Planning to grow in August? EP #205 - Shorty

G' day guys. Dan lany here, episode 205 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. And let me ask you this, are you planning to grow in August? If you are, then listen up because we got some good, good tips for you today.

We just completed our August planning call in the VBA or the first call of two. We do two calls on a Tuesday here. First call tends to cover off the Australian and US side of our VBA guys. And the evening we do a call which hits our South African, English, Australian and Irish clients.

And every month we focus the first Tuesday or Monday of the month, depending where you are, on strategic planning. And this isn't strategic planning like a business plan that you would give to a bank to get a loan or an overdraft. This is actually strategic planning that has been crafted over many decades, first really implemented by John D. Rockefeller of the Rockefeller empire fame. Anything in New York, the word Rockefeller on is something to do with him. He was a huge industrialist turn of the century. And Vernon Harnisch wrote a book called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. And these habits included a very consistent and.

Forward thinking view on planning that until then hadn't really been charted. And so, you know, we use the same method to strategically plan inside the video businesses inside the vba. I've actually been using this method myself for probably four years. I learned it from a mentor of mine and he'd learned it by also investing a lot of money to go and spend time at a big business called Infusionsoft. So 50 million dollar company over in the US who do email marketing and they implemented it. So it's kind of, it's a, it's a kind of bastardized set of instructions from a number of different places. But I've refined it through the lens of videography and filmmaking. So we go through this process every, every month, every quarter and annually we do a big one. And the idea is that it just gives you a really good focus on, you know, what is your purpose as a business, you know, what are you looking to do, what is your reason for existing and what is the commercial goal of that business. You know, how much do you want to earn and what are the process is involved and how are you going to get there. And the strategic plan is that roadmap. It's like your sat nav. It's the sat nav to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be in the future. And one of the things we do inside the VBA is we're very Big on setting goals and setting a vision for what you want your life to look like. You know, our biggest value is fulfillment, and that means being fulfilled in your business, having time to spend with your family and. And being able to develop that vehicle, that investment vehicle of your business to provide the lifestyle that you want. So what we do is we look at where you want to get to, and then we work out where you are currently through our business audit. And that helps identify your most profitable clients. And therefore, in simple theory terms, you want to only really work with your most profitable clients. And that helps you determine your marketing strategy. But then the strategic plan is the kind of the nuts and bolts of how you're going to get there. Because if it. Usually things in business are very simple. They're not necessarily easy to execute. And so what we want to be doing is breaking down all of the strategic goals that you have for the year ahead into chunks, into quarterly priorities and into monthly priorities. And so that's what we're doing. On the call today. We were working on the monthly priorities, reviewing and analyzing how well businesses did in July and any lessons that were learned. And there were some great celebrations. In fact, Sammy, one of our clients, had his biggest month ever. And, you know, three months ago, we're staring down the barrel of a really tough period. But we worked together to adjust some things. Some systems he was running in his business, some ways he was putting out courts, some of the terms and conditions he was putting into his.

Processes.

And ended up having a really, really strong month as a result. So it's always great to hear people making progress, and that happens a lot inside the group because the members are committed to investing in themselves and being part of something that holds them to account, but also provides an enormous amount of support. And so, yeah, on the call, we were focusing on what the wins were.

July. And what the lessons learned were, what were the lessons that were taken away and how were they implemented. And so from there, we look to create, you know, a strategic plan, an objective, a single point objective for the month of August. Like, what is the one thing that you really want to achieve that will move you measurably closer to your goals? And that is the. That is the point of. Of this process.

So, yeah, really strong session, a lot of wins. We've got another client in New York, excuse me, who. Who's been testing a new marketing idea. And Carlos has been gaming great success with this, what we're calling a wallet opener. It's like a kind of. It's an offer to his market in the medical space where he's offering a certain product at a certain price point and he's getting a lot of take up on it. And that's opening up a conversation to two more opportunities. And so, you know, one of the huge advantages of these group sessions is that people are often sharing, you know, what is working, how it's working. And you can ask yourself the question, well, how can I adapt that to my own business so that I can, you know, you know, take something that's working in another industry and apply it in your own industry. So it's really powerful stuff. And yeah, so we work on the call today on that planning process. We look at wins, we look at lessons learned and then we share them in the group. Then we go through a very detailed process. We've got a tracking matrix which is about eight or nine tabs long on a Google sheet and we populate that with information every month. And it helps you build a really solid picture of where the opportunities are in your business and where perhaps you need to focus some attention so that you can, you know, make sure you're focusing your energy in the right places. Because the thing is, you only have so much energy and available resource and so you want to be able to, you know, be sure that you're spending your time and energy in the right areas. If you spend time and energy in the wrong areas, there will be an opportunity cost, you know, and one of the things we always say is that unless you're making a million dollars a year.

Your number one focus should be sales and generating opportunities because that generates cash flow and that cash flow and then it will absolutely enable you to.

Continue to grow because you can afford to hire additional resources. So some interesting stuff on the call today, guys. And yeah, I think, you know, the planning process is something that if you're not doing, you should absolutely embrace straight away. 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, your 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 Denleny.com and click on Accelerator.