Is Cold outreach a good idea or bad idea? EP #242 - Den Lennie

G' day guys. It's Dan here with the how to Scale a Video business podcast, episode 242. And today I'm going to address, you know, one of the really important aspects of running a video business, which is potentially having a really quiet December and January. And I know this can be a really tough time for businesses who perhaps haven't had an opportunity or haven't had the resources to put into marketing earlier in the year. And so you see this month as a really tough month and that can have a really detrimental effect on your mental health and your own self belief. So I want to address that today and give you some pointers as how to deal with that better.

You know, not everyone has been in business long enough to have the experience to know how to deal with the quieter periods.

And, and so I want to address that today because it's important to, to lean into that period of the year. And if you haven't had an opportunity, you haven't got the skills, the resources or the knowledge or experience yet to have like, built a reserve or to have a really good solid pipeline, then, you know, I want you to sort of take stock of that, but also to not give yourself too hard a time because none of us were born knowing how to run a business. And this can be a very challenging time of year for a lot of business owners, particularly in video, because there are very few businesses who necessarily want to make a video over Christmas and New Year. Now that's not to say that there aren't clients of mine that are very busy this time of year and I've worked into January and February, but that's probably not going to help you if you're sitting here listening to this thinking shit, you know, I haven't really got much happening in December. It's going to be a really tight month. Christmas is coming up. You want to be able to provide, you know, resources to the family to enjoy Christmas. And when your numbers are down, it can be very challenging. And I know this feeling from years of running my own business. And what I'm here to share with you today is that it doesn't have to stay like that.

You can get to a point where you can push through that with some planning. Now if you're sitting listening to this in December and thinking, I'm having a lean month, well, there's not probably much you can do this year, but let me give you a few ideas to consider because there is a great opportunity in December to reach out to clients and I'm going to share with you. Something that, that all of my members do inside the vba and that is they record personal video messages for all of their clients and they send them a personal video message. So what that does is it reminds your best clients of the amazing experience they've had working with you this year and it sets up next year with you firmly in their minds. And so what I want to share with you is that if you are in a position where money is a bit tight this month, I want you to first of all just accept that that is part of the learning process of running a business and that there is something you can do about it. And.

I really want this to be a slightly different episode because I'm not going to sit in here and tell you what you should be doing. I'm going to share with you some tips on a couple of things you can do to really bring those client relationships you have closer.

December is probably not a time for reaching out and going cold calling. You're going to find it falling on deaf ears. And so I want you to look after yourself and just know that things do get easier, things can get better. And I know from my own experience of having leaner months in December and January, from the days of being freelance, it's pretty tough, it's pretty stressful. And so the last thing you need is more stress from me telling you what you should have done. Now the fact is, from a business perspective, if you are in a leaner period now, then there is a degree of ownership that you need to acknowledge, which is you didn't do enough marketing in August, September, October, November. But that's okay because what we do is we learn from those lessons and we learn quickly and we learn what we can do differently next time. So let's think about.

What'S going on in your mind when you have these leaner months. The first thing that it does is it can set that self doubt role and you can start to feel like you're not good enough to feel like it's all a failure and you should just give up and go and do something else. Those feelings are very real. Those feelings that we have when we're in those states of mind are very real. And I don't want to diminish that because they feel real and you feel under enormous pressure because you might want to provide for your family, you know, you might have bills to pay and if there's less revenue coming in, it's very challenging. But, but the fact is we have to step back and accept a level of ownership that we've put ourselves in that position. Now, what I can share with you is that it does get easier. It does get easier if you address those issues and you get the right sort of support. Now, that can be from me, it can be from someone else. But it's very important that you.

Accept and understand and acknowledge that those feelings you're having, whilst they feel very real, they are just a perspective. And when you're in that situation, it can feel very, very confronting. It can feel very, very debilitating. You can feel like you're no good at what you do. And what tends to happen is we as human beings, we tend to focus on the negative and we forget all the positives. We forget all the amazing projects that we've done with clients, the way we've impacted our clients lives in the. We just start to focus on the ones that didn't go so well. And so I wanted to kind of really just address this topic of mental health around the Christmas period as a video production business owner.

And help you to kind of navigate this and also hopefully build some resilience. And we do that through a number of different tools. One is appreciation. One is just to acknowledge and write down a list of all of the accomplishments you've made in the last 12 months and just acknowledge every single thing that you've done that's gone well. I think it was Tony Robbins that said that we wildly overestimate what we can achieve in a year, but we wildly underestimate what we can achieve in three to five years. And so however you might be feeling now, I think you might be having a great. Your business might be going amazingly. I mean, I know that, that when I listen to the weekly wins in the vba, there are people who are having an enormous amount of success. And that's not an accident, you know, because we build, we plan for this, we know this period is coming. And with the right coaching and the right knowledge in the right environment and the right peer group, you know, you're going to find yourself not being in this position again. In fact, I think they say that, you know, I've heard this many times in the coaching space that you are the. The sum of the five people that are closest to you. You know, so if you're hanging out with wealthy, successful people, you're going to be, you know, if you divide your income by, if you add the 5 people's income that you're hanging out with and divide by five, you will be within plus or minus 10% of that. So depending on who you're hanging out with will. Will have an impact on that. So it's really important to understand that your environment and your community is critically important, but. But also acknowledging that your brain and your mental health, the brain can play tricks on you. The brain can make you feel really insignificant and insecure if a client doesn't pay a bill or you get an unexpected bill. And sometimes you get unexpected tax bills, or maybe you're not quite on top of your finances as you should be. And I know back in my early freelance days, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I'd just have a box of receipts and come December, I'd be like, oh, I better put these receipts in something and just hope that there's enough, you know, hope there's enough income to pay the tax. And I used to have this mindset of, well, as long as I've got enough expenses, I won't have to pay any tax. And these are kind of quite naive approaches to finance because when you're paying tax, it means you're making profit and we should pay tax. You know, we need to contribute to society. The Saudi can't survive without that income tax, that contribution.

But what I wanted to do is just sort of, you know, remind you that it's okay to be where you are on your journey. You know, I talk a lot about the successes of the members of the vba because ultimately I want to keep reminding you of this opportunity. You know, it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to be stuck feeling lost. I have a community of people who are supporting each other, and some people are having a rougher time than others. You know, in the VBA foundation, of course, a few people are having a tough time just now because of COVID mandates and losing opportunities. But the support that's coming up there within the group is phenomenal because we've got someone else in a similar space who's doing something differently and they're sharing their approach. And so no one feels down for long. They There's a massive giant virtual hug in our communities. That means that one of the reasons I started the VBA was because I wanted a community of people like me who wanted to share and help each other out. So I do understand that if you are sitting listening to this and things aren't going so well, it can feel very daunting. So here are some things you can do, and I want you to keep an open mind. The first thing you can do is listen to great books. And I'm a Great believer in listening to books. I can listen to books much faster than I can read them. A couple of amazing books that are worth listening to. One is Can't Hurt Me, David Goggins. And if you need some motivational encouragement, that book will give it to you. And it will also help you understand that your brain and your thoughts will give up on you much, much quicker than your body will. And oftentimes, you know, success in business is just showing up. It's just showing up and doing something that you don't necessarily want to do.

But you know it's going to help contribute to the success of your business. It's like going to the gym. I'd be going to the gym, be six months now, three, four times a week. And, you know, I'm feeling healthier. I'm definitely changing shape. But, you know, I've got 20 years of, you know, eating and drinking badly to offset, and that's not going to change in three or six months going take one or two years. But I show up every session and I turn up and I train. And over a period of time, I see a difference. And I have a coach, and that coach coaches me and keeps me on track and holds me accountable. And so, you know, I am more likely to achieve my goals in the gym because I have a coach and I have a group of colleagues who are supporting me, who are also holding me accountable. And. And, you know, I. I know what I should be doing at the gym and I have weights at home and I could train at home, but I don't. I need to go somewhere where I'm held accountable. And it's much like that in business. You know, you probably know what you should be doing in your business, but you're not doing it. And you'll ask yourself why? Is it because you're not in the right environment? And so, you know, think about that. Think about, you know, what are the things that you should be doing that you're not? So can't hurt me. David Goggins is a phenomenal book. Another book which will blow your mind, which is quite an advanced book, is called the Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham. And Keith J. Cunningham is actually a serial entrepreneur. And again, he reads this book with these droll Texan accent, and it's phenomenal because it's just full of absolute gold in terms of business building. And he's made millions and he's lost millions and he's made it again. So there's some great reading there. And the third book that I Encourage you to think about reading or listening to is great. By choice. Jim Collins, which talks about how long it takes to build a sustainable business. And businesses that grow incrementally, 8 to 10% a year survive 30 years, whereas business that grow too fast.

Don'T often make it. And so there's a principle there called the 20 mile march, which I've talked about on the show before, about just taking consistent steps every day. And the thing about this is that this isn't sexy. I see a lot of new coaches popping up on the Internet every single day and they're promising, you know, fast results. You know, get your red camera in two months, be earning 20, $30,000 a month within two months. Here's my system. Just buy my program. And you know, for some people, I'm sure it's very good. I'm sure some of it's really good. But it's all about a marketing approach. And you know, I have a realistic, you know, I've been doing this almost 30 years, right. I know what it's like out there. There are some quick wins to be had. But building a business long term is a long term game. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not something that just you plug a few marketing tricks and a few kind of landing pages and boom, off you go. Throw some money at Facebook and you've got clients rolling your door. It's just not as easy as that. And unfortunately, there's some really great marketers out there selling the sizzle, selling the dream.

But ultimately, whatever you do, whoever you work with, you have to do the work. You know, you can't come into my program, watch the training and just go, I've watched the training. I've not got the results. You have to do the work. And the work is the hard part. That's where the resistance happens. And so, you know, one of the things, Another great book, Jocko Willink.

The. I forget the name of the book now, but let me just Google it while I'm, while I'm on here.

Jocko.

Yeah, let me just look this up quickly here. I should have known this.

He's got a few different books. Discipline Equals Freedom is a really good Extreme Ownership. Extreme Ownership was his first book. How Navy U.S. navy Seals Lead and Win. It's by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Now that book is an incredible story about ownership and that you are the leader of your business, no matter how big or small it is and the level of success you enjoy or the level of anxiety you feel around your business, maybe not performing is 100% down to the person staring back at you in the mirror. And so if you want to, you know, use this time to, to kind of put your brain into the right gear. Because here's the thing, right? If you spend all day on Facebook or Instagram or wherever absorbing that crap, you're going to be comparing yourself to everyone else's kind of front of house. And I have worked with enough people over the years and spoken to enough people to see what goes on between front of house and back of house. And I can tell you, the people that are waving around how successful they are are nowhere near as successful as they think they are in real life. It's about putting out an Instagram ready version of their life. And the truth is, if you want to achieve wealth, freedom and creativity, you need to find an audience who love what you do and serve them at the absolute highest level in the best possible way you can. Keep them very, very close to you, and you'll have all the wealth and riches and time and freedom you ever want. Where people go wrong is they get a bit quiet and they start looking around at what other people are doing and they think, oh my God, they're much more successful than me. So it's really important that you don'. Allow those negative vibes into your world. And so the second thing I want to share with you is make sure you're listening to the right kind of things, make sure you're absorbing the right kind of things and protect yourself from negativity, Protect yourself from things that don't serve you. And then the third thing I want you to think about is meditation and an awareness around moving from your head to, to your heart. And stick with me on this because you might think it's a bit woo woo, but what we're talking about here is closing your eyes and spending some time consciously breathing and in doing so, regulating and going internally and moving those crazy thoughts in your head about how you're not enough and everything's so hard and why am I doing better and moving into your heart and acknowledging and accepting that you are where you are on your journey. And by being on that journey, you are where you need to be. And that is very important because it's just a moment in time. Okay? And what meditation will help you do is it will help you to observe what's going on in your life and acknowledge the mistakes you may have made, but also the wins that you've had and accept that you are just where you are on your journey and any challenges you might be having are probably rooted in something that happened in childhood. And it's generally down to a feeling of not feeling good enough. And that's something that I experience, that you experience, that we all experience. Nobody is going to be harder on themselves than you. And so as you sit in this month where things may not be going as well as you'd hoped, it has been a tough year. There have been a lot of limiting factors. But what we must be careful of is not to blame Covid or blame other forces. Because I know plenty of business who are based in Victoria who've had a really rough time, who've been locked down. Melbourne has been the most locked down city on the planet during COVID But all of my Victorian clients are absolutely flying now. They're absolutely rammed full of work and none of them have allowed Covid to be the reason their business fails. And that is about extreme ownership. That is about taking ownership of what you're doing and saying, no matter what, I am responsible for the success or failure of my business. And that might seem like tough love, okay? But it's true. We are responsible for the success or failure of our business. If you want your business to be bigger, you need to make bigger decisions. You need to do things differently. If you're happy where you are, great. I'm not here to create any kind of judgment on where you are on your journey or what it is you want out of life. In fact, I'm the biggest advocate of get clear on what you want your life to be. Build a strategic plan to execute it and then execute it, and then, and then, and then you can have everything you ever wanted. But I know from my own journey that sometimes things get on top of us and it's easy to blame external forces for what's going on in our life. So those are the things I want you to think about, is look after yourself emotionally, celebrate your wins, write them down.

Contact all of your clients and say thank you for working with you this year and how much you've enjoyed the process and how much you hope they've gained from the process and you look forward to developing the relationship further next year. Read some books. Extreme Ownership.

The Road Less Stupid, Can't Hurt Me. There's three. I mean, pick one. And Great by choice, Jim Collins. Four books there. Four book suggestions. Pick one, read it if there's one. I'd either say Extreme Ownership or Can't Hurt Me, David Goggins. Those two, I think are probably the most motivational in terms of giving you perspective about where you are in your journey.

And how the decisions you make day to day have an impact on your life. And be grateful. Meditate. Download an app like Calm or.

There'S another one that I forget the name of Be Focused I think is another one. And there's another one that was created by a former monk and it's completely escaped me.

But it's important that you. You spend some time reflecting. I'm just going to see if I can look at this meditation app.

Let's have a look here. Headspace. Headspace, that's the one I started with, Headspace. And you can download that. The guy's called Andy Puddicombe. He's a former monk and meditation expert and he is phenomenal. And you start with five minutes a day and then 10 minutes and that in itself will have a massive impact on you. And if you've tried meditation before and it hasn't worked, then try it again. It's a practice. It takes time. So, guys, I just wanted to share that I know it was a bit all over the place today with typing stuff, but, you know, I believe in being real. I want these podcasts to be not polished productions, but just great insights and advice and hopefully encourage you to just take the next step in your journey. 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 doing 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, 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 are 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 to head over to Denlany.com and click on Accelerator.