Are you being authentic? EP #153 - Shorty

G', day, guys. Dan Lenny here with this Week's Shorty, episode 153 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. We just finished a call with our members and it's a planning call today. So beginning of every month we do a strategic planning goal, which is to kind of make sure that everyone is on track to really hitting their goals, because we're actually 1/12 of the way through 2020 already. And so the question I'm going to ask you is, are you hitting your targets? Are you 1 12th of the way towards your goal? And do you know?

And if you don't, well, this episode is going to help you because, you know, one of the things I want to talk about today is the importance of tracking monthly and in fact weekly and daily. But we'll get into that. So it's really important that when you're looking to build a business, you, you know, you set up the goals you want to achieve for the year ahead and then you break that down into 12 chunks and you work on your 90 day chunks, three month sections. That is why the business world always talks about quarters, because then you can track how you're doing month to month and how that looks and reflects on the quarter and you can measure that against the previous year. But, you know, what data does is it helps you to get very clear on what needs to be done and in what order. You know, one of the biggest challenges we face is it's constraints. You know, what are the constraints in our business, in life, that we have to deal with. And I think one of the most challenging things is, is managing our own personal expectation. I think it's very easy to put yourself under enormous pressure and perhaps set unrealistic goals. And the truth is, you're going to have bad days, you're going to have weeks when things don't seem to go your way.

But you'll also have good days and you'll have great weeks. And I think as creators, what we have to do is manage that so that instead of it being a kind of roller coaster of emotion, it's much more consistent. And the way we do that is with data. With data, you can review what's going on, you can review how you're traveling, and then you can adapt and modify your effort and your energy in a way that helps you to get really clear on what needs to be done. And so you first of all have to optimize yourself and get very clear on where the constraints are in yourself. And I've had a number of Calls recently with prospects for the VBA and had a bit of a run where there was just a lot of people I was talking to who just weren't really a very good fit. And I was wondering why that was. And I was asking myself the question, analyzing and reflecting, why are these people reaching out for support, but yet why are they not. Why are they not aware of kind of what a dire situation their business might be in? And I think that's because.

As storytellers, we often tell ourselves stories.

We've got to be really careful not to feed ourselves a story that we're okay, when in fact, the data is telling us a different story. So if you measure your progress based on data, and the most obvious data is your revenue and your profit, if you're tracking how much revenue you're making each month.

And how much expenses you have, your profit is what's left over.

But another area that I've been noticing a really interesting shift with some of the calls I've had has been authenticity and a lack of authenticity. And it's been really fascinating because I'm fascinated by human psychology and human behavior. I look at my members and I go, why are my members killing it? Smashing goals, doubling and tripling their business? And other people are like, oh, no, I'm okay. I think we'll be okay. Hopefully that work will come in. There's a lot of blind faith, a lot of blind hope that I think it's really interesting to just observe. And it's all I'm doing is just observing it. You know, we're very, very particular about who we work with. And that's not some sort of full scarcity. It's because we've created an amazing culture in our programs, and we only want to work with people who are open to the fact that there's still work to do and there's a lot to learn. I'm reading a book just now called Ogilvy on Advertising, written in the 80s by David Ogilvy from Ogilvy and Mather, very famous advertising agency. I recently read a book called Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins, which is written in 1927. And all of the things in that book talk about the same things, which is human psychology and how to get the best from people. And some people just aren't ready to hear your message. And that is okay. You know, some clients will not be ready to hear your message. Some clients won't be ready to. To spend and invest with you at the level that you position yourself in the market. And that is okay. Because you cannot help everyone. You cannot help everyone. But, but what you can do is be authentic. Be authentic to yourself. And one of the areas that I'm interestingly concerned about and I'm concerned from the point of view. I'm fascinated by the psychology behind it. I'm seeing an increasing number of businesses, video businesses, that portray that they have a big team up front. You know, it's like, here's our team and there's like 10 people. And yet when, when it comes to the crunch, and I see behind the curtain a little bit, they may be only making a couple of grand a month and they're living in a rental house with some friends. And what's going on in reality is very different from the perspective that they're portraying.

And I don't think people are buying it. I think people can smell inauthentic behavior. And so what I wanted to kind of share with you is that wherever you are at in your journey, just be authentic. Be yourself. Don't try and pretend you're an agency when you're a one man band. Because I don't think people buy it. I think it's fairly obvious, scratching a piece off the surface that actually.

That is not the case. And I think it's a really dangerous precedent to set. If you're willing to lie about how your business operates, which is kind of what it is, then how does that, how does that sit in terms of a moral compass to how you're going to work with the client? If a client finds out, which they will, that you are a one man band and you don't have an office and you don't have a team of 10, how do you think that's going to reflect on you when they find out? Because I think it's a, it's a real issue with trust. And I think there's, there's. And maybe it's just some of the people I've been talking to recently, but I've seen this kind of trend where people are pretending to be something they're not in the hope that a client will see that and go, hey, they look like the real deal. Let's go and let's go and work with them. I think clients are far more sophisticated than that. And so I want to caution anyone and make this clear. There is no judgment here. I'm just saying I'm observing a lot of this in the market. And what I want to encourage you to do is to be authentic, be who you are. If you are a one man band who Hires contractors. Tell your clients, look, I'm a one man band, but I hire contractors. But that's to keep costs down and overheads down, which means we can put more of the money on screen. One of the areas that I think you've got to be careful of is that if you try and portray this sense of like you're more successful than you are.

You might end up shooting yourself in the foot because.

You know, the client might be like, well, they've got 10 people on the team, they're going to be expensive, so I'm not going to hire them. And the other thing I'm seeing is a lot of.

I don't want to say amateurs, but a lot of people who are not in video production full time, but they have a video business website which gives the impression that they are. And I think that is really dangerous for the wider industry and I think it's dangerous for the reputation of video production in the industry. And you know, this may not be a popular thing to talk about, but hey, you know, it's, I think something I want to share. It's, it's like, I think there's a thread in our community who, who are willing to do anything to get in front of a client and I think it's, it could be damaging.

I'm not worried about it because I think those authentic businesses, businesses that are open to, to being upfront, will succeed and thrive. And so, you know, I just, I just wanted to kind of share that observation with you and have you consider, you know, how are you portraying yourself in the market? Are you someone who's being authentic or are you, you know, putting footage on your website that isn't really yours? Are you someone who, who shoots a project and then puts on your website and makes it look as if you're, you know, ambiguously kind of produced the whole thing? I think, I don't think that's cool. I think that's very inauthentic. I think that's, that's just lying. And I think if you have to lie to get work, that that's not a great start to any relationship. I think it's important that if you are putting someone on your website that that is, you know, something you've contributed to that you say, you know, I contributed this in this role or I worked with this project in this capacity. I think it's dangerous to, you might burn bridges with the client who's actually made the work and you might burn bridges with an agency that you've worked with. So be really careful. Be really careful about stuff that's on your website. You know, if you approach a niche or a niche that you want to work with and you're really good at doing that thing, you won't have any worries about getting work. I work with a lot of clients who have really incredible businesses work. None of them are having to kind of pretend that they're bigger than they are. They're just helping their clients achieve an outcome. And that's really what I encourage you to do. Get really focused on knowing what it is you do that helps your target market achieve an outcome. And focus on that and help them achieve that outcome and you'll get all the success you ever need. And just be authentic. That is. That is the like my kind of theme of today's slight rant. It's like, be yourself, be authentic. Don't lie to get work because it's just not cool. Anyway, guys, I will talk to you on Thursday. 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 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. Sam.