Are you Making Excuses? EP #161 - Shorty

G', day, guys. Dan Lanney here with this week's shorty for the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. We are on episode 161.

I. I'm reading an amazing book just now called Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy. And he was an ad man who wrote this book, I think, in the 80s. Just an amazing read, Amazing read. And I've got a few nuggets to share with you on the show today.

I love reading about other people's success. I think it helps you to model other people's success.

You know, everything that can be done in business has been done. And so, like, you don't actually have to reinvent the wheel. You just need to apply.

You know, what's already been successful in your own business. And so the thing that I always like to do is read something or study something and ask myself the question, how can I implement this into my business or suggest to one of my clients for their business? And there's a number of amazing quotes in this book, but one that I'm going to just share with you is that he says, you know, concentrate your time, your brains, and your advertising money on your successes. Back your winners and abandon your losers. And I just thought it was such a powerful tool.

Because oftentimes you can end up working with people or perhaps having relationships with clients that have gone over for many years. And as your company has grown, it could be that, you know, that client isn't necessarily paying the highest or don't respect your time enough, but you feel this sense of, like, duty because, you know, they've always been with you and you want to make sure that you're, you know, serving them. And that is very noble. But you need to make sure that it's serving you from a profit perspective as well. Which really takes me to today's kind of theme, which is, you know, the fact that you can make money in business or you can make excuses for not making money, but you can't make excuses and make money. And that was something that was taught to me by Ben Simkin, who's been on the show, very successful entrepreneur. And, you know, I suppose, I mean, I don't listen to tons of podcasts, but I know there's a few filmmaking podcasts out there. And, you know, a lot of podcasts that I've. I've come across tend to be very kind of.

You know, they tend to skirt around some of the more, I think, important topics. And I'm not here to judge anyone else's podcast, but but what I've decided, you know, that I find where I sit most comfortably is in being the truth teller. You know, I don't think there's any point in dressing it up. The fact is, you know, to make money in business, you've got to be willing to take full responsibility for everything that happens in your business, good and bad and. And not accept any excuses. And, you know, we had a great planning session this morning, our monthly planning session with our VBA members. And, you know, those guys are just smashing it. One of the first things we do on that call is we ask, you know, people, the people on the call, to note down any accomplishments in the last 30 days and any lessons learned as a result. And it always blows me away just how much success people are having in the group. But it's actually not an accident, and it's not a surprise. It's actually predictable because they follow a process, and that process is one of high accountability, maintaining routine and rhythms. We review and audit every 30 days, and then we set a course for the next 30 days. So it's entirely predictable. It's entirely predictable. And so there's a high degree of ownership. But, you know, I talk to a lot of people who, for various reasons, come into contact with. And it's interesting that there are two distinct groups of people. Those that have all sorts of stories and excuses for why they're not doing better, and the people who take full responsibility and own their success and their failures. And it's fascinating. You know, everyone's on a different journey, but you have to be so vigilant to any default habits around stories around why you're not more successful. There's a simple equation to this, right? If you're not more successful, it's because you're not doing enough. It's as simple as that. It's 100% on you. Because all of the information on how to run a successful business has been written about, gets spoken about.

Is shared for free. The information is not the problem. The problem is your interpretation of it or your implementation of it. And so if you're someone who feels like you should be more successful than you are, and you're blaming other forces, or you're saying you don't have enough money to invest in yourself, just look in the cupboard. All the gear you've got that is sitting currently not making you any money, and that. That is. That is a brutal fact. I mean, I've had some. I've had some horror stories recently about how much money people have spent on gear. And they're not putting anything into their own marketing. It's. It's staggering. So, you know, what you have to do is, is. Is plan every 30 days and review how you're doing. Now. There's a couple of really good books I want to suggest to you this week as well. The Power of Habit Power by Charles Duig is a really great book on why we do what we do in life and business. And another, it really explores the science behind habit creation and reformation. Another really great book, in fact, a book that I probably favor is Atomic Habits by James Clear. And that's a. The subheadling for that is tiny changes, remarkable results. And he talks about, if you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't so much you, the problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again, not because you don't want to change, but because you've got the wrong system for change. You know, you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And so in that book you get a real insight into how to create proven systems that can help you take you to new heights. And that is a heavy emphasis in our Mastermind group is the systems involved in being consistent because it's consistency that delivers the results, nothing else. It's really as simple as that. There aren't any deep, dark secrets as to why you are not more successful. It's the consistency. And you need to be obviously mindful of managing your personal expectations because you're going to have good days and bad days. But if you track the right data, you can adapt and regroup and focus on the right areas. And so the things that you want to be tracking weekly and monthly is revenue. How much did you generate profit? How much did you keep after costs, what your cash flow looks like? Have you got enough fuel in the tank to keep the vehicle moving? And traffic sources? Are you getting your message in front of the right people? And if so, what methods are working the best?

And then, you know, within the Mastermind, we've got weekly tracking and we track all sorts of data around. You know, the specific metrics of, you know, how many people you're reaching out to on LinkedIn, how many website visitors are you getting?

You know, if you've got a funnel running on your website, how many leads are you getting, how many conversations are you having? All these things. And then, and then we look at the constraints, and the constraints could be mostly actually you, you know, you're usually the business owner is usually the constraint that causes the most pain. But it then you've got to optimize, you know, the various parts of you and the various parts of your business, make sure you've got the energy and the executing power and the processes for delivering results and, and tracking progress as you go. And then, of course, implementing that into your business with marketing and prospects and sales and client delivery and delivery of your products and responsibilities. And that is something that you can measure on a weekly basis, but the key is to be committed to tracking it weekly.

And really making sure you're focusing on the right areas of your business.

Because if you don't, you're just going to be putting a lot of energy into the areas that aren't necessarily going to deliver any results. And so I wanted to do that shorty with you this week, just giving you a sense of, you know, what we've been working on this week, but also just to kind of really ask you to ask yourself the question, are you someone who's making excuses for why you're not more successful? And if you are, just look at how much gear is in the cupboard and ask yourself, is that gear actually turning you a profit, or should you be investing in yourself and figuring out if there's a better way? All right, guys, I'll see you on the next episode on Thursday. You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host. If you're a video business owner who'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, 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.