Getting laser focussed on what counts. EP #179 - Shorty

Howdy, guys. Dan here with this week's Shorty on the how to Scale, a video business podcast. I want to jump straight in today because we just had the most amazing coaching call with our Mastermind members. And the thing that, that never ceases to amaze me is that I was talking to a business this morning. It's probably generated close to $100,000 in business in this last month, but not once did that.

Pretend like they had it all figured out or thought there wasn't still something to learn about how to refine the process and do it better. And that, I think is the theme of today's Shorty.

The key is this member is just focused on staying in his lane of genius. And he is an incredible guy, actually, and I won't share who he is, obviously for privacy reasons, but he has really found his place in staying in the genius of what he can do. And it's all very client focused. And I think one of the mistakes I see with businesses that aren't succeeding is that they're chasing too many rabbits. They're trying to do too many things for too many people. They're terrified of going niche, they're terrified of, you know, missing out. And it really creates a lack mindset, a scarcity mindset. And so what I think actually happens is you end up scaring clients away because you're basically like, yeah, I'll do anything at any price for anyone. And that is not a winning combination. The businesses that I see succeeding in a long term strategy for business growth have a clear idea of their place in the market. And when I mean their place in the market, it's like, what are they known for? Why do their customers come to them and why is it that they are seen as the market leader? And this.

It'S called a strategy of preeminence, where you position yourself as the leading voice in the market. You are the authority and the obvious choice to work with because.

You'Re positioned yourself as the expert. This comes from a guy called Jay Abraham, who's a very, very smart, well known, very wealthy marketing coach and mentor. And Jay's strategy preeminence says if you're going to go into the market, be the best, charge the most, and have no one come near you. And it really is, it's true. You know, if you, if you offer an exceptional service product that that creates an intangible result for a client, then you no longer become simply a service provider, you actually become a trusted partner, someone who is integral to the success and growth of that business. And so, you know, the, the key to growth and success is not actually trying to do more with more people. It's actually honing in on your existing clients, your existing market, and doing more to help them succeed. And this is something that we discussed at great length this morning, is that, you know.

By going niche, you don't exclude other industries. It's just that your main marketing focus becomes clearly targeted at the niche you're working in. And I've discovered this more and more recently, that the more targeted you are, the deeper you understand your client, your target market, the more you understand their deep inherent problems. The things that keep them up at night, the things that they have discussions around in meeting rooms and boardrooms months and months and months before they're ever thinking about hiring a camera crew. And if you can enter that conversation in their mind way ahead of time, then you become a factor in that person's mind. Another one of my clients today who has been implementing one of our LinkedIn strategies very diligently for the last 90 days, has secured two projects now. They're worth about six or $7,000. But, you know, that could turn into a $200,000 client over the, over the next two or three years. And so, you know, the effort there has paid off massively. And I think it's all about laser focused effort. You know, when you get a magnifying glass in the sunshine and you allow the sun to focus the energy of the sun onto a piece of grass, it will set the grass alight with a pinpoint accuracy. So using that lens analogy, apply that to your business from a marketing perspective, apply that from a kind of focus perspective, and really start to deploy.

Specific energy onto the areas of your business that, you know, generate results.

And that can be very challenging. A lot of people find that very hard to do. And it's partly because as creatives, we're constantly thinking we have to reinvent the wheel, we have to do something new, when in actual fact, the opposite is true. In business, everything has been done before. You just need to find someone who's done it before and replicate what they're doing now. Within the vba, obviously, what we do is we accelerate that process. It's why it's called the accelerator, because we had eight people on the call this morning, you know, creating phenomenal value for each other, sharing insights, you know, with somebody in Texas, we had someone in Sydney, someone in, you know, California, someone in New York, someone in Melbourne. There's a broad range of experience in the room, sharing perspectives on problems and challenges that every single business faces, whether you're one side of the planet or the other. And that is one of the powers of what we call a mastermind. A mastermind, if you're not familiar with it, is a place where you, you can share information with your peers and that is what perspectives on your peers and that is where you can.

Share.

And discuss problems in a collective. It's like having a board of directors who together come together to help you solve problems. And that is what is so powerful about the mastermind element. So yeah, it was a very, very cool call this morning. They always are co calls. I mean we have these calls every single week for our mastermind members. There's like six hours a month of, of of coaching and mentoring that's live. And it's something that we, we, we find to be the, one of the most powerful values of added, added aspects of the mastermind is not just getting together but the actual live interaction because we're always able to see problems from different perspectives. And like I said before, everything's been done before, all problems have been experienced. So all we're doing is, is making sure that we can add just the right degree of shift from a specific problem and adjust that so that you can like set the right course. You know, if you think about a cruise line or where I live here on the beach, there's lots of big tankers, like big container ships that, that, that, that, that kind of wait to go into the, into the channel for, for Brisbane and you know, you see these giant ships and, and if that giant ship is 1 degree off when it set.

That could make a difference of hundreds if not thousands of miles over the course of a journey. So you know, being very clear on what you should be focusing on and not just one degree off is really, really important. So I'm going to keep that there for this guys because I've got a lot on my plate today and I want to crack on with that. But something to think about. Are you laser focused in the right areas or not? 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 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.