In business, done beats perfect every time. EP #217 - Shorty

G' day guys. It's Dan here. It's Tuesday 14th September and we are on episode number 217 and today's theme is Done beats perfect every time in business. Let me explain. There's a, there's a dichotomy, okay, between creativity and business. And this is an area that I think a lot of us struggle with, myself included, until you learn to think differently. And that is that perfectionism in creativity can be a really good thing in terms of creating a really high quality product, but not at the expense of getting it done. And never more is that appropriate than when on the business side of your video production company. There's absolutely a time and a place to make things look as good as they can. And you know, you wouldn't have an out focus image or an overexposed image or a framing that looks bizarre. So I think perfection in perfecting the techniques used to create content, perfectly valid and justified. But if you allow that perfectionism to carry over into business, like the business admin tasks of running a business, sales, marketing, etc. There's a danger and a risk that it will prevent you from taking appropriate action and getting results faster. By that I mean, you know, procrastinating on a marketing campaign or procrastinating on your website.

You know, the number of times I've spoken to people who are literally fannying around with a website for months and months and months and months before they put it live and there's this big to do and it's live and then nothing. So it's true. Also at the back end of your business when it comes to, you know, sales marketing process that.

Is critical to help you get your business moving. If you allow perfectionism to get in the way of that, then you'll find yourself not making enough progress. Business, the game of business, it is a hard game, okay? You are going to hit problems, challenges, obstacles, frustrations every single day. And the sooner you can look in the mirror and accept that the person staring back at you is 100% responsible for the success or failure of the business, then you can break through and get a new level of kind of freedom.

This is a really important moment, is that when you accept full liability and responsibility for success and failure, you, you get a sense of freedom. If, if you allow external forces to dictate your business and that could be lockdowns, it could be, you know, clients going elsewhere, it could be any number of things. You are responsible and you have control of how you respond. Now if you're in lockdown just now, you have no control over that. You're being told by the government you're not allowed to go out, I get that. But you have a choice on how you respond. You can respond by watching the news and feeling annoyed, or you can focus on being strategic and working out how else can you generate income whilst in lockdown? Because there's plenty of opportunities. Because a lot of my clients do it. In fact, some of them are having enormous months pivoting into different services, graphics, animations, fancy zoom meetings. People still need to communicate. And so if you allow yourself to be impacted by external forces, then quite frankly you're buggered. So you have to take ownership of success and failure. And that is a mindset. And that is a mindset that is rooted in belief systems. And I get it, you might have some negative belief systems running, some limiting beliefs running. When we all have limiting beliefs. And what we do with coaching and with mentoring and with being in the right environment is we learn to manage those limiting beliefs and push more of an abundance psychology rather than a lack psychology. And once you've got that belief system operating more effectively, then you can create strong business foundations. And those strong business foundations are rooted in what do you want from your business? What is the outcome that you want and where are you currently at? If you audit your business now, where are you at currently and what's the gap? Because every business has a gap between where they want to be and where they are currently, now a smart business. And VBA business owners understand that gap and they build strategic plan to execute over the next weeks, months, years to get that gap shortened.

So in that process, you know, there's a lot of imperfection. We were just doing a session this morning, we just, we just had a massive revamp of our training portal and I was sharing it with the guys and I was saying, you know, this is still not perfect, but rather than wait another six months to get everything absolutely perfect, then launch it, I wanted to give it to the guys today because they can access an improved learning platform now which will benefit their business. Now, instead of me trying to make it perfect in six months time, and there's things I'd like to improve. And the thing is, I talk about the VBA as a project. It's a project that we're always improving, we're always coming up with better ways to refine the process of delivering the content so we can accelerate the process of implementing the tools and the content to help people grow their business. And, you know, it's not for everyone. And I accept that. And neither do I want it to be. You know, this is not a kind of mass product. This is something that is very specific for business owners who really are committed to wanting to grow and accept full responsibility for success and failure in their business and life. But that acceptance of success and failure is so powerful, it's so life changing that it creates a level of freedom that you probably never experienced before because you just let go of everything. And in part of that letting go is you allow, you, you let your ego go as well. You know, we often talk about being perfectionists as filmmakers, but that's just ego. That's just ego and it's often a front for something else. You know, you can't be a perfectionist on every level because nothing would happen. What you can do is get your business firing to 80% of capacity and albeit imperfectly. But it's driving opportunity into your business. You've got leads coming in, you're nurturing those leads. Those leads are turning into sales, becoming great clients who have an incredible relationship with you, who spend money with you repeatedly. And you love what you do. That is the key. You know, life is not perfect. And it just. I want to just touch on something else here that's come up recently in a couple of calls that I've had. And that is there's a, and this is kind of tough talk, right? There's an unrealistic expectation with a lot of filmmakers that every commercial project they do is going to be frickin, you know, creatively stimulating. It's just like you need to stop that rubbish, okay? Like you are a professional filmmaker making professional films, which means telling stories and turning boring locations into something that looks interesting. You can apply all of your skills as a filmmaker to do that. And the three and a half thousand views that I must have shot in my career, most of them work in a pretty boring locations. But I got challenged by turning something that was ordinary and made it look extraordinary. So don't think that every single project you're going to do is going to stimulate you creatively. It's simply not. And accept that some work is just going to be work. But that's okay, because if you've got a clear idea of your strong business foundations and you know what you want to achieve, you realize that some of those jobs are often the most lucrative. And so accept that not every job is going to be stimulating. And most importantly, done will beat perfection any day of the week.

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? 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 doesn't control your life. Let me show you how. Head over to Denlany.com and click on Accelerator.