17 Lessons from the Accelerator Mastermind

Hey, guys. Dan here. And I've got a little surprise for you. You know, we had such great feedback a few weeks ago during the podcast with Charlie where we turned the tables on me that actually we decided to do some more. We love the sort of conversational nature of them. And so this week we're going to debrief the event we just did in Melbourne. A lot of people ask us what goes on at these Mastermind events. What are they? And so in this episode, Charlie's going to. Myself and Charlie are going to chat about the event. What's nice about these is they're not interviews, they're just sort of conversations I'm going to look at, you know, what were the biggest breakthroughs at the event, what were the biggest takeaways for the members and what's working at the moment for our members in the accelerated program and some of the transformations they're experiencing. So we're going to be looking at that and also helping you understand, you know, how you can take some of those lessons and apply them in your own business if you hang on to the very end. Got an interesting opportunity for you. So check out this week's podcast, guys, and I'll see you on the other side.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members at www.

Enjoy this episode.

So, Charlie Valor, we had such positive feedback on your two guest interview slots that, well, we decided to bring you back maybe a bit more frequently. How do you feel about that?

It's my absolute pleasure to be here to host what I'm now calling our podcast.

But I'm thrilled to hear that. I think it was very insightful and a bit of a different way to kind of do things, I think. You know, sometimes when you host a podcast, we get so consumed in the guests that we don't even often get to share our own thoughts or go into topics that we think are particularly helpful to the audience we want to serve.

Well, I think what I enjoyed as well was it didn't feel like an interview. It felt like a conversation. And actually these are conversations that you and I have on a virtual daily basis offline, offline, online. And it's just nice to share it because I think there's so many topics we discuss that I think would be really useful for. For the audience.

Yeah, I agree, and that's a great way to think about it. That certainly felt like it last time as well. Like, almost forgot we were doing a podcast.

Yeah. And I think what's. What's really powerful is that, you know, we've just finished an event in Melbourne together with our video business accelerator clients or family, really. They're kind of like friends, and many of them joined as a result of listening to this podcast. And so I thought what a cool thing it would be to just actually spitball a bit about the event and give the listeners and the viewers an opportunity to understand a bit more about what happens. Because, you know, we've talked about going to events and investing in yourself, but it can be quite confusing to know exactly what goes on, you know, like, what happens at these seminars.

Well, thank you for having me along as well. Like, it was an incredibly insightful event and a really powerful event. I enjoyed spending the time with yourself and the members and the guests. It was a phenomenal experience overall, and I think it's fun to come back and recap this and I guess think more deeply about some of the transformations and what happened in the room itself. So, Dan, like, you hosted the event graciously and I thought ran it really well. What was, like, the biggest takeaways from you? What did you most enjoy about the event?

Ooh, well, I enjoy.

The coming together of the like minds. You know, we have room full of video production business owners who are all at different stages of the journey. Some businesses just in the early parts of transitioning from the freelancer to the business owner, and some very established businesses, you know, doing significant revenues. And the big takeaway from the event is the power of the mastermind process, the power of, you know, getting people in a room together to step away from their business for two days and really share the challenges, the highs, the lows, and helping people break through, perhaps obstacles they've had or challenges they've had. And I think the biggest breakthrough is that we run these events every quarter. And for me, the biggest breakthrough was watching some of our members just blossom from, you know, three months ago because they've gone through the planning process, they've implemented something and really focused on it, and it's had a dramatic impact on their life. Let me ask you that question, because you. You for a large part, sat and supported as a mentor in the room, but you got to sit back and watch people, you know, light up and go through transition. What were the things that you noticed?

It was really interesting, and I'll second your point. It was great to see people come through and blossom. The first thing that I really Noticed was particularly, I won't name the person, but there was someone in the room that I saw in the first event and then three months later I've seen them at this event and they are a different person. Their mind actually works differently and you can see they've made the transition from like solopreneur or freelancer is probably the term in this industry to like full business owner mindset. So the example I give is even when they were looking at work, what work that was going to come in, it never even came into the frame of mind that they would be doing any of the work. They were positioning it from the idea of, all right, I've got this team over here who will do that and these guys will do that and then this is how we'll deliver it. And I was like, how good is that, like thinking as a business owner and from a position of scale, it was a really cool thing to see someone actually go through that and in short period of time.

And it's a really tough period of transformation for someone because we were on a call this morning and this came up this very topic of when you're looking to just scale from that one man band to maybe subbing out to contractors and maybe not doing all the work yourself, there's a huge amount of fear and you're scared to let go of control because your clients have always come to you for you and it's a big step to actually let go of the reins. But as one of the other members said this morning, he's already done this and it's very successfully. He said, the fact is, if you've got kids, it's the same thing. At some point you've got to take the cotton wool off the kids and let them run up the stairs knowing they're going to fall over or letting them kind of run around knowing they're going to fall off their bike. For example, if they're on a bike and knowing that that's going to, they're going to learn from that and it's going to become, you know, a learning opportunity. And it's the same when, when you scale. It's not easy, but it is simple. And, and one of the things that I think I noticed in the room was the amount of support everyone gives each other. Yes, we've got our training, yes, we've got our system. Yes, we've got a methodology which is, you know, frankly is bulletproof. I mean, I'm not going to beat about the bush here. I've been doing this 27 years. I run a business for 11. None of this stuff is like out of a book. I mean, this. We read books and we absorb that and we modify, but everything we teach, we've done or are doing. But you add to that the skill set of the people in the room, I think it's a pretty powerful and unique environment.

To the name, and I think the name of your program, the accelerator, was very fitting. I actually suspect that based on this person three months ago, seeing other people in that room that had gone through it put the believability through the roof. Like this person's idea, okay, this works. I'm confident because I can see other people have done it. It actually reduces a lot of the fear and gets it done more quickly. So I'm not sure that transformation would have happened if it hadn't have been for the program and the events themselves. Like, being a part of that environment, I think set this person on fire. It was like a warpath just down the line to that transformation, which was just so, so powerful. Dan.

Absolutely. And it's definitely a big mindset shift. And this particular individual, you had spent money on coaching programs in the past, had been with other coaches, so he was very focused on wanting the result. But when he. When he came to speak to us, he said, you know, I just don't feel like this coach really understands our industry. And I think, you know, business is business and customers are customers. But I do really believe that the video production industry, we're a different breed. And it's not to say that our businesses are different, but the way we do business is different because of the investment we make as individuals, as storytellers, as empaths. And, you know, I guess what I do is I've got my. My soft mallet, which I. Which I gently whack people over the head with. But it's about still getting them to take action, but in a way that understands the sensitivities around how we. How we go about running a business. Because it's not. It's not just about the money for us. It's about the experience we give our clients and how they feel about us as service providers.

It's. There's a very big difference between seeing someone who's gotten off the tools in one industry versus seeing someone who's gotten off the tools in the exact same thing you do. I think the ability to copy and paste, so to speak, or model or swipe and deploy, it's a game changer there. And one of the things I'll just Throw in a little laugh here because I know this is something what you stand for. And I heard in a conversation there was actually someone in the room who was talking about the idea of buying an FS7, which I'm told is a camera, but was actually comparing the cost of this camera versus the cost of or what they could get from bringing that into marketing. So I can see you'd had a really big influence where this person wasn't just going, hey, I'm a gearhead, I'm going to buy another camera. Because buying another camera is how I grow my business. Was actually thinking about business owner activities, was actually thinking injecting costs into the things that I know you're a big fan of as well. So little proud moment for you, Dan.

And what's really cool as well is that the group understand that marketing and investing in marketing doesn't mean necessarily spending money on ads. It's about allocating resources to create. One of our members is having phenomenal success making a weekly video on LinkedIn and in fact just the other day he was trending for the hashtag video production on LinkedIn. Now that's something that he's done for about the last 10, 11 months and just recently won a six figure project because somebody saw his content. And so we have this LinkedIn, the way we set up profiles on LinkedIn and using sales Navigator as a connection strategy and the way in which we connect with people and build relationships in a very non salesy but very assertive, any kind of wanting to help someone way. Like we're not there to just kind of make friends, we're there to go, hey, if you have this problem we can help you solve it. But I think it's the way in which we approach that with, with the connection strategy using Sales Navigator and the scripting of that, it makes me very proud of my clients that they are implementing this stuff and seeing such great returns. Because ultimately, whilst yes, it's a great group, we all get on really well. There's a lovely social element to it. We are there to help you build your business. That's very clear. We're not there to fuck spiders as Ben Simkin would say.

I think if he hears this podcast he'll be very proud to hear that. By the way, Dan.

That brings up another point. It was quite fascinating from my point of view is like you start to really see like what are the commonalities, like what are the things people are doing which, which are working. And I think LinkedIn is over overwhelmingly something that's working for this industry at the moment. So if you're in video and you know, getting that strategy right and the scripts and connection and navigator, as you mentioned, from there, I think that's a takeaway. We can look at and say video professionals, I'm going to call this bluntly as an opinion, should be using LinkedIn. I think that was a really key insight.

100%. I mean we've just seen time and time again the LinkedIn strategy working very, very effectively. And something we were debriefing about the event the other day and we were talking about, you know, what's your top 100 clients, your top 30 clients that you'd love to work with? You know, you don't need to try and attract everyone, you just go, who are the businesses I'd like to work with? What's the kind of work I'd like to do? And start targeting them. And it's, it's so easy. On LinkedIn Sales Navigation, you know, you can literally find anybody in any position. You know, not so long ago, if you wanted to find the marketing manager for, you know, company A, you'd have to go and find their website, try and work out what their email addresses, try and work out how you get in front of them. They probably have a gatekeeper. There are no gatekeepers on LinkedIn. If you approach someone with the right approach and the right message and giving value, there's a very high probability they'll accept your connection. That's like a direct line straight into their inbox. And the thing that's interesting about LinkedIn is that most corporate professionals on LinkedIn are there because they're basically got one eye on any new opportunities and so they check their LinkedIn probably more than you realize. And if they get a message, there's a far greater chance of them responding to your message or accepting your connection request. And then with the content strategy that we talk about in the accelerator program, it's a really simple way of getting your message in front of your target market. And it's a very, very simple strategy. It's not that easy to implement. Simple doesn't always equate to easy, but with a bit of effort, I mean, the results we are seeing our clients get, it's mind blowing.

I think you should be very proud of that, Dan, because it's something that's been able to work universally. I think it's been a great feature there, a really big benefit to the members itself.

Yeah, exactly. Sorry, go on.

I was going to say I have to bring up this point, but it was like, you know, looking at the benefits of the event, there was one more thing that really stood out to me. The amount of people I spoke to at the event and all said something similar to this about the idea of they would never do their planning quarterly on their own. It's not something they ever manage to make the time for. It's something that always falls to the bottom of the pile because of client work, their own film projects or docos or travel or family or school holidays. Like, there's always something that seems to get in the way from them taking the time to do planning. And even if they do the planning, their ability to get meaningful feedback from people that are in the industry or can have a valid opinion is, like, never. And it was so fascinating to hear that how much they valued that and then how powerful the process of doing that together was quarterly. So I think that was a really key insight about, like, if they don't do it at this event, it's not going to happen. That time away is key.

And what's also key is that we do that planning every quarter and really work at what's been working, what's not been working. But it's taking a stage further on the second day, which is the mastermind day, where we essentially sit around a table and each member gets about 35 minutes to really unblock one of the biggest challenges that they've uncovered from the plan that if we could brainstorm a solution to, we'd have the biggest impact in the next 90 days. And that's always a powerful process because oftentimes the problem that you think is your biggest problem, when you've got eight or nine or ten other businesses around the table saying, I notice you didn't say this. And suddenly the spotlight gets shifted to the area that we're perhaps trying to avoid isn't, or trying to ignore as being a problem. The spotlight gets shifted onto it. And in a very supportive, safe, and private and highly confidential environment, we break through what we think the biggest challenge might be, and then we come up with an action plan. And that action plan is what you implement for the next 30 or 60 days. And that seeing people go through that for the second and third time, there's like a light bulb moment goes off where they go, oh, God, yeah. And then it's amazing how much you achieve when you set a really clear plan into motion. And really the actual plan at the end is not the outcome. The planning process is the outcome, because it gets you to think about the lessons Learned the achievements, the accomplishments. What are the threats to the industry? What are the trends in the industry? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? And reviewing that every 90 days, you're right. You know, you can read about this in books. Like, you know, none of this stuff is original. It's. It's my take on the different sources of information. But when we put people in a room and we structure that process, it's amazing how quickly you can achieve that review process and then start to freshen that. And every 90 days, you're turning your business on its head and going, okay, what's one more revolution? How are we looking? Are we. Are we on target? Are we off target? Okay, let's adjust. And it's that constant adjustment by 1 or 2 degrees that sets your course. Because really. And you've been in business a long time, Charlie. For me, it's the destination is not the goal. We're setting up an intention to get to head in a direction. And every year I've been in business from the days of selling DVDs, it changes every year. And you're having to dodge icebergs and deep water, but you want to stay afloat. You want to plug the holes in the ship and get that engine running efficiently so that you can keep powering through. And the more power you have at the back end, the more thrust you have, the more you can progress and shoulder any, any challenges and any rough seas that are in the. Inevitably going to come along the way.

I was just thinking there, and it's like, that's just such a good point as, well, Dan, you mentioned about there's no hiding. You cannot. You can come in and have what you think is your challenge, what you think is important to work on, but the power of the group kind of doesn't let you get away with ignoring things that you need to pay attention to. So don't look at this fire over here. I don't want to deal with that. I would prefer to keep ignoring that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you the other thing is, you know, the event is not for everyone. And it really, you know, we're about action takers and taking action, and there isn't really anywhere to hide you. Quite right. So this program, this event, it's not for startups, it's not for newbies. This is for freelancers who have been running a business for a while, maybe on their own, and want to move into kind of scaling into a team, but not. Not sure how to do it. It's for Established video production businesses.

Who are looking to find ways to systemize and remove themselves from that key person risk. Because I think that happens a lot in our industry. It's if the main business owner was to fall over tomorrow, the business would stop. And so we're really focused on helping those people to build a more robust, sustainable, and ultimately consistent business. Because I think, you know, it may not be the sexy end of business marketing or business coaching, but it's actually where the most work can be done on ourselves as individuals to get our mindset right, to put the right systems in place, to make sure we're charging accordingly. And something else that I noticed that comes up a lot is certainly in businesses that are probably slightly not as far down the road as a more established business is there, they have to readjust the pricing. And that can be a very uncomfortable process because they're used to charging for freelancer rates. And then when we start to talk about what they might look like as a business, they can be significantly higher. And I think that I certainly found this initially when I was going through this process. You can feel like a little bit uncomfortable with going from charging one figure to charging another. Now, let's say, for example, just arbitrary, we'll call them groats for the sake of arguments. Let's imagine you charge 1200 groats per day for you and your kit to go out and film, and the client books you and you charge 1200 grad a day for that. And you charge a thousand groats a day for editing. So your whole job is 2,200 groats. And the client's like, happy, could they get a film? You do that as a company, well, you're going to send that camera person out with a kit for 1800 groats a day. You're going to charge editing at 1500 grad a day and you're going to charge pre production and a production fee. So that same project might cost the client $5,000. As an individual, you might be thinking, but I can, I only, you know, I make money and I only charge 2200 groats. But you're not factoring in overheads and scale and growth. You know, you can only do so many jobs a day. If it's you out filming with your gear. When you start to scale, you can have three or four crews out in a day. And something that I know comes up a lot is a discomfort around that process and where I think the group and the community really supports. And that happened on a call just this morning was the guys and people and girls who've been in the program a little longer go, it's okay, Charlie. You know, we remember what this was like. It's tough. But you know what? Dan has a system. He has a lot of experience. He's done this himself. And you just need to lean into the process and trust it. So the support that the other members give each other, regardless of me, is really where I feel a great sense of pride, because we've created a culture, a culture of support, a culture of encouragement, a culture of growth, a culture of ambition and entrepreneurship, but also one that's about supporting families and, you know, enabling, you know, to build their dream home or put the kids through private school or, you know, just have that war chest saved up. I think as filmmakers, we often doubt our decisions. And when in this environment, you don't have to, you can literally go, I'm not sure about this, guys. What do you reckon? And that's something that I think makes me very proud of the community.

Yeah, it's such a good point there as well, Dan, about the idea of, like, you can go into a room sometimes and it can be quite a pessimist environment, can be quite a negative environment. And, like, if you go in there with your business, it's almost dangerous because all you hear people talking about is how hard it is or how close to bankruptcy it is or how whatever the bad environment is, and it almost. You go away fearful, you go away from this, like, geez, I better batten down the hatches. Don't hire anyone, don't do any marketing. We need to just preserve and constrain. But it was like there was such an abundant mindset. There's enough work for everyone. We can raise our prices. There was so much optimism in the room and towards each other, and I think that's really powerful in business because it can be a lonely game, and if you're spending time with the wrong people. A dangerous game in certain events and masterminds, for sure.

And, you know, we. We had held the event, and actually, because of the timing of the event, there were 50 work days until Christmas. We actually focused the event on speeding up, not slowing down. For a lot of people this time of year, they start to slow down. They have this mindset that December's coming. You know, Christmas is going to be quiet, January is going to be dead. Oh, you know, if you spend too much time inside circles where that's the common sort of belief system, then everyone goes, oh, it's okay, Charlie, because you Know, you know, you know, December's quiet. Yeah, it's always quiet for me too. And it's like, okay, it's the ego talking. It's like, well, it's not me, it's the industry. The industry is quiet. So it's okay that I'm busy and I'm not quite, not, not working. I'll just, I'll just let you know, it's. It's normal. This happens. Don't worry about it. We have the opposite view, which is, yes, there is absolutely a slowdown in December and January, but we actually have strategies for. What are you going to do about that now? In. We're recording this in October and it's like, well, we can do this, this, this, this and this. And so our guys are accelerating their marketing focus on special offers for December and January and deals and giving clients a reason why they should book some video content now for either production in December or January or editing in December or January at some sort of beneficial rate or additional value add on. And that's what makes it different. You know, we're always focusing on what's coming next. We're not worrying about. You know, I had someone recently said to me, oh, yeah, I'm really busy, just really free. But so, so busy just now. But I know I'm going to start doing some marketing soon when things get quiet and you know, used to run an agency, that's the worst thing you can do. There tends to be this focus on, oh, when things go quiet, then I'll do the marketing. When in actual fact they should be marketing when they're busy. So there never is a quiet. Is that something you came across in your agency world?

I just have to put in a point. I've often wondered if people actually, if there is a quiet season or the mindset people have developed from what they think creates the quiet season. So because you think it's going to be quiet in December, do you actually create that? Was there plenty of work that we didn't take advantage of? I actually think that's the truth. I think that we make it quiet via our mindset, which is a fascinating topic of its own. But it was so great to see. I think a lot of people have the breakthrough of like, it's go time. I want to be hammering in now to have an extremely powerful end of year and start of next year. I'm not going to wait till January to like get things happening because that's like such a waste of time and a couple of unprofitable months. Later in the year can be devastating to yearly result. But coming into your point there, I'm of the belief that how you get real results in marketing is consistency. You don't want to be the type of person that's I suppose, turning marketing on and off randomly throughout the year or only marketing when you're quiet or only when you're perhaps slightly busier. I like to see in the business owner mindset of like creating some consistency. So I'm always marketing in my businesses. Certainly I will dial that up or down based on capacity, but there's always some marketing going on and we're always making sure there's plenty in the pipeline. Because one of the things I often think about if you're growing a business like you've referenced here, and that's certainly the effect that's going to happen if you do a program like this is often you may need to bring in high caliber clients or often you might like the feeling of like there's always more work coming in. So you're not reliant on any key clients where you're not put into a position where if a client leaves that you could be vulnerable or desperate or have a key client risk there as well, which I think happens far too often.

Yeah, absolutely. So Charlie, any, any other observations from the event that stuck in in your mind? You know, you were very involved, but you're also observing a lot of the things that were happening in the room. Anything else that you can think of that sticks in your mind?

There was one more thing that overall I really took away and it's just like how much bigger video is getting, like how much more important video is getting and what a key role it's playing in every industry. So I mean, you only have to open any social media platform to see how much more video there is in general now. But what was really interesting from my point of view, I won't say I'm completely an outsider. I do a little bit of video stuff, but it was just fascinating to me how much work is around and how much more work there's capable of getting. Like, I don't think there's any fear of being in the video industry and like it's, you know, it's gonn disappear or turn into a Yellow Pages 2.0. I think there's an abundance of opportunities for video businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Yeah, I agree. And it's all about mindset and how you're positioning your offer to your market. Now we have another event coming up in December. I think it's the 12th and 13th from memory. And we always have a couple of guest seats. Because what we like to do is invite people along who perhaps are thinking about the program. Maybe they've seen some of our ads. As someone who's. You're not an outsider, but as someone who's observed people coming to this event, what do you think are some of the benefits? And just to clarify, we invite you to the very first day of the event. The mastermind is just for our members, but on the first day, you get to come through the planning process with us. You sit in the room like a member. What do you think, Charlie, are some of the benefits to someone who's perhaps thinking about this accelerator program but hasn't quite had the confidence to reach out yet? What would be some of the advantages of sitting in the room and being part of it on one day?

This magical thing that happens at events Den, and it's fascinating. I call it the afterburner. It's like whenever you go into a room with people that are succeeding in whatever you're trying to succeed in, it creates this.

I'll call it this massive motivation. You go into a room when you realize you're just like all these other people, but they've maybe a little bit further along or maybe getting some success in an area that you're not having success in. And by seeing that and getting some insights to how they're doing it, and then that massive reassurance that it can be done and you can do it too, because they're just people just like you. When you leave the event and those coming weeks after you are on, like you always on after event. I was on after this event, I was like, got to do my planning, got to think about these things. Like, it creates this accelerator in your business, this afterburner, when you go into, like this overdrive. So for anyone that's like in this industry that's going, look, it's time to kick it up a year. I'm coming into the end of the year and I don't want to have a slump coming into January. I don't want to end my year without knowing what's going to be going on next year. I want to start taking real action and become that business owner. Then that's the person who needs to be in this room because they're going to get that afterburner effect. They're not going to be finishing their year feeling like, oh, you didn't go that great. Could have been a bit better. Maybe just a few more clients, they're not going to be lying to themselves and putting in the pity party. They're going to be fired up going into that end of year. Ready to take January by the ball, so to speak.

Absolutely. Well, guys, if you're listening to this and you'd like to come along to the December event, then simply find me on LinkedIn. Denleny, connect with me and send me a message and we'll have a chat.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Den Lenny. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support, and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.videobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the Accelerator program can help you today. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes, and we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review.