The DJI Ban: Crisis or Massive Opportunity? | ft. Etta Marvin

Hey, it's uh Damon the drone boss and

we've got another drone cast today and

we have a special guest, a Sky Network

member, Eda Marvin with Brimar Drones

and she is one of our um amazing Sky

Network members. And Eda, if you could,

you know, share with everyone where you

where you are income level-wise or at

least the challenge coin. So, before you

do, let me uh at Sky Network, we have um

income level awards. So, as you and for

you guys in the military and Eta, thank

you for your service, by the way.

Well, thank you.

Really, really appreciate sacrifice you

and your family have made for all of us.

Um, and we get to from that. And so, for

those of you in the military, you're

familiar with the challenge coins and

challenge coins. We also have a sky

network for each income level uh that

you as you run money through your

business, right? And we have 5 figure,

six figure,4 million, half million, 1

million um and $5 million uh and up uh

challenge coins. And so where are you if

you would remind everybody?

Well, I just hit a little over 311,000

for really my first year and a half. So

I've got that uh expert challenge coin.

Yay.

Fantastic. Woohoo. Congratulations. All

right. It was pretty good, you know, and

I owe that to what I learned from Miss

Gina for my mindset because you can have

a successful business or you can have an

exceptional business. It depends on what

you have in your head and then I owe the

rest of that to everything I've learned

from you. So, thank you guys both very

much.

You're you're very welcome and thank you

so much, you know, for the kind words,

but you did all the work. uh you know,

we just supplied the strategy and uh and

a little bit of guard rails along the

way. So, so that's awesome.

It all works together. It's a cohesive

It's a cohesive uh it just works

together.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty It's pretty

awesome. Now, and I know some people

watching this are like, "Oh my gosh,

over $300,000, you know, with the drone

business. How's that even possible?"

And, you know, I think uh for a lot of

people and a lot of people in a network,

it's just kind of the normal, right? you

know, it's what we're what we're doing.

Um, and I think you're right. A lot of

it is kind of the mindset. A lot of it's

the confidence. You know, one of the

challenges I hear all the time is, you

know, how could I possibly charge, you

know, $3,000 for 45 minutes of my time,

you know, and again, it's just it and

and they've never charged that much

before. They've never had that kind of

value associated with them. But the the

simple answer to that is, well, it's

super simple. If what you're supplying

to your client is worth 10, 15, $20,000,

then they're happy to pay that, right?

100%. It's not, you know, I can spend 5

hours at something or I can spend an

hour at something. It's what the quality

of what I'm delivering. And more

importantly than even the quality,

believe it or not, is have I talked to

my clients? Do I know what their goal is

with this project? Do I know what

they're hoping to accomplish? Have I not

only met those, but have I exceeded each

one of those?

Yeah. And I think and I I think that's

just super key. And a lot of people

overlook that. Um, you know, they they

really do. Well, uh, I know we could

talk about all this stuff all day long,

but the the main purpose of what I

wanted to talk about was this news that

came up with the with the drone ban. You

know, we it's kind of dubbed the DJI

ban, but, you know, it it was

interesting. DJI wasn't even mentioned

in

right,

you know, in in the, you know, the whole

band part. Uh, and it's all foreign all

foreign drones and and all foreign parts

and everything and and we've I've I've

done in-depth videos on this and stuff,

but what I wanted to do was uh hear from

your perspective cuz you have a

successful drone business um and you

you're running this business and what do

you are you know what concerns, fears,

you know, I know there there was um I

think it was Craig over at Pilot

Institute did a they surveyed their um

uh about 8,000 drone business owners, I

think seven or 8,000, I forget what it

was.

8,000.

It was 8,000. Yeah. And like like 80% of

them said that they're they're expecting

to go out of business because of this.

Yeah. It was 85% said they're expecting

to close the door within two years or

less. And so for me,

I have a twofold mindset on that. Number

one is I'm very sorry for you. And

number two is yes. Be okay. So here's

the thing.

We've all known that this drone ban was

a possibility. Okay? And we've known it

for since I have been flying drones,

which has only been two years. So, we've

known I've known it since I bought day

one bought first drone. In the last 12

months, it became they they set a

deadline, which is December 23rd of

2025.

The first six months, I didn't really

think about it much because it's been

what I've listened to the last year and

a half that I was flying drones. Okay.

The last 6 months though, I started

noticing first off, nobody was assigned

to actually do this audit. You know,

DHS didn't do it. You know, CIA didn't

do it. You know, the NSA didn't do it

because nobody was assigned to do it.

And because I'm military, I know the

rules of the military. If you're not

assigned something, you're not doing it.

Yeah. Not my problem.

Yeah. Exactly. And that's it. My hands

are off it. Nobody assigned it to me.

It's not my job. And so the last six

months, I started thinking, well,

nobody's assigned to this.

The likelihood of it getting done in my

head was pretty much

zero.

Three months out, three months ago. Now

I'm looking at I'm thinking like

September. So I'm like, okay, this ban

is absolutely 100% going to go into

effect because nobody's claimed that

it's their responsibility. Nobody's been

assigned its responsibility and

therefore nobody's going to do it. So

because I put that into my head, I

started thinking about what does it

mean? So I started reading everything I

could on it. Started learning everything

that I could on it. And here's the

problem with the internet. You hear the

good, the bad, and the ugly. and you

hear side A is this, side B is that,

then side C says side A and B are both

lying and then so you don't know what

you're looking at. So you have to

actually go to the bill and read the

bill. All right? And so I figured, well,

it's going to happen. I have to have a

plan in place so I can pivot and so I

can adjust and so my business won't just

survive. My business will excel. And I

think that most drone pilots, serious

drone pilots, serious drone business

owners,

I think that they have got to have been

thinking that way themselves. At least

I'm hoping that that's the thing because

I can still fly. Look, I got DJI drones

right here. One, two, three sitting

right there. And I have more, but those

are charging r