Video Business Growth Accelerator 3 - Educate

G', day, folks. Dan here. And this week I'm going to delve a bit deeper into one of the nine growth accelerators. Nine growth accelerators are a mechanism that I've created on how to build a sustainable and consistent video production business with solid repeat business, consistent cash flow, and without you having to work crazy hours. Now, we've already talked about Growth Accelerator one and two.

This week we're going to talk about Growth Accelerator three, and that is to educate. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this episode.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator Podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business. With your host, Dan Lenny, discover how the accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members@www.video business accelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

So today I want to talk About Growth Accelerator 3, and that is educate. Now, if you've been following this podcast for a while, there is a series of growth accelerators that we're pushing out intermittently in between some of the guest interviews. Because what I want you to do is share what I believe are the nine core strategies to building a consistent and sustainable video production business. So what do I mean by educate? Well, all too often, if you spend too much time in filmmaking circles, all you end up talking about is filmmaking stuff. And the thing that comes up again and again when I talk to clients is they don't necessarily understand our world of filmmaking. And so the businesses that do extremely well and do well consistently are the ones who spend time and invest time in educating their audience prior to them ever calling up and asking for any business. So how do you do that? Well, there's a number of ways you can do that, but in the first instance, that's where social media can play a really important role. Now, it's very important when considering a social media strategy to not get confused with social media tactics. So what do I mean by that? Well, I mean that it's very easy to get caught up in the latest, you know, technology, the latest app, or the latest way of publishing content. And another common misconception with social is that you have to be everywhere. Now, we've done extensive tests to discover where our audience is, and certainly there's a degree of testing involved when you begin your campaigns. But I digress. The important thing is, once you've established where your audience are, is to speak to them in a tone in a way that works for them. But social media is all good and well at raising awareness. If you think of a funnel, people that don't know about you are at the top of the funnel and they're what we call cold traffic. Now what I mean by cold traffic, cold traffic is people who don't know you, they don't know if they like you, and they certainly don't know if they trust you yet. So your job in marketing is to raise the awareness of your offering and how you are different from the other thousand production companies out there in your country, if not more so. One way to do that is to engage the audience by solving a problem for them. And if you know your audience well enough, you'll know what keeps them up at night. And if you can understand what keeps them up at night, you can create content or create giveaways that you can share in exchange for an email address, a phone number that can provide genuine value to your audience. So examples of this might be an ebook where you create, you know, the five top mistakes businesses make when hiring a video production company. And then you go on to explain what those five mistakes are. But then what you do is you brand each page with your branding and links to your website. So it's a great way to help a client on their journey. All too often I hear production companies just trying to sell their video production service and that's the wrong way to go about things. You want to be approaching things from a service first, a value first perspective, and you do that by giving upfront. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this in great detail is give, give, give, give, then ask. So I want to introduce something here called the mere exposure effect. The mere exposure effect is the number of points of contact a cold prospect has to have with your product, brand or service before they feel comfortable reaching out to take the next step. Now, that is currently 15 to 18 points of contact with a product, brand or service before someone feels comfortable taking the next step. So what you want to be doing with your marketing is you want to be helping accelerate that process. So some of the ways in which you can do this are to use an ebook. It could be to create some video content that actually helps walk the client through a process. It could be a series of videos that you take them on a journey. And so you start them with a kind of a call to action on a page, and you entice them to sign up to give you their name, phone number, email address to get access to the other content. And by doing that, you find yourself beginning a relationship with someone. So there's something called reciprocity, which is from Stephen Covey's book, the 7 Habits of Highly effective people. Reciprocity is when you give someone something upfront, they feel naturally drawn to owe you something. And so if you give someone something of real value for free, they are more likely to come back to you. In fact, the study showed, I think 79% of buyers usually come back to the first place that delivered any service or value to them. So if you can be out there in the marketplace giving value to the audience before they're anywhere near buying anything, you will put yourself in a very strong position. Another thing that works very, very well is quiz funnels. Quiz funnels are mechanisms where you can take your prospect on a journey by asking them a series of questions on your website.

So that they can kind of help them figure out their journey. So it could be for, for example, hey, you know, what kind of video are you looking for today? Are you looking for an event video? Are you looking for a promotional video? Are you looking for a educational video? And you could have tick boxes. Next question could be, do you know the duration of the video you want to make? Is it 1 to 2 minutes? Is it, is it less than 2 minute? 1 minute? Is it 2 to 5 minutes? Is it longer? The next question could be, when are you looking to complete this project? In the next week, in the next month, in the next three months. And then you can get all this information sent to you. And what you could do is, is run a cre. You could create a process like this that would essentially take that client on a bit of a journey. So put yourself in the shoes of the prospect. They might have been tasked with finding a production company. They go onto Google, they Google video production company London. And you know, you can do this yourself, do this in any town that you might be in or city and just put video production or company, video production, and the name of your town or city, and up will come literally dozens of options. And what's really interesting is in most cases, they're all the same. It's like the same story of we're passionate filmmakers using the latest technology, using 4K to tell your story. We're passionate storytellers. We just want to tell your story. There's very little points of differentiation. And I make this point, made this point at my mastermind a couple of weeks ago. It's like, it's a given that filmmakers love to tell stories. That's kind of why we're in the industry. And I think the audience has become wise to that, that just, just being a good storyteller is no longer a point of Difference. It's like, well, how are you a good storyteller? And why should I care? That's what the person who's making the inquiry is thinking. They're thinking, why? What's in this for me? How much effort do I have to go through on this website to get an answer to my question? And so quiz funnels are an incredibly powerful way to take your customer, your prospective customer, on a journey. We had Brian Castagina on just a few weeks ago, and Brian talked in detail about them using quiz funnels at mindvalley and how effective they are. Because a prospect who's searching for a solution just wants an answer to their problem as quickly as possible. And your website, your landing page, your production company, your process is just an obstacle in the way of them getting their results. I'll say that again. Your product or process or company or website is just an obstacle to the prospect getting their result. Once we understand that and live that, everything becomes much, much easier.

So how can you make that process smoother? How can you make that journey easier for them? How can you set yourself apart as a video production company from everybody else out there? By actually doing it differently? And part of the process is these accelerators. Now, there are nine accelerators. We talked about three so far. This is the third one. There are six more. And I'll be revealing them over the coming weeks. But if you want to learn more about the accelerators, you can go to videobusinessaccelerator.com and check out the accelerator program. And it breaks down what the accelerators are if you really want to get there quicker. So a quiz funnel is a very powerful way of engaging someone. It also has the added benefit of keeping them on your site longer. You know, if they're on your site longer because they're having their questions answered, you know, they're not on somebody else's site. And that's pretty basic, but it's pretty important to understand. So what you can do at the end of a quiz funnel is actually ask a question about budget. You can say, hey, do you have a budget for this? Is it less than $2,000? Is it 2 to $5,000? Is it $10,000 more? Get them to select an option. And then that way what you can do at the end of it is say, well, based on the information you've given us, this would fit into this ballpark of price point for a video production. Now.

At this point, you could create a video and you could say, well, you know, video production is much like building a House, you can build a timber shed or you can build it with concrete and gold taps and with, with marble. They'll both do the job, but will cost different amounts of money because of the raw materials and the processes involved. Now, video production, much like building a house, is flexible. You can choose what materials you use, you can choose what kind of labor you have, you can choose to have a big crew, you can do it quickly, or you can have a small crew and do it more slowly. What's important to you. So if you're trying to identify through a series of questions what's important to a client, you will have a far better understanding of that client and have a far better chance of winning the work.

So having some sort of lead capture on your website is absolutely critical because email is still a very powerful tool. And as Brian said in the session we did on email marketing, if you are willing to go down the route of capturing someone's email address and build a relationship with them, it's another touch point. It's another aspect that you can, you know, you can, you can, you can use to build a relationship. And so you know, regardless of your own personal opinions of email, if, if someone is actively searching for a solution and they receive an email and they see social media posts and they've been through a quiz, that's already three or four touch points. So you're moving closer to the decision making process by taking them on that journey.

So having some sort of lead capture on your website and if you go to videobusinessaccelerator.com right now, you will see we have a lead capture form on our website. In fact, if you want to go through that process, fill in your details and you will, you will experience an automated email sequence. Now that first email sequence has 10 emails and then it goes on to a second email sequence which has five or six emails and then it goes on to an ongoing email sequence, all of that happens automatically. And so if you are listening to this right now and you wanted to find out more about the program and you went to the website and you thought, okay, I'm just not quite ready to go there yet. Well, you can sign up for the ebook, you can get a really valuable ebook called Video business breakthrough, the 9 growth accelerators to building a consistent and profitable video production business that is full of valuable information. There are links in there to other resources. And then you will go through a 15 part email sequence.

Now that happens automatically. That happens while I'm sleeping. It happens, I've got a day off. It Happens if I'm out on my bike, it happens automatically. So what we do is we run ads to Facebook and that generates leads coming into our business on a daily basis. This podcast is a lead generator for our business. We provide valuable free information. And oftentimes people who listen to the podcast get in touch with us, have a conversation, and enjoying our program because they feel a connection to what we see, how we do things, and they say things like, you know, this is the only podcast that exists specifically for video production companies. And within that, we're very, very specific. This is not for every freelancer out there, although if you're a freelancer listening to this, great. I'm really glad that you get some value from it. But typically, the clients that we have the biggest success within the program are video production companies of one to two people or more who are actively looking to grow to multiple six figures and beyond. And some of our clients are already doing seven figures. Some of our clients are just in the low six figures, and lots of clients are in between. We apply these nine accelerators to every aspect of your business, and all of our members go through a quiz funnel to measure their score out of 90 on the accelerators. And, and the goal is to get to 90 out of 90, and then when you've refined that, you start looking at a second niche. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a fluid process. So educating your clients. Maybe you should be thinking about doing a podcast. Maybe your clients listen to podcasts. It's all about getting to build the know like and trust factor way before you are anywhere close to selling them anything. And oftentimes what I find comes up again and again with video production companies is they just miss out this critical step of nurturing. And we'll talk about nurturing and Growth Accelerator 4 in a future episode. But suffice to say, you don't exist in the minds of most of your target market. And many business owners talk about, you know, getting referrals and word of mouth, and that's a very powerful way to get business. But sometimes, and this always breaks my heart, is that, you know, people kind of struggle because they've only got one or two jobs from a client. And, and it's so easy to fix that problem by just following up regularly. And we have strategies for how to do that in the program, and we have scripts for what to say to reconnect with a client you haven't been in touch with for a while. So if you're interested in learning more about that, please do go check out videobusinessaccelerator.com if you feel like it's a good fit, apply to have a chat with us. We can see if there's things we can do to help you. And if not, you can just keep listening to the podcast or read the books. We've got lots and lots of resources. The important thing for us is that not everyone is a good fit for our program. It's quite high level, it's not cheap, but we get results. So we can't cater for everyone. And so in your video production company, you shouldn't be catering for everyone. You should be setting your stall out to deal with a certain part of the market and from there make sure that you are targeting that market with relevant information. I just want to start wrapping this up by saying not enough video production companies actually use video effectively to sell their services. So think about that just for a second. You are looking to sell sometimes a 10 or 15 or 20 or $30,000 video package to someone, but you're not using video on your website. Apart from a show real, doesn't that seem like a disconnect to you? So if you're not using video, think about how you could be using video because it's a powerful tool. And let's, let's be honest. If you were going to go to a baker and buy a nice loaf of bread, but the baker doesn't eat bread, he'd be like, he doesn't eat his own bread. What's wrong with it? So think about that. How could you be using video in your own business? Be it video testimonials, be it a behind the scenes video to explain your process or a behind the scenes video to tell the story about how you got to be where you are today. People are fascinated by story. And I see a lot of people talking about being powerful storytellers and yet they're not telling a story of their business on their website. So just to Summarize, Growth Accelerator 3 is educate. How are you educating your market on how you solve their problems? And you do that via ebooks, checklists, video content, using quiz funnels, and using a combination of all of those things. And we use a combination of all of those things and then social media to amplify your message. And when you're using social media, be sure to be social. So when someone likes your post or leaves a comment, please make sure you respond. Please make sure you go and like their stuff. If you're on LinkedIn, connect with them. Say Hey, I saw that you liked my post. I'd love to connect with you. It's such a simple but often overlooked aspect of social media. So there you go guys. Growth Accelerator 3 educate. Catch you soon.

You've been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Den Lenny. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.dotvideobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the accelerator program can help you today. 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.