Are you ready & prepared to Get back into production? - Shorty EP #92

G', day, guys. Dan here on Tuesday 26 May, week 22 of 2020. That puts us almost halfway through the year, which is pretty scary.

So I want to ask you a question today about how you are preparing for.

When we come out the other side of COVID.

Because things are starting to open up again, which is pretty cool for a lot of video businesses. And I want to ask you today.

How are you preparing for when we come out the other side of this? Things here in Australia are definitely easing off. And I can see things are opening up in other parts of the world, which means a new reality for how we go about producing video content.

But I guess the bigger question is, you know, how are you preparing for the new opportunities? Because there are certainly a lot of opportunities out there. Some of my clients have been. Literally one client had their biggest month ever last month during coronavirus. And so I think what's important to consider when looking at these kind of things is how are you approaching this? Are you approaching it with the lack mindset or with an abundance mindset? And my preference is always with abundance. It's like, you know, what can I do to support the market just now with video content? And while there's no doubt been impact, I think there's several things that have happened during this crisis. One is you. Some people just reframing their business, perhaps looking at the market in a different way, perhaps reframing in terms of looking at different parts of the market.

And I think it's really important to sort of dig back into your values. You know, what's important to you? What do you love to do? One of the things that we do right at the beginning of anyone joining our accelerator program is that we look at purpose and mission and values. And what does success look like to you? Because success is. Isn't the same for everyone else. It might be for. For me or for you or for someone else. You know, success is something that's very personal to you, and it's very important when you're building a business to be very clear on why you're building it. What is it you're looking to achieve? You know, yes, generating income and cash flow is a very important part of that, but it may not be what's driving you. It might be something else. I want to encourage you to think about that. And while you're on that subject, think about, you know, who do you love to work with?

All too often I see businesses, you know, video businesses particularly, just want to kind of like serve everyone. It's like, we'll make video for anyone at any time. And the trouble with looking to try and appeal to everyone is that you actually end up talking to no one with your marketing. And you might be saying, well, Dan, I don't bother with marketing. I just get by with word of mouth. Well, I don't think that's going to be as reliable as it was. The industry is going to be very, very different after this. In fact, I was talking to Mick Jones, who's been on this podcast just at the weekend. And Mick and I have known each other almost 10 years now, since the heady days of the Revenge of the Great Camera shootout in Chicago with Zacuto and Kessler. And we've watched the industry change a lot. And, you know, there's definitely going to be an impact on some people in the market who were kind of hanging by a thread anyway. Now what this means is that if you are a solid business owner, someone who's actually got a solid offer, a solid client base and a great product, you're going to be very, very busy from here on in. So you've got to be prepared for that. And what I want to recommend is that, you know, just. Just taking everything for the sake of everything is not a great strategy.

Putting aside the, you know, the fact that you may need to be generating cash flow, but there are ways in which you can do that. So one of my clients has, has sort of seen the opportunity with Coronavirus to, to offer a different service. And he was actually offering local businesses video for, you know, a thousand bucks. But what he's done is he's generated some interest in the community with this offer. Now he normally does 20 to $30,000 videos, so it's not something he wants to pursue. But what he's recognized is there's an opportunity there to go out and serve that market. So he's actually building an arm of his business to satisfy that aspect, that part of the market. And what that will do is it will service that part of the market. He's going to come up with some really smart ways to provide that service and offer some upsell for a part of the market. He'll want to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a video. But the really smart thing is afterwards he'll be able to start looking at his clients, will see the other work that he does and consider maybe we should do some other higher profile work or higher budget work. So it's a great way to feed in. But the cool thing is his team is going to make the lower Price content so he can focus on business development and strategy and maintaining his relationships with his higher level clients. So, you know, I think we got to look at this like you would an airline might be a terrible analogy just now, but you know, airlines sell economy seats. They sell premium economy seats, business class and first class seats. And in some cases a first class seat can be up to 12 times as much money as an economy seat, yet both people get to the destination at the same time. But it's the level of service which is different. And so I want to encourage you to think about, you know, not all clients are created equally. Just because a client pays you money doesn't mean you should treat them all equally. And this is sometimes a bit of a struggle for people to get their head around. But if someone's paying you 12 times more than someone else, they should get way much more of your, of your attention. Way much more terrible, terrible expression. But you know, you don't give someone the same attention when they're paying a hundred doll as if they're being $1,200 or $12,000. So you've got to manage your client base based on resources and how much they're paying. Really, that's how it works. If someone's paying you an awful lot more money, then they should get an awful lot more of your attention. And sometimes I think some videographers have trouble with this. But the fact is, that's how it works in the commercial world. You get what you pay for. And if someone's willing to invest a lot of money, they're going to get more of your attention. Which takes me to the next point, which is look at your market and do a kind of audit of your customers and look at who's spending money with you regularly and make sure it's profitable. And ask yourself the question, if I had to start again and cull 30% of my clients, who would go. Oftentimes.

It can be very hard to let go of clients. Because if you come from a freelance background where kind of every, every job counts, you don't want to say no to anything. You can get into a very bad habit of saying yes to the wrong clients. And until you actually start to evaluate your clients like, it's okay to let go of them. I remember way back in the days when we did DVDs and downloads for camera tutorials, you know, when we were selling those for $130 a time, we had great clients. When we started selling them for $49, we had more and more problems. People Less generally are a bigger pain in the ass. And when people pay, they pay attention. When people pay more, they tend to become better clients who behave themselves, who follow the process and respect your time. And what I see from time to time is videographers who are very, very busy all the time. And they're always saying how busy they are and they have no time. They're running around chasing after clients, and that's because they're. They're not qualifying those clients properly and they're treating every client equally. So I want you to think about that as you come out of coronavirus and the lockdown. You know, how can you change your business? How can you adapt what you're doing? You know, for many of us, there's been a break from filming where you've actually had an opportunity to sit back and go, well, what do you want to do? So reevaluate what it is exactly you want to do and who you want to do it for. And I think you'll find that.

You will end up with a more harmonious life and easier clients. And that really is a choice that you can make as a business owner. And I think it's one. It's part of the maturing of your video business when you can start to pick and choose who you work with because that really will start to help you to have a more fulfilled life and do work for clients that you really want to work with. And if there is a lower price point in your. In your offering, then consider, like subbing out or bringing a more junior member of the team into to handle that. And I think that way you will. You'll find yourself in a much, much stronger position. Anyway, a bit of a ramble today. I just wanted to drop in and say g' day and hope you're okay. On Thursday, we have Andrew McLean, Sydney video producer, on the show. I'm really excited to share Andrew's interview. He's actually a client of mine, but he's been. He's got a really unique way he approaches his video business and he's going to come on the show and share that with you. So, guys, have an awesome day and 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 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 favour and share it on social media and engagement groups that you might be in. See you next week.