Winning More High-Value Projects.

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (3s):
Howdy, guys! Den here, it’s Thursday here in Australia and its time for this week’s episode of the How to Scale of Video Business podcast. And today we’re going to be talking about how to win more higher value projects. This is probably the number one area that I have questions, send it to me about it. And so I wanted to do an episode about this because its it’s a really important a subject and it’s because it covers the topic of sales. And before you start freaking out and go on a sales, let me share with you that it’s not all bad.

Den Lennie (46s):
You know, sailing and sales done right now is a service to your clients. Okay? Let me see that again, selling in sales is done right? Should be a service to your client. It should be a straightforward no-brainer if you done your marketing, right? And you’ve elegantly taken them through a process of identifying the needs that they have, the, the, the, the solution. If you believe you can provide them with a solution that is appropriate for the needs that they have, then selling becomes a very transactional, a matter of fact, M conclusion too, that process.

Den Lennie (1m 27s):
But at the same time, if you have to work hard for the sale, then it should, there’s a deficit in your marketing. And as we talked about previously in the, our growth accelerators series that I’m taking you through, this one is a number six, Winning More High Value Projects, which really it’s, it’s all about sales and the sales process. So let me talk a little bit about that to give you some context. Now I get it, you know, most creatives hate the idea of selling, but there is a way to ethically persuade and influence the outcome of a prospect conversation. So you get a yes and it’s non salesy.

Den Lennie (2m 8s):
So you won’t feel weird. You lets see, you have some inquiries coming in to your business. Our, some leads as we call it at the marketing world, what percentage are you converting and to customers. And, and do you know now one way to do that is to track every single call you have and take the whole number of calls across the year, calculate the one’s that you one and the ones that you’ve lost and you’ll ever closing percentage of that percentage of what your sales conversion rate is. Now, do you use the CRM? The, you know what a CRM is, a CRM is a customer relationship management piece of software.

Den Lennie (2m 50s):
And, and what it does is it tracks the opportunities in your business and also where people are at and what we call the funnel or sales pipeline and a sales pipeline is the foundation, the backbone, if you like of a sales process. And then you may not have considered having a sales process before, but if you’re looking for a sales process to implement it with your business, then in its simplest form, it’s just about mapping out where someone is in the journey. Not everyone is ready to buy and hand over cash straight away, but we might be ready to by in six months time. So if your not nurturing those opportunities early enough and with enough consistency, then the chances are we went to a struggle to have any consistency, six months done the land.

Den Lennie (3m 41s):
And this is where it, a lot of people get caught up is their busy on jobs. The shooting they’re producing, they’re flat out on post, and then it gets quiet in the late, right? Where’s your next job of coming from? And it’s the most common problem I see. So when we start to build a sales process and a sales pipeline, we understand that there are, there are different stages of the buying journey. And so do you know how many people are in new prospect stage, for example, all your lead stage or you are not your stage of your conversation stage and your, or even after a sale stage and do you, haven’t used a sales script and then, you know, th this, or I’m not seeing this, the kind of like a freak you out.

Den Lennie (4m 22s):
These are answers to questions that you need to be thinking about. If you want to be committing to higher quality projects with a better paying clients, ’cause none of that stuff just happens by accident. And, and the truth is, you know, what? 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 done for you, script’s that our clients use when falling up and reconnecting with existing clients or in fact, talking to new clients, we actually make it easy for you because having a solid strategy for a converting your prospects and to clients, it’s absolutely critical if you want to grow and sustain your business.

Den Lennie (5m 10s):
And it’s certainly easier with prudence, scripts and tablets. So let’s think about it. The sales process, you know, not everyone is ready to buy right now. In fact, only three in every hundred, our close to being ready to buy right now, that means that another seven EITs of a hundred may be interested. If the offer’s right in the next 30% might be interested sometime in the next six months, the other 30% aren’t interested and the final 30% wouldn’t buy off you, even if it was free. So what that means is out of every hundred people, you connect with one, is it a 100 only about 40 out of that?

Den Lennie (5m 52s):
A a hundred might be interested in buying something at some point in the next six to nine months. So what we have to do is we have to kinda start to look at those opportunities and say, well, you know, who’s ready to buy right now. Can I see what can I satisfy that need? But if you’re not ready to buy right now, what are you doing to nurture that relationship? And I would argue that most video businesses aren’t doing anything. And that is a huge opportunity that is being wasted, a, a huge opportunity that is being left on the table because nurturing those opportunities until such times, as they’re ready to buy is the key to really, you know, closing the deal, but then having some kind of process, some kind of system that you can follow, which allows you to keep on top of that is, is critical.

Den Lennie (6m 45s):
We talk about regularly inside the VPA. We’re always talking about the focus being on sales. And in fact, and every month we have a planning session and in that planning session and we evaluate what were the successes of the previous month? What were the lessons learned and what are the priorities for the next month ahead? And we, all we start with sales sales is the number one priority. In fact, and you may have heard me say this before that any business doing under a million dollars a year equivalent is a sales and marketing companies that happens to the cell. It and produce the video content. ’cause everything you should be doing should be focused on winning a sale and developing opportunities for the future because that funnel needs to be continually filled up.

Den Lennie (7m 31s):
If you stop focusing on sales, what will happen is that your pipeline will dry up. And one day you wake up and there’ll be no phone calls. And so what you’re going to be doing is creating a system that enables you to be continually funneling people into your process. So in simple terms, you know, you want to be connecting with people on social, maybe on LinkedIn. Very, very powerful method of connecting with clients is on LinkedIn. Our clients do a lot of that and we see a lot of consistency in that outreach. Again, we have scripts, we have processes, everything is mapped out. So you don’t have to do any thinking.

Den Lennie (8m 12s):
You just have to execute. In fact, we actually helped a few of our clients, even with their LinkedIn outreach and it’s a Sabbath. So we offer just to our existing clients so they can, they can kinda be freed up to the other things, but we were connecting with relationships and beginning of a relationship and over weeks and months providing value. And re-engaging with those opportunities such that when they’re ready to buy, you become the obvious choice. And like most people, what people give up on the sales process way too early. In fact, most people follow up once or twice. And if they don’t get a yes, the typically give up or, or they go, oh, well, that client is not interested.

Den Lennie (8m 56s):
But an actual fact, the more times you follow up, the more you become a factor in that prospect’s mind. And in some cases it will take eight to 10 connections with a prospect before they’re even ready to have that conversation. But I, but I guarantee you that the past, if that makes those connections will be in the strongest position possible to win the deal when it becomes a reality. In fact, that it is statistically. If you fold up with someone eats to 10 times than you become a factor on that, person’s mind, they know that when they need a video, they’re going to come to you. And it, it can be quite uncomfortable for us as creators to do that level of follow-up because we make it feel we’re pastoring people.

Den Lennie (9m 40s):
We make it feel like we’re being a pain. But if you flip that and look at it from the point of view of how much value you can, you provide to someone, can you provide value to someone on an ongoing basis such that they’ll see that you’re willing to help them even without being paid am such that when they’re ready to make a buying decision, that they’re going to be late? Well, this person has helped me out a load without me paying them. I wonder what is going to like it when I pay them, clearly, it’s going to be good, but it is, it is a process of continuously following up. And then we do that with curiosity. We do that with, with, with messages that we’ve written that help to begin a conversation with a prospect and curiosity is a great, a great hook in any sales conversation, because we are naturally curious as human beings.

Den Lennie (10m 31s):
And so if you find yourself in a position where your struggling with what to see, come at it from a curiosity point of view, you know, people are, are always deeply curious to something that we want and you can see something like, Hey, you know, I’ve just created this new e-book, which, which touches on topics that we’ll help you the best. Look at your target markets, solve their biggest problems, then headaches. And would you like a copy? And then, then what happens if people can’t help it? See, yeah, please love to. I’d love to read it. And then you’ve got a way in to, to have a conversation. And if you did that on social media, you can say, Hey, look, what is your best email? Let me send it to you an e-mail. And then you begin to see a conversation it’s taking the conversation of this social media platform, but that the truth is, ah, you know, it, when it comes to the sales and, and, and, and those kinds of aspects of moving the conversation into a, us, a, a sales conversation, it’s absolutely critical that your, your, a deliberate and that your confidence and that you are consistent.

Den Lennie (11m 36s):
The more times you follow up, the more likely you are to win a deal down the line. I’ve got clients who, you know, at what we were following me for 10 years at reading books, buying DVDs, and then one day decided they want it to kind of help you to do you scale that business. And, and, and to be with me in the 18 months. So I don’t mind how long it takes for someone to become a paying client. And they may never become a paying client. And that’s okay. ’cause, you know, I can see I’m not for every one and not everyone needs is what I’m offering, but it, but I want to ever stop sending us messages. We send out an email every week with this podcast, we do to episodes of a podcast a week.

Den Lennie (12m 20s):
This is episode 190 While we were 198, we’ve never stopped producing content. Now, what, what, why would, why would we do that? Because it says new people come in to the funnel of all the time in you, people to discover us. And the more content we have and more places, the more likelihood someone’s going to discover us. We have three, three published books. We have three or four eBooks. We’re constantly pushing our message out the paid advertising with organic and through referrals to the, to the point where we want to get our message out as far and wide as possible. Cause we want to help as many filmmakers as possible to, to win more business, to, to build more sustainable businesses, to, to have the life the one beyond just having the connect greatest camera.

Den Lennie (13m 7s):
And I feel so many filmmakers struggle to, to build consistent revenues. And what we’ve done in inside the video of business accelerator is to create a system, a tried and tested blueprint. If you want that, that, that actually works. If people implement it too double and triple E business revenues and enable, you know, of, of freedom and opportunity to extend houses are moved to the beach, or you have the car of your dreams or allow your partner and opportunity to be quit their job and, and do something they really want to do.

Den Lennie (13m 48s):
You know, everyone in our program, it is centered around the high values around family, around freedom, around enjoying the freedoms that our business can give. And yet, so many of video production of it is that I come across. Or if you’re not in the program, our struggling that they’re doing well for a while. And then the, then the struggle is what we do is we, we focus on building solid, reliable systems that will help you to sustain growth in a way that has you not working 70 hours a week. And, and, and for that to be sustainable, you have to be selling.

Den Lennie (14m 30s):
But the great news is selling done right, is a service to your clients. It’s something that is it’s fluid. Doesn’t feel like it’s going to feel sleazy. And a, I promise you is done, right. It is, is an elegant solution for your clients. So it guys from you this week, I am, you know, pushing on with a, I got to more growth accelerators. We’ve got our 200th episode coming up next week, which is pretty exciting. So yeah, if you’re interested in learning a bit more, but what we do here is a little bit from the, our own exactly that ask yourself this.

Den Lennie (15m 18s):
Has owning your own video business, being in everything you dreamed it would be when you first got started. It might be hard to admit, but think about whether you’re genuinely achieving everything that you set out to you. When you made that decision to grab the camera and go it alone, or you really working less, our, you really earning more up and are you really in control? Chances are you’re bloody good at what you do, but you having to walk a dog 70 plus hours a week, whether it’s filming, editing, marketing, or any of the other jobs that come with being the big boss up your own video company, when you’re managing projects constantly searching out for new clients and worrying about cashflow, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture or make real progress.

Den Lennie (16m 0s):
Let’s face it. That’s stress is the lasting you need. When you’re trying to run a profitable company that supports you and the people you care about. Truth is a business that provides a financial professional and personal freedom really is achievable, but maybe you’ve got that nagging feeling that you’re overworked, lacking stability and struggling to get to where you really want to be right now. It could be that you just don’t know how to make a positive change on your own. So I created the video of business accelerator coaching programs to really supercharge your video business with these unique coaching programs, you’ll learn all the tools you need to get complete confidence and success of your video business. You can take the first step on your journey to a successful business that doesn’t control your life.

Den Lennie (16m 44s):
Let me show you how, head over to denlennie.com and click on Accelerator.