We Did It - 300 Episodes! EP #300 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. It's Dan here and welcome to this, the 300th episode of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast.

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 at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. enjoy this episode.

So if you've been with us since beginning then, congratulations and happy birthday. 300 episodes when we first set out in this podcast, when we first started the podcast, actually 2012, we did 12 episodes. And anyone who has a podcast will know it's quite a commitment to make an episode every week, let alone two, is what we were doing for a long time. And you know, in that time we've amassed over 95,843 downloads. And so we're getting close to that magic hundred thousand. And we've been doing this for about three years. And so if you've been listening to us for a while, thank you. And if you're a new listener, welcome. We set up to start this podcast. It was originally called Business for Creatives and then we quickly narrowed the focus down to Business for filmmakers. And if you've known me for a while, I talk a lot about niching. And so we niched down further into what we felt was going to be a more tailored solution to video businesses, freelancers looking to scale their business. And over the years we've had numerous guests and lots of solo episodes. And then just recently we've been changing things up a little bit. I wanted to freshen things up, keep things new. And so we've been down to one episode a week and they have actually been the audio version of our YouTube videos. For those of you that don't know. We started our YouTube channel again in January. We're up to about week eight and we've been consistently posting every Tuesday at two o' clock Queensland time in Australia here. And I'm putting a bit more work into the YouTube channel this year with a view to really developing it, because I firmly believe YouTube has a really long shelf life. And actually inside our VBA elite program and the up level program we're constantly talking about, where is the puck going for video? And YouTube is one of those search engines that's become increasingly more advanced. And what we're noticing is if you invest time and effort into YouTube over a long period of time, it can serve you for literally decades. I've got video content from 2008, 2009, which is still getting plays every single week on YouTube. And so, from the point of view of video clients, any product, brand or service who isn't using YouTube is really missing a trick. And the example I like to give is most brands are spending some kind of budget on media buying, and that is buying ad space on everything. Bus shelters to television stations to the social media channels. And what they're really doing is they're buying eyeballs, they're buying views, they're buying impressions.

And here's the thing with YouTube is that if you take time to build your YouTube audience, then you get a kind of compound effect on that audience because the audience trusts you with the content that you're sharing. And then they tell their friends, and then your audience builds and your subscriptions build and your views build. And the opportunity that I see for video is this is any product, brand or service who doesn't have a YouTube channel has an opportunity to build an audience organically through YouTube. And that audience will subscribe if the content is good, and they'll come back for more and more. You can then offer free giveaways. And in the links of every video, you can sponsor that video and you can promote it and boost it. And what's important here is that YouTube audiences tend to be very loyal. If you think about your own YouTube viewing habits, you have a certain number of channels that you subscribe to that you watch regularly. And so I'm very much investing in YouTube now. Last year we did 26 YouTube videos, but there wasn't really any strategy. We were kind of throwing, you know, proverbial mud at the wall to see what stuck. And for the most part, we were getting 100 views per video, not a huge amount. This year with the new strategy, we're already up to 3 and 400 views per video. And then last week we had a video hit 1200 views. And so in a space of eight weeks, I think with the combination of posting regularly, we've got a new look for the podcast for the YouTube channel. And the new videos, the videos look differently, they're produced differently. We're outsourcing the editing. We've got an editor who creates all the graphics and the B roll extracts all the short form content. And that's another area that we're really looking into is the short form content posting that on YouTube. And we're getting over 2,000 views on some of them. Now, these aren't massive in the grand scheme of Mr. Beast, but actually that's how you start you start by having a longer term view and really it's a great analogy to do with your business, the long term view of looking into the future and seeing where the puck is going. And I believe that this will preserve us very well. So if you've been listening to the podcast, you'll have noticed things changed a little bit recently. Now I believe the podcast still sounds as valuable. It's just that you'll occasionally hear a reference to like and subscribe or go and watch this video next. And so what I encourage you to do as a listener of this podcast is go over to the YouTube channel. Just search for Den Lenny on YouTube. A channel will pop up and watch the video content as well because you're going to get more value from there on top. Plus we have a bunch of resources that we always give away in the descriptions. Now what I am going to do is still do some audio only podcasts. I just haven't decided how that's going to look yet. And what I found was getting to 300 episodes. That's a lot of topics we've covered. And I never wanted to feel like the podcast was a chore and it started to feel like it was becoming a chore. And I think if it starts to feel like it's a chore, that will probably come across in what I'm saying. So I'm really dedicating more of my energy to the YouTube content, but with a view to then releasing that as a podcast as well. So I think there's a lot of value to both. If you're sitting in the car driving to a job, you can listen to the podcast and if you wanted to look into it more deeply, then you could always dig into the video when you back. So I'd love one request is to, if you haven't yet, go over to YouTube, search Den Lenny or F Stop Academy, our video business accelerator and it should show up and subscribe to the channel. Because I'm trying to get to 10,000 subs. I'm currently about 8 and a half thousand and I believe that when you get to 10,000 subs something starts to change in the algorithm. But also I really believe in this content. We're putting a lot of effort and money into making the content really good and I'd love your support if you find it useful.

And also just to say thank you to all the guests who've ever been on the show. Too many to count and too many to list. 300 episodes, that's a lot of content. And you know, if you've been listening, as I say, for a while. I'm grateful that you have. There are some people I know who've listened to every single episode. I believe Andy in the UK has listened to every episode. So Andy, thank you. And to all my clients who trust us to help them grow their business, it really is a huge honor and we're very proud of the work we do with our clients. And so yeah, thank you again for listening. And here's to the next 300.

You'Ve.

Been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host Dan 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.videobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the Accelerator program 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.