Unlocking Growth: Pro Strategies for Scaling Your Video Business! EP #351

G', day, guys. It's Dan and I'm back. You may have noticed we've been trying a few different things on the podcast recently, namely introducing the video mentors to your listening pleasure. And, you know, we've been trialing a few different formats now. We've had some great feedback about those formats and particularly the groups, the four of us coming together, mentors, sharing different experiences. But I've also observed that you seem to enjoy these shorter episodes as well, with me just talking and sharing insights. And then last week we posted an episode with Grant sharing five different marketing techniques. And that had a ton of comments and feedback. So we're just, you know, I'm always a big fan of sharing with you exactly how things are. You know, business doesn't always go totally swimmingly and it's important when marketing to always be testing. And so we've trialed a few different formats and we come up with a plan now to distribute a range of different formats to you. Excuse me. Over the coming weeks and months. And this is episode 351 of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast. And, you know, we're excited that there's a new sort of era in video that, you know, we hope that by bringing different perspectives of people, not only like myself, who've been doing this a very long time, but people who are in business now, dealing with challenges with clients every single day, it's going to provide a lot of value to you regardless of whether you're in one of our paid programs or not. This is our opportunity to share with you good insights that will help you regardless. Now obviously, if you want some help implementing, if you want some help being accountable and you want to be part of an amazing community doing this, then we have those paid programs for that. And for some people, that's about having a more of a commitment financially to your business. And I always say that if you join one of our paid programs, I want you to get a 10 times return on investment. And there's no reason why you shouldn't if you do the work. But of course, that's where the challenge is. You've got to do the work. So doing the work some days means that you find yourself in situations where things don't work quite as well as you'd hoped. And I thought that these multiple person podcasts would be a lot more impactful. But it seems like we need to balance with interviews and short episodes like this where I share things and teach as well. So that's what we're going to Do. So thanks for still listening, if you're still listening and if you're not, then come back. But today I wanted to share with you, I'm actually recording this. Forgive the audio. We're actually in a hotel. My wife and I are in a hotel in Dunedin in New Zealand. We've taken a week's break. One of the things I love about a business, right, is that you can have a week's break, do a little bit of work and still kind of function. We actually sat at breakfast this morning and I was looking at a couple of guys with their business briefcases and they were having their breakfast and they had that kind of lanyard around their neck. I thought, gosh, you know, I used to do that. I used to work for companies full time and have to go and do, you know, business meetings and sales pitches and stuff. And one of the great things about running a business, of course, is that you are in control. But sometimes that means that you have a shitty boss who makes you work unreasonably hard at times. But at other times, like yesterday, Sam and I, you know, we flew into Queenstown from Australia on Sunday and yesterday we drove across a beautiful mountain range in Central Otago and spent the day just pottering around in the car, driving through the beautiful countryside of New Zealand. And at one point we stopped at the top of this hill and there was a bench that a young lady had passed away and her parents must have put a bench there for her. We sat on this hill.

And it was the most silent I've ever heard an open space. I think in my entire life. There was just no noise other than birds and the sound of the wind. It was really spectacular. So it's great to get away and have some fresh air and some breathing space. We're actually in Dunedin because we've come to see one of my favourite bands, one of me and Sam's favorite bands, Crowded House.

Ironically, I was back in the UK just recently. I flew back into Edinburgh and they were playing Glasgow the next night and I wanted to go, but I was just so jet lagged it wasn't going to happen. So we decided we were going to go and see them in December in Brisbane, but they were sold out. And so over a coffee last week we just said, hey, what if we went to see them in New Zealand? And they're a New Zealand band. And I thought it'd be really cool to go and see them in their home country. And then so we found the place that had the smallest venue, which is the Dunedin town Hall and we're gonna go and see them tonight. So, you know, any of you that love music, you know, when you see one of your favorite bands who normally play stadiums and huge venues and arenas, to see a band play a small venue is always really cool. So that's what we're doing this week. But I wanted to just share with you today something that's happening and I appreciate this will only benefit you if you're in Australia, but we're running an event on 2 December in a place called Collingwood in Melbourne. Now those of you that are from Victoria and Australia will know where that is. But basically we've decided to put on a bit of a one day business mastery event, kind of mastermind, a get together, a meetup and really if you've got any questions about how to grow your video business or you're struggling with the current economy, or you're struggling with what to do next in your business. A lot of times I speak to business owners who've been doing this 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years and it's always just kind of, the work's always kind of come in. But maybe it's getting tougher, maybe it's not flowing quite as well, maybe you've had some big jobs that have not happened that typically would have happened.

So we decided we'd put together an event to help Pinot change that. It's, we're calling it the Video the Video Business Accelerator One Day Business Growth Summit. And really it's for anyone who wants to grow their business. You know, if you're tired of that inconsistency of incoming cash flow, or maybe, maybe you're still struggling with the mindset around, you know, letting go of the freelancer mindset. Even though you might have a team now, maybe you're still, you know, pricing jobs in the same way you used to, which is like, you know, based on labor on the day and just on, you know, kind of, you know, how many camera kits and lenses and tripods and people, rather than a more rounded kind of value based offer. Maybe you're struggling with your positioning or niche focus. A lot of people are really anxious about niching down and as a result, maybe you're challenged with how to price yourself correctly and then maybe as a result of that you're struggling to attract those higher paying corporate clients. You know, why is it one company can charge 25 grand for a project and you're in there about five or six and you can't see how, how to even present that? And that can create a lot of overwhelm, especially if you're managing multiple aspects of the business at once. So, so scaling beyond that kind of solo operational mindset is very difficult. And as a result it often leads to, you know, ineffective marketing and lead gen strategies and a lack of systems to be able to do that again and again. And of course, you know, mustn't forget you still want to balance creativity with all those business management tasks. So if those are the things you're experiencing, then don't worry because many people struggle to shift from that what I call the freelancer mindset. The curse of the freelancer. It's just, it's in us, you know, we're just so used to just not saying no to anything and just taking any work we can. And clients say they haven't got enough money and you start bending over to make it work. So, you know, in order to shift to that more business owner mindset and running a stable and profitable business, you know, the things that you're really looking for are consistent income. You know, you want to be able to buck that beast and famine cycle and instead have a steady predictable income. And it's harder than it looks, you know, but you can get higher paying clients. There are higher paying clients out there. There are plenty of clients just now in the VBA who have, are working with clients with larger budgets who are willing to pay premium rates, who want to a specialist. But it comes down to identifying that profitable niche and understanding there's a process for that and making sure that niche has ongoing demand and good profit potential. And also you can have a better work life balance. You know, a life, work life balance is about being able to do things that are really cool without you feeling like you're tied and anchored to the business. And you know, like we're doing just now, take some time off and travel and not constantly stress about work. I mean, yes, I'm doing some work today, I've got a call in about 20 minutes time, but I want to work for about two and a half hours today and then the rest of the week there'll be the odd hour here and there. But in the meantime we're getting to spend time together, travel around New Zealand and, and, and hang out. So for that to happen, you need a clear business structure. You want to move beyond those ad hoc projects to a more organized, systematic and, and approach to your business. And that will help you improve your marketing skills, your sales skills, and that will help you attract better clients and you'll have better strategies for marketing your services. And, you know, if you want to scale your business and grow beyond sole operations and increase revenue, you need to be confident in your pricing, you need to be confident in negotiations, you need to be confidently sell, serve your price up to a client and negotiate with clients in a way that they just want to buy from you. And then you can create a high impact work, create meaningful content that solves real problems for your clients. And if you want to do this all in a supportive community and have access to peers and mentors for advice and support, then this event is going to be phenomenal. You know, we're going to, we're actually going to share three core business systems on the day that allow our average business clients to double their business in a single year. And most of them are working less than they did before applying these systems. So you can forget about side gigs, you can forget about undercharging, you can forget about burnout. This really is a pathway to your version of freedom and fulfillment and ultimately earning what you're truly worth. So we've got some incredible guest speakers coming. We've got Caleb Maxwell from My Headphone Films. Caleb is one of the coaches in the vba. He's also been a client of mine for about five years. He's a filmmaker, he's a podcast host, he's an entrepreneur, he's a father of three boys and he owns Hebron Films, which is a regional talent in Australia with less than 100,000 people. And he's just super passionate about helping creatives succeed in business. So if you've never met Caleb before, he's an absolute phenomenal guy. Real legend. Become a great friend then. We've got Andy Johnson from Expansion Media. Andy had an enormous growth last year, started his life selling his video services door to door and has now focused his niche on selling into the residential construction industry and is now helping residential builders sell more houses. And he's got some incredible insights to share. And we've got Alana Thompson, who's from Said and Done Media. She started her life shooting Whale wars for.

History Channel and she's a mom of two. She runs 7 Dumb Media, an all women production company and advocates for diversity in production, particularly on camera crews. And we've got Grant Jamison. If any of you have been on LinkedIn recently, you'll know Grant is prolific as a marketer on LinkedIn. He runs Lyft Video Production, specializes in the transport logistics niche. He's an absolute master of LinkedIn marketing. He has two full timers. I think he's hiring a third at the minute, does some really cool skits on LinkedIn to engage his clients, but is also a very pragmatic, very experienced videographer who has scaled his team beyond himself in about the last three or four years. So great insights from Grant. And Grant's going to be sharing the stage with Matt Smolin from Balloon Tree Productions. Blue and Tree are a team of five now. They've been running 13 years. Matt's married, has two young boys. The huge back to the future fan and a lover of puns and was a competitive swimmer before going into filmmaking. But Matt's excellent at leadership and running a creative team and enabling that creative team to feel empowered to make decisions. And so Matt and Grant are going to do a session on marketing and LinkedIn and running a team. Andy and Caleb are going to talk about putting together million dollar proposals and pitching them to clients. And I'm going to have a panel and Alana's going to be around all day. Myself, we're going to do SE on mindset and the whole idea is to really help you with your mindset and your confidence. You know, everything starts and ends with stories and belief systems that we've carried around since childhood. So I'll show you how to manage any limiting beliefs. And then we're going to look at how you construct a big picture plan. You know, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Once you've established where you want to go and where you want to grow, you need to create a plan, a roadmap, a GPS to get there. And there'll be an opportunity on the day to start talking about this idea of niche identification. How can you identify a viable niche, understand your target audience? How can you craft a compelling marketing message and establish a strong offer that the market finds irresistible? Then we're going to talk about simple marketing. It's really critical prior to embarking on any specific marketing activity that you're clear on your target market, your message and your offer. And I'm going to talk about how easy it is to sell when your marketing's done right, how you're going to warm up your own leads, how to sell them, the discovery process and a system that ensures you get paid on time every time. And then there'll be some discussion around leading a team, leading contractors, you know, when you're ready to expand. How do you do that? Who is the first hire? How do you develop those leadership skills? And look, the whole opportunity is about getting together in a room with your peers. It's really going to be a phenomenal day.

And you know, we've got a webpage that explains everything that's going on. If you go over to the videomentors.com and click on the orange button where it says one day Business Summit, it will take the page explains everything. Now the early bird tickets have all gone and I think at the time of recording, we have three of the fast action tickets left and then we've got a handful of the full price tickets are going as well. We're not packing this event out with like hundreds of people. It's a very intimate event. We want it to be more of a workshop. We've made it super affordable, the most affordable thing we've ever done, because we just want to be able to give something back to the community and create a space where people can feel like, especially in December, there's an opportunity to get together, review the year, reflect on it, discuss what's working, what's not. And most importantly of all, if you're listening to this and you're thinking there's no work out there, times are really tough. You know that that is, that is in part true. But I'm going to share with you a bunch of people who are winning despite the market, despite the economy. So if it's something you're interested in, please make sure you go to the videomentors.com click on the link and I hope to see that.