Why 2020 has actually been amazing. EP #143 - Shorty

G', day, guys. Dan Lanney here with the final shorty of 2020. We are getting ready to wrap up for Christmas break. We will be running some episodes, just one episode a week over the period that we've actually pre recorded. So you don't miss out on the delectable tones of my voice.

But we are going to take a week break from the shorties because I need a holiday and I hope that you also planning to take some time out and recharge after what's been an interesting year to say the least, but not necessarily a bad year. I'll explain more in a second.

See, I don't think this has been a terrible year and let me explain why. Yes, there's been an enormous amount of disruption. Yes, there's been a lot of challenges.

But amongst all of that there's also been enormous growth.

Through the harshness of the situation, there's been enormous opportunity to grow personally and I think the world's a more connected place. This came off my final coaching call for the year for the Video Business Accelerator members and we had a really profound session. Not just talking about, you know, what's gone well this year, but how we've pulled together as a group and really helped each other to come through some really challenging times. But more importantly is everyone agreed that it's actually been a great year.

In the sense that it's given us an opportunity to appreciate what we have and appreciate when it gets taken away. And I think everyone who was on the call who's been with me for a while said they're now back up to their pre, you know, 2020 levels in terms of revenue. And whilst the revenue may not have gone up massively this year, in some cases they were unable to work for three or four months. And so on balance, they've actually done very well. But we also had people having record months and that's because of the consistency see that my members, you know, dedicate to marketing and to doing things to grow the business. So I'm really, really thrilled that it was such a positive call. And we all agreed that, you know, despite the challenges of COVID and all the other kind of harsh realities of lockdowns and some of which, you know, are still ongoing. But the good news is that this is happening around the world. So, you know, I know the UK is going to, to stage four again, but, you know, you know, Melbourne went through that for like 11 weeks. So the good news is, is that you can, you can see what you need to do in the meantime and if you are finding yourself in a stage four lockdown, then there's no better time to start your marketing. There's no better time to do all of those jobs that you never had time for throughout the year. So if you're really committed to building your business in 2021, look, when we sign up for business ownership, this is the game, okay? The game is hardship Challenge. You know, constantly being tested, constantly being tried. It's not an easy journey and it's, and it's really not for everyone. But if you, if you, if you get very clear on your offer, get very clear on who you serve and very clear on how you help people get what they want, it's actually quite straightforward. It's not easy, but it's quite straightforward. And the biggest challenge we have as creatives is we overcomplicate the simplest things. Now, creativity needs to have lots of ideas, lots of reinvention, but business doesn't. Business is a process. Business needs certainty, Business needs consistency. Business needs and thrives on order. And so what you have to do as a creative business owner is actually.

You know, build consistency and systemization into your business functions, but keep the creativity for the projects. So, yeah, that's my big kind of message for today is that, you know, the businesses that I've seen thrive this year have just consistently bashed away at marketing and, you know, we got some incredible results. Now, I won't share them because they're kind of private to the group, but we're talking, you know, monster months. And when I asked the members about how they got there, they all said it's just just consistency. They just, just, you know, kept posting the social media in the right way, they kept approaching people in the right way, they kept, you know, kind of a process in play even when they were busy of just continuing to do those things. And that is what gets the results. You know, success in business is a long game, it's a long play. And it's about taking away the feast and famine, that roller coaster and flatlining, but incrementally growing all the time. You know, if you grow 1% every day, then in 100 days you've doubled your capacity. You've grown 100%. And I think oftentimes we creators try and find a more complicated way to get to a simple solution. At the end of the day, if you can help your target market get what they want, they will pay you. And if you are a premium provider of premium services and you over deliver for your clients and you give them a great experience, they will pay premium rates for that. It's as simple as that. Anything else is just to be honest, it's just an excuse because I have seen multiple businesses go through our process and win big. And it's really not that hard. It's just you've got to follow the process. And the hard part is the discipline to follow the process and trust the process and not continually try and reinvent everything. And so, you know, as we kind of wrap up this year, that's some of the things I'm reflecting on is it's been a challenging year for many, no doubt about that. But it has also been an enormous year for many in terms of growth, in terms of ownership, in terms of not allowing external forces to influence the outcomes in your business. Because I've seen people who got slammed to zero finish the year with a $75,000 project. It's all mindset, it's all about that. And you know, as I mentioned in last week's episode, we're rewriting a new book just now, an ebook. It's only 20 pages long, but it lays out the process. So hopefully by the end of January, maybe beginning of February, we'll be able to make that available to you. And it gives you the roadmap of our eight growth accelerators and how we're implementing and rolling them out with our accelerator clients. But before I wrap up this shorty, I wanted to just say thank you for listening. We've seen enormous growth in this podcast this year. I think last year we had about five and a half thousand downloads and we were doing a lot of video then. And then I just had this feeling that video wasn't the way forward. And so we started doing audio only and adding in these shorties and doing a longer episode on a Thursday. And we're getting close to 30,000 downloads this year, which is just phenomenal, you know, and that has just been a consistent process. You know, we took a bit of a break in August and we saw a real dip, so we realized that we had to be consistent. And so I've pre recorded the next three episodes and I'm not going to be doing any shorties in the next couple of weeks, just over Christmas. And I want to encourage you to just spend some time reflecting on your business this year. Spend some time, you know, reading. Spend some time with your family, Spend some time in nature. Have a break. You know, we actually closed down the video business accelerator for two weeks at Christmas. We're actually closing down tomorrow and we won't be back up until the 11th of January. And the idea is that we want everyone to take a break and recharge, because if you don't recharge, you don't get to be creative. You know, you need to be able to have some space to allow those ideas to form and to reflect and consider, you know, what's gone well for you this year, what are the things that have worked and what can you do differently next year to really take responsibility for your business growth? Because as Jocko Willink says, you know, everything starts and ends with you. The person in the mirror is the person responsible for your success and failure, nothing else. So if you're someone that kind of blames external forces, that blames Covid, or blames the exterior forces, that is. That is a losing formula. It's bullshit. You know, it's just absolute bullshit. You are responsible for the success of your business. Yeah, sure, Covid came along and shut down demand, but I've got dozens of clients who are, like, thrived as a result. So you've got to take responsibility for your mindset. You succeed or fail based on how you show up. And so if you show up as a kind of. As a whinger, as someone who's like, oh, it's always somebody else's fault, then you're screwed, you know? But if you're someone who goes, okay, this is challenging, this is difficult, but I'm going to find a way. I want to take responsibility. I'm going to stop buying gear and invest in myself. And whether that's with me or somebody else or just in books, like invest in yourself, because that is what's gonna give you the biggest shift. And what I can tell you is that the members of my vba, they all see a massive roi, so they invest in themselves. Their businesses grow as a result. So, guys, I hope you have an awesome Christmas. We've got another episode coming out on Thursday, but until next year when I come live to you again on the Shorties. Good to talk to you.

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 a 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.