Growth Accelerator 6 - Effective delegation Enables Scale

G', day guys. Welcome to another episode of the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. I'm so thrilled that you're here to enjoy another show this week. I'm talking about what happens once you've got more, more sales converted, more business coming in as you scale. You simply can't do everything yourself. But sometimes hiring a team can seem a bit kind of intimidating. But one way to make that a lot easier is to simply start start thinking about a systems mindset in your business that is getting out of your head all the processes that happen that you currently do. So that when you bring someone in, be that a contractor, a freelance or a va, or even a full time member of the team, they've got some indication of how it is your business operates from your perspective. Because as the business owner, you have it all in your head. You know what you want to achieve. So I want to share with you some techniques and how to approach that on this week's episode. And, and before we get into that episode, I wanted to share a little clip with you from Matt, one of my clients. He joined our program a few months ago and attended our first workshop that we did back in July. And we've got another workshop coming up in Melbourne, Australia in October, 3rd and 4th of October. And I'd love to just share with you what Matt's experience was on the in the accelerator program and coming to the events and he's really adopted the systems mindset. In fact, he just spent three weeks at the Melbourne International Film Festival on an accelerator program because he's got a great film accepted for that program and his team ran the business for three weeks while he was away. So I hope you enjoyed this little clip with Matt and then we'll get straight into the episode.

My name is Matt Smolin. I run Balloon Tray Productions. We're a video production company been running for about eight years now. We do everything from TV commercials through to social media content and internal communications as well as music videos and creative projects on the side as well. Day one of the Video Business Accelerator was amazing. There was a lot of information to take in across the whole day, but it was extremely relevant and useful and a lot of tools and processes that I'm now able to take away back to the business and try and implement to grow and develop the business further. I've only just recently joined the program and the reason I was attracted to it in the first place was how specific it was to video production done. You know, been in business for eight years and done a few different business development courses. And worked with different coaches. But seeing how specific it was to my industry and all of the pain points that I had were like, so specifically, oh my God, this is going to help us out was, yeah, it was a no brainer to join. Working with Den has been great. The day he kind of called me up to have a chat about the business and see if it was a good fit all the way through to now has been awesome. He clearly does his research, understands us as much as he can before even contacting. And since then, you know, he asked me questions about things that I was like, where'd you find that information? Like, he's really, really thorough and clearly knows his stuff. He's been doing it for a long time. So I trust that he's got a really wealth of knowledge that we can tap into and use to grow our business. The biggest thing we came to the accelerator with was needing to develop systems and processes and the ways that Den's helped us to break down essentially how to implement that and work that into monthly achievable goals, then weekly, then daily, instantly was something that we could attach ourselves to and go, this is how we can grow and scale and implement those processes that we're lacking. Having one of my team here has been really, really useful. We're not an island. We work together really regularly every day. And so having somebody else understand this process of how we're looking to grow and scale the business and have them on board from day one to implement, that's been really useful to anyone thinking of joining the program. Look into, make sure it's the right fit for you. But as far as video business is concerned, it was a no brainer for us. It's the right pain points that we went. These are the things that we need to work on and these are the solutions that are offered by Den and the Video Business Accelerator. So just do it, jump into it. Do it, guys.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful, successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

Delegation is is one of those topics that I think a lot of creatives really struggle with.

Because we're naturally control freaks. I think you probably agree, you know, we're used to kind of having autonomous control of projects, but of course the obstacle you're going to come across as you scale is that you simply can't do it all Yourself, like I talked about this analogy a few episodes ago. Like, you know, the freelancers, like the guy who builds his own house or her house, you know, and.

You kind of like, you know, you do everything yourself. You do the electrics, the plumbing, the building, and it takes a while, but you learn all these different skills. It's a bit like, you know, being able to shoot and then learning to edit, then learning to color grade and then learning to do sound and then doing some visual effects. It's like you're kind of doing all these trades yourself. And while I think there's a great value in learning and understanding different skills, it's really inefficient to attempt to do everything yourself. And yet what happens often is that freelance mentality creeps in and you go, I'll just do this myself because I can keep more of the money. And like the analogy with the houses, if you build one house and then you get an order for a second and a third and a fourth house, you try and do them all yourself, you'll end up taking longer, not doing as good a job and letting your clients down. So it's the same with production. You know, if you insist on shooting, producing, directing, doing the sound, doing the edit, doing the grade, just to keep all the money, it's a very short sighted approach. So delegation, which IS Growth Accelerator 6, is critical for scale. So I want to share with you some insights that I've gained through delegating responsibility because I was the world's worst control freak. Just ask my wife. You know, it's like I was a nightmare. But I realized that I kept hitting an income ceiling because I was doing everything myself. And I think this is probably a really like, you've got to take a deep breath when you do this kind of thing. You know, it's the toughest part of maturing as a business owner is accepting that you simply can't do everything yourself. But that does mean that you're going to have to think about how you delegate and who you delegate to. And the biggest challenge that I faced was delegating. Without proper systems and processes and structure, I'd often drive by an instruction and throw an instruction at someone when I was stressed and busy and I've got to do this edit, so can you just do X? And of course, people would just end up kind of shaking their head going, what the hell's going on? I have no idea what to do. And I worked with my wife for quite a while and she was pretty good at telling me where I was going wrong and she was absolutely right. But I was so pigheaded and stubborn at the time that it was, you know, it was a challenging time. You know, 14 years on, I've learned, you know, we've learned how to work with each other, which is not to work with each other. You know, it's just like some things are better left separate from your relationship. So the first thing about delegation is communication. It's so hypercritical. And, you know, the longer I'm in my relationship with Sam, the more I learn about communication. And it's a constant. You can never take your eye off the ball. So communication is critical, you know, being very clear about the outcome you're looking to achieve. Not necessarily insisting it's done a certain way, but let the person you're delegating to have the autonomy to figure out their best process for delivering the outcome. So communication coupled with autonomy is great leadership. And you don't want to be managing people, you want to be leading. And that means you're putting yourself out there to set an intention and to encourage a team to work towards a common goal. And this goes right back to Growth Accelerator 1, which is what, which is personal goals, purpose, mission. What does success look like to you? And values and structure. So you want the team that works with you to have shared values. Well, you've got to actually define what those shared values are in order for you to be able to build a team around shared values. So communication autonomy is number one. Values is a really important aspect which should be written down and, you know, up on the wall in your office so that everyone understands what those values are. And then systems and processes. This is huge. My good friend Dave Jennings, who was a guest in this podcast way back episode, maybe eight or nine from System Hub, Dave is the systems guru and he talks about critical client flow. And so the first system you want to build is called critical client flow, which is what happens from the point someone makes an inquiry on your website to them finishing a job with you and then going into your system and everything in between. So systems help you become more creative. I want you to really understand this. Systems help you become more creative because structure and discipline actually sets you free from the chaos that exists when you don't have systems and processes in place. But what's interesting about systems is it's just think about all the tasks you do over and over again. Anything you do more than once can be systemized. Every time you send a follow up email to a client or a prospect or an inquiry can Be systemized. If you want to invest in something like System Hub, which is Dave's platform, you can actually store those systems and have emails attached to them. So whoever's working with you and your business can come in and literally follow the system start number one, have the email templates ready to send and that, that can, can absolutely make your life easier. So anything you do more than once should absolutely be systemized. And you know, you don't want to start stressing too much about the kind of. It's very easy to, to kind of get out of control and think, oh my God, systems are going to be this huge journey and you're going to spend weeks and weeks and months building systems and you're going to be locked into it. You shouldn't be building the systems, you should be building the critical client floor and mapping it out and then having your team build the actual systems. That's the smart way to do it. So I use a bit of software called Draw IO, which Dave recommends to start mapping out systems. And in the first instance you want to just be, you know, literally mapping out like a flowchart what happens in each stage. And then I transfer them to Asana and then from Asana I build, I get the team to build the systems in System Hub. I say I don't do, actually my team does it. But systems and processes really help you to flow. So I'll give an example of a great system. So, you know, client onboarding, having the sales conversation. And I want you to think in terms of systems and departments. Even if it's you're just a one man company or a one person company, think in terms of departments. I want you to think of creating an organizational chart, an organizing chart. How would you organize the flow of work coming into the business? So at the point where the sales is sales is agreed, it gets handed over to accounts. At that point that first stage is a finance stage. So the finance department, now this might be you, but the finance department, what you can say at the sales conversation is look, I'm going to hand this over to sales. Now they will there, they will send you an invoice, 50% upfront and they'll just send your terms of agreement and an upfront invoice. Once that payment's received, they'll give us authorization to start production. So what you do is you split that first stage finance into one step. Then once payment is received and only once 50% deposit has been received, then you can start the creative process, which is the kind of pre production development Stage and that becomes a creative process where you are, you're just working on the creative and once that's all been done and signed off, it moves to production. So it's a production management phase. So you see, you've got the finance phase, you've got the pre production development phase, then you've got the production phase. What? The production phase. Let's see, at the finance phase it's the accounts person or you know, your chief financial officer role who is responsible for that. So your chief accountant or your accounts person, you want to call it. Stage two is the development phase. Well, that would be a creative role. That's the producer who's working with that. Once the idea has been thrashed out, it moves to production and the production phase gets taken over by the production manager or the production management team. They then confirm the shoot details, they book the crew, they secure the locations, they confirm everything. They produce call sheets, they, you work out all the insurance contracts, you know the locations and talent, all of that stuff gets worked out and then it goes to the shoot day itself. And once the shoot has happened, it gets handed over to, to post production. Now at post production stage one, the producer will send the, or the production manager will send the post shoot email saying everything went really well, here's what's going to happen next. From there it goes to the assistant who might ingest the rushes and back up the footage and put them into folders. At stage three, the editor comes in and creates the first cut offline. And the editor and the producer go through the edit revision, send to client, get consolidated feedback, come back more revisions, send to client, get feedback, more revisions, et cetera, till you get final sign off. At final sign off, the producer will then say, okay, here's the master that you've, you've signed off on. It's got a watermark on it. I'm now going to send the, the authorization to accounts and they will invoice you for the remaining payment on production. And once they've received confirmation of payment, they'll send us a message and then your production management, the producer or whoever is involved will release the final master. So building systems is about helping people understand the processes that you use in your business every single time. And that means that anyone joining your team has a really good idea of what that is and what should happen every time. And there's no confusion. That's the thing, there's no confusion. It's very easy to delegate and also to measure when you have systems in place because you have different Stages and different steps. And once you have those steps in place, you can create KPIs key performance indicators where you can measure how well someone is executing the role. So systems and processes help on so many different levels and, and they help you become a better leader. Because as a leader you can say, hey, this is our objective to get these five productions done. We've, we've laid out this systems and process roadmap for you. Please update as you go and if there are any challenges, please let us know. And, and, and from there that's where you can, you know, step back and allow the team the autonomy to deliver the goods. And you don't need to be involved in every step. You can check in on them and ask how things are going, but you don't get involved. If you're going to delegate autonomously, you have to let the team be autonomous and then make sure you meet with them regularly. I mean, I would encourage daily meetings, a daily catch up meeting, three to five minutes. Hey guys, what were your three top challenges yesterday and your objectives? Did you get them done? Were there any bottlenecks? Can I help you with anything? And that releases you from the pressure of having to kind of sit across everything and micromanage, which is a terrible way, and it allows you to expand the team. So based on the organizing chart, you look at the next role you want to fill once you get more revenue into the business. And so that's how you scale a company. You scale a company gradually and the more you can. I don't know if you can hear my pugs snoring in the background, so forgive the snoring pugs, they're very small but very noisy. But yeah, so you want, you want to be thinking about becoming a leader and that means removing your ego from all situations. So you can't blame people and you can't justify and you can't be defensive and deflect. And we'll go into that in a separate podcast. But the delegation and the structure and the discipline of the systems and processes will set you free. They're absolutely critical. And what I can say to you is this didn't come naturally to me when I was managing at Pro Cam Television in London in 2004. I think the folks in the warehouse would attest the fact that, you know, I wasn't a great leader, but I learned to become a better leader. And, and, and you know, systems and processes and structure are one thing. Having, having the right kind of tools I think are important. So I, I use Asana Project management software, and that is what I create all the tasks from my team in. So one of the things you have to do as a leader is you have to follow the process as well. You can't just kind of dive in as the owner of the company and say, hey, you know, I want this doing. Stop what you're doing and help me with this. You have to be disciplined in giving people tasks in the right in a timely manner, and you need to follow your own systems. And if the team builds systems, you need to follow them as well, which can be. Which can be quite challenging, you know, but actually it's liberating. At the same time, I certainly find that the more systemized we've become, the less stressful it is to run the company. And. And actually, I mean, I'm spending today recording a bunch of podcasts, so we are like six or eight weeks ahead. And. And I'm able to do that because my team are editing podcasts and posting, and they're building a new website and they're, you know, they're working on branding and they're editing and they're. They're managing the group. It's a lot, you know, and that gives me a lot of time and space to do this, to deliver value, to create value, and to be sharing my. My lessons with you, because some of you will want to take this further, and if you do want to take it further, then, you know, go to videobusinessaccelerator.com check out the program, and book in for a call. You know, our approach is very much to give value and have people attracted to us through the podcast, because that's what the marketing strategy is about. It's about giving value and attracting people in who are. Who resonate with our message, who fit our culture, who share our values, and that's really where the growth accelerators come into their own. So Growth Accelerator 6 is to delegate. And this is one that you will find potentially a little challenging because you have to learn to become a leader. And becoming a leader means not just barking orders and expecting people to follow. It's being clear about the intention, being clear about the outcomes you want to achieve.

And checking in and being disciplined enough to do it regularly and just, you know, it's a process. It's a process of learning, the process of implementing, and the process of becoming a better leader, which you just do by doing so. I hope you find that useful. Guys, I'll see you next week.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host Dan Lenny. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.videobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the Accelerator program can help you today. 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.