Managing and Improving Belief Systems. EP #186 - Den Lennie

Howdy, guys. Dan Lanney here with the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. This week we are up to episode number 186 and I'm going to be doing a bit of a theme over the next few weeks. You know, coming up to the 200th episode of the show, we've covered a lot of topics. And so what I wanted to do was reflect on the fact we just launched a new website and a whole lot of new marketing to give you an idea of what's going on with that so you can understand how you can apply some of those principles in your own business. But also to break down, it's one of the eight core messages or themes, if you like, that we have identified as being absolutely key to scaling a video business. And I want to run through the eight of them now and then break one of them down each week for the next eight weeks. Because what we've identified over the last five, six years, doing this in real earnest as our core focus is that the companies that are growing and scaling are the ones who are nailing every single one of these eight areas. We call them our great areas growth accelerators. And you start with number one, which is managing improving belief systems. Number two is creating strong business foundations. Because if you're going to build a business empire, you have to lay a solid foundation. So we're going to talk about how to get the basics right from the start so you can scale faster in the future. Accelerator 3 is planning a longer term business strategy. You know, oftentimes filmmakers just don't spend enough time planning the future of their business. And if we use the same effort in our businesses with you on a shoot, we all have great businesses. So you know, you want to prevent poor performance in the future. So we're going to talk about how to plan your year strategically and assess where you are on the business growth journey. Accelerator four is marketing. Now everything is marketing and marketing is everything. And you can got to be able to market your offer to your ideal clients. So we're going to talk in that episode about strategy and tactics around how to help you attract your ideal clients who want to work with you and who you want to work with. Accelerator 5 is how to generate leads and inquiries. The truth is, if you don't have any leads, you don't have any sales. Without any sales, you don't have any cash and you don't have a business. And as creative as you want to be, the business metric for business success is cash in the bank. So what you want to be Doing is thinking about how to get your message in front of the right people and how to convert them. So word of mouth has probably got you to this point. We're going to talk about how to create a systemized lead flow and a sales pipeline so you can generate consistent inquiries and lose that roller coaster. Accelerator 6 is going to be about closing more high ticket sales. And by high ticket sales, I mean clients who've got more money to spend, who don't lowball you, who respect what you've got to say. And sales aren't dirty. And the sales process, when handled in the right way, is a service to your clients. So we're going to talk in that episode about sales and the sales process so you can win more projects.

Accelerator 7 is how to build proven video business systems. Systems have the power to help you find freedom. So in that episode we're going to talk about the power of business systems and how that you can apply them in your own business. And then Accelerator A is how to expand your team. And that doesn't mean hiring a full time team. It means how can you scale your business beyond yourself? Because you cannot scale a business alone. So whether you choose to have in house staff or work with a remote team of contractors, I want to talk about leadership and how that starts with you. So let's get straight into Growth Accelerator 1. And this is all about managing and improving belief systems. Belief systems are those little stories in your head, those voices, those, that thing that, that directs your action every single day. Everything that you do in the world starts and ends with your stories and they're often, they've been coded since childhood. I'm talking about the stories that impact your belief systems about what is possible and what you think you can achieve. Oftentimes we are shackled by limiting beliefs because of how we were brought up. Now perhaps you were very fortunate and you grew up in a very wealthy family. I didn't. I grew up in a very loving family, but we were working class. My dad was a printer, my mum worked in a shop when she wasn't looking after the kids. And you know, dad didn't earn a huge amount of money. But we had four of us brought up beautifully with lots of love, but we never had lots of money. And so one of the reasons that I wanted to start a business was I wanted to break that mold, I wanted to break that tradition. And so oftentimes I realized growing up in Scotland that my gran particularly would say things like, oh, you know, don't get too big for your Boots, Sonny, or. But at the same time, we'd say, what's for you won't go past you. But there was definitely this sense of working class culture of, you know, don't get too fancy, don't get too big for your boots. You know, don't get like those people who've got money because somehow they're bad. And so my dad had this real kind of issue around new cars, and it was only because he didn't have the resources to buy a new car. So he used to tell a story how new cars were a waste of money. New cars weren't really kind of something that, that you needed to spend money on. And so a lot of those belief systems determined my mindset. And I remember when I started to have some commercial success in my career.

I found it really hard to go and buy a new car because the story was so embedded in my brain that you don't do that. Take business class travel, for example. You know, I mean, I love business class travel and it was a real goal of mine when I set up a business to travel in business class. But I had to fight so much with the like, oh, it's such a lot of money, it's such a waste of money. The fact is, it was never a waste of money because I used to have a brilliant time. And I've been fortunate enough that through traveling, business class was upgraded to first class a few times, used points to upgrade a few times. And I've got to tell you, first class is even better. And who wouldn't want to travel in comfort? And I used to do a lot of traveling, so that was a value of mine. But I found myself being very resistant to it because of stories. So how you interpret and respond to those belief systems that you have that determines your mindset for success and if your business will achieve great things, this can often happen around pricing. I hear and see people saying, you know, affordable video production, or, you know, we're not too expensive. And that what that is is it's your shortchanging yourself, because clients will often pay more than you realize if you present it to them in the right way. And usually what's happening is no one's presenting the price in the right way. They're not building enough value upfront to trigger someone saying, this is now an intangible amount of value. So it doesn't matter what it costs, because I believe you're going to get me a result way beyond what I think I'm paying for. And so, you know, those belief systems are something that are really important. And the other thing about belief systems is just think about this for a minute is we've always been taught that failure is bad. But in an entrepreneurial journey, failure is actually a critical component of success. You want to fail fast, you want to fail often, then you want to pick yourself up quickly by learning from mistake. You know, if you're running an ad campaign, most ad campaigns won't work straight away. Maybe your first couple of ebooks won't work straight away. And you go, well, that didn't work. But all it's teaching you is it's getting more nos so you can get to a yes. And there's a process I call the cycle of failure, which if you can explain it simply, is when you keep doing the same things over and over again, hoping that you'll have a different outcome, it's actually blaming external forces for a failure rather than looking in the mirror. So, you know, failure in business and marketing is something that you come to expect. And the more you can embrace failure, the quicker you can win and the quicker you can learn about what does work and what doesn't work.

What you also have to understand right off the bat in terms of managing your own belief systems is that you are 100% responsible for your success and failures. Let me say that again. You are 100% responsible for your success and failures. You influence everything that happens in your life. You make a decision, you make micro decisions that influence outcomes. Nobody else is in charge of your life. Now you might say, well, you know, my dad got cancer. My dad did get cancer. How is that my fault? Well, it wasn't. But how I responded to that information is up to me. I can either fall apart or I can stay strong, or I can find my own way of processing it. So as long as you understand you're responsible for how you respond to every situation in your life, you will grasp a new form of power. If you think otherwise, it's just your ego trying to protect you by triggering certain responses when you're faced with a challenge. So one of the most powerful tools you can use to regulate your ego is accepting that when you're going to learn something new, confusion sets in. And your hormones will trigger an emotional response. It might be uncomfortable.

But that is a response that will trigger an emotional reaction. So how you react to something is actually an indicator of your ego and also how tuned in you are to your mind to understanding that when things are put in front of your path to challenge you, that you are being triggered in Some way. And that is something you need to look at. Now, this is obviously way beyond running a business. This is actually the important part of this, is optimizing yourself so that you can then optimize your business. Everything starts and stops with us. So, you know, it's really important that you understand that every decision that you're making, every thought that you have, every process that you're thinking about, every time you open your mouth to respond to something, every thought that you have is either moving you closer to your goals or holding you back in your old way. And so we get confused and frustrated when we have to learn something new, when something's not happening the way we wanted it to. So when you're building a business, being uncomfortable is something you just have to get used to. And it's not just that. Another fundamental difference between success and failure is your attitude towards abundance versus scarcity. You know, having the mindset of abundance will drive you towards positive outcomes in your business. Whereas a scarcity mindset, which is like, oh, I don't think I can charge that. Oh, I don't want to pay for this, I don't want to pay for that. I'll try and keep this small, try and keep this cheap, will likely limit your opportunities to expand and scale. You know, more than anything, you have to develop a winning mindset to succeed in business.

And there are tools and techniques and strategies you can deploy every single day to ensure you stay on the right mental track. But it is a journey. It is something that you have to work on. The discipline required in managing your thoughts is absolutely critical to achieving all the success you want in the world. If I hadn't.

Felt this deep, burning desire to go and live in Australia and the clock was ticking, I had to do it before I was 45. And I saw the clock ticking and I thought to myself, if I don't do this now, I will regret it. And six years later, we live in this beautiful home by the beach. We walk on the beach every morning, we walk on the beach every afternoon. It rarely gets cold. Here in Queensland, that was all about belief systems. I believed I could do it. I believed I could. And then I executed the necessary steps to pull it off. Now, was it easy? Hell, no. It was really hard. In fact, our first visa got rejected. I'd say it was a three year journey just to get a visa. And easily, well, by the time we got here and moved and, you know, paid for the lawyers and the visas and the moving and all that stuff, easily 100 grand. So it wasn't easy and we didn't have that money kicking around. We created it because the focus on the result and the outcome was so great that I then worked a plan, a strategic plan out and worked backwards to get the goal. So if you don't believe something is possible, you will never achieve it. If you don't believe you can charge 2,000 pounds a day, or $2,000 a day, or make a thousand pounds or dollars or euros or gross a day profit, if you don'. Believe that, then you'll never do it. And I'll never forget when I was a cameraman, I would, as a freelance cameraman in London, I was generating somewhere between 20375 a day, depending on the client, which is quite a big, big difference.

And, you know, the belief system was that's what you could earn as a cameraman. It probably hasn't changed that much, to be honest.

But then 10 years later, I was billing myself out at 15, 1600 pounds a day as a director of photography, and I was doing less work. And it's just because someone said to me, well, I've got this aligned in the budget for this job, is that okay? And I was like, sure. It was like four times what I was used to earning more than four times.

And when you start to run a business, you get out of that freelance mindset of day rates.

I often talk to a lot of filmmakers and a lot of members who are in our foundation program. Before they come into us, they're thinking in terms of pricing day rates. And when they come into the foundation program, they quickly see there's another way, and we start working with them to change that mindset from a day rate mentality to a project price mentality. And when you charge for a project, there's more room for profit, there's more room for growth, there's more room for making more money. And that gets kind of exciting because then you can start to make more money for doing less work. And you know, Ben, who's in my mastermind program, he's teaching his kids that it's not about working harder, it's about working smarter. And so the smart money is finding out how you can scale your business faster. And for the people that I think are really smart, they come and have a chat to me, and they come and join either my mastermind or my foundation program, and they do it faster. And there will be some of you sitting listening to this, going, well, I've listened to a lot of your episodes. Then I just need to implement them, but you're not implementing it. And so you ask yourself the question, why not? And it's usually because there isn't someone to bounce ideas off, because your belief system is holding you back from investing in yourself. And I say to everyone that joins the foundation program, this is simply an investment in yourself. It's either this or pay tax, or if you're not paying tax because you're not making enough money, you want to be investing in yourself in the way you invest in a tripod or a camera or a gimbal or a drone. And I say to everyone that the cost of investment to get into the foundation because it's really not very expensive. And the reason for that is because I want to help people get on the ladder. I want to help people get from three to five grand to ten, because then you'll upgrade to the mastermind. And that's when we'll do some really exciting work together and get you to 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100,000amonth. It's all been done.

So my way of giving back is to say, hey, here's a foundational program where you get access to me and the content that's helped my clients double and triple their profits. But you can do it at a much more affordable rate. And we do, you know, you can pay in full. You've got a three monthly payment term, you've got a six monthly payment term. We find a way to make it easy for you and you can learn all of these tools and tricks. But one of the first modules you go into is how to manage belief systems and how to think bigger, how to believe that you can charge 5000 pounds for a project instead of 1500. So it's really important that you get those mindset, you know, gears figured out and greased up, because otherwise you are going to find yourself stuck in a rut of not charging enough, or worse, asking other members of a forum on Facebook. Or would you charge for this? Because the thing, the thing with a lot of these groups on Facebook is, I mean, quite a lot of them. And I read them and it's like, it's all just me, too. It's like, hey, oh, yeah, no, my clients won't pay this. The going rate is this. The going rate is that. And that is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea to run your business that way.

You've got to get very clear on your target market and what they want and then put yourself in a mindset position that says, I am the single best solution to deliver this outcome for this client. And therefore I'm going to deliver this incredible result. And therefore, I'm worth this much money. And I'm worth this much money because I can guarantee and demonstrate how I can deliver value. And that is often where people get stuck, because, look, it's not your fault. A lot of us get into this game because we just love filming. We're just. We're just glorified technicians. You know, we. We love the gear, we love filming, we love making films, we love working with people, and we get paid pretty well for it. But you can do all of that and make a load of money. And that means you can have everything you ever wanted. You can build the house you wanted, you can live where you want, you can travel in the class of comfort you want. You can take your family away on holiday, if you've got a family.

You know, I work with a lot of people who have seen enormous growth in their business. And the greatest reward for me outside the business is seeing these people become friends and watching them change their life and be able to generate wealth beyond their wildest dreams. And that might be wealth in terms of just enough money to allow them to work four days a week so they can spend three days a week with the kids or picking the kids up from school every day. Things that are really important life lessons, really important life goals. I believe that we are moving to a time when money is not the be all and end all. Obviously, a level of financial success is critical to not having to stress about money. But a lot of my members are focused on lifestyle. They're focused on what they can do. They want to spend time with the kids, they want to develop the house, they want to employ a few people to kind of take some of the projects off their hands. And that's the key. Always comes down to that belief system, believing that what you want is possible. And oftentimes, stepping away from your herd, that's holding you back. Because sometimes family and friends that you grew up with won't be the best people to hang out with. One of the great advantages of the VBA is in both groups is the herd. There's a herd psychology of abundance. There's a herd psychology of success. Winning mindsets, no barriers. It's like, hey, how can we do this? And so that is what's critical, is developing that mindset and enabling yourself to be in a position where you have the tools, the techniques, the skills to tackle those negative thoughts when they come in. But also, I heard a group of people who are building businesses together all over the world.

Sharing their insights. And that to me is one of the most satisfying things. And, you know, Charles is one of my accelerator members over there in South Africa, just did a weekly WIN video and he said, you know, for the first time in 15 years, I have more clarity, more direction, and more, you know, of a solid focus on what my business is, who it serves, what our area of specialization is. And that, that was huge. He's just the pennies dropped from being in the group six weeks. So all I can tell you is, you know, we've got a new website. I'd love you to check out some of our case studies because there's some incredible case studies on the website now. I'd love to hear what you think of the website as well. Do you like it? Tell me what you think. Drop me a line. Anyway, guys, I will talk to you again next week. You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host. If you're a video business owner, it's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching. Then check out how you can work with me over@denleny.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. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.