool.com/916, episode 916. Much more is coming up as we continue through the Northern Hemisphere summer.

Thanks so much for listening. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.