How to Create And Maintain Momentum in Your Business EP#104 - Shorty

Hey, guys, it's Dan here on Tuesday.

The 28th, or not 28th week, 7th of July, here with the how to Scale a video business podcast with this week's Shorty. And it is going to be short this week because I've got a awful lot on my plate at the moment, which I can't talk too much about, but I will be revealing very, very soon. Little extracurricular project that's landed on my lap, which is exciting. And before we get into that. Well, I can't, because I. I can't talk about it, actually. But what I'm going to do is talk about what we discussed on our coaching call today, which I think will really benefit you if you are, you know, trying to get back on your feet after Covid.

And that is the. The importance of momentum. On the call today, we talked about, you know, the fact that we meet every week on our calls to talk about issues in your business and figure out the solution. But if you're not in an organization or, you know, a group like we've got, and you're working alone and you're trying to figure out how to, you know, grow your business, then the most important thing you can do is get momentum. And momentum, really, I'm talking about, you know, consistency in everything that you do in probably the number one thing that will have the biggest impact on your business. And what we typically do as creatives is we overcomplicate things. We tend to overthink most of the decisions that have to be made in our business, and we often get stuck because we've overcomplicated something. And actually the best thing to do is to simplify it. You know, when you're doing an edit and something's not working and you go away and you have a walk and you. And you come back and you're like, I need to take something out. And that's actually true of business. And especially running a video business, when you're feeling overwhelmed, think about removing something, think about taking something off your plate. And typically, what we do is we overestimate what we can achieve in a day, but we underestimate what we can achieve in a week or a month. And so by getting very clear about what you want to achieve and being strategic. So this month, this. Today's call was about, you know, getting back into that planning rhythm. So once a month, we check him with a strategic plan and we. We want to make sure that you're working on the right things. Now, the advantage of the accelerator is, of course, we have a Mastermind group where, you know, every week we get on a call for 90 minutes and we figure out within the group what your bottlenecks are. And you know, on the call this morning, we had two kind of polar opposite challenges, but these are the challenges that you will face in your business every single day, which is either you have a marketing issue whereby you're not communicating clearly enough with your target market, or you have a capacity issue where you have so much work you feel overwhelmed. And that typically tends to be the kind of the, the, the a B split between problems that people have in the businesses. And so we were able to help one of our members this morning who was having a capacity issue because he's just, he's just so busy, he's got so much work on. So we were discussing, you know, it's now the time to look at hiring a full time editor and relieve some of that pressure. And one of the great advantages of the group is that there are people in the group who've already made that leap and so they could give solid advice and guidance to this member. And he left the call feeling a lot more supported and lighter. And he knows the path he's got to take. Hiring someone for the first time is a big deal, but I've done it, many others have done it. And there's lots of lessons to be learned. And we have things like employment contracts and agreements and the statement of works which makes all of this easier for our members.

And then another member who is a bit newer with us in the group was struggling with a marketing issue, struggling with how they could articulate their message. And we have something called the marketing equation, which sounds overly simple.

But when you get it right, it transforms your business. Another thing we do is we have something called the Ask framework, which is a series of specific questions we ask our clients. And those questions are, are able to.

Result in answers that really fundamentally dig into the wants, the needs, the pains, the desires of your client and target market. And so that combination is really powerful. And then we had some general Q and A about specific issues. But what's really great is that, you know, week to week, we can fall off the wagon, we can get lost, we can get stuck. And you know, not every day is a great day. You know, I had a pretty rough day yesterday, just a kind of bit of a comedown. We, you know, we bought a house at the weekend, we bought a new car last week. There's a lot going on and we're sort of elated. And then, you know, came crashing down on Monday with the kind of reality because you can't have Ying without Yang, you know, you can't have positive without negative. It's. The universe is always seeking balance.

So today was much better, you know, but I just share this with you because I'm not up every day. I'm not every day is not bouncing off the walls going, hey, it's great to be alive. I mean, I'm very grateful, I have a great life. I, I've got nothing to be unhappy about. But the fact is, you know, as creators, we have these, I would say, additional emotional sensitivities. And, and that is because we're empathic. And as empathic people, that's what makes us, allows us to make great films. And actually I've been spending a bit of time today working on a storyboard for a project that's come, come up and I, at first it was a bit, I was a bit resistant. I was like, oh, this is like not done this for a while. But then as soon as I, as soon as I hooked into the idea and the concept and I spoke to someone who I'm going to be collaborating on the project with, it all started to fall into place. Into the last two or three hours I've been in total flaw because we could turn this thing around quite quickly. But I'll be doing a special podcast about this in a few weeks time. But in the meantime, yeah, you know, I want you to think about, I looked at my notes this morning. It was sort of week 18 in Covid. Now many of our members are seeing great recovery and that's not in at least in part down to the fact that, you know, throughout the entire COVID pandemic, you know, we had enormous amounts of support in the group in the accelerator program. And as a result, everyone stayed very focused on what they could control. And we stayed away from the news and all the negativity. And now my members are absolutely smashing it. So much so they're having capacity issues. So, you know, that's a good problem to have because when you've got revenue coming in and a capacity issue, whilst that can create a problem if not handled correctly, you've got income and that income can be diverted to employing team and then your business grows. But it can be an uncomfortable process. And so, you know, it's great for the members who are in the group. So, you know, if you, if you've been sitting listening to this podcast for a while and thinking that business is taking on, okay, well, really ask yourself this question. Is it ticking on. Okay, or could you be doing more? And would a conversation with me potentially actually help you get there faster? Because, you know, whilst the Mastermind is a paid program.

Fundamentally no one's really paying at all because the cost of entry gets. Comes back at them many, many times over. In fact, we had a new member joined us just a week ago and on one phone call, one phone call that we had, he picked up one piece of device about how to add a line item in a quote, and he told me on an email a couple of days ago, it added 5,000 pounds net to a job order and it was accepted. So, you know, I know that oftentimes creatives are kind of reluctant to invest in themselves. It's funny how we'll spend thousands on gear or laptops, but the thought of investing in your personal development is kind of is weird. So, you know, if you are someone who feels like, you know, you're kind of doing okay, but you could be doing better and think about this, you know, don't we all do better when we're supported by a group, by a, by a, a tribe? So if you are interested, you reach out to me on LinkedIn, let's have a chat. It costs nothing to have a conversation. As I say, we have one space in our program intake just now. We had a number of people join us a couple of weeks ago and then a few people just didn't quite work out for various reasons. We are quite particular. We have quite a high standard of entry and we're at a point now where, you know, for the next little while, it's going to be one in, one out so we can maintain the integrity of the group. So if you are interested, you know, don't, don't sit back and try and figure this out yourself because we've been there, we've done it, and you'll find it to be a very supportive community. And, and you know, we have these calls every week where we get momentum. Anyway, guys, I've got to run because I am in the middle of putting together a storyboard and I've got to get over to the clients who is over in Singapore very, very quickly. And in the meantime, I have got Lauren Kress coming on the show on Thursday, so look out for that and I'll talk to you then.

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@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 groups that you might be in. See you next week.

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