Top 3 Lessons from this unusual year. EP #146 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. Dan Lanney here, host of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast, coming to you today with episode 146. It's the last day of the year. I think a lot of people are quite happy to get this year out of the way. But of course, you know, just a change in date doesn't really change very much other than that kind of line in the sand. And so today I wanted to share my three top lessons of 2020. And I hope that you find them useful and helpful and can take them into 2021 with a bit more gusto.

So I'm going to keep it quite short today. I know you've probably got things planned. There's probably things you want to be doing. And I like to reflect at the end of a year, as we do actually every week and every month inside the Video Business accelerator. But I think at the end of the year is a time when a lot of people have got this on their mind. So I wanted to just share with you three lessons that I think have helped my clients push through pretty significantly in 2020. So let's kick off with number one. The first lesson is extreme ownership. Now, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know I'm a big fan of Jocker Willink. His book Extreme How Navy Seals Lead and Win is one of the best books, I think, ever written on leadership and context around making decisions. So I think with everything that's happened this year, we must. You know, the people I've seen succeed against all adversity are the ones who embrace extreme ownership. You know, if there's anything we learned this year is that you cannot allow external forces to dictate the outcomes of your business.

And that is something that we absolutely led by from day one of coronavirus. It was like, we are not going to let this disrupt us and derail us. This is something we cannot control. This is something we have no influence over. How are we going to respond? And the first thing we did was just turned off the news from day one, and then we held multiple emergency coaching sessions where we helped all of our members regroup and grow. Now, some people left and went by the wayside, and I hope they're doing okay today. But the ones that stayed, I can tell you now that, you know, eight, nine months on, they're all thriving and doing better than they were pre Covid. And that is because of their absolute focus on removing all stimuli and distraction that takes away from executing your plan. So when we say and don't watch the news, we meant no news media. The only news we would consume was the government official presentations. And so by doing that, you focus on what you can control and not on what you can't. And if you're someone who, who knows people who turn around and say, well, you know, my business was really badly affected. I couldn't do this because of this, that the next thing, I have clients in my mastermind who run events businesses. Their work got absolutely decimated. But within four to six weeks they have completely reposition their offer, completely connected with all of their clients and said, hey, how can we support you? We're working ways we can still keep moving, working on ways we can still keep delivering to you. And those are the businesses that are now at the top of their game in the digital space when it comes to online virtual events.

So when it comes to anything in your life and business, you cannot blame anyone or anything else for your lack of success. And that can be a very confronting.

Statement to have to deal with. But the fact is, me, you, anyone, you know, we're either successful or not successful because of something we have or haven't done. And if we're not at the revenue we'd like to be at, if we're not, we don't have enough cash in the bank that we'd like to have in the bank, if we're not able to go and, you know, invest in the equipment we want, it's because of something we haven't done. And I've spoken to many, many people this year, had conversations about whether or not they want to come and join the program. And we knock back. I'd say more than 50% of applicants, and that is because they're just not ready or they don't have the right mindset. And we have an extreme ownership mindset inside the vba, success or failure is down to you. I've had conversations with people who've spent 30 or 40,000 pounds or dollars on camera equipment, but question a few thousand to invest in themselves. And that is okay because it's not for everyone. But if you want all the things that you say you want, you have to be willing to do the work. And that can be uncomfortable, that can sometimes be challenging, that can be confronting because it's uncomfortable. You know, we talked recently about, you know, the things that you do to create clarity in your life. I recently stripped off all the apps on my phone. So all I look on my phone now is my stripe account, my bank account and the foreign exchange. So every day my Only focus is revenue and sales and cash. Then I'm gonna sit at my desk. I've got a zero inbox policy for my emails, so I have nothing to distract me. So my focus is always on serving my clients. Absolutely serving my clients and, and keeping an eye on the finances and that that is what will help your business grow. And all the wonderful people I get to work with every day inside the Video Business Accelerator coaching program and now the Video Accelerator business course inspire me every day to want to just help them become more successful. So those that, those that take the commitment to join get my full attention.

So be very clear on that fact. Be very clear on the fact that if you're not more successful, it's because of something you're not doing or something you are doing that's not the right direction for you. The second big lesson of 2020 is just having absolute clarity on your target market and go deep into your target market. You know, you want to become so ensconced in your target market where anyone in that market doesn't think twice about coming to you because you're the only logical choice because you're such an expert in that space. I think of my client Pat, who's been on the podcast, Pat Henderson, who a year ago was very resistant to, to niching down and now, you know, 80% of his business comes from the medical health and the medical device and healthcare industries. And he's in Boston and he becomes the go to guy because clients just go, yep, we'll talk to Path 8 because they're the guys that specialize in healthcare. I think about my client in Sydney, Andrew, who is absolutely smashing high end corporate for schools and for corporate and he has a red epic and he delivers exceptionally high quality and his work just stands out above anyone else's. Excuse me. And so he is someone who has become number one in Sydney, Sydney video producer. He is like the number one company that. And it's great growing at an exponential rate. Or I think about Caleb, who's down in Bendigo, who started with us about eight months ago and is now reaching, you know, triple and quadruple the revenue he was eight months ago. Just so much so they've just hired another team member and he is someone who's just been completely committed. But these people all have a very clear idea of their target market, who they're talking to, what they do, who they do it for. And that clarity has an enormous impact on their business. And I couldn't be more thrilled with all of my clients. They're all making incredible progress. But it does take time and it is challenging and it can be confronting. But if you trust the process, you will get the results. It's just that as creatives, we often spend a lot of time.

Second guessing, questioning, because that's what we do when we're being creative. We think about lots of different things, but in business, you have to separate the two. You have to separate the business. The business needs consistency, the business needs routine. And routine can be boring for a creative, which is why so many creative businesses fail. I know and have worked with some of the most incredibly creative, beautiful people whose work is exquisite, but they are poor because they can't be disciplined to follow the process and then they make excuses for why they're not doing things. And Ben Simkin, he was on this podcast this year, one of my mentors. He's like, Dan, you can make excuses or you can make money, but you can't make both. And so unfortunately, I observe very creative people just not being disciplined enough to follow the process. They're always trying to look for an easier route. And it's such a shame because from a creative standpoint, the work can be absolutely exquisite, beautiful, but it doesn't make money. And that is because to make money with video, you don't have to be a perfectionist. You just have to give the client consistency. Consistency. And as, as Declan would say to me, who I must get on the podcast at some point, you know, he's proud of the fact that his company really, really looks after boring corporate, but boring corporate in the sense that he knows his market. His market are mid to high level corporate companies who just don't want anything too risky. They are the Pfizers of the world. They are the big brands who just need consistent content shot, well delivered, on time, on budget and you can make an enormous amount of money looking after those kind of clients. I've always maintained that the real money in video production is not in the sexy stuff. It's in the nuts and bolts glue, it's in the internal comms, in the training. I've got Stasi, who's over in Birmingham, Alabama. There's an enormous amount of work with bottling plants from major drinks manufacturers. Jethro has just won a big deal with his company Quantized Pixels over in Washington D.C. and they are making high end training videos for high end kitchen equipment. Like this is very, very lucrative work. And if you're able to separate your creative ego from the amount, the work that needs to be done to build a Business, you can have everything you ever wanted because when there's money rolling in, you can hire people to do the work and you can go and create as much fun stuff as you want. But a big mistake I see a lot of filmmakers make is that they want that they're unrealistic. They're unrealistic about the fact that they want every job they do to be creatively stimulating and.

You know, something they can put on their show real. And what I've I can tell you my clients do is my clients don't think like that. My clients are, let's do the work, get paid. And there will be projects that will come along from time to time that we really find very stimulating creatively. But what also happens is, and Pat mentioned this to me recently, he said, you know, I used to think like that Dan, but now I actually finding the business building part creative, he's hired a production manager part time. He's looking to scale his business. He's got a young family.

Caleb's just hired another team member because his business has grown so much this year. So it's really exciting for me as the kind of the leader of this community to watch people grow. I think about Tim, who's just, you know, had another multiple five figure month in December and he sent a lovely note saying, you know, I just would never have been here without you, Dan. And that's because we keep everyone accountable, we keep everyone on track and we focus on extreme ownership, absolute clarity on your target market, your message and your offer. So you become the only choice in that market. And in my third big lesson and observation of 2020 is discipline to focus one hour every day on marketing and sales. You know, any business is doing less than a million dollars a year is a sales and marketing business. If you are not committed to consistently executing marketing and sales every day, you are never, ever going to remove the feast and famine. You just can't keep chasing the shiny objects. You can't keep chasing new opportunities.

You have to be focused on one target market, one avatar and talk to them about their problems over and over and over and over again. And I think where we creatives find this challenging is that it feels like we're repeating ourselves. It feels like we're saying the same thing over and over again. But what you have to remember, and we actually tested this, is that in email marketing, most people only really, truly acknowledge and really digest one in every five to seven emails they receive from you. So if you send an email every single day of the week, which we did for a while. That means that at least one email a week is going to be read and consumed, which means that's 52 emails a year. That's 52 touch points with a potential client. If you only email once a month, then there's a chance that only, you know, once or twice a year, your message will be getting through. And if your inbox is an absolute, you know, clusterfuck of, of emails and 10 or 20,000 emails, even less so. So it's critically important that you focus your time and effort on marketing across multiple channels, you know, consistently. And when I talk about marketing, it doesn't need to be, you know, creating content for LinkedIn, for example. It can be just targeting the right people and beginning a conversation. And in the Mastermind and in the coaching program, we have, we have scripts for that, you know, so we lay out exactly what to do and how to do it. But the biggest obstacle I see.

Filmmakers not achieve the results they want with the marketing is a lack of consistency in execution. It's the, it gets too boring, it gets put in a too hard pile. It gets in the kind of like, oh, I didn't manage to do that, so I won't bother pile. But if you focus one hour every day on marketing and sales, advancing a marketing campaign or advancing a sale, and that could just be simply following up with a client. You know, we've got a training that we offer in the first week of the program, and it's called how to land a client in 30 days. And it's a process with a script for how to follow up with every client you've ever worked with and touch base, even if you've not been in touch with them for six months, it tells you what to see, how to see it, and that can more often than not generate business immediately. But the biggest obstacle that we all have to overcome and continually work on is that habit of consistency. It is the number one challenge I see filmmakers face, and I recognize it in myself. It's something that I have to be very disciplined about. But we have tools for that. And in simple terms, I just diarize it. I literally put in my calendar, right? Marketing and sales from 9 till 10 every day. If you spend one hour every day focused on marketing and sales, you will never have a business that's going to cause you problems. Because if you're always selling, you're always bringing new business into the group. If you're, if you're looking after existing clients and getting them to buy again, you're going to find yourself in a great position. So, you know, the only way to grow a business is there's three ways, okay? It's, it's get more clients, charge more money to the clients you have, and sell more often to the clients that you have. That is the only three ways to grow a business. And all of that needs focus. And so as we kind of wrap up 2020, I wanted to keep this quite simple and quite short and sweet, to the point because, you know, the problems of last year aren't going to just go away because it flicks over to the 1st of January tomorrow. There might be an elation, a sense of like, renewed enthusiasm because 2021 is on.

But, you know, who knows what's around the corner? One thing this year has taught us is be prepared for the unexpected. And I'm thrilled to say that, you know, the members that have stuck with us throughout this entire process, the ones that have dug in.

Remain committed to the process, are now seeing the benefits of that. They are having enormous use. I mean, the number of clients in December who were hitting 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, $80,000 in business, in revenue in December, it was staggering. But not, but not at all surprising because the 8 growth accelerators in practice, when executed consistently work. So, guys, I'm going to wrap this up now and say thank you for being a subscriber, thank you for listening. It's been amazing to get to what are we, you know, 144 episodes of this podcast and we push two episodes a week out consistently. The only time we took a break was in August when I went on holiday and we really noticed how quickly the numbers slid off. So we, we accept and understand that for us to continue to provide value to you, we need to be consistent. And so we have systems for this podcast and, and our intention is to continue with it. We, we absolutely love, love the feedback we get. And you know, let's get into 2021 and just think of these three lessons. You know, take extreme ownership to heart. Really get into that. If you want to read a book over, over the holiday period, then go and download the Audible book because it's mind blowing. Have absolute clarity on your target market and go deep into that target market and focus on one market at a time because when you try and market to everyone, you end up talking to no one and spend one hour every day focused on sales and marketing and watch your business blow up. Guys, I will see you next year. 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 the ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching, then check out how you can work with me over@denlenny.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.