You may not like this...? But you need to hear it. EP #257 - Shorty

G', day, guys. It's Dan here and today is going to be a little bit tricky if you are someone who doesn't like discomfort. And the reason this is important is because discomfort and pain is where the most growth happens. And so you may not like what I'm about to say, but I think it's important that you hear it because it's either going to resonate with you and you're going to agree with it, or it might make you feel very uncomfortable. If it makes you feel very uncomfortable, then good, I want you to sit in that discomfort because that is where an opportunity for growth is.

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.videobusinessexcel.

Enjoy this episode.

Okay, guys, so today's episode is about the discomfort of growth. And it's important because without pain, there can be no growth. And you know, in every situation, in every business, there's a lot of discomfort every single day because there's lots of problems to solve. In fact, you are a problem solver as a filmmaker and as a problem solver as a filmmaking business owner. But there is a level of delusion that exists in a very wide, broad aspect part of the video production industry, and that is people who think they are doing better than they are and are telling themselves a story about what is possible. But the fact is it hasn't happened to date. So if you're someone who's looking at last year's numbers and the year before going, it wasn't great.

But somehow convincing yourself that this is the year and if you just kind of, you know, keep doing what you're doing, it'll somehow change, then that is the definition of madness. And what I find really interesting is how many video business owners are who in the earlier stages of growing their business. Maybe they're freelancers, they've got a few projects and they've put a lot of effort into kind of, you know, bigging up their company on the website. But the website copy is just all generic. It doesn't talk to any one particular person in the market. In fact, it's probably been, you know, put together by looking at other video production companies and taking bits from all of those websites and trying to kind of somehow craft, craft what you think is a cool sounding website to the market. But in actual fact, it just looks the same as everyone else's because there's no consideration or thought that's gone into who it is you're talking to and what is the problem that you solve. And I see a lot of resistance in the market to this idea of being clear on who you're talking to. Get to know about all of their pains, all of their darknesses, all of the areas they worry about, and address that with your offer on your website. And I get to work with a lot of really successful businesses. And the ones that have nailed this and can articulate who they help, what problem they solve and how they do it are the ones that get the phone calls, are the ones that get the opportunities. And there are, I would say 80 to 90% of all video businesses around the world are actually struggling to make 50 grand a year and yet they've gone out and spent easily 20, 30, $40,000 on equipment. And it's just such a, such a kind of painful reality that so much money goes into buying the gear to make it look top end. But almost nothing goes into business. And then, you know, you end with this kind of horrible dichotomy where you're like sitting there with this nice looking website and it looks like it says the right things about, you know, storytelling and growth and, you know, getting your message in front of your audience and all that other bollocks. Frankly, it's like, it's just, it's so, it's so passe. It's like everyone says the same thing because most people won't invest in a copywriter to kind of really find out what the problem is and help articulate that in a way. And what I find so fascinating about that is that if a client of yours said to you, hey, don't worry about cutting or grading it, we'll do that in house, you'd be mortified. You'd be absolutely gobsmacked, like, why on earth, you know, that's the terrible idea. Why would you do that? You don't have the skills we have. And yet so many businesses won't go and look at copywriting or won't go look at, you know, getting some support from a business coach, for example, to help them understand how to build their business, how to create opportunities and how to do it in a way that allows you to charge more and therefore make more money with less effort. But you see, it's much easier to slap your credit card down on B and H and get that rush of adrenaline as you buy the latest camera or the latest, you know, computer screen or new Mac that you suddenly decide you Must have. And I've been there. Like, you know, I can. I can talk about this from a place of having been there, where before I invested in business coaching and before I invested in my own education, you know, 10, 12 years ago, I would be like, well, you know, if I get this new Mac Pro, that's going to be the key, or if I buy this F5 and this fancy tripod, I'm going to feel like I'm showing up the real deal. And none of it actually really mattered. What mattered was making sure I had an audience to talk to, that I could share a deep understanding of their world and help them solve their problems. And, you know, I've got a client in the uk, Alex, who is niched in universities and particularly in economic partnerships and enterprise partnerships with universities. It's a very narrow niche, but he just recently reported to us that in one week he had one referral and that guy referred somebody else internally. And that guy referred somebody else internally. So he got three referral quality leads from one person. Because once the word gets out that you are an expert at one thing, people just want an easy path to getting the result. And so they're like, yeah, you should definitely speak to Alex. And he had three meetings and three quotes went out. That is the nirvana. And Alex is going to have an incredible year. He just bought a house with his girlfriend. They've just renovated an outbuilding, his studio, and that was on his vision board a year and a half ago. So this really does work. And it just. Sadly, it saddens me, the.

Narrative that some filmmakers are running in their own heads about what it actually takes to build a business. And I just want you to listen to this and if that's something you can relate to, have a really good look in the mirror and ask yourself the question, am I really going to make it work this year or am I just kidding myself? Because if you've not made it work in the last year or the year before, there's something wrong with your mindset and where you're getting your information from. You know, it is not straightforward building a business. There are a lot of emotional and psychological and real tough challenges on mindset. And you, you have to learn how to pick yourself up and pick the phone up and call clients and pick, you know, write emails to them and make sure you're kind of communicating on a regular basis and put systems in place to make sure that happens without you being. And it's the kind of thing that it takes time to build. But. But there are opportunities to have a proven process laid out in front of you and a process that you can follow that is guaranteed to get you the result faster than if you keep doing what you're doing. And I would say with our program, for example, the VBA up level, you can do it in eight weeks, and if you smash through it, you'll get that result much quicker. But most people, it takes maybe eight to 12 months, sometimes longer, depending on what's going on in their lives. But the roadmap is there and you know, and it costs way less than the price of a camera. So if this is something that resonates with you, then let's have a chat. Let's have a call and see if we can work together. Because I'm very passionate about helping people succeed. But it does worry me that so many people are living a life of delusion that they think that if they just keep doing what they're doing, they'll get a better result.

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 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.