The REAL reason most video business owners are always riding the "feast or famine" rollercoaster. EP #130 - Den Lennie

Hey, guys. Dan Lany here, host of the how to Scale a Video business podcast, episode 130 today.

They really are creeping up quite a rapid pace, and it's amazing, actually, how much of a habit you get into of making content. And I guess that's part of what my theme for this week's message is.

Because.

Practice is the key to consistency, and consistency is the key to building certainty and predictability in your business.

So many people struggle with that whole feast and famine, you know, the roller coaster of business. And generally speaking, that's because there is no consistency in marketing and in building a pipeline of opportunities for your business. And, of course, that's made even tougher by the most recent lockdown in Victoria. Here was 11 weeks. The guys were locked down. They've just come out of lockdown. But we saw some really fascinating insights. And, you know, there's definitely two types of businesses.

There's the business that says, oh, my God, woe is me. This is awful. You know, I'm just going to really be struggling. In fact, former client of mine, he didn't stay very long. He decided he'd got enough out of the program quite quickly.

Left. And I saw a post from him recently saying that he hadn't worked since March, which, you know, is just unfortunate because I have other people who have been with me for some time, and some of those clients have got 17 projects on the go currently, and they live in the same place. So that's the point I'm trying to make, is everyone has a choice. Everyone makes a choice about how they spend their time and how they process external forces. So today's episode, another solo episode, I want to really knuckle down and give you some strategies for building your business up during challenging times. And really, for a lot of my British clients who have just about or just going into, or have just gone into another stage four lockdown where, you know, it's looking like at least four weeks. I'm going to suggest it's probably going to be more like 10 to 12 weeks based on what happened in Victoria. So it's important that if you're listening to this and you are, you're in a lockdown situation, that I want to give you some hope. You know, just because you're in lockdown, because the government says you can't do certain things, doesn't mean you can still build your business. I have two clients just now in Victoria particularly, who are absolutely run off their feet, and they have been in 11 weeks of lockdown, and they don't run animation companies. So there are opportunities there, and we'll get to that today. So what I want to do today is share with you five things you can do in lockdown to generate business. And if you're not in lockdown, this will be just as valuable and will be just as relevant. So, number one, call all of your existing clients. Not email, not send a message, Call and ask how can you support them.

Just don't call up and go, hey, do you want a video that's like, that's not what you want to be doing. Ask how they are. Ask how are they being impacted by the recent changes? How are they managing to operate their business around the new restrictions and. And what can you do to support them? That that intent will go a very, very long way. And the fact is, intent counts more than technique in this process. If you are approaching clients with a can do, want to do, really genuinely want to find a way to make their life easier, that goes an enormous amount of ways. In fact, one of my clients, Jez, last week was on our coaching call and we talked about this very strategy. And the very the same day, he reached out and started calling clients and won two jobs straight off the bat. Now, they weren't huge jobs by his own admission, but it was work nonetheless. And the thing is.

People are freaking out when lockdowns happen. They freak out when their liberty's been taken away. And I understand that. But while everyone's freaking out and watching the news and, you know, debating whether or not Trump's going to get back in or not, I mean, it doesn't matter.

You know, it's like, work on what you can do. Impact your life by taking decisive action and taking action in a way that will genuinely benefit your clients. If you put your clients first, this is going to become much easier. Think about existing content you have with all the client projects you have. I mean, I just recently transferred a load of data to a 96 terabyte Drobo, and I think I've got about 35, 40 terabytes of content going back, you know, five, six years. So, you know, go through your content and ask yourself, is there any of this content could be repurposed or reused? Get in touch with your clients and say, hey, look, I was just going through my assets the other day and I came across that sheet we did for you in this date in this location. And, you know, if you were looking for some ideas, we could maybe kind of throw some ideas together to repurpose this content and put some content out for you. Would that be helpful? I want you to start thinking about how can you proactively reach out to your market and demonstrate that you are open for business and that you're there to support and serve your clients. Number two, audit your business. Audit your website.

You know, and your marketing strategy, if you have one. Do you have one or are you just kind of in that word of mouth phase? I mean, I talk to a lot of filmmakers and the number of people telling me, oh yeah, how'd you get business? Well, word of mouth. I mean, that is not a marketing strategy. That is not a predictable strategy. That is not a strategy that can, you can say, then I'm going to have work in January, February, March and April next year. You need a marketing strategy. A marketing strategy is a clear articulation of the offer you have, which serves your target market. And you are communicating that through multiple channels effectively and are able to measure how effective your marketing is. So you're not just spending tons of time putting stuff out on LinkedIn or putting stuff out on Instagram or putting stuff out on Facebook going, oh, well, I think that's where my market is. A marketing strategy has to involve clearly understanding who your target market is. And we have a 13 step client avatar process in our marketing.

Section inside the video business accelerator where we actually go through a very detailed deep dive into who our clients are. And then from there you get lots of information and we've got some strategies where you can interview your clients and ask them certain specific questions and you get that information back and then you're able to extract from there, you know, marketing copy and adverts and blog posts and other assets that you can use and repurpose to help communicate with your market. And so when your market comes across and reads your website or your marketing content, they think, wow, they're talking about me. This person gets me. You know, marketing is simply putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. And it needs structure, it needs discipline. Marketing is not something you think about. Marketing is something you test. You simply have to go through it in a very methodical way. Test one page, start, split, testing it until you identify what the winning solution is, what the winning equation is. And it takes a bit of work, but it's certainly better than just sort of throwing stuff at a wall, hoping that some of it will stick. So audit your website. Does your website clearly talk to a target market? Does your website essentially say, hey, helping target market achieve the result they want through our unique offer? And if it doesn't, then I want you to go back and look at your website. Because if your website just has, like show reels and you know about us and we're passionate about filmmaking, that is not a winning combo. Your website has to be very clear. What is the problem you solve? Who, who do you solve it for? How do you do it? And how can you take the next step? So identify what's working in your marketing and what's not and change it. And if you don't know what's not working, then feel free to reach out and we can have a chat and I can give you some pointers. And if we feel that'll be a good fit, we will jump on a call and I'll give you some pointers. And then we can either decide, you can take that information and run with it, or we can talk about how we can help you. But, you know, you don't want to be the person who thinks they've got it figured out and they're going to figure out on their own. When you know, the truth is inside the video business accelerator, people are absolutely smashing it, and they're smashing it for a reason.

So figure out what's not working and change it. And you know, when you're busy working, you have no time, so now you have time, so you have no excuses. You know, I remember a famous marketer saying to me, you can make money or you can make excuses, but you can't make both.

And if you want to make money, you have to stop making excuses. That means the buck stops with you. And if you're someone that says, I don't have time, then that's an issue you need to address. Because if you don't have time, it means you're not very good at organizing yourself and using the time you have available effectively enough. And I understand that some people got to look after kids and that can be a challenge, but there's always time. There's always time. If you make it. If it's one hour a day, make that one hour really count.

Do you have a clearly articulated offer which is. Which relates to marketing and know who exactly your ideal client is? You know, this is something I bang a drum on and I've been doing for 10 years. You cannot market to everyone. If you market to everyone, you'll end up speaking to no one. And the biggest mistake I see 95% of video production companies make is they go. They're too scared to go niche. And the truth is, if you audit your business, there will be there'll be a trend to a, towards a type of project or there'll be a trend towards a value of client and you will start to see things happen in some way. We had Pat Henderson on the podcast a few weeks ago and there's a great episode where Pat talks about, you know, he really resisted the niche thing when he first joined us over a year ago, but when we did his audit, he realized he was already working for the majority of his clients for healthcare and medical devices. So he kind of got over it. He still does other work. This is just from a marketing perspective. You have to talk to one audience. There's too many general video production companies out there and if you want to be showing up on the front page of Google and having people call you all day long, fine, but you're going to be basically enterprise war. If you become a specialist, you become a niche specialist. Your market will find you. You reach out to your market, they will pay a premium to work with you because you're an expert in their field, mostly because you understand the nuances of their business, the nuances of their market, the complexities of some compliance issues. Maybe my health and safety element. The fact is people want certainty. People want to work with people who understand their business and understand what's going on.

Double down number four double down on LinkedIn outreach. LinkedIn is a very, very powerful platform for reaching your target market directly.

And you simply have to double down on LinkedIn. Now there's a three pronged attack approach to LinkedIn. It's getting your profile written correctly, having a strong image and brand statement and header. It's making the right sort of connections using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and having a process and a strategy and a script to follow so you can engage with people in a way that doesn't sound salesy or needy or kind of annoying. And then finally, it's the content that you put out. And the key to putting out content is consistency. I'm talking about connecting with people every day. I'm talking about putting content out on LinkedIn at least once a week and making sure you're engaging and giving value and not simply, you know, dipping in and out here and there. The biggest mistake I see people make is they start to panic about marketing when they've got no work. And by that stage it's too late because There is a 60 day lag time with LinkedIn. Any marketing you do, you do it today. It's going to be 60 days before you're going to see any results. But once you get to that 60 day point, if you do this every day, you will have a rolling, a number of inquiries coming into your business. And the thing that stops, I guess 95% of video businesses from actually seeing this consistency, seeing this getting away from the feast and famine, the roller coaster, as they simply don't do the hard yards early enough and consistently enough. And, and you know, when I look at the clients in my accelerator who are doing really well, they have multiple marketing pillars going on in their business. They might have a get a quote button, they might have an exit pop up, they might do blog posts, they might appear on podcasts, they might write articles for niche publications, they might be interviewed on video or audio for those publications. They put themselves out there all the time consistently delivering value to a market. Maybe they get involved in an industry organization that's specific to a niche. You know, if you work in mining, there's going to be a mining publication.

The key is consistency. And I taught some of my friends of mine run YouTube channels and they're quite successful. And they're like, the thing with YouTube is that you post the same time every week so your audience get used to hearing from you and they want the content. And that's the same with marketing. You need to know who your market is. You need to understand what's important to them and what's current to them and talk to them about the problems they're having because then people will trust you because it's like, hey, you've taken the time to actually think about the problems they're experiencing. You know, if I, if I made this podcast today talking about, I don't know, you know, five ways to beef up your quotes when you know the Victoria and Australia's just come out of lockdown and the UK is going back into four weeks of lockdown, it would show an enormous lack of understanding of what's going on in the marketplace. I know that many, many people listening to this now are going to be worried in the, if you're in the UK about what's going to happen in the next four weeks. And I'm going to tell this, it's not going to last four weeks, it's going to be at least eight to 10 weeks. So you need to bed in and get this shit together now because it's not going to change anytime soon. We saw what happened in Victoria. This virus, you know, it's, it's indiscriminate and it doesn't matter where you are when it hits, it hits hard. But you know, going into LinkedIn and talking to your customers and helping them solve problems. And more importantly, let people on there know that you are in business and nothing will stop you serving your market. People need certainty now more than ever. And so make sure you are front and center of their minds so that, you know, don't be the guy who goes online and says, oh my goodness, you know, we haven't had any work since March because that shows that you have a complete lack of understanding of the responsibility in running a business.

So many businesses have pivoted during this time and come out stronger. I would say I surround myself by businesses that are getting stronger and stronger every day. I don't really have any time for the poor me stories. You know, it's just, it's.

There, there is always an opportunity. I had to pivot my business. I know multiple people who pivoted the business to make changes quickly, to double down and support people in a time of need. And you know, I was watching something the other day from Gary Vee and he said, you know, the way in which major metropolises operate is going to be changed forever. The idea of people going from out of the city, into the city to offices to work is out of date. He said, you're going to see more and more people moving out of town an hour to an hour and a half out of cities to live a better lifestyle, to sacrifice the kind of the four or five days a month they have to go into the office. So people working remotely is going to be the norm. And for people who are working remotely, they're online more and they're at home. And therefore they're going to be more likely to be paying attention on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is an enormous opportunity. But make no mistake, it takes work and it takes commitment. It takes takes time. And if you're not willing to do that, you are simply not going to get the results. You just can't dabble in LinkedIn and throw some copy out and throw some posts out and connect with some people and then go, oh, I tried, it didn't work. You're never going to survive. Marketing takes balls and you have to keep going. You can, you can never, ever give up. But, you know, think about how you can help them. Number five, be creative with how you can solve problems for clients in your market.

You know, what messages do they need to put out to their audience and how can you help them come up with creative and interesting ways to do that? Live streaming is one. I've got a client in Philadelphia and they are so Busy. In fact, Tony's been on the podcast talking about live streaming. They are so busy doing massive, massive live streaming events remotely using Zoom, and we're talking 30, 40, $50,000 projects. It's just insane.

Because they are out there serving their market. They're working at very high levels and there's no reason why you can't. But I guess the thing that's most important is your mindset. Do you have the mindset of someone who's going to go out there and fight for business? You're going to fight for your business. You prepared and willing to fight for your business. Are you going to sit back and hope that someone bails you out? Because that is, you know, friends, what this is about, you know, this is, this Covid situation is not going anywhere. Yes, there's talk of, you know, virus vaccines around the corner and yes, there's maybe some progress, but we're going to be in a very disrupted world for some time. And so we have to start looking at the reality of where things are at now and digging down, digging deep and getting in front of the right people and being so persistent and willing to help people. And, you know, the more times you follow up, the better. You know, most people give up after the first follow up. If someone makes an inquiry and they don't get back them, 80% of people give up, they're like they weren't interested. In some cases it might take you 8, 9, 10 attempts to get in front of someone before they're ready to buy.

So if you're someone who kind of follows up once or twice and then stops, then have a think about following up more. Go back to people again, find additional value, consent them. If you're making content on LinkedIn, here's a little hack. If you're producing good content on LinkedIn, what you can do is go back through your entire database of contacts and reach out to them and say, hey Bob, I was just thinking about the other day, I just finished this project for this client. Who are this kind of company and I know you're in this market. I thought you might be interested to have a look at what we've done with this. I'd love to get your thoughts on it. And then you can send them a link to the post in LinkedIn messenger and then what that will do is that will, that will show up and play directly in their inbox and that is providing value. So have a think about ways in which you can get your message in front of people and, you know, while in lockdown One of my clients in Victoria had 17 projects on the go, including a TV commercial they were creating.

Another client had 13 projects on the go. And these are, these are guys who were stuck in the highest stage four lockdown where they couldn't, they couldn't go beyond 5km of their house. So what was their secret? Well, consistency and discipline. These two particular filmmakers are very disciplined and very persistent and very, very good at implementing. You know, they don't stop and question whether or not they should do something or not. They just do it. And so what I want you to leave you with is this is what it's going to take. It's going to take the self discipline to perhaps break a habit. What better opportunity than if you are in the UK and you're getting stuck with another four to six to eight weeks of lockdown. Use this time to rebuild you and how you do business.

And everyone is experiencing different circumstances around this, this whole coronavirus thing, but there are huge amounts of opportunities and I'm seeing an enormous amount of businesses who are, who are coming out of this really well. Sadly, there are businesses that are going to struggle and fall by the wayside. But you know, that's business. It's not for the faint hearted. And just because we're creative, you know, the market doesn't care. You know, it's, it is what it is. So you know, if you want some support, there's certainly, there's an easy way to do this and a hard way to do it. The easy way is to, is to be surrounded by a group of people who are in the same boat, who are really smashing it. And then the hard way is to try and figure it out yourself. So if you are thinking, you know, you could do with some help and you've been listening to this for a while and you are, you know, curious.

Let'S jump on a call. All the details are on the website or reach out to me on LinkedIn and see if we can give you some guidance. I can't guarantee we'll invite you into the accelerator, but if I can give you some help and support along the way, then I'd be happy to do that. And that's it for this week, folks. So enjoy the rest of your day and yeah, talk soon.

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'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 favorite and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. See you next week.