Planning for a great 2021. EP #147 - Shorty

Hi guys. Welcome back to the podcast. It's 2021. This week's Shorty.

Finally back after just about two and a half weeks break, which was just divine. I hope that you had some time out as well to relax, recharge, reflect. I always find time out gives you a chance to be creative.

I did a bunch of landscape photography, drank a bit of wine and really enjoyed the space to think. So I hope you had a good time too.

But we're, we're back into it today and you know, the great thing about a break is you get to really recharge. I think it's so important, especially in our industry where we just, you know, can be, it can be so flat out so much of the time.

So we just came off our first coaching call of the year and we start strong with a very big annual planning session. And I wanted to just share some of the insights from that session with you because if you've not undertaken any strategic planning before, I strongly recommend you use this time in January to do that. Get really clear on sort of key metrics that you're going to measure your business by this year. But I wanted to start by saying it was really fascinating on the call because I actually said to the guys, I said, you know.

If someone who wasn't in this group came in to this meeting and listened to the results that you guys got in December, they probably wouldn't believe you. And that's because your environment is so important to your success. And if you allow yourself to be surrounded by people who are conspiracists and who are, who think that everything that's going on in the world is somebody else's fault, then you're screwed. You know, we, we employ a very, very much a extreme ownership concept within the VBA and that is that your success or failure is 100% down to you. And it starts with planning. And which is why we spend, you know, 90 minutes on the first Monday of the year, the first Tuesday of the year, depending where you are talking about planning. And the reason that planning is so important is it helps you create consistency and to stay focused on, on high value outcomes. Because if you don't, then, you know, really you're going to get buggered. And so we sort of break our planning into five main steps. Which is your purpose and mission? You know, why do you exist as a business and what's your commercial goal? Any strategic obstacles or objectives that you're looking to achieve?

What is your core focus going to be and what is your plan? For executing on those strategic objectives and then creating a system for executing regularly. Which is really one of the core major benefits of the video business accelerator. Mastermind is it's weak weekly coaching, but also we're, we're implementing smart goals this year, which I'll tell you a little bit about. So starting with purpose and mission, it's the DNA of your business really. It's like why do you exist as a business? You know, what purpose do you serve? Why do you stand out as a business as opposed to all the other hundreds and thousands of video businesses? It's not enough just to say we make great films and tell stories and all that. You know, you've got to have something unique that you offer the market. You've got to solve a problem and then your mission is your commercialization of that. What do you want to achieve? And your plan is how are you going to achieve that?

So getting clear on who you want to serve in the market and how you're going to serve them is very important. We have an equation, it's like we help industry or niche achieve desired outcome with unique offer and you work on that and that statement helps you to stay on track and say no to the wrong jobs and yes the right jobs. Do you have a well defined business purpose that is clearly communicated in your marketing? Because people buy based on certainty. Then we get to your mission which is, you know, what, what is it you want to achieve in the next 12 months? You know, how much money do you want to make, what is your revenue goal, how many clients is that going to take and at what price point and then what profit do you want to make? These are things that we, we track at a very high level and we've just today introduced a matrix, a business matrix.

That will help our members to track all of this data in one place on a month to month basis. You know how much revenue they want to make, what profit goals are, what their values are.

Because it's really important that you work out your number and identify what it is you're willing to trade in exchange. Because if you're very much a freelancer, then you are going to be spending, you know, nine, ten o' clock on a Sunday night in your garage editing. And that's time away from family, it's time away from your health and your lifestyle and zapping your energy. And the bigger the number that you want to earn, the bigger the trade. And I spoke with people recently who are like, oh, I've got this twenty, twenty thousand dollar project, but I'm doing everything myself. And it's like, great, but you can't do anything else unless you leverage external support, coaching, team, contractors, you know, a system for how to do this, then making more money isn't going to necessarily solve your problems. It's going to give you more problems. You're going to spend more time doing the work yourself and you will hit a ceiling and you will burn out. But for some people, that has to happen, you know, so you need to be very clear on what you want. And we have a strong visioning exercise for that. Once you're clear on what you want, then you can start to execute on it. And the first thing you need to do is understand where your revenue came from in the last 12 months. And we have an audit process for that. Again, just part of this new matrix we've introduced.

Because you want to understand which clients yielded the highest return for the least effort. And from there.

You can start to focus on the most profitable client and stop working with the ones that aren't. The biggest mistake most video production companies make is they chase every piece of business. They're like, yeah, we can do that. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, we can do that. And it's a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe to cripple your business, and you'll never get beyond a certain threshold. Um, so the way we do that is we actually get very clear on what the strategic obstacles and objectives are with the company. We have a process for that which goes through a process of documenting achievements, lessons learned, and then we have. We have an equation for how we calculate the strategic objective out of that. And then we create a strategic objective and we set a deadline for achieving it and hold people to account by making them. Well, not making them, but there's a process where they can document all of this in one place. Then on a coaching call, they can jump on a call and say, hey, look, you know, I'm having a problem with this area. What do you think of this? I've got this problem or this lesson, how can we turn that into strategic objective? And that becomes the focus for the business for the next three to six months. And so then you've got to focus on where are you going to put your focus and how are you going to execute your plan. It's easy to chase all business that comes your way. It's actually not. It's not a good recipe. You know, you can't serve everyone. If you try and appeal to everyone, you'll appeal to no One. So it's really important that you get very clear. And we've got quite a detailed process for assessing you and your energy and your processes and the way you measure outcomes. And we've got that all documented in this matrix as well. So we've got this ability to track month to month where the challenging areas are in your business and where you can execute at a higher level and develop skills. And then we've got the business analysis, which is your marketing, your prospects, your sales, your clients, your delivery and your operations. And what typically happens is the majority of freelance filmmakers just focus on a tiny bit of marketing, close a few deals and then they're deep into deliveries like producing, directing, shooting, tada. There's the film. And that's why they get stuck at an income threshold, because there's no systems. So we again, we track this and we score out of 10 every month how the marketing's looking, you know, how the prospect funnels looking, how sales, clients, delivery and operations are looking. And then that means we can focus our energy and the energy of our clients on attacking the right parts of the business that need the attention first and prioritize.

And then of course, when you start to prioritize, you need systems for execution. So we've got an annual plan that we create and then we break that down into quarterly priorities and then weekly goals. And then the guys post in the group on a weekly basis to, to hold themselves accountable to everyone else. And that way we get this kind of weekly rhythm and weekly, weekly achievements. And the other thing that's very powerful is using a default diary. So actually putting your tasks into blocks in your calendar because ultimately you want to be the implementer, you want to be the person in control. And then finally we're implementing a new system called Smart Goals where we've actually, you know, taken some of these core messages, core problems in a production company. So if we take for example, a classic problem which is, oh, I don't have enough website inquiries, well, the desired outcome is actually to, to want more leads. So if we turn it into a smart goal, that becomes something that's specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time specific. And so we turn that into a smart goal. It becomes, we have a fully functional strategy session funnel that is automated, delivering five qualified leads per week. And that is just one of 18 that we've created. But within that, you got to identify your ideal client, you got to understand their wants and needs, you've got to interview existing clients to build a client avatar, you've got to write compelling copy. Then you've got to build credibility, authority and trust on your website and you can do that through case studies and written testimonials and branding and a consistent social media message. Then you've got to create a landing page, an offer where you've got to identify what your client actually wants and then help them get what they want. And then you've got to have a sales script and a sales process and a method for tracking all of this and technical integration of the automations.

And then onboard a client when they sign up and then follow up a non converting client. So this is one of 18 that we've created which are video company specific. So it's an exciting start to the year and you know, I'm certainly looking forward to see what the members do this year. I mean we were talking today on the call how far they've come in just one year and you know, we have got some space for some intake this year. So if you're sitting listening to this thinking, you know what, this would really benefit me then, then have a chat, reach out to me, let's have a chat and see if I can give you some guidance, some support. Because this, this is a very, very powerful process. And you know, I think for the guys who've been through already, they're, they're really seeing some incredible results and we're going to start really looking to, to ramp things up this year. Okay guys, got an exciting podcast for you on Thursday. It's the top 10 of 2,020, so look out for that and I'll see you then. You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host, Dan Lenny. If you're a video business owner who hits a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching, then check out how you can work with me over@denlenney.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.