How to get crystal-clear on your business goal. EP #240 - Den Lennie

G', day guys. It's Dan here, back with another episode of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast, episode number 240.

Now, today I want to do a.

Shorter episode than normal, but I wanted to talk about something really important which is creating your culture in your video business. Now historically.

Businesses really focus on dollar value over people, you know, but really nowadays, if you want to create a bigger impact in the marketplace, and I think do something that is a lot more resonant with our creative values, is to move away from just being a profit driven business, but a purpose and values driven business. And I think this is something that.

Aligns really well with us as creatives.

You know, this approach really focuses on the people, not just internally in terms of team and contractors, but externally as well, with your clients and suppliers.

And by having a high value, culture driven business, you provide more reasons for someone to want to work with you because it's no longer just about the money. And I, and I feel this is just a really natural and easy approach for filmmakers to take, especially with what's happened in the last couple of years.

You know, people are looking for more meaning in what they do and in terms of, you know, bringing in team, the millennials, Generation Y and Z or Z if you're in the U.S.

They'Re happy to accept lower income, to have more flexibility and be more fulfilled and also work with the company, that it's more than just about making money. And I've spoken to thousands of filmmakers over the last 12, 13 years and often what comes up in conversation is I don't want to be greedy. I don't want to seem too kind of greedy. And I think that's a story. I think that somehow if you make money, you're being greedy. But, but, but if you, if you align your purpose and values and also get comfortable with making money, then you can actually do an awful lot with that. So let me kind of explain this in a bit more detail and how would you create an amazing culture in your business? And the key to a great culture in your business is to have alignment with the purpose of your business and the values of your business across all levels of the team and in many ways with the clients. Also, if you have a really strong culture and a set of values, it means that we will attract people with similar values and culture. And so you can end up working with people that you love and not working with people that don't value and respect you. So how do you go about creating purpose and values? Well, it's primarily the Responsibility of the business owner. And if you have a team and leadership team, then you get them involved as well. But it's about how the business is going to grow and you want that to be embodied by the entire team. So let's now look at some of the core components that support a great culture. So first of all, we start with your purpose and that is the reason that your business exists. You know, what is the bigger game here? What is the bigger impact you want to have on people's lives? And then we look at mission and that's the big goal. And it's usually three to five years in the future.

And then values, and these are the guidelines by which the team will live. And you want to hire and fire contractors, freelancers, full time employees based on these values. If you hire for values, you will have an amazing team. And then you want to think about creating an organizational chart and that's the business structure that needs to be in place at the point in which the mission is achieved. So five years from now, these are the goals, these are the kind of clients you want to work with, this is the kind of of revenue you want to make. This is where you want to be operating and how much time you want to be involved in the business yourself. All of that gets put into an organizational chart and you'll see the team that needs to exist to help you achieve the mission. And the mission is the commercialization of your purpose. So our purpose here at the VBA and at Deadliney is to help video producers succeed in business. To free them up from crazy working weeks so they can spend more time with their family without stressing, be able to go on holiday without stressing, and finally feel free with a business that doesn't constrain them. And we commercialize that through the sale of our video business accelerator Mastermind and our Video Business Accelerator foundation program. We also have some additional services we offer to our clients, including LinkedIn, Outreach and also business systemization. But that's how we commercialize the mission. But it's all about freeing business owners from the day to day. So by teaching them how to market, attract the right clients, sell ethically without feeling cheesy, have a process for bringing in new inquiries, a process for following up, a great process for pricing and quoting and delivering huge value upsells, creating great sales opportunities and delivering amazing products. Once you get that cooking, then you need to look at systemizing that so it doesn't need you to be involved in every step of the way in order for that to become a Reality. So you need a strategic plan and that's the breakdown of how you're going to achieve the mission. So let's look at these things in a little more detail. So what is the purpose? The purpose is the foundation for everything the business does. It's the reason that the business exists both now and in the future. And a great purpose is outward focused. It's focusing on what it can achieve for others through its existence and the achievement of the mission. So it's not just about what you can get, but it's how can you impact the lives of other people in a way that will naturally follow through with fulfilling your mission. If you create great value for other people, then it will follow that they'll be happy to pay you a premium rate because they're getting exactly what they need. You know, the definition of marketing is helping someone get what they want. So the purpose is the why now? The mission is the what. It's the goal you want to achieve. Think of it as the commercialization of the purpose. You wanting to help people is one thing, but you've got to pay your bills and you want to generate an income. So.

If you think about this sort of the goal for the next three to five years of a business, where would you like it to be? Make sure it's smart, you know, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound, because that way you can track it. And then what we're looking at really is the DNA of your business, which is the purpose, which is why you exist. The mission, which is what do you want to achieve and the plan? How are you going to do it? And it's like a trifecta.

The mission is the what. It's the target your team will be shooting for. So make sure you're clear on what's important to you. Too often people create a mission that's either too large, like I want to make $2 million or $10 million or $1 million.

Pounds, euros, whatever, but it creates a disconnect. It's because you don't really believe you can achieve it. If you're making 100 grand a year just now, and you say I want my target to be a million, that's too am. But if you're making 100 grand a year now and you want to make 250, that's a push, but it's doable. You don't want to say, well we're doing 100 grand a year now, so let's do 120 next year. Because if it's too small. It doesn't inspire action. So you should always feel a little bit uncomfortable saying your mission out loud, but also inspired by the possibility that it represents, because then it gets exciting.

In terms of breaking down the mission. Sometimes call it a bhag, a big, hairy, audacious goal. So think about where you want to operate, how many clients and what type of clients you want to work with, what you want your revenue goals to be and what you want your EBIT to be. Your earnings before interest and tax, that is your profit. So, you know, I often see people saying, oh, available in Sydney and the world, or London and the world. Like, it's, it's, it's too broad. Be more specific. The more specific you are, the more money you will make. It's as simple as that. Now, values are what you believe to be important when it makes, when it comes to making decisions in life, they're a guide by which we all live. And of course, there's a diverse range of values. But once you've identified your own values, include your team and contractors in the process so they can contribute and feel part of the creation of the final set of values. And it will ensure the team is connected and aligned with the bigger picture.

Now, to pull that all together, you want to create a strategic plan, and that's how you're going to bridge the gap between the mission and the purpose and where you are now. You know, when the President Kennedy said, we're going to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 1960.

That was a big goal. The purpose was to put a man on the moon and return him safely. The mission was, well, how are we going to do that? We need to build a rocket, we need to build safety systems, we need to build life support systems, navigation systems. How do we get this thing into orbit and back safely? And that took them nine years. But the purpose was to get them into space and return them safely. The mission was how they do that. And the strategic plan is, okay, let's start with physics, science. You know, how do we get, how far is it? What do we need to have in terms of fuel load to get them there? And then that gets broken down into departments and roles, and then the team come in to pull that together. But it started with a purpose. The purpose was to put a man on the moon and, and return them safely. The mission starts to break down the how.

And then the strategic plan, you know, is the detail. So you got to think about that in terms of your own business. Have you Ever sat down and thought, well, what do I actually want? And written that number down, or written down, a clear idea of what you want your life to look like and what is that going to cost? And therefore, how are you going to pay for it? I mean, these are very, very important steps. I think all too often we go through life just going, well, we just want more clients. We just want more clients. Just want more clients. If you think more carefully about what it is you're looking for and who you want to work with, sometimes you can achieve more with less. And rather than having 50 clients paying you five grand, you can have 10 clients paying you 50 grand. I tell you something for nothing. It's much easier dealing with 10 clients paying more than it is lots of clients paying less. And that is one of the big breakthroughs that I've seen in businesses that really fly in this space. And then we're on to the organizational chart. And the organizational chart is the structure of the roles in your business created at the point where you've achieved your mission. So what would it look like in five years? Who would need to be on the team? What roles need to be in place so that you can.

Fulfill that mission without you having to be depressed in the driving seat. So don't necessarily focus on people, but focus on roles. For example, I know that we need to look at bringing in a marketing expert to help us just push our message out across the right channels. Now, I've got quite a lot of marketing experience, but I don't have the capacity to do that role. So I want to find someone. And so if you're listening to this show and you love this show and you love what we do and you think that's a role that you would be interested in, please do reach out. I'd love to talk to you. We've got great support team based in the Philippines. We got great, great team here in Australia. But there are some roles that we need to get off my chest so that I can focus on the areas that I really want to work on, which is delivering value for my clients. That's the main thing that I like to spend time doing. But, you know, an org chart might start with, you know, a managing director or a creative director at the top of the tree. And then you've got departments, you've got a marketing department that needs to be responsible for looking after every aspect of marketing. And that might include your website, it might include social media, LinkedIn, it might include content creation, it might include looking after the website that's all to do with generating opportunities, generating leads. And then you want to look at a sales role. Who's going to look after sales? Who's going to look after that conversion from prospect to customer? Because until you've got customers, you don't have a business. And you need that revenue to drive the expansion. Once you've got enough sales coming in.

You'Re going to find yourself with a.

Lot of work to do and you need someone to look after the operations that might be a production manager because you've got pre production production and post and, and oftentimes filmmakers find themselves very involved in this process and they find it hard to get off the tools. And if you're still doing a lot of editing and production management and producing, you're not. You're going to struggle to scale because you're trying to do everything yourself. You start by getting some, some editors in or maybe you get an operations production manager and use contractors. But we found is that full time editors in house provide an enormous amount of value. That frees up the business owner to look at sales and marketing and then finance and legal. You know, you want to be outsourcing your bookkeeping and your tax accounting and as the team expands, you'll start looking at things like hr. But in most video businesses, you know, the people I work with tend to have three or four employees maximum and they're often doing over a million dollars a year. So it, you know, I think that that sweet spot is giving people a very comfortable two or three hundred thousand dollars a year income. And that is in most cases a very strong income for a video production company.

But really overall it's all about being focused and clear on the direction you want to go in. If you imagine holding up a lens in a landscape scene and if you've got a super wide angle lens, there's lots of information. But if you change that lens to a 200 mil and you're just looking at the destination in the, you know, 20 miles away, you're going to be much more focused and less distracted by other things along the way. And so the thing that I want to really finish up with here is that it's all about focus and clarity.

If you allow yourself to be too distracted in too many different directions, you will find yourself getting sidetracked, not making the gains as quickly as you'd like.

And if you get clear on all of these elements, then you will end up with a business that is fun to be in, generates all the money you ever want and doesn't rely on you.

Ask yourself this has owning your own video business been everything you dreamed it.

Would be when you first got started?

It might be hard to admit, but think about whether you're genuinely achieving everything you set out to when you made.

That decision to grab the camera and go it alone.

Are you really working less? Are you really earning more?

And are you really in control?

The chances are you're bloody good at what you do, but you're having to work like a dog, 70 plus hours a week. Whether it's filming, editing, marketing, or any of the other jobs that come with being the big boss of your own video company. When you're managing projects, constantly searching out for new clients and worrying about cash flow, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture or make real progress. Let's face it, that stress is the last thing you need when you're trying.

To run a profitable company that supports you and the people you care about.

Truth is, a business that provides financial, professional and personal freedom really is achievable. But maybe you've got that nagging feeling that you're overworked, lacking stability, and struggling to get to where you really want to be right now. It could be that you just don't know how to make a positive change on your own. So I created the Video Business Accelerator coaching programs to really supercharge your video business. With these unique coaching programs, you'll learn all the tools you need to get complete confidence in the success of your video business. You can take the first step on your journey to a successful business that that doesn't control your life. Let me show you how. Head over to Denleny.com and click on Accelerator.