Unpacking the 8 Growth Accelerators.

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (3s):
G’day guys! Den Lennie here with this week episode of the How to Scale a Video Business Podcast we are up to episode 142. Oh, wow. That escalated quickly. So today I’m going to answer a few questions we’ve been having, although the last couple of weeks I’ve been sharing a bit more about the video business accelerator and the fact that we’ve also released a course so that if your business isn’t quite at this like a 10,000 a month threshold, that we can do for our members.

Den Lennie (45s):
They get access to the training because we recognize that a lot of people are doing so at a three to 5,000 a month. And I want to get to the 10,000 plus a month. And so what I wanted to do today was just think a little bit deeper into our methodology around the video for six lot, but more importantly, our agree with our eight Growth Accelerators. They were actually in a post of writing a new ebook, which will be coming on the line alongside on your website, probably, and January, beginning of February, it’s been a pretty massive project and we’ve been working with some incredible people to help us out, Get that up and running, including a fantastic copywriter who has been helping us just rework everything.

Den Lennie (1m 28s):
Sometimes its very difficult while it is very difficult to write your own copy. And so we are creating an ebook were, were really going to give you everything. You need to know how to create a stable, profitable video business. That one, it doesn’t stress you out. You know, and it’s using my group, my eight Growth Accelerators now over the years, we’ve had seven and nine Accelerators, but we’d been really refining the process and we settled on eight. And so what are you going to discover with today’s podcast? And ultimately the ebook is how you can really reduce your stress levels and improve your work life balance. But it’s also doubling your profits and the process, you know, my whole philosophy with a new site and the new messaging is to get there.

Den Lennie (2m 12s):
How do you go from chaos to clarity in your production business? Because we’ve got to try it and test the blueprint that we’ve been running now for four years. And the last two really refining it in my goal is to help you get from where you are now to where you want your business to be. And we use this framework, which we call the eight Growth Accelerators. And so in today’s episode, you’re going to learn what they are and how to get all the tools you need to drive your future success. So if you are struggling to generate new inquiries or a win more high quality products projects, sorry, and, and to actually take control back of your work life balance, it’s going to be a great episode for you.

Den Lennie (2m 55s):
You know, the truth is there are way too many Video business owners who are at risk of a burning out or overly rely on, on word of mouth and whether your suffering from what they call the freelance cars, which is, you know, working 70 plus hours a week, worrying about future revenue, feeling constant stress or something different and its time to make a positive change as well as we wrap up to 2020 in Luke Towards 2021. So in today’s episode, I’m going to share with you eight Growth Accelerators that you can start implementing IMMEDIATELY that we’ll help you feel comfortable and confident in the future of your Video business. And how do I know why ’cause I’ve been helping Video business owners do exactly the same thing This for as long as I could remember it, you know, I’ve, I’ve been coaching and training people since 2009.

Den Lennie (3m 45s):
And after working We closely with my clients and site, the video business accelerator program, there are certain issues I’ve seen crop up time and time again. So what I want to do today’s episode is help we navigate through the Growth Accelerators that I have identified as being the key to Video business, acceleration and sustainable success. All sorts of that. You can identify your bottlenecks, implement strategies for success, and finally find your professional and personal freedom. Now, if you’re a video production company that’s been operating for more than three years with a portfolio of existing clients and you want to grow to 500,000 plus in the next 12 to 18 months, I’m going to give you a clear pathway that you can follow to achieve all of that and so much more.

Den Lennie (4m 35s):
So let me introduce to you the eight Growth Accelerators. These are your tickets to go from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed in your video business. So in today’s short episode, I’m going to give you unprecedented insight when it comes to scaling delegating, creating systems, following processes and running successful marketing campaigns. So here’s what you’re going to learn. Part one Growth Accelerators. One is managing and improving belief systems. Everything starts and ends with stories that have been courted. Since childhood. We talk about your belief systems and how to manage any major limiting beliefs. Growth Accelerators To is creating a strong business foundations to grate a video business empire.

Den Lennie (5m 18s):
You have to leave solid foundations. You’re going to learn how to do the basics right from day one and scale faster in the future. Growth Accelerators three is planning a long term business strategy. Prior planning prevents poor performance. In this section, we look at planning your year strategically and assessing where you are in the business growth journey. Growth Accelerators of four is Marketing your offer to ideal clients. Everything is marketing and marketing is everything. This section was deep on strategy and tactics to help you attract ideal clients that you want to actually work with.

Den Lennie (5m 57s):
Growth Accelerators a five is Generating Leads and enquiries. No Leads means no sales meetings and our clients. And While word of mouth has got you to this point, we’re going to create a systemized lead flow and sales pipeline to generate consistent enquiries Growth Accelerators six is Closing More High Ticket sales, sales aren’t darty, and the sales process have been handled in the right way. It’s actually a service to your clients. And this section shares a whole lot more resources to help you win more projects. Growth Accelerators seven is Building Proven Video business systems systems have the power to help you find freedom.

Den Lennie (6m 38s):
So this is an in depth module that breaks down everything you need to know about creating your own processes. And Growth Accelerators eight is Improving Leadership and Tim Building, you know, you cannot scale a business a long, so wherever you choose to have in house staff or work with a remote team of contractors, we will discuss how Leadership starts with you. Now we are also going to be making available soon, E Scorecard that grades how well your business’s currently implementing each of the Growth Accelerators and they’ll be a link that they are on the [email protected]. So let’s dig a bit deeper into these Accelerators.

Den Lennie (7m 19s):
So Growth Accelerators is one is managing and improving Belief systems. Everything starts and ends with you and your stories that have been caught in since childhood. I’m talking about stories that have impacted your belief systems about what is possible and what you think you can achieve. It’s how you interpret and respond to those beliefs that determines your mindset for success. And if you’re a business will achieve great things. Think about this for a minute. We’ve always been taught that failure is bad, but in an entrepreneurial journey, failures is a critical component of success. You want to fail fast, fail often, and then pick yourself up quickly by landing from a mistake.

Den Lennie (7m 59s):
It was a process I call the cycle of failure, put simply it’s when you keep doing the same things over and over again, hoping that you’ll have a different outcome. It’s blaming external forces for a failure rather than looking in the mirror. And what you have to understand right off the bat is if you are responsible for your success and failures, you have to acknowledge that nobody else is. If you think otherwise, it’s just your ego, trying to protect you by triggering certain responses. When we’re faced with challenges, one of the most powerful tools you can use to regulate your ego is accepting that when you are going to land something new or confusion sets in and your stress hormones would trigger a response. So don’t get me wrong, but this might make me feel uncomfortable.

Den Lennie (8m 41s):
But when you are building a business, being uncomfortable is something you have to get used to. And its not just that another fundamental difference between success and failure has your attitude towards the abundance versus scarcity. Having a mindset of abundance, we’ll drive you towards a positive outcomes is in your business. Whereas having a scarcity mindset will likely limit your opportunities to expand and scale more than anything. You must develop a winning mindset to succeed in business. And there are tools, techniques, and strategies you can deploy every single day to ensure you stay on the right mental track. Growth Accelerators to two is creating a strong business foundations. Now without specific and absolute clarity of your purpose will be pounding a treadmill for forever in New York.

Den Lennie (9m 25s):
Remote. If you take anything away from this, make it that if you don’t know where you are and where you want to go, how can you possibly know what you need to do to trigger growth in your business? Ask yourself, what are your personal goals? What is your purpose? Why do you exist as a business? What’s the reason that you do what you do do do you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in business and what that looks like? What’s the legacy you want to leave behind for your kids? What’s the impact you want to have on the world? Sure. That’s a lot to get your head around, but there are questions that need asking because the idea is just an idea to life is executed. So what does your vision of success looks like?

Den Lennie (10m 8s):
Not everyone wants to drive a Porsche or live on an eight bedroom mansion. Most people want to be comfortable and look after the family without any worries. Success too. You might mean warning, a red, Epic on an Alexa or a cannon C2 a hundred, but whatever it is, it has to be defined through your own lens. Until you become clear on your purpose, you are shooting blind, worse, you risk wasting time and effort in a disorganized spiral of procrastination. You’ll be exhausted from writing the never-ending rollercoaster, a feast and famine, freelance and life. But get this right now and you’ll have a clear motivation every day and always be focused on your desired outcomes, whether its reducing your hours, doubling your revenues or are building your own Video empire.

Den Lennie (10m 53s):
Growth Accelerators three is planning a long term business strategy. Now, before we go on to shoot, you’ve got a plan, right? You, you pre production, you have colored sheets and you have a shooting scripts. So why it is so many Video entrepreneurs fail to prepare or how they’re going to scale and grow the business in the most effective way is in this section, we look at strategic planning for your year and assessing where you are on the business growth journey. Now to drive success, you have to understand where you are on the road map of business growth. Once you’ve worked that out, you can start looking at how to create a strategic plan. You’ll be able to define what success means to you and put a process in place on exactly how you’re going to get there.

Den Lennie (11m 34s):
But that still leaves us with the big question. How are you actually going to execute that plan? It starts with exploring what you want the overall outcome to be ask yourself this, you know, what, what do you really want? Absolute clarity here is what separates the winners and the dabblers. Next breakdown. All of the tasks needs to be achieved on the next 12 months to make that a reality. And from there you break those tasks down and to quarterly priorities and then weekly goals. By following this process, you end up reviewing your goals every 90 days and executing them every week. Now over the course of a year, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.

Den Lennie (12m 15s):
I think it was Tony Robbins. It said most people wildly overestimate what they can achieve in one year, but the wildly underestimate what they can achieve in five. Imagine what you can achieve in five years with a solid strategic plan, our plan laser-focused on working towards goals and deliver outcomes that figure your own version of success. If you have a solid strategic plan reviewed regularly, you will achieve more in the next 12 months. Then you have in the last five years, Growth Accelerators for marketing your offer to ideal clients. If you chase two rabbits the same time you will catch neither in real terms, are you clear about who you serve?

Den Lennie (12m 58s):
And let me tell you, this is far more important than most Video businesses realize niche verticals. Our niche horizontals are the only way to build the business period to many video production companies tried to save everyone and in the process end up serving no one, they lose Giggs on price because it was the only determining factor. When you’re a generalist to see real growth, you can only target one sector or one target market at a time. And it’s not as hard as it might sign that this could be as simple as we support agencies with video production. Now that’s not to say that you can also have other sectors of your business, but the number one challenge I see in video production companies is that chasing too many rabbits.

Den Lennie (13m 41s):
They don’t have a clear idea of who the client avatar is. They fail to understand the audience’s pain, their needs, their wants their aspirations and desired outcomes in great detail so they can service them at the highest level. And guess what? It comes back to bite them. Be honest with yourself, how well have you documented your target clients? So you can communicate directly to them in your marketing and how well do you know your clients and what matters to them? Hint it’s it’s really just about price. Okay? If you are chasing two or more, markets are even more selling video for everyone. Then you’re going to be run ragged on the hamster wheel. Like every other kid where the camera and some websites skills, but get this right.

Den Lennie (14m 23s):
And you become an authority in your space and be able to command higher rates and generate repeat business consistently. Now Growth, Accelerators a five Generating Leads and inquiries. Video businesses tend to focus heavily on the production and ignore everything else that you have no work and no jobs coming in because there are avoiding the sales conversation. Trust me, this is a sure fire, where to go broke quickly. If you don’t address this as soon as possible, then you risk going out of business, ask herself what are you doing to nurture your prospects? Not everyone’s ready to buy right now. In fact, it’s likely that if all you’re doing consistent marketing today, you might not see any return in that for 60 to 90 days.

Den Lennie (15m 6s):
Are you capturing data? If someone visits your website, is there a method for them to leave that information beyond a simple contact us from which let’s face it, nobody uses how well do you follow up with your clients? You know, I just moved house and apply to check out a new Jim. And with within 60 minutes they have called me to set up an appointment. Now that’s serious lead generation and action by 3:00 PM. I met them in a signed up. They want to sell by following up faster than any other Jim in the area thing is most of us visit websites and take no action. So if you’re not using some sort of follow up strategy, lead capture strategy or data capture, then you are simply leaving business on the table, which leads me nicely into marketing strategy.

Den Lennie (15m 50s):
What’s yours. Do you even have one? Do you use social media in a way that generates inquiries? Are you just pull stuff up randomly on LinkedIn? No. And again, if you’re not consistent in your marketing, you’re not going to get consistent results. And if there is no clear pathway for a client, when the land on your site, they become confused and end up taking no action and leave by creating a systemized method of attracting prospects into your business and nurturing them into an elite system. It’s critical. And yeah, I see it so infrequently with Video businesses. So on to Growth Accelerators six How to claws, more high ticket sales and buy high ticket sales.

Den Lennie (16m 30s):
I mean bigger budget productions. I get it. Okay. Most creatives hate selling, but there is a way to ethically persuade and influence the outcome of, of prospect conversation. So you get a yes or, and it’s non salesy. So you won’t feel weird. Lets see you have leads and inquiries coming in to your business. What percentage of you are converting into customers? Do you even know? Do you use a CRM customer relationship management software? How do you know where people are at in your funnel or in your sales pipeline? Do you have a sales process? Do you have a sales pipeline? Do you know how many people are in your prospect stage and your lead stage?

Den Lennie (17m 11s):
And you’re not just stage, you’re a conversion stage and you are after sales stage. Do you have and use a sales script? I’m not kidding. This is stuff that you need to know. You need to know the answer to all of these questions. If you want to be committing to higher quality projects with a better paying clients, truth is selling and sales can be very daunting for Creators, but like anything, it can be systemized and you can use scripts. In fact, in our accelerator program, we’ve created a done for you script that our clients use when following up and reconnecting with existing clients or talking to new clients, we actually make it easy for you. So having a solid strategy for your prospects into clients is absolutely critical.

Den Lennie (17m 53s):
If you want to grow and sustain your business and it’s even easier with Preet and scripts and templates now Growth, Accelerators seven Building Proven Video Business systems. There’s no doubt about it in that structure and discipline set, you free and systems are the backbone of structure, but the biggest challenge, most filmmakers face is getting all of the information about that process out of their head and into a system. It means systems can be scary and it’s easy to imagine that creating systems is going to be this laborious process that takes time away from your passion for a video. But in reality, it doesn’t have to be having a clear system that maps to a customer journey in every process you are involved in your production will actually allow you to be more creative and save yourself a hell of a lot of time in the long run.

Den Lennie (18m 44s):
Let me break it down for you. A little bit systems are simply what needs to be done, how it needs to be done and who needs to do it. It sounds simple, right? And even better news is a, you don’t have to be responsible for your own systems because we’ve created them for you. We have an entire system for scaling a video production business from start to finish. All you have to do is implement. It’s like painting my numbers for video business. You know, I have a philosophy that I’m obsessed with so much. So I have a label stuck on my monitor and it says, do it once record it and create a system. Why do I do that? Because systems allow us to Scale. They allow you to take processes. You do repeatedly and allow others to follow them.

Den Lennie (19m 25s):
Without needing to ask you questions, you can take a step back in what should our business grow without your influence. Having to be across every minor detail. That’s why systems have to be the single most powerful tool and scaling the revenues of my video business accelerator clients. And they can help you to do the same. So Growth Accelerators eight Improving Leadership and Tim Building. Now, if I had a dollar for every time someone says to me, I just didn’t want to hire a staff from a Video business owner. Then I’d be very wealthy. I’d look, I understand what they’re seeing, but as far as I’m concerned, no business has ever scaled without a team that the good news is you don’t have to hire staff.

Den Lennie (20m 10s):
This is where things change with the art of outsourcing your team. Doesn’t have to be in an office that you are renting in the same city or you’re working or even the same country you can use to outsource support and leverage lower labor costs. In other countries. The key to solid outsourcing is having clear communication that allowing your team to work autonomously based on clear indications of what it is do you expect from them combined with a solid systems and processes, you can build a talented remote team that saves you time and money without compromising on quality. And you don’t even have to create those systems yourself. If you hire the right team, you can have them build the systems and processes.

Den Lennie (20m 51s):
You can create the framework and allow your team to step up to the systems and process execution. There are plenty of strategies that we employ and deploy in a video business accelerator design, to help you navigate more fluidly through the process, to help you on board your team in a much more practical way. But for all of this to happen, you have to learn to become a leader. You don’t want to have to manage the staff. You want to lead your team. And it’s easy when you use the accelerator method, we teach in a coaching mentorship. If you can see it very clear with your instructions, you’ll have an incredible experience and wonder how you ever managed on your own. And more than that, you’ll gain so much time back.

Den Lennie (21m 31s):
You’ll finally be able to unleash your creativity and passion for video once again. So, you know, guys, that is our Accelerators and if you want to, you know, learn where you are out on this journey, you can go to the [email protected] on this episode of the podcast and take the quiz. And that will teach you that will tell you how your business is stacking up against the gate Growth Accelerators and you just learn. Now, if you implement these eight Growth Accelerators effectively, you’ll be able to create a thriving six or even seven figure video production business. That isn’t a hundred percent reliant on you always being there across every project. And that is the Nirvana, right?

Den Lennie (22m 14s):
So with this episode in our future guides going to be coming out in January and our training program, the video business accelerator we have in to help businesses or Owners break through their current barriers and turned our dreams into life-changing reality. Now I know Video businesses that can get to two or three or even for a hundred thousand a year with a brute force and a termination because I’ve done it myself. But it’s very hard to get beyond that. Unless you start working with the systems, processes and teams, that’s when you start to achieve a real measurable growth. And for that, you need to develop a clear strategy for how you want to scale so that you can avoid that feast and famine mindset fatigue, and let’s face it rising stress levels.

Den Lennie (22m 55s):
And this is just the first step. So if you want to take the score card as a free scorecard quiz, you can see how well your business’s performing against My eat. Growth Accelerators, that’s going to get you a clear path where you can fall to start moving in the right direction. It only takes a few minutes to complete and you get a Scorecard Marketing at 90, or that shows you, which is you need to focus on to create a sustainable business that gives you more freedom. So, you know, I hope you find this useful as a, we’ve got an EBIT coming in January as a brand new apps are coming in January. And from what I’ve shared with me today is just to kind of a framework around the ate Growth Accelerators. So guys, I would love to hear as if you do the quiz, how you’re implementing this, please go to the website at denlennie.com And ah, and will put a note on their to do the, the eight Growth Accelerators quiz.

Den Lennie (23m 47s):
And I look forward to talking to you again very, very soon. You’ve been listening to me the how to scale a video business podcast with me, your host Den Lennie. If you are a video of a business owner, it’s a hit, a ceiling would benefit from mentorship, support and coaching and check out how you can work with me over at denlennie.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the short over on iTunes. And we really appreciate your taking a few minutes to leave a review and don’t forget to share if you feel you’ve gotten value from this episode that you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, you know, and 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.