The REAL secret to scaling your video business. EP #206 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. Dan. Lenny here. Episode 206 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast.

So after Australia having a pretty good track record on Covid and being fairly Covid free, we seem to have smashed it now, and more than half the country is in lockdown, including ourselves here in Queensland, we've just been announced another lockdown until Sunday. Not nearly as bad as the guys in New South Wales. And gosh, you know, the folks in Victor. I've had it ridiculously bad, but there we go. That is our. That is our new world. And I think the key is that we have to get used to this situation for some time because it's. It's not going away. But that's okay because, you know, we can't control that. What we can control is how we spend our time with what I call the extra blessings, if you like, of COVID which is when you're locked down, if you really are unable to film, then it does give you an enormous opportunity to do some other things. And I want to just name check Andrew here who's been on the podcast, Andrew McLean in Sydney, who was, you know, he's in full lockdown just now in Sydney and as a team. And, you know, I think, you know, last week we had had a day where he was feeling a little bit kind of, you know, over it all, but, you know, he just pulled it all out the bag and said, right, let's just use this time constructively. And I think that's a great lesson, is how you can use the time to do the things that you never have time to do because, you know, you're always busy shooting or editing or doing production. So today I wanted to talk about that. Talk about the fact that, you know, this is the. This is the new way we've got to operate our businesses. So what can you do constructively with this time if you are in a position where you're locked down? If you're in the uk, you're probably home free, and that's great. And in the US it sort of varies depending on where you are. But what I want to do today is talk about.

Building proven business systems. You know, one of the biggest challenges and obstacles that face businesses when they're scaling is hiring a team. And there's various, you know, some people are really up for it, some people are terrified of it, and other people are somewhere in the middle. But one of the keys to expanding your team is you cannot build a business alone. It's only so far. You can get, you know, I work with a lot of filmmakers, and I look at the numbers over two or three years consecutively, and what typically happens is the numbers are within plus or minus 10% each year because they're literally doing everything themselves. And so the. The only way you can scale a business is to hire a team. And the most dangerous number in business is one, whether that's you or one employee. You know, you've got to start to think about how you can make the business more successful beyond just yourself. And a common misnomer is that people think that, especially in video production, that.

We, the clients want us. You know, that's how they're used to dealing with. So they're expecting to see you on location. And that is not always the case if you set it up correctly. And so one of the ways you can do that, and the key is timing what I'm about to talk about. Building systems is not something you should be doing if you've got no work. It's something that comes into play when you've got regular clients. You've got a decent amount of money coming in. I'd say minimum 10,000 US a month before you even start thinking about systemizing, because systems themselves won't bring you more business until you've already got a certain amount of business on the books already. So what I want to talk to about today is something I'm repacking and something I've had Dave Jennings on the podcast from Systemology and System Hub a couple of times. And, you know, we work with businesses as well to help systemize their business as a separate service to the vba. And although typically if you do the systemization process with us, we'll generally bring you into the VBA as part of that process. It's like an added benefit. But the key to building proven systems for your businesses is that structure and discipline will set you free. And that is probably the single most important lesson. If you take nothing away from this episode other than structure and discipline will actually set you free. And we're talking about systems that you run on a personal level, business systems. You know, you've got your business operating system, then you've got your personal operating system.

I got into building systems about three years ago, and it literally started to transform my life. You know, I run my week like a system. I have certain things I do on certain days. I have certain times of certain days that I do certain things. You know, I joined this fitness program eight weeks ago, and Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 9:30 till 10:30, I'm at the gym, which means I leave at 9, I'm back by 11. And that is, that is now a system for my health. We're doing a nutrition program just now, and I'm using MyFitnessPal. And my coach has given me a calorific daily limit and a protein goal to hit. That is a system for getting healthy. And the key is that I put the data into my fitness pal and I track every single thing that I eat. I measure all the quantities, and that's a system for success. And so systems are what will guarantee success rather than leaving things to chance. So, you know, systems are really the backbone of structure. And I think the biggest challenge that most filmmakers face is getting all of the information out about the process that they do automatically out of their head into a system. You know, I remember thinking about when I used to be in television camera work. I used to think about how I'd light an interview and I'd like an interview, the same process every single time. And it would go something like this. I would walk into a room, I'd. I'd first of all ask the producer, you know, is there a particular side the person needs to sit on? If it was a multi, multi camera interview documentary series, maybe they want the camera looking left or right. So get that part figured out. And then I would then basically look around the room and just spend some time looking at the available light. Was there any ambient light in the room that I couldn't control? And then I think about the frame. And so I'd first of all just look through. I just literally squeeze my fingers together and look through a kind of frame that way. It's very hard to do on audio, but if you take your index finger and just curl it up and you look through the little hole, it kind of gives you a pretty good aperture for looking through three shots. And then what I do is I get the camera out and I start looking around at finding a frame. So the very first part of my system for slicing an interview was to find a frame. I'd find a frame, I'd set the camera up on that frame, and then I'd put the seats in place so I'd have the looking room. And that was step one of the system. The second part of the system would be I'd always do the backlight first. I'd always generally backlight. I'd always generally key light from the same side as the. And the way the person was interviewing was sitting. So if it was on the left, that key from the left, which Meant the backlight or the rear hair light was always on the right. So it was always, you know, 180 degrees from the key light. So I'd always start with the backlight. Because what I would do is if I was using any of the ambient light in the room, I would just bring the level of the backlight up just to. Just to kiss the back of the hair. I never like to see it looking harsh. I wanted to always make it look natural. From then I would light the background. I think about, you know, how is it going to separate the background, but what kind of light or not light in the background to create some depth. And then finally I would bring in the key light as my final dip. And then I'd sit the person in and I'd tweak it a little bit. You know, maybe it might move the light in a bit closer or a bit further away. I never used dimmers because dimmers, back in the days of, excuse me, halogen would like always change the color temperature. If you dim down, it would change the color temperature. So that was my process for lighting, had a similar process for editing. So, you know, we're using processes every day in the work we're doing anyway. It's just that we may not necessarily have written it down. And that can be quite a challenging thing to do. I'm working with a business in Dallas at the moment, and we're about sort of five or six weeks into the systemization process. And what we're doing is we're really helping Brian to. To extract all of the information from his head. And it's been a really fascinating process because I can see that, that he's got a lot on his plate. He's got something like 60 or 70 projects on the go at one time. And so we're helping him to extract his process. And as we go through the process like our one to 60 to 90 minute calls that we do, we're able to pull out all the different steps and then write it down and make it look like a roadmap. And in that way, anyone new coming in can see it. It's really interesting process. So that's, that's how we do it. We extract. So, you know, systems don't need to be scary. And it's easy to imagine that creating systems is going to be this laborious process that takes time away from your passion of shooting or producing. But in reality it doesn't have to be. So what we're doing with it with a clear system is we're Mapping the customer journey and every process in between.

So it will actually allow you to be more creative. It will allow you to.

You know, have clear guidelines for what each single stage of the process looks like. Now the Google call this the OKR objectives and key results. And that's part of the systemization process which is like, like you know, map everything out, know what's got to be what and then, then you can, then you can set clear objectives and, and map what the key outcomes are based on the data you have with systems and processes. So if systems and processes don't exist.

Then you'll find yourself getting stuck. And, and what we're looking to do to, to scale a business is to look at how your system operates and optimize it. So if you get your systems built, then you can implement okrs, you know, your objectives. Like the objectives of the quarter might be we want to grow the business by 20% which means we want to get, you know, five more clients in. How are we going to get five more clients in? Well, if, if the, if the system for how you get clients and isn't written down, then it's a bit like, well, let's just call people to. Someone says yes, but if the system is written down and you know, you have a lead generation system and you have a pipeline and you have a lead flow of people who are, you know, three months ago made an inquiry but you've not followed up with them, then they could be on your list to follow up with. So that could be your key result is to grow your business by that 20% in that quarter. So that's the first part of systemization. But let's break it down a bit more. You know.

Systems are simply what needs to be done, how it needs to be done and who's responsible for it. And it sounds pretty simple, right? And the good thing is you don't have to be responsible for your own systems. In the vba we actually have done a lot of the work for you. We've actually created a very comprehensive video business system from start to finish that you can literally implement and modify. So we've done a lot of the heavy lifting already.

As I say, all you have to do is implement it. It's a bit like painting by numbers, but for a video business.

And so I've got this philosophy now that I'm obsessed with and so much so that until recently I just changed monitors. I had a label on my computer that said do it once, record it and create a system. And why did I do that because systems allow you to scale. You know, there's a number of things that you do day in, day out, multiple times a day that are repetitive. And as soon as you start to think about that and add up how long that takes, over a week or a month, it's a lot of time that could be done, but a task that could be done by someone else. So the systems allow you to take processes you do repeatedly and allows others to follow them without needing to ask you questions. And you can always take a step back and watch your business grow without your influence at every single stage of every minor detail. And that's really where a lot of issues arise.

In, in a video business is that I hear this time and time again is that, oh, I tried to hire someone but they, you know, I explained what needed to be done and they didn't do it properly, so I ended up having to redo it. And actually what is generally happening in that stage is that they're not, the instructions aren't clear enough, the objectives aren't outlined enough, and there isn't enough clarity around the expectation of what done looks like. And so if you, if you don't clearly articulate what has to be done correctly in the first place, then you're going to find yourself coming up against problems.

Which is why systems are your biggest tool in your armory and probably the single most powerful tool in scaling the revenues of your business. And my video business accelerator clients, the ones that have implemented systems that are at that stage have seen enormous growth. Enormous growth. I mean, I can think of Caleb, who's probably up 400% in a year in terms of revenue, and he puts that primarily down to systems. Andrew, who's on the podcast just recently, Andrew Fowler from Lux Films talked about how, how much their business had grown. They probably doubled in the last year. And they were, they were doing well. I mean, they were doing multiple six figures already and they did, they've done very well and they've doubled. And a large part of that is down to Andrew, of course, but the systems that they follow, the systems they've implemented. Andrew's no longer editing. He's. He's just kind of coordinating and producing. In fact, he's on Holly this week in Devon. So if he's listening to this. Have a lovely time, Andrew. And so, yeah, so systems are really important. In fact, even incredible guest we had on last week, Jamie Marie from Savvy Copy. You know, they use a system for copywriting. Their business is systemized. It allows Jamie to have a team and to be able to take on more clients and help more people simultaneously. So we've got to think of systems as. There's always a learning curve in anything. Okay. And there's always going to be a period where you feel like it's a bit painful. But in actual fact.

The work that it takes to systemize your business, I've seen people systemize in as little as three months. I mean when we work with people as systemologists, which is the accreditation from Dave Jennings systemology book.

That we have, we are able to go through his exact process. It's a kind of verified process to systemize business and it takes between 12 and 16 weeks. But I've seen people do it inside the VBA in that kind of time because they've got a team and they've just really focused on it. And if you have a team, you can always have someone become a systems champion in our, in our vba. You know the guys at Hebron, Caleb and Bailey, Bailey's very involved in the systemization part of the process with, with, with Caleb. So Caleb's not doing everything as a business owner. He's got a great team who are enthusiastic about the systems as well.

And then Ben at Chuff Productions in the uk, somebody else who's really embracing systems and has expanded his team, just taking on his first full time employee. And they're getting very involved in systems. And so it, what it does is it lets, it helps set you free. And my team, you know, they've always been very, very integral in the systemization of the business. In fact, John, who used to work for me, he went to live in Newey, which is an island over in the Pacific and the time zones didn't work out. So he had to kind of leave the company. But when Milka came on board all of John's systems, she just followed. And we did that through System Hub. And so we were able to expand the team and we're looking to expand the team further. And I mean I've got various contracted team but we're looking to expand the full time team as well. And so the systems that we have built already enable us to have very clear indications of what the job descriptions are, very clear expectations of what the expectations are for the role. And it's like an instruction manual. So you know, I don't want to be having to train people and having to answer questions every five minutes. And I'm sure you don't either.

It is absolutely critical to systemize your business at the stage. As I say, when you're ready, you know, I mean, and if you're not at that stage yet, if you're kind of earlier in the journey, you can still implement personal systems. So I have a very simple personal system which is, you know, I go to the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday and 9 till 11. So I'm only really probably working from mid day onwards. Sometimes I'll drop into the office a bit earlier, I've got a call. But Mondays are always my content day, so it's always content day and community day. So I will record some podcasts on a Monday and I'll prepare whatever coaching we're looking to achieve in the VBA on the Tuesday or a Monday night in the, in the us. And so that is always my community and content day. So it's a prep day and a content day and then Tuesdays here in Australia is always my coaching day. That's when holder coaching calls 8 in the morning and 7pm at night, which is Australian Brisbane time. In the U.S. it varies from 3 to 5 to 6 in the, in the evening on a Monday. And in the UK it's, it's usually about 9, 9 o' clock in the morning thereabouts. And we got a client in South Africa as well. So it's a little bit, couple of hours later, like 11 in the morning on a Tuesday. And so Tuesdays are the days that I have coaching calls. I record my shorty episode which is always done live after the call. Wednesdays are usually sales days. So those are days when I have sales and coaching. So I, my majority of my time is spent focused on my paying members, on my clients, the ones that have invested with me, the ones that entrust me, the ones that get most of my attention so that I always have slots available for them if they need to have a chat.

Wednesdays and Thursdays usually sales calls if they're in or coaching calls. And then Friday is usually a kind of pickup day, a pickup day where we sort of, you know, I'm involved with a couple of other things at the minute. I'm judging a film competition for, for Sony in Asia, in Singapore. I'm working on some other, other projects. As I say, we work with a couple of clients, one on one to offer them systemization and I also do a lot of reading, I do a lot of reading, a lot of training. I'm always looking for an edge. I'm always looking to study where are other businesses being successful in other industries and how can I extract that information and put it through the lens of a videogr business. How can I implement that?

I've been having quite a few chats in the last few weeks with Dave Jennings at System Hub. We've been having kind of weekly meetings just to sort of discuss all things systems and share, you know, that, that masterminding. I spend quite a bit of time just, just studying and reading and also thinking about how I can make my membership better, how I can help our clients achieve more and that's really our core focus. So the personal systems help me to achieve that on a daily basis so I know what I'm going to achieve and I don't have to do any thinking. I think it was Steve Jobs who did this first and I know that.

Zuckerberg does this as well, which is like, you know, Zuckerberg wears the same T shirt every day. And the reason for that is it's a personal system. And his motivation is I don't want to spend any time thinking about what I'm going to wear. I'd rather spend time thinking about how I can make my business better, make my community better, make the experience better for the users or learning. And I tend to do the same. My wife always mocks me, she's like, oh, can you just wear something else? But I wear a black T shirt from Harley and it's a tiny thing but if you don't have to think about what you're going to wear, it's just like, put the clothes on, get to it. So systems exist everywhere. So have a think about the kind of systems that you already run in your business, how you set up a timeline on an edit. You know, that is a system, consider that. And I think you'll find it to be very, very interesting. And yeah, if you want to know more about systems, make sure we link to the other systems trainings that we have below this on the website over@denleny.com and until then, if you need some help with your business, here's a listen to this. 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, 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 Denlany.com and click on Accelerator.