Ninety days before this interview, Adam was a traveling musician on the Sunshine Coast, playing pub gigs to drunk crowds every weekend and doing freelance photo and video on the side. Adam James Media was two retainer clients worth $4K recurring, topped up to $8-10K a month with one-off shoots he had to fight for.
It looked successful. He was busy every day. But in his words:
"The money doesn't justify the amount of work. I'd have a month full of shoots, but I never stopped chasing the shoots. This month is full, next month I've got three booked. Feast and famine. I wasn't even bothered by it, because I just thought that was business. I thought that was normal."
He Cancelled the Call. Twice.
Adam watched VAOS content for a month before messaging, and stayed skeptical after: "Do I even have the money to invest in coaching? Do I even need coaching?"
He booked calls with us and cancelled them, not because he didn't want to talk, but because if he turned down a shoot, he lost that income. That's the trap in one sentence.
"You just said: we see this all the time. Feast and famine. Let me know when you're ready to chat. And it was at that exact moment you put the mirror up in front of my face. I was like: wait, that is me. That's when I went, okay. I'm sticking to the call. I'm not taking any shoots, no matter what."
The $8K Decision
The investment was $8K, and Adam is honest about how it felt: "I don't know if I've got that to throw at coaching on a gamble." He wanted to talk to his partner first.
"I didn't even get to finish the pitch. She was just like: Adam, you've got to do this."
On the call, we told him the target: $30K recurring revenue within 90 days. His reaction, verbatim: "For me, that concept was the biggest load of rubbish. I'd never even seen 30K. I'd never even said that number in my life."
What Happened in 90 Days
Adam dropped a heap of freelance clients, kept his two retainers, and went all in on the mastermind coursework. The ads worked almost immediately, and for the first time, people were coming to him. The sales calls didn't work immediately, and that's worth hearing too: he took call after call and signed nobody, because he didn't have the reps.
"Then I finally signed someone, a $9K deal at $3K a month, and whatever happened on that call clicked. After that, every week I just kept signing clients."
The numbers: $20K recurring revenue within 30 days. By day 90: $28K recurring on its way to $35K, and around $40K in monthly revenue. The clients who signed early stayed on, and the mastermind's retention playbook turned several into upsells.
The Bigger Win
Adam and his partner had talked about building a video agency together since the day they met. It stayed talk for years, because there was never a version of the numbers that made it possible, and never even time to have the conversation properly.
"Coming to Bali was the first time in years we've actually been able to chat about our long-term goal. And for her to say: I actually think I want to quit my job, and we can go all in on this together. It's all we've ever wanted to do."
His frame on it: the $8K he invested in coaching is the same investment she's now making by leaving her job to join AJM. The next goal, on the record: a seven-figure business within 12 months.
His Advice If You're on the Fence
"It's so scary to make that first decision, because it's all foreign concepts. But if you're driven and committed to making a change, just lean into the fear and try. The worst case scenario is you make the money back another way. And I can almost guarantee you won't have to."
The Lesson
Adam didn't lack talent or work ethic. He was working seven days a week. What he lacked was a model: retainer clients instead of one-off shoots, ads instead of chasing, and sales reps instead of winging it. Ninety days of the right model beat five years of hustle. That's the point.