21 lessons from 12 years in business. EP #178 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. Dan here with another episode of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. This one is episode number 178 and it's also coming up for the 12th anniversary from when we set up F Stop Academy way back in 2009. It was.

Just at the end of April 2009, we registered the business. And I want to share some lessons with you today that I've learned in the last 12 years of being in the video business or the business of video, been in the video business longer.

And I wanted to share some insights that I've reflected on in the last 12 years that I hope will serve you as a kind of fast action, rapid fire set of tips for you to, you know, take on board, think about and implement in your own business. So I've been in the video business since 1986. Really was the first time I picked up a camera in a professional environment. But I started a business in, you know, a commercial business in video, as in not being freelance, actually building a company in 2009. And you know, we just, we just finished moving house up to the beach here and you know, that was always part of the plan. Everything that happened in the business was deliberate. You know, I wanted to come and live in Australia. I wanted to build a business that would be able to facilitate that. And it's actually public holiday here in Queensland today where it's a public holiday for Anzac Day, which is the memorial, Memorial day for the fallen troops.

And it's a public holiday but I forgot I hadn't recorded a podcast for this week. So I'm in the office and you know, actually reflecting on the fact that it's also, you know, coming up to the 12 year anniversary from we actually registered the company and so I wanted to kind of share with you, reflecting on the journey. You know, I've had six years in Australia now, 12 years in business.

And you know, it's, it's harder than you think it's going to be, but when you look back, you know, you always make it happen and, but the journey has been amazing and we're here and we're profitable and I'm, I'm working less hard now than I ever have. But that's not to say that it hasn't had, there's not been a lot of hard work along the way. So what I thought I'd do is give you like a quick summary of 21 lessons I've learned in the last 12 years in business. And you know, I want to just remind you about the power of a vision board as well, and having a plan. Because if you don't have a really clear idea of where you want to be and you visualize it, it's a lot harder. It's a lot harder. And you can think you're creeping along, but actually what you need to do is really write it all down.

You know, if someone had said to me five years ago, you'll be living in a beautiful, you know, 3,000 square foot beach house, you know, 300 meters from the beach, with your own custom built studio home cinema, I would have been like, wow, that doesn't seem real. But it's all become reality. And it became reality through just being very deliberate and very precise about what I wanted to have an achievement of my life.

So, you know, having a clear plan and having patience, if you're focused, anything is possible. So let's get straight into it. Let me tell you about my 21 observations that I've learned and discovered from, you know, 12 years in business. So number one is it's going to take longer than you think. You have to think of business in terms of decades, not months and years. And I think we often, you know, overestimate how quickly we can do things.

We anticipate business success happening very quickly. I read my first business plan this morning and it was interesting that by year three I said we were making a million pounds a year. And of course that's just not very common third year into a business for any businesses in that matter. So pace yourself for a longer journey in business. And if you're patient and realistic, you're more likely to hit a target and play the long game. Number two, persistence is key. You must never give up. You're going to be tested every single day, every week, every month, every year. And at least once a year you'll literally wake up in the morning when going, I mean, God, what am I doing? Can I actually make this happen? It seems like everything's against me. How am I going to make this happen? And I think that's probably where the grit comes in in business. I'd say more than five or six times in the last 12 years I've had that moment of panic and like, shit, what if this doesn't work? But you know what? You keep going because it's those moments that you can that desperation and that's when you dig deeper and find a solution.

Because for me, the prospect of going and getting a job is never on the radar, never has been. So you have to be persistent and never give up. And you might only ever be 1 degree off the destination you need to be aiming for and your kind of navigation of your business. So never ever give up. Number three, make time every day to read.

You can read way more business books than you think you can. I never used to be somebody that would read.

And you know, four or five years ago I really got into reading and I read on Kindle, I read physical books, I listen to audiobooks, I listen to summaries. You know, the key is to get the information into your brain because nothing you're going to do hasn't been done before. It's in there to be read and discovered and you can, you can implement and draw on it. If you consume lots of business books, you're getting the benefit of other people's mistakes and it can help you avoid them yourself.

And one of my hacks for consuming a lot of books is to listen to them on audible at 1.5 or 2 times speed. So you can consume like a 12 hour book in 6 to 9 hours. It's probably the best use of your time you can possibly invest in. And I've had some of my greatest ideas and breakthroughs reading a book. And when you read lots of different business books, you get a repertoire of ideas and concepts from different industries and considerations that you can draw inspiration from and help build a more successful business for yourself. Number four, protect your time and manage your energy. This is absolutely critical and this took me really only till a couple of years ago to really nail.

You know, when you freelance, you say yes to everything.

But you know, you're also trying to balance what sort of resembles a home life and the admin side of running a business. And it can be very challenging if you don't protect your time and your energy, you'll simply burn out. You know, there's been more than one occasion where I've felt close to burning out. You know, working six or seven days a week, working late into the night, I used to think, oh, you know, I'm creative, I work better at night and I need to hustle to write to run this business, you know, and the fact is it was bullshit. I was feeding myself a lie. You must protect your energy and you must protect your time. You must get lots of sleep. It's probably the single most important strategy. So by protecting your time, I mean, you know, don't let people have direct access to you unless it's an emergency. If you email me, you get an autoresponder saying that I check my email once a day because I Check my email once a day. I don't want to be at the mercy of somebody else's to do list.

I don't have a voicemail on my phone and some of this might seem extreme to you, but my voicemail says, hey, it's Dan here. I don't use voicemail. Please send me an email to this address and I'll get back to you soon. If it's urgent, send me a text message. You know, I don't want to spend time listening to voicemails with other people telling me in a long winded way why they've called me and what they want me to do next. So I just, I haven't had voicemail on my phone for like three or four years and it's great, you know, I never have to sit and listen to voicemail messages. You want to also turn off all the notifications on all your devices. So. And that will give you hours and hours back of your time. If you want to track your own time and do a time audit then you know to download rescue time and be terrified at how much time you waste. You'll be amazed at how much time just gets wasted and manage your energy. I make sure I get 78 hours of quality sleep a night. You know, I get up at six every morning, I walk the dogs, have a coffee with my wife and before I do any work in the day. And I spend thinking time every day just thinking about, you know, the problems I'm facing, my business, the challenges I want to overcome. Keith J. Cunningham, in his book the Road Lesson Stupid is all about thinking time. I like to meditate and, and just look after myself. Number five, expect to put in 10 times the effort for the results that you think you're going to get. Now that's the opposite of what a lot of gurus will tell you. They'll tell you you can do it quickly, that, you know, the fact is you can't. There's no, there's no fast track to building a business.

There's no shortcuts to generating consistent revenue in your business. They don't exist. You've got to put in the work and it will take you 10 much effort to reach 10 times as many prospects before you get the customers you want. But if you're willing to do that, you've got a very good shot at building a sustainable business. And if you're not, I recommend just stick with freelance, go and get a job because it takes that much longer than you think. Part 6 Make quick decisions. You know, either when you get presented with an opportunity, either you want to do it or you don't. But procrastination isn't serving you. I see this a lot with filmmakers and creative people get stuck in over analyzing a decision. They spend way too much time pontificating, thinking about considering all the options and talk themselves in and out of it. Three times.

You know, in my business book Business Filmmakers, the motto is just fucking do it. Nike is just do it. You know, it's all about the battle. You win with yourself and you know, there's just a lot to do. So just get on with it, you know, and don't spend too much time pontificating on every single decision. So like, you know, when the alarm goes off in the morning, if you set an alarm, straight up, get out. Jocko willink big on this. In his book Extreme Ownership, he's like, if you hit the snooze button, the alarm clock is winning the first battle of the day. But if you get up, straight up, switch off the alarm, you win the first battle of the day. And I've done this for quite some time. In fact, we don't have curtains in our bedrooms. So I just wake up when the sun comes up.

And I get straight up. Part seven, which leads on from this. Shorten the gap between idea and execution.

I saw a filmmaker on Facebook recently with that photograph of the back of a napkin. It just said a business idea question mark and he was sitting in a cafe and it's like, hey, I'm a filmmaker and I've had an idea for a business and I'm telling you I've had an idea. And here's the thing, it's kind of worthless. Ideas are absolutely worthless unless they're experts executed upon. And that's where 99% of people fail. They know what they should be doing, but they don't do it. That's why I have a coaching group, a mastermind, because the people in that group, we work together to rate, you know, a rising tide lifts all ships. We're there to be accountable to each other and get stuff done. Ideas are ten a penny. Creatives have no shortage of ideas. They get excited, they tell people about it, and they crash and burn. Because executing the idea is really hard work and you have to get used to failure because nothing ever works the way you want it to.

And a lot of creatives struggle with failure when in actual fact, failure is the pathway to success. So shorten the gap between having an idea and executing it and you'll see a massive shift Part 8 Be okay with imperfectly dumb Perfection is one of these things that filmmakers tell me about they struggle with all day long. But then I'm a perfectionist. You know, it's so important that my work is perfect now. Perfect does not exist and is not sustainable in the commercial world. I'm not saying your edit shouldn't be tight. I'm saying perfection in everything you do is not a winning strategy. Because if you wait for everything in life to be perfect, you'll never start. Anything imperfectly done trumps waiting for perfection and not executing this is absolutely huge. I've sent thousands of emails with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors. I've had landing pages with grammatical errors. My book, for Christ's sake, was full of spelling and typos, despite the fact I had an editor and a proofreader. You just don't catch everything. But that hasn't stopped me selling over a thousand copies of my book and turning away turning those customers into longer term clients.

So focus on the outcome. What are you looking to achieve? Does a spelling mistake actually make or break your business? If it's on. If it's on a graphic on an edit, yes, probably will. But if it's in something else, not necessarily. I'm just using that as an example because it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things unless you're teaching English. Imperfectly done, but complete is number one. Part nine Try and avoid debt. Do not get into debt to set up a business. Don't borrow sums and sums of money. It's dead money. I find people buying expensive camera equipment when something simpler will do the job. You know, I did it with laptop recently. I leased it rather than buying it because it just, you know, it made more sense to us to not impact our cash flow.

Now the only debt I've got is an AMEX card with 55 days of credit on that. So you kind of, you know, you can use debt cleverly. Like when I bought the laptop, it was interest free for two years. So that's a way to leverage debt in a smart way. But avoid debt that's going to cost you money and tie you in.

Part 10. You won't get anywhere without help. It's a fallacy to think as a freelancer you can do everything yourself. And if you do everything yourself, you keep all the money.

I was reading another Facebook group recently. It's like, I don't want staff. I'm happy where I am. I make enough money and that's great. The trouble is.

If you're that person and you get sick, your entire family's at risk. It's a very naive position to take. If you're running a business, then run a business. Build a business and make it great.

Hiring a team doesn't need to mean people in an office. You can hire support, you can hire contractors, you can hire external support who are no longer based in a physical office. It will. It will help you enormously. I'm actually scaling my team just now because people I work with already make my life so much easier. I want to make my life even easier so I can focus on more. More things, more content. In fact, I want to hire a podcast producer and content writer. So if you're listening to this and you love this show and you feel you have skills and you'd like to, you know, it's a paid position, come and support the show, then please reach out. I'd love to hear from you.

You cannot build a business alone. That's why we created the Video Business Accelerator. That's why we have that group. It's for business owners who are looking to double or triple their profits in the next 12 months. And we do it in a constructive environment where there's support and help to shortcut that process. Number 11, we're all experts in hindsight. The best lessons you'll ever have in business are from failing. If you're not failing, you're not learning. And it's the speed at which you overcome those failures and come back to the point of realizing there was a lesson to be learned. That is where the glory is. Business education. Business lessons are not free. We have to make mistakes and they have to be costly sometimes for us to learn a really valuable lesson.

Part 12 don't overly concern yourself with competition. It's just a race to the bottom. Instead, focus on your target market and serving your clients. Worrying about competitors, it's just the wrong place to focus your energy. Instead of worrying about what they're doing or not doing, focus on serving your clients at the highest possible level. Help them achieve their goals. That's the only thing you need to focus on. Part 13 genuinely care about the outcomes of your clients. If you really care about your clients and their outcomes and genuinely care, everything else will take care of itself. Clients just want to know that you care and they'll look after them. They want the result to be delivered as agreed and feel like they're cared for and that you're not just kind of handing over another job. Think about how you want to be treated and treat your clients the same way. Part 14. Monitor your financials. You should monitor your accounts and financials weekly and definitely have a bookkeeper and accountant to speak to as regularly as, you know, once a month. They're the first person you should hire. The reason for that is they will make sure they are always chasing you for information so you'll always be on top of your books. They'll potentially make you feel guilty about spending your own money because they'll be asking you to justify every single expense in your business. And that's a good thing because it's very easy to be paid by a client. Have a big bill come in and go, hey, that's great, I'll buy myself a new computer or a new camera. Now, using software like Xero or QuickBooks will help you track everything on a daily basis. And I really strongly urge you to use it. I use Xero. A lot of my clients use Xero. It's really powerful software. But a good bookkeeper will keep you on track and give you an idea of your tax liability every month and any other, you know, government.

Costs that need to be paid. And so you'll know exactly where you are anytime. I always put all my tax aside on my superannuation. All of my, you know, any, any government bills, separate account always sits there. So when they need to be paid, it just goes out and, you know, you don't even notice it. That, that puts you in a very strong position in your business because if you don't, you end up going, shit, I've got to pay this three or $4,000 bill or whatever it is might be for something and you're going to pull it out your working capital.

15. Make it your business to be informed. It's very important when you're running a business. You're across what taxation laws have changed, any government grants or incentives, and what you can and can't claim in your business. Now, this is often going to be helpful to have this information from your accountant, but they're not always created equally. I have a phenomenal accountant and I know some great accountants and I know some really poor accountants. You want someone who understands your industry, who understands what is a legitimate expense and what is proportional in your government, in your market. But be sure to know your rights. You know, listen to podcasts, you can get informed about things.

You know, your accountant should be informing you of things, but something you have to ask. I've had accountants that don't come forward. I've got a great accountant now who's very proactive. I involve myself in different business groups. So I get a different idea from other business owners what is allowable and not allowable. And most of my friends are entrepreneurs. Most of my friends are, you know, are just, you know, in, in the business of running businesses. And so we share a lot of information.

So, you know, be, be informed. Make it your business to be informed. And this is the difference between migrating from being a freelancer to a business owner. Okay? A business owner takes responsibility for being informed.

16. Be careful spending your money on gear. Don't spend all your cash on gear. If you decide that a new gear investment is important for the scale of the business, look to lease the gear.

You know, I talked earlier about avoiding debt. But leasing equipment over a period of time that's been carefully constructed means that if you need to spend 30 or $40,000 on equipment, you're paying that over three or four or five years. And that's a monthly manageable sum that you can then apportion to your work as you go out and be making sure that's paying for itself.

I've basically gotten rid of all of my equipment and I mean, we don't do much production these days. But, you know, I would recommend that you rent first and when the business case is there, then, then, then lease the equipment or do a loan over a number of years that, that justifies the outgoings each month. Even on a lean month, you know, a lot more. My clients are getting into some new equipment investment this year, but they've got substantial books to demonstrate that they've been generating income for three or four months from this particular camera, for example. And therefore it makes business sense to invest in the equipment because that becomes an asset that then generates money for the business.

Number 17, and this is a huge one. Be very, very careful getting into business with someone else. I would go as far to say, don't ever get into business with someone else, thinking it will be easier with two of you, because it's a common mistake, one that I've personally experienced and I've seen it in other people's businesses. Creators get an idea that they should pool resources and go into business with someone else because then, you know, they can double the resources. But what happens is one person usually has a, you know, you're not aligned generally in running a business. I've seen it work on a couple of occasions because both, both business partners have a very different role in the business. Like, one is the creative, one is the producer.

But, you know, generally speaking, when people get into business, all they see is the upside, they just go, wow, if we just did this, this and this, we'll all be making loads of money and doing these amazing projects, then we can basically step back and make our creative projects and let everyone else run the business. It doesn't work like that.

And if you are going to go into business with someone else, make sure you have a watertight shareholders agreement up front. Absolutely watertight. I've helped a number of people negotiate out of business partnerships and I can tell you it's painful and it can be expensive and no one ever looks at the downside when they're setting up a business. They just see the upside. And I can tell you from personal experience, it was a very painful and expensive experience to remove a business partnership that wasn't working. And it wasn't working well.

You know, and if you're going to go into business with someone, get to know them for at least a year before you start doing anything and make sure you're very open about how that's going to look and get shareholders agreements together. Be very wary of going into business with friends. You know, it's never really a winning combo.

I had a great business relationship with James Hangman for many, many years. We never ever went into business together. We just did business together. So his company and my company would partner on projects all the. And if it's a project of mine, I'd just subcontract to him, excuse me. And vice versa. If it's project his, he'd subcontract to me. It's a really simple, clean way to do it. Number 18, confirm conversations in writing. Be very clear with clients up front about what your intentions are and always reconfirm what was discussed verbally in an email. Too many video companies just take a phone call, don't follow up in writing, and therefore when there are disputes later on or additions or scope creeps, you've got nothing to fall back on and discuss.

And you know, if it gets messy and ends up, you know, being in a situation where you may have to go to court, the first thing a judge will ask in any dispute is show me the agreement that was written down and let's start there. And if you have an agreement in writing, great. And if you don't, you just don't have any leverage. I've seen this happen again and again and again with clients prior to working with us. They go into organizations without a clear guideline and something goes wrong. And you know, it's just a battle, an absolute battle. And then you're spending all your time trying to fight a battle to either, you know, avoid paying out if the person's, you know, unhappy with something, or trying to get money back from a job that you've not been paid from because the client wasn't happy and there's not a strong contract. And every member of our VBA gets access to a series of documents, contracts, agreements, statements of works that they can use to.

To strengthen their business in terms of contracts and obligations. 19. It's okay to say no. You know that as a freelancer, I said yes to everything. But as a business owner, I say no to a lot of opportunities. Steve Jobs said it's so important to say no even to great ideas. When you learn to say no firmly and politely, you preserve a relationship.

I said no to Sony. Just not so long ago they wanted me to do something for them, and I said no. It wasn't a good fit and I didn't have the capacity. I made a decision a couple of years ago that I wasn't going to do production anymore, and he'd asked me to produce a whole series of films. And, and they were very, very persistent, and I was very clear that I didn't have capacity.

Now, I said no to that. And.

Actually, you know, the.

That particular job, I priced myself out of the game.

And that was okay, you know, because previously we'd done a project and I passed it on to one of my clients and I presented and they produced everything. But the second time they came back to us, they wanted to do it for less money, and I just said no. And it was okay because they came back to me two years later and said, oh, we've got this thing. Can you do it? And it happened to be a good opportunity at the time for me, and I wanted to do it. And, and I said yes. But saying no doesn't damage your relationship. If you do it in the right way, the worst thing you can do is say, okay, I'll take a look. I might be able to do it. But then when you think about it more, the numbers don't stack up. And then you go from a no from a yes to a no. So if you're going to say no, say no politely, firmly, up front, and move on. It's about not carrying around that kind of indecision in your mind. You know, just be like, is this aligned? And if you're very clear on your purpose, you know, for me, it's like, my purpose is to help with video production companies succeed in business. If an opportunity comes across my plate and it doesn't do that. It's just a. No, it's very, very simple.

Number 20, build relationships. Just spend time building relationships and give first in a relationship. You know, I was thinking back to my early relationship with Sony, which is. Has become over the years, a very substantial and lucrative relationship. And that's been ongoing since about 2004. They still come to me. I did something for them last August.

And even then I was like, look, this isn't really for me. But they insisted and we came to a good deal and it was like a lot of it was on my terms and so I was very happy to do it.

I was working for a rental company back in 2004 when that initial relationship was hatched. I built a relationship with the sales guy at Sony. And at the time, we were helping our clients understand more about.

Tapeless. And I was a real skeptic when the EX1 first came out. And I said this to this guy and he really respected the fact I was a skeptic. So we talked more about it. And 17 years on and almost all my gear, Sony, I still do various projects from time to time, be it a speaking gig or writing some articles, but it's less and less now. I mean, it's not a relationship that I'm. That I've put on the back burner. It's not where my focus is now.

But it took over 15 years, 16 years to develop that relationship. And now if the deal's not right, I'm not afraid to walk away. I did a whole series of speaking gigs for them when I first came to Australia, and I insisted on business class and a hefty fee every day. And they were like, okay, we want you to go and speak at YouTube. So I was like, fair enough. I don't want to get there and be knackered. So I've got to fly business. And we set the terms out and it's always been very straightforward and we've never had any issues. So when you build strong relationships, it means you can build really strong business connections. And if you're always giving first with no expectation of anything in return, then you'll find yourself in a very strong position with great business allies. And then, number 21, ideas are worthless unless executed. Every idea that's ever been created is worthless until it becomes realized and you execute. And that means sitting down, doing some work.

So think about any concept or idea you've got. What are you doing to execute it? Are you keen to build your video business? Are you thinking about building your videos. Do you think that just thinking about it is going to do it? Or do you think maybe executing? Because that is where the magic happens and oftentimes executing in the areas that feel uncomfortable is the challenge. What are the steps that you need to put in place to make your ideas into realities and have you got them harnessed down in priorities? Which one should you do first?

Most people underestimate how long things take.

And are over ambitious with what can be achieved in a short time.

So don't give up too quickly, stay focused and make sure that you execute. So there's just 21 observations from 12 years in business, and there's probably more, but Those are the 21 that I identify as being key and thank you for listening to this podcast. We've been executing this podcast now for two years and we put two episodes a week and I want to take it up a gear this year. So if you know anyone who's interested in being a podcast producer or content writer around the subjects of business and video, please do drop me a message and I look forward to talking to you soon. You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host, Dan Lenny. If you're a video business owner that's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching, then check out how you can work with me over@denleny.com 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. And don't forget to share. If you feel you've gotten value from this episode and you think it would be useful for other filmmakers you know, then please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.