2020 has been an incredible year for personal growth and while there have been challenges, there has also been more opportunity.
Episode Transcription
Den Lennie (3s):
G’day guys! Den Lennie here with the final shorty of 2020. We are getting ready to wrap up for Christmas break, or we’ll be running some episodes at just one episode a week or over the period, and it has to be recorded. So you will miss out on the collectible tons of my clients, but we are going to take a week break problem, the shorties because of the holiday. And I hope that you are also planning to take some time out and recharge after what’s been an interesting year to say the least and not necessarily a bad year. I’ll explain more in a second.
Den Lennie (47s):
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, has been a lot of challenges, but amongst all of that, it has also been an enormous growth Through the harshness. Most of the situation has been an enormous opportunity to, to grow personally. I think the world is a more connected place and it came off my a final coaching call for the year for the video business accelerator to members. I’m in a really profound session, not just talking about, you know, what’s going well this year, but But how we’ve pulled together a as a group and, and really helped each other to, to come through some really challenging times.
Den Lennie (1m 35s):
And, but more importantly, his everyone agreed that is actually been a great year in the sense that its 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 has been moved in here for awhile and said, there are no back up to the pre, you know, in 2020 and the levels in terms of revenue and whilst the revenue might not have gotten up massively issue or in some cases, and they were unable to work for three or four months. And so on balance, we’ve actually done very well, but we also had people having record months and that’s because of the consistency that our members, you know, dedicate to marketing and to, to do things, to grow the business.
Den Lennie (2m 24s):
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 at, in some of which we know are still ongoing But but the good news is that this is happening around the world. So, you know, I know the UK is going to just see the stage for a game, but you know, as you know, Melbourne went to that for like 11 weeks. So the good news is, is that you can, you can see what you needed to do in the meantime. And if you are funding yourself in a state for a long time, then there is no better time to site your marketing. There’s no better time to do all of those jobs and he never had time for it throughout the year.
Den Lennie (3m 6s):
So if you are really committed to building your business in 2021, look, when we signed up for business owners, this is the game. OK. The game is a hardship challenge. You know, constantly being tested, constantly being tried. And it is not an easy journey and, 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 are very clear on how it is. You help people get what they want. It’s actually quite straightforward. It it’s not easy, but it was quite straightforward. And the biggest challenge we have as creatives as we overcomplicate or the simplest things and the 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 an order.
Den Lennie (4m 1s):
And so what you’ll 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, that’s my big kind of message for today is, is that, you know, the, the businesses that I’ve seen thrive this year have just consistently bashed away at marketing. And we, you know, we got some incredible results. Now I will, I won’t share them because they’re kind of private to the group, but we were talking, you know, monster monster months. And when I asked the members about how they got their, they all said, it was just, just consistency.
Den Lennie (4m 41s):
They’re just, just, you know, kept posting and the social media and the right way, they kept approaching people in the right way. They kept an eye. You know, I 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 a boat taking away the feast and famine that rollercoaster. And flatlining by the incrementally growing all the time. You know, if you grow up 1% every day, then in a, a a hundred days, you you’ve, you’ve doubled your capacities. You’ve grown a, a a hundred percent. And, and I think often times we, we create is 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.
Den Lennie (5m 30s):
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 or anything else. That’s just bullshit. To be honest, it’s just an excuse because I have seen multiple businesses go through a process and win big. And its really not that hard. It’s just, you’ve got to follow the process and the, the, the, the doctor or the hard part is the discipline to follow the process and trust the process and not continually try and reinvent everything. And so, well, you know, as we kind of wrap up this year and that’s some of the things that I’m reflecting on is, is it’s been a challenging year from Manny.
Den Lennie (6m 12s):
No doubt about that, but it is also been an enormous year for Manny. And in terms of a growth in terms of ownership, in terms of not allowing external forces to influence the outcomes, a new business, because I’ve seen people who got slammed as a hero finished a year with a $75,000 projects, it’s all mindsets all about them. And you know, as I mentioned, last week’s episode are rewriting in 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.
Den Lennie (6m 57s):
But before we wrap up this Shorty I wanted to just say, thank you for listening. And 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 episodes or on a Thursday. And we were 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.
Den Lennie (7m 38s):
And so I’ve prerecorded the next three episodes and I’m not going to be doing any short he’s in the next couple of weeks just to have a Christmas. And I want to encourage you to do is 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, w we actually closed out in the video business salad is for two weeks at Christmas, we were actually closing down there tomorrow and we will be back up on it 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.
Den Lennie (8m 24s):
What are the things that have worked in, what can you do differently next year to really take responsibility for your business growth? Because as jockowillink says, you know, everything starts and ends with you in the past, 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 Corvette or blames exterior forces, that if that is a losing formula, it’s bullshit. You know, it’s just an absolute bullshit. You are responsible for the success of your business. Yeah, sure. A COVID came along and shut down on demand, but I’ve got dozens of clients who are like thrived as a result. So you’ve got to take response, but if your mindset you succeed or fail based on how you show up and see if you show up as I kind of as a here as someone who is like, Oh, it was always somebody else’s fault.
Den Lennie (9m 11s):
Then you give me a Scrooge, you know, but if you are so many, he goes, okay, this is challenging. This is difficult, but I’m going to find a way I’m going to take responsibility. And when I stopped 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 is going to 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. And we got another episode coming up on Thursday, but I’m until next year, when I’d come alive to see you again on the shorties.
Den Lennie (9m 52s):
Good to talk to you And listening to the How to Scale of Video Business Podcast with me, your host Den Lennie. If you’re a video business owner, it’s hit the ceiling, we’ve been at it for 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 shore over on iTunes. I really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave review, and don’t forget to share if you feel you’ve gotten value from this episode, if you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, do you know? And please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you may be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.
