Why Business Side of Videography is so Important!

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (0s):
Today, we’re gonna talk about why the business side of videography is so important to master. Everyone loves the creative side of being a videographer, but a lot of people shy away from the business side of videography and it’s actually critically important because the difference between having a successful video business and one that is a struggle to scrape by is actually the way in which you embrace the business of videography. And today I’m gonna share with you some tips and some tricks and some insights to help you become more comfortable with the business side of video. If you are new here, my name is Den Lennie. I have been a DP, a producer, and a director, and worked in a whole heap of roles over the last 25 or so years in all aspects of video production.

Den Lennie (48s):
And during that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to work in broadcast television, but also independently as a production company and ended up doing some big projects with the likes of Duran Duran, Christiano Ronaldo, and Robbie Williams. Now, I’ve done everything in between and what I’ve learned about the business side of videography, I’m gonna share with you today and decant into five simple tips that you can employ in your business straightaway at number five is understanding your audience and their specific needs. Now, I speak a lot about niching, and this is a critically important step because the more you understand about your target market and their specific problems, the more likely they are going to be to hire you because they will see you as an expert in their eyes.

Den Lennie (1m 33s):
A successful videography business is one who deeply and intimately understands their client or their markets needs, wants aspirations and fears and serves them that in the language that they speak in that market. And that way you become the specialist. The automatic go-to, another way to think of your niche is what kind of work do you do that maybe accounts for 50 or 60% of your overall work in the past year? The chances are there’s going to be one that will stand out. That is a very good place to start in terms of really getting to know that market. Every market uses its own what we call nomenclature.

Den Lennie (2m 14s):
It’s the language they use in their market. We as filmmakers have our own language. We talk about dps, we talk about dollies, we talk about sparks, we talk about gaffers, we talk about best boys. Those are a language that we use in filmmaking. But if you are working in healthcare for example, they’re gonna be talking about things like patient care and new technologies and the impact their work has on communities. So when you are marketing your services to a prospect or a client, you need to be able to speak their language. One of our basic values as a human being is the need to be heard, seen and understood. And if we take that principle into business, you want your target market to feel like you see them, you hear them, and you understand them all.

Den Lennie (3m 0s):
Too often I hear filmmakers going into client meetings talking about gimbals and drones and 4k, when actually what that client needs to understand is can you sensitively tell a story around a cancer patient, for example, and are you able to communicate through visual language, the complex work of the complex technologies that a client has? And can you decant that into something simple and easy to understand for their audience? That is the key to truly understanding your audience. Now, brand identity is important to a degree in your video business. So I wanted to explain what I mean by that. I don’t mean that you need to go out and spend thousands on a brand identity, but you do need to be clear on who you serve and how your brand is reflected in that community.

Den Lennie (3m 50s):
So leading on from my previous point, it’s about the audience feeling like you talk a language that is resonating with them. So make sure that your branding makes you, your website, the logo you use, the fonts you use, the color scheme you use are sympathetic to the client market you’re trying to attract. One of the big mistakes I see a lot of junior companies make is they’ve got short films, they’ve got weddings, they’ve got music videos, and it’s a bit of a kind of, Hey, here, see? See what I can do. And it doesn’t actually give the client a huge amount of confidence. It actually shows the client that you probably don’t have a great deal of experience.

Den Lennie (4m 32s):
And my advice is less is more build the relationship with the target market. If you don’t have a ton of stuff that’s relevant to that target market, don’t put it on your website. You don’t need to fill white space with lots of stuff just to try and prove that you’re capable of doing the work. Very few clients actually give a shit about whether or not you made a short film or not. Remember that one. Tip three is about pricing. Now pricing should be competitive within the market you are in, but let me just break this down a bit further because in every market there is a cheap, a middle of the road and an expensive option, and I don’t think there’s any point in entering into a business to try and target the cheap end of the market.

Den Lennie (5m 19s):
If you’re going to go cheap, you need to do a lot of volume and that can be challenging for the capacity you have as a single person operator or having a small team instead be premium. And if you look at a premium part of the market and you know and understand that market and that client in that market feels like you hear them, you see them and you understand them, then as an expert in their eyes, they’re gonna be comfortable paying more for your services. And it takes just as much work to find a low ball client as it does to find a client who will respect you and pay you what you’re worth.

Den Lennie (6m 1s):
So my advice is always go for the premium end of the market. Everybody else is fighting over the scraps. Go premium B premium. If you understand what it costs you to do production, then you know what your margins are going to be. And my advice is always go for 50% gross profit on a production, and that way you’ll ensure you have plenty of room in your budget if things blow out a little bit or if things take a little longer to do in post, you won’t be losing a ton of money and you don’t have to go back to the client and ask for more money. By being premium, you have more fats on your business to be able to manage each production and absorb some of the ups and downs that happen.

Den Lennie (6m 44s):
Generally, if things blow out a little bit to grow your business, you have to market yourself. There is no way around this, the old word of mouth or I haven’t had to market isn’t gonna cut it. If you want to scale your business, if you wanna stay where you are, that will probably be okay, but you will experience that rollercoaster of some months, you’re doing some marketing or works coming in, and then you go and do the work and you’re not doing any marketing, any networking, and then you come back and find there’s no work for three months. So the important thing here is to build a marketing strategy and become active at networking. However, networking has changed and you can now network from your desk on your computer using LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Den Lennie (7m 28s):
It’s an extremely powerful tool where you can connect with your target market and the decision makers specifically and begin a conversation with them around supporting them perhaps in one of their next projects. The LinkedIn strategy is very simple. Connect with 20 people a day, then post three to four pieces of content a week on the LinkedIn platform that allows you to stay front and center of mind for those clients. Marketing is about putting the right offer in front of the right people at the right time, and oftentimes it isn’t the right time for someone to buy right now, but if you continually post behind the scenes content showing people what you’re up to, when they are ready, they’re naturally going to think of you nowadays.

Den Lennie (8m 16s):
You have to build a strong online presence. These videos are part of my online presence. I create a video each week, I give it away for free on YouTube, and the goal is that you will get some value and perhaps want to download one of our guides, join our free community or maybe one of our paid programs, but I’m demonstrating the value first before you’ve had to pay any money so that if you do decide to come and talk to us about that, you’ve got some trust. You need to do the same thing with your clients by being visible on the platforms they’re on. Now, a pro tip is that if you want to really take this to the next level, you need to be what we call omnipresent. And that means across all platforms at all times.

Den Lennie (8m 57s):
So wherever the client goes, they’re gonna see your face pop up, and that’s gonna help to build trust. My final tip for you, my number one tip is to stay organized and be a great communicator. You have to be organized when you run a business. That means being disciplined and having personal systems for execution, but also systems that enable you to communicate effectively with your client and stay organized during production. Now, most of us can handle one production, no problem, and keep all the information ahead. But as soon as you start to bring other people in to help you or timelines shift in the project, or you add more team to the mix, then you’re gonna start finding that with you don’t have business systems processes that are standard operating procedures, you’re very quickly going to come unstuck.

Den Lennie (9m 46s):
Really important thing is to have some form of project management software so you can keep a track of every single project where it’s at, who’s involved, and where the comments are coming back and the feedback’s coming back to make sure that the client is communicating effectively. You get what you need and you can go back and communicate that with your team. So on any project, you gotta create a clear project timeline, have that in a piece of software like a Santa or some other project management software so you can predict what the different stages are of production and set milestones where your team need to deliver and the client needs to come back with feedback.

Den Lennie (10m 26s):
And if you’re not organized any more than one or two projects and there’s a slight delay, and this will become a very complex mess, and you’ll very easily drop the ball and end up upsetting a client by missing a deadline or failing to deliver something that you promised you would write at the back of pre-production. If you struggle with the business side, then I have a free community called Scale your Video Business where I’ve got some training and some resources and some books that you can look at to help you build that confidence and mindset. Now, if you wanna join that, just click the link below or go to my website or click the link above and you can join that community completely for free.

Den Lennie (11m 6s):
There is no catch. It’s there to support you, to give you a bit of an idea of how you can overcome some of these hurdles that you might be experiencing in your own business. So the business side of video really is critical to nail. If you want to scale your video business beyond just yourself, you don’t need to become a huge company. But if you ever want to have any kind of freedom where you can take holidays and be away from the business and have projects run without you, then you’re gonna have to nail this business side. By incorporating these principles, you’ll start to have a more effective and efficient business. You’ll be able to attract more clients and build more revenue.

Den Lennie (11m 46s):
So embrace the business site and you’ll take your skills to a whole new level, and I promise you, you’ll find it a really creative process.

You’ve been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Den Lennie. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouseover 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.