Creating Strong Business Foundations. EP #188 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. It's Dan Lenny here, host of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. Just turn that music down a little bit. It's a little bit high. Here we are with another episode of the how to Scale a Videos podcast. Can't even put my teeth up today. Trying to do too much at once. This is episode number 188. And a week ago, I said I was going to do some themed episodes around the eight growth accelerators, the eight core areas that we've discovered working with our clients in the video business accelerator and watching them double and triple revenues and profits in as little as nine months. And I've been studying my members and looking at what they're doing differently and how they're implementing the training, training that we share so that we can help them to continue to do that, to grow sustainably, consistently without burning out. And so last week we talked about.

Managing and improving belief systems, being at the absolute core of that foundation. And this week I wanted to talk About Growth Accelerator 2, which is creating strong business foundations. You know, it's not really your fault because no one teaches you how to run a business, right? It's something that we learn along the way. Most of us begin as freelancers and sort of fall into running a business, but oftentimes we are running a business with that freelance foundation at our core. Part of our belief system is that that's how we run a business. And so what we discovered working with many, many, many, many, many dozens of filmmakers very closely is that if you want to grow and succeed as a business owner, then you have to develop a business owner mindset and shed the freelance business owner mindset. As a freelancer, we take anything from anyone at any time, and typically we are given a rate for the job, and that's what we do. So the way you shift into being a business owner is you get to set the, the rates for the job and you get to decide how much you're going to earn on a project. And it's not simply a case of just dishing out a day rate. It's much more involved in that. So the first place to start when migrating from.

More of a freelance model to a business owner model is to get very specific and very clear about your purpose.

Because if you don't, you'll be pounding a treadmill forever in mediocre mode.

So I want you, if you take nothing away from this episode other than that, make it that, get very specific about your purpose. You know, ask yourself, like, what are your personal goals? What Is your purpose? Why do you exist as a person? Why do you exist as a business? What is the reason that you do what you do? Because it goes beyond just, hey, I like filming. And if you do just like filming, then, then please just remain as a freelancer. That's totally cool. It's just a decision. But if you don't know where you are now and what you want, how can you possibly know what you need to do to trigger growth in your business? So getting very clear about what you want is important and it's something that you may never have done before. So, you know, do you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in your business? Have you written that down? Do you know what that looks like? You know, do you want to leave a legacy for your kids or do you want to leave an impact on the world? You know, do you want to leave. Leave the world in a better place than you found it? You know, and sure, it's a lot to get your head around, but these are some of the questions you need to ask yourself because, you know, an idea is just an idea until it's executed. So getting super clear about what drives you. For many years, I was very selfish. I used to just love going out and filming and making beautiful images and helping people tell stories. That was my, I guess, my freelance purpose. Whereas nowadays, you know, my purpose is to help other videos producers succeed. And I get such a huge kick out of doing that. Yes, I run a business. Yes, we charge for our services, but we also do an awful lot of free content and awful lot of value content. And if, you know, you're listening to this and you just take something away and implement it. And all I wanted to know is like, how did it go? What kind of results did you get? I'd love to hear from you. Because, you know, implementing what you learn is the difference between success and failure. You can consume bucket loads of content, you can read tons of books, but if you don't action any of it, then you're kind of buggered. You know, you're not going to get anywhere. And so getting super clear on what you want from life is really cool. And the way we do that in the VBA is we have a visioning exercise where we actually create a vision board for what you want your ideal life to look like. And when you use images to do that, you, you can start to break down what that looks like in terms of costs. And once you know what that looks like in terms of costs, then you can say, well, you Know, how do we actually achieve that in terms of business revenue and business profits? And we'll talk a bit more about that in next week's episode. So, I mean, like, you know, what does your version of success look like? Not everyone wants to drive a Porsche or live in an eight bedroom mansion. Most people and most filmmakers want to be comfortable and look after their family and not have any money worries. But success to you might mean owning a Red Epic or an Alexa, whatever it is. You have to design success through your lens. You have to define what it looks like to you, because what's different to you is different to me. My idea of success is living by the beach in Australia, where I live in eternal summer. And that was an idea I had 23 years ago and executed on it over a number of years in various forms. But in the last 10 made it a reality. And for six we've been doing it. I got very clear about what I wanted and focused everything I did on making that a reality. And like the vision board exercise, you know, you should go and do that anyway. Pin it up on your desk, have it in your peripheral vision on all day, every day. And then any decision that you have to make towards your business becomes rooted and anchored in that vision. And you will start as you. I mean, this may seem like out of touch now, but you might find yourself in a position where you can say no to work. I mean, I have clients now who, who say no to work. I mean, it's become something they do. They know exactly who they want to work with, exactly how they want to serve them, exactly the terms at which they want people to work with them. And if they don't fit into those terms, they simply say, sorry, we can't help you, but I have people we can pass you on to. And that's really the nirvana. So until you become clear on your purpose, you're kind of shooting blind. Or worse, you risk wasting time and effort in a disorganized spiral of procrastination.

And you'll be kind of contemplating what to do, when to do it, which is the best route to take. Oh, I'm not sure if I should do this. I'm not sure if I should do that.

And you'll be exhausted because you'll be riding the never ending rollercoaster of the feast and famine of freelancer life. But if you get this right and you have a clear motivation every day and always be focused on your desired outcomes, whether it's reducing your hours, time, doubling your revenues, or building your own Version of a video empire. Having clear clarity around what you need to do is key. And those foundations are purpose and mission. So purpose is, you know.

Why do you get up every day? What is it that drives you to make films to help clients achieve outcomes? Write it down, try and put it into a sentence. You know, we help target market achieve desired outcome. Or with our unique offer, you want to be able to share that. You know, on, on our website we have a variation of that and it's, it says spinning up here, work less, achieve more and finally feel in control with the only coaching program on the planet tailored to video business owners. So work less, achieve more and finally feel in control is the outcome. That is the outcome we promise you. You know, do you want to work less? Do you want to achieve more? Do you want to feel in control of your business?

You know, with the only coaching program on the planet, that's our offer. It's a coaching program tailored to our target market, video business owners. Then we talk about, you know, going from chaos to clarity in your production business with a tried and tested blueprint from the world's baldiest filmmaker and DP to the stars. And our bullet points are stop working long hours only make little progress, reduce your stress levels and unpredictable income and learn proven processes that will grow your business faster. That is our purpose. Our purpose is to help video business owners achieve more, work less, and finally feel like they're in control of the business. And we do that through our coaching program which is the video business accelerator mastermind and a video business accelerator foundation. That is what we do. We also offer some one to one coaching for those businesses that need that one to one. But the mission is the same, the purpose is the same. Now the mission to just differentiate between the two is the financial goal, it's the revenue goal, it's the number of people we want to work with, this number we want to reach and the timeframe for doing that. Because without that financial goal, it's not a business. And a business, the way you measure success in the business is through a financial metric, but also a number of clients metric. We've got a goal for the number of clients we want to work with. We've got a goal, we're going to cap that in the mastermind so that there's an intimate feel in that group. But those are just some of the basic foundations. Then from there you want to start thinking about, you know, well, what else is important, you know, how do you want to be perceived in the marketplace, which part of the market do you want to work with? Because.

It'S not possible to serve the entire market. You know, from a marketing perspective, when we say things like, you know, oh, I want to serve anyone who's in corporations, who's in medium sized businesses, that's not specific enough. Whereas if you say I want to work with healthcare and medical device companies in the US but predominantly focusing on the Boston.

Area of the US that's very specific. And it helps you to target your opportunities, it helps you work in a more narrow field. And, and you know, you, you simply can't as a filmmaker, be available to film the whole world. I mean, I see this a lot. You know, our clients are businesses that don't actually list where they're based. Most people want to know where you're based and if they, if they love what you do, they'll fly you whatever they need to fly you. Bit trickier just now, of course, but the point being is you've got to get very, very clear on what you do, who you do it for and where you do it. And this is a big mistake I see a lot of businesses make is that they don't have an address on their website, so no one knows where they are. And that all that does is create skepticism. It's like, well, why haven't they got the name or email address or physical address on their website?

So, so that's number one. But, but really getting very clear on what you want from your business is absolutely key because once you know what success means to you, you know, I've got clients who, who, who want to work four days a week because they want to spend time with their kids. And they've built a business that's allowed them to step back from editing, for example, focus on business development. And now they're tripling and quadrupling their business as a result. So one of the byproducts of stepping back from being involved in every aspect of your business and actually getting clear on what you want and who you want to do it with and how you want it to look is that you end up finding yourself in your own lane in a much better way. So as a freelancer, we tend to do everything. We do our own marketing, we do our own producing, we do our own directing, we do our own shooting, we do our own editing, grading the works. And it can be overwhelming. And what I see time and time again when people do this is they hit income ceilings because they can't get past it because they're doing everything themselves. Whereas when you get clear on your purpose of what you want to achieve, we can start to work out, well, how can you remove yourself from some of the kind of the technical elements of what you're doing? How can you remove yourself from being the engineer, from being the technician? You don't need to cut everything that you should. I was having a chat with Pat the other day, one of my clients, and he said, you know, right at the beginning, I felt I had to be involved in every edit. And he said, now I barely touch them because I've trained my team, we've built systems, and we've got great talent to help us. And there are so many freelancers scratching around for work. It's phenomenal. So you're never going to be short of great, talented people. And if you want to build your business and you want to be a business owner, then. Then spend some time getting very clear on what it is you want from your business, how you want your business to look, how you want to help people and impact people. And I guarantee that will give you the stepping stones.

To moving into kind of creating a strategic plan to execute on. And so next week, I'm going to talk in the podcast about creating that strategic plan and helping you to get clear on how you take these. These purpose and mission statements and turn them into a plan so you can actually start to see a stepping stone, a map, if you like, a GPS to achieve your goals. All right, guys, I'll talk to you next week. 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. We benefit from mentorship, support, and coaching. Then check out how you can work with me over@denlenny.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 group that you might be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.