How to Grow A Video Business. EP #322 - Den Lennie

One of the biggest challenges you'll have transitioning from being a freelance videographer to running a video business is figuring out which shoots to go on, which shoots not to go on, but also balancing the desire to grow a company with still making sure you're doing the things that you love. So today we're going to take you through a coaching session with one of my clients who's been really busy in production recently. It's been really good for his business, but he's feeling like he's being pulled too much into the doing and not enabling enough time to spend on the business development and the business growth. So what you'll experience here is me talking him through a process of how to evaluate when to go on projects, when to outsource, but also when you're in environments where there's good business opportunities, figuring out which of those projects you should go on because they're good for business development. Now, if you like this content, please do like and subscribe. And yeah, subscribe. Let's go with the clip.

I used to love the travel when I lived in the uk, I was always buzzing back and forward to the us, to Asia. I loved it, you know, So I think when you, when you're growing a business, like the most important thing, outside of making sure the business is healthy, as in it's this opportunity and there's cash, is that you're enjoying the work. Like a decision diamond would be, do I enjoy going to these events? If the answer is yes, I can keep going because there will always be time for you to pick up on this other stuff. And I think for you and where you operate, you go into a huge dental conference, you're being exposed to your ideal target market. And so you could actually frame it as, I'm not only going to film, but it's actually an ongoing marketing opportunity because I've seen the pictures on Facebook and Instagram and stuff. And it's like when I did all my travel in the broadcast industry, you're just constantly hanging out in bars and restaurants eating ribs with people who make decisions about your services. They get to know you to get to like you. You then become the only option in their mind to do the project with. So you're actually positioning yourself as the go to guy. And I would say that in your world, when dentists work in silos, like they're in their own, you know, surgeries, they're working with patients all day, they get together, they're having a good time with each other, they're meeting you and Then they're getting ideas because they speak to Bill from Memphis, he's like, yeah, I've been using video and it's amaz. And actually we use Steve and it's like, it's just meant that we've got so much opportunity and suddenly, you know, John from Arkansas goes, oh, listen, can you introduce me to Steve? Because I want to do that. Everyone's looking for the shortest possible way to get the result. So I think from that point of view, and I don't know if you'd agree, it's like you being on the ground, you're an affable guy. You're just chalking up new opportunities all the time. And I don't know that you should ever stop doing that. But what we need to do is look at where you're being compressed and be like, okay, maybe I should just be at these events hanging out and I bring a shooter and I bring an editor and I do more deals and then we build systems for how we do three times the volume of work simultaneously. But you're just kind of coordinating and those are things you don't need to make decisions about now, by the way, just things to start thinking about, you know, what are you doing, what do you want to do, what's good for the business and what do you not want to do and what's actually not a good use of your time?

Because I really do enjoy being a technician. I love the gear, I love, you know, lighting, I love all the technical stuff. But, you know, at the end of the day I'm kind of like stuck at where I'm at. And I've been here for a couple of years, so I realize I now have to start probably transitioning into more of the business owner realm and get out of the technician realm. Right.

Who I work with, who's, who's, you know, cracked a million.

He was very much, and he works a lot in healthcare. And he, you know, for the longest time he kept like, I just want to touch the last 10% of the edit, just put a little tweak and I put my signature on it, you know. And we actually talked him off the cliff over a number of years, like a number of years to the point where he realized that he just didn't have enough solid systems in place for the edit to go out. He still checked, he still looks at it before it goes out, but he's not going in and tweaking the project. And that bought some of his time back. And then we brought in a part time ops person to help him kind of step back even further. Anyway, to cut a long story short, over a probably three or four year period, he's now completely removed from post production. He still goes out and shoots because he enjoys it and he likes getting out in front of the customers. But he's managed to offload a lot of his wedding business to team. He's got most, he's got multiple shoots a day happening. And he said to me recently, he said, I realized that I was hanging onto the creativity part, being making the content, but I've now realized that I love the business part and the business part is the creative part because I get to think about strategy and scale and how we can do more for the right kind of clients. So there's two core lessons there, really. One is it takes time, and I'm talking years, not weeks and months to change that mentality. And the second thing is don't stop doing the things you enjoy. Just be careful you don't find yourself going, oh, but I love shooting, so I've got to do every shoot. You know, you can choose the shoots you do and sort of swan in and swan out and like just tweak things and suggest things and actually some of the creativity comes from training the team, sharing your knowledge, building micro kind of versions of you. And then, and then you're inspiring younger people with, with your knowledge. You get them a little bit cheaper because you're teaching them, but you're teaching them in your methods. And then you've got this like cool crew that just like flies from state to state doing these events. And I see no reason why you couldn't be just like the dominant service provider in the US if you wanted to be.

So I hope you found that helpful. Now, if you'd like to get involved and maybe come and be part of this free community, you can do so by clicking the link below. It's completely free to join or if you want to, you can watch our free training.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Den Lenny. If you're 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 review.