3 questions every freelancer should be able to answer. EP #168 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. Dan Lenny here, host of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. Episode number 168, 25th of March today, and we are one quarter of the way through 2021. So how is your year going? Are you one quarter of the way through your strategic goals, your financial goals, your revenue? That's what I want to talk about today because we need to track these things, and it's already one quarter of the way through the year, so time to sort of knuckle down and see how you're going.

So we're 13 weeks into the year.

So with one quarter of the way into 2021, I thought it's a great opportunity to reflect.

How you're doing. How is your plan going for the year? Now, if you're fortunate enough to be inside one of my programs, then we are big on strategic planning and we hold you accountable to that. If you're not, then I hope that today's session will give you some food for thought. Because the problem that we face as creatives, and we can all experience this, is the inability to stay focused on one thing. We're very easily distracted. You know, you only need to pop onto B and H looking for a lighting stand, and 25 minutes later, you've looked at everything from, you know, reds to new, new lights and sound gear that you decide that you need suddenly. So what I want to do is pose a sort of question to you about efficiency, and more importantly, how effective are you? Because until you're actually ready to be really honest with yourself, you are not going to reach your goals and the objectives that you set for yourself. You know, as Jocko Willink would say, it's extreme ownership. So first question is, how efficient are you? And this has come about as a result of doing my own audit on my own efficiency.

Now, the first step in any process is having a strategic plan and working out what it is you actually want to achieve. Just a couple of days ago, I talked about the power of vision boards and moving into our new home. And I've talked about this many times before on the podcast. But if you've got a very clear purpose of why your business exists and what purpose it does it do to serve the world that you're in, your business community, people that you're targeting.

Is your business different enough from someone else's to provide a service that the community and the business community that you're targeting actually want and need, that's really critical. And then what's your point of difference? This is really important when you look at your commercial objectives, so you take your purpose, which is your reason to exist as a business minds, is to help video production companies scale fast and succeed. It acts as a filter. So any opportunities that come across my way, I had someone recently reach out saying, oh, could you just do this, like, little interview for me? And I was like, no, I can't. So I passed it on to Ben Amos Co. Innovate Media, and they're looking after it because it wouldn't serve my purpose. Now, when you take your purpose and you turn it into a commercial objective, that's a critical stage because, you know, you need to be clear on what you want to achieve commercially. Because this is not a hobby. Right. We've got to start with a number. You know, how much money do you want to make? What is the turnover you're aiming for? And how are you going to split that up across the year? You know, if you want to make 250,000 this year, then that's, you know, over 10,000amonth, 20,000amonth. Sorry.

So how do you generate that 20,000amonth? So.

Well, let's just take 100,000 as a round figure for argument's sake. So let's say Your goal was 100,000 for this year. It's probably more, but if we take the fact we're now one quarter of way through the year, then you should already have made 25,000 this year. Now, these are arbitrary numbers, but if you haven't made 25,000, then you're not on target. So you need to work harder in the next quarter to make up the difference. But you can see the importance of tracking and measuring. If you're not able to know where you are at any given time, then you're simply never going to reach your goals. You have to be able to measure what's going on. And so I'm going to talk a bit about some apps and some other details that will really help you get on top of that. But I really want to talk about the journey that I've been on and share that with you, because I never want you to feel at any point that I've got this all figured out. I'm just probably further down the road than perhaps you might be. Maybe you're further down the road than me, I don't know.

But what I want to do is always share things with you in this podcast that I think will help you to get to that next stage. No one ever has everything fully figured out. Okay. And the entrepreneurial journey is always about failure, learning from the mistakes and moving on, and progression. You know, it's all about progress. So how efficient are you? The first thing I've been doing this month is actually looking at are doing a digital efficiency analysis. And so what I've been doing is auditing the apps I'm using and getting rid of things that I'm no longer using. Now. I previously had a lot of different filmmaking tools, which I don't have anymore because I've stopped doing production. But think about the apps you're using. You know, if you're using Adobe, for example, then great. But if you're paying a subscription for Adobe and not using it, then why would you keep paying for it? I was using Adobe Cloud for a while, and it was like 50 quid a month. And I'm like, is that a good investment?

But the fact is, I was using more Final Cut Pro and I was only using Adobe for a couple of different things, so I canceled it.

Now, I've heard stories that if you go to cancel Adobe, they'll reduce it for you. I don't know if that's still the case, but I was never really a big Adobe user. I was always into Final Cut Pro and Resolve. But I did work out. I was using about 25 different apps in my business at that time. I did the audit, and so I wanted to kind of go through them and work out how many of those apps are still relevant. So in the marketing side of things, I had lead pages for a While. I had ClickFunnels and I had Unbounce. And those were three apps that kind of fundamentally do the same thing at different stages. I'd invested them for different reasons, but now I use exclusively use Unbounce. And we're building a new WordPress site, and we use Kajabi for our content delivery. So I realized I didn't need clickfunnels and lead pages and save myself $200 a month. Because, you know, it might only seem like 100 bucks a month is not a big deal, but that's $1,200 a year. And if you're using four or five of those apps, that's $5,000 a year in your profit that you're using on apps. And the way these apps are sold is that it's like this kind of incremental monthly. You don't really notice it, but of course it starts to add up. So if you're spending, you know, $5,000 a month on apps, you've got to be really clear that those apps are serving you. So doing some sort of efficiency audit is a really good starting point, you know, to kind of really understand what you need, what you don't need, and cut the services you're no longer using. You know, I got rid of leadpages.

And, you know, it just saved a lot of money. The thing about this process is, like, it's just right. If you. If you're doing your books properly, every month you should get a report from your accounting software or your bookkeeper, which shows you where the money's going. Go through that every month and just cut stuff you're not using. Because cutting services won't only reduce costs, but actually reduces some of that emotional overwhelm that we can feel when we feel there's just too much going on. I used to have it myself. I'd have. I had multiple websites, multiple email addresses, and it was just getting too much. I had multiple platforms for measuring and tracking different things. And as technology evolves, apps improve. And then someone says, oh, you should check out this app. It's really great. But sometimes we can get lost in kind of, you know, the weeds of Aptum, where it's like, you know, some people like Frame IO, some people like Vimeo, some people like, you know, other. Other apps that do a similar thing. You know, you've got to just find the one that works for you. But, you know, do you need frame I.O. and Vimeo? Um, you know, you could do your client reviews on Vimeo if you want to. And I'm not saying that one's better than the other. You got to find, you know, the one that works for you, but just make sure you're not doubling up or tripling up. So looking at what services you're actually using and which ones you're not will really help you to refine not just your financial implications of what's going at the door each month, but also reduce some space in your head. Because one of the things I've been observing is that it's very easy to get overwhelmed with all the different apps that are on my desktop at one time. And so I got rid of them all. So if an app is not helping you achieve more in less time or making you money, then it's simply a cost and a burden. So do an audit review and if necessary, get rid of it.

So, you know, that's the first thing. The other thing is getting very clear on your marketing. You know, what marketing is working for you. If you're doing something that's working, you know, you don't need to be everywhere. You really don't. Our marketing channels are largely Facebook and LinkedIn and the podcast. This is a marketing tool.

So, you know, you don't need to be everywhere at all times, getting very clear on your offer and knowing exactly who you're talking to. That's where I put some effort. You know, can you refine your offer? Can you really nail down the absolute ideal client you'd like to work with? Because this is something that is hyper, hyper critical, and it's something that has, I feel people have the most resistance to. Getting very clear on who you want to do business with is. Is key because then you're talking to one person in one market. And so, you know, you want to be making your business the number one place that your market comes to, because you are the expert, and it's as simple as that. So then you can think about your products and services.

And processes in place to attract more of those clients and ultimately add more value to their lives, which will add more freedom to your life. And I've been doing this, you know, 26 years, and in the last 11 years, I've been running a business. And it's really only in the last year that things have really started to grow. And I've spoken to entrepreneurial friends who say, that's totally normal. Like, it takes seven to 10 years to put the assets in place and to learn the lessons to run a business effectively. And year 11, things started to really grow. I mean, we doubled our business last year. So. But I'm working four days a week. So I'm working less, but making more, because I'm very, very focused on my market and serving them, and they are my absolute priority. And then doing this podcast every week and two episodes a week means that we're able to create a constant freemium value based on engaging tool that some members will. Some listeners will go, you know, I want some more help. I want to do this faster, so let's have a chat. You know that that's what typically happens. So, you know, are you offering too many services? Are you trying to target too many clients? Because each product and service really needs its own marketing campaign, and you want to be talking directly to that market. And if, even if you're just trying to chase two different rabbits in your business, then you're splitting your time 50, 50 between each. And this is the thing that most video business owners struggle with, is getting really focused on one core target market.

You only need one funnel, one market, one offer to make a million bucks. You really Do. So be very clear that you don't need to be.

Doing everything for everyone. So I want to talk a bit about how to tackle overwhelm. Overwhelm comes when you're just overloaded with tasks, overloaded with ideas, and you don't have any structure and discipline surrounding the order in which you're going to tackle those. So what you've got to do is understand the clarity around the plan that you have. And I mean, that's another topic for another session. But generally speaking, people are overwhelmed because they're not organized enough.

If something gets measured, it can be tracked and it can be improved upon if you're just sticking your finger in there, licking it, and hope the wind will blow in a certain direction. That's a very broad approach to measurement. And a lot of people just don't focus enough on knowing the numbers, knowing the metrics that count. And I'm talking about, you know, how many inquiries are you getting a week or a month? How many of those inquiries are turning into customers? Are you able to have predictability in those jobs? I hear it time and time again, people win a big job, they go hell for leather into it, they drop the ball on the marketing, the job finishes and they haven't got any more work coming in. And it's just what I call a cycle of failure, just continually doing the same thing, hoping that things will change. So you've got to start embracing the idea of tracking and measuring. It's made an enormous difference in my life and the life of the clients I work with who've embraced it. I want you to feel this level of freedom because I don't experience much overwhelm in my life anymore. And we just moved house and it was full on.

But I've learned the skills and the tools to handle it and process and not. Not try and do everything at once. So, you know, there are still days when I get a bit overwhelmed. It happened last week when I had a day where there was just we. We hadn't organized removal lists. The letting agent for our current house was like, what day are you leaving? We were trying to coordinate carpet cleaners and bond cleans. I was trying to get the garage floor ground and epoxy and then work that out so the epoxy would be dry so that the truck could come in and deliver the furniture. It was full on. And on Thursday last week, I was just like overwhelmed by like 2 o' clock and I was exhausted and I just sat down, I read a book, and then I went and had A nap for an hour, and then I went to yoga. So for four hours, I just looked after myself, and it made enormous difference. Then on the Friday, I was completely fresh. I only work a half day on a Friday. I was up at 6, and I was done by midday. And it allowed me to kind of get back to center. So, you know, it's really important to come back to center. But one of the things that you can do when you're feeling overwhelmed is this question. How much time are you spending on. On. On different areas of your business? And if you actually track what you're doing versus what you think you're doing, and it can be quite. Quite an interesting journey to go on. So what I can suggest is download something called Rescue Time. It's free. It stalls onto your machine and onto your phone. And whenever you work in your phone or your computer, it's tracking what you're doing, and it's tracking what apps you're using, and then you get a report. And so it will show you your productivity for the last day and week. And it will show you when you're distracted, it will show you when you're productive. And so.

It'S quite. It's quite sobering. You know, this was one particular week that I was tracking, and it said that I had, you know, done.

57 productivity pulses. I'd spent in one week, seven hours. Seven. Seven and a half hours being very productive, five and a half hours being very distracted, three hours being neutral, and 48 minutes with productive time. And I'm like, wow.

So it measured 57 tasks that I did over the week. That's Monday through Sunday. And that week, my best productivity was 7 hours, 27 across the week, which doesn't sound like very much. And it wasn't. This was back in March of.

2018. I did this test.

And. And the thing about tracking and measuring is you can't argue, I mean, like, with the numbers. I mean, I feel I'm a pretty productive person and I measure this kind of thing. And I was distracted for five and a half hours that week, during my work week. And I was like, wow. So I was being productive for two hours a day. And I was like, that's insane. What am I doing with the rest of the time? And you might be in the office for 6, 8, or 10 hours. The amount of time you've actually been productive is staggeringly low, unless you start making improvements now. My productivity time now is much more focused. I probably work four to six hours a day, and I'm probably productive for four hours of those days.

So once you know the benchmark, you can start to make improvements and you know, you can break down rescue time into days and see which days are most productive. At this time I was looking back and I did some work on, I was working Sundays back then. So I did nearly three hours of productive work on a Sunday, probably because it was quiet and there was no distractions. And you know, I used to work a Sunday or a Saturday and put a couple of hours and be really focused. I've reached A point now, 11 years in, where I don't need to do that anymore. But even a few months ago, I was still working on the weekends.

On the Monday I had a very productive day. I was in the office for a full on 8 hours and 4 hours of that was very productive time. So.

Obviously it's going to track you when you're on Facebook or YouTube is distracting time. But in fact I could be in there optimizing or creating ads. So it's not, it's not 100% accurate, but it is interesting to see which days are more productive than others. And so if you really want to kind of get deep into this, get into rescue time, it's, it's pretty cool. But it's. You've got to be bold, you know, you've got to be willing to look at the data and then activities, activity reports can be pulled off and you can see exactly where you were spending time. And it's funny looking back at these reports because three years on I'm in a totally different place and so is my business. So when I think back to the financials we were doing back in 2018 and the amount of time I was being distracted, it's neither wonder that I was not doing as well as we are now. So I feel like we are more profitable and generating more revenue now with less effort than I was three years ago. And that's fascinating. So really you have to be willing to explore and be willing to look at where the inefficiencies are happening and accept that there may be some numbers that come up there that are going to terrify you. But once you know what you're actually doing, the more you can track, the more you can stay on top of what you're actually doing, which is productive. So I'd encourage you to install rescue time, make sure that you're actively tracking what you're doing over a month and review that and let me know how you get on. I'd love to know in the comments if you're tracking this, what your benchmarks are and where you need to improve. All right, guys, I'll talk 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, it's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support, and coaching. Then check out how you can work with 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.