The Real Reason Video Production Owners Stay Broke. EP# 411

Twenty-six video production company owners turned up to a webinar about finding clients with AI. When every attendee got a personal follow-up email asking for their key takeaway, four replied. This episode is about the silence from the rest.

If you run a video production business and keep telling yourself you'll fix it later, this one is aimed at you. Den unpacks what that silence really signals (not disinterest, fear), and tells the story of the January his own camera package, close to $60K of Sony F5 and Zeiss glass, sat in a corner gathering dust while he lay awake over cash flow. A mentor made him sell it. That was the turning point.

What you'll learn:

• Why "I'll do it later" just means delaying success, and what it costs you now
• The gear trap: why the camera was never going to win you the work
• What 26 attendees and four replies reveal about fear in the video production industry
• Why mass-market gurus leave you feeling behind, and why judgment from inside your niche beats inspiration from outside it
• Who the Elite Boardroom is for, and who fits Ascend, in plain terms

Den has spent three decades in production, around a decade of it running his own production company, and has personally worked with 178+ video production business owners who have generated more than $52M in additional revenue.

If you're at $200K a year or above, or ten-plus years in business, go to denlennie.com/mentoring and make an application for the Elite Boardroom.

Learn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoring

Mentoring options : www.denlennie.com

Connect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

There's a question I want to ask you. And that is, when did you give up on your dreams? When did you give up on having the business you always dreamt of? Let me give you some context. I ran a webinar last week, a couple of recaps from our London workshop. And we had a total of 26 people show up to those webinars, which was great. And we spoke for about an hour and 15 minutes with QA. And everyone who came to that call basically was interested in learning about how we're deploying AI and what we learned from our London workshop. What was fascinating was when we ran the London workshop, whilst the event was around AI, the leading edge of what we discussed was almost everyone in the room relied on word of mouth to get their clients. And what we built as AI tools were mechanisms to help you find more clients and have conversations with them once you've connected with them on LinkedIn and knowing what to say and also how to make content easily. That's the top line, okay? We'll just get past the tools very quickly. But here's what's fascinating. I know that 26 people showed up to that webinar because they had a problem they wanted to solve. They're either not where they want to be in the business, or they're not achieving the outcomes they want to achieve. Or a couple showed up and said the business was great, they were really busy and they had lots going on, which is interesting because oftentimes if you're really busy, you're probably not charging enough. But that's another conversation for another day. What's fascinating is the statistics. So this was just a Google meet. Video on, me in the room. Yes, I had some slides, but most of it was just discussion. And I actually said at the two-minute mark, look, I want to come straight to the point here. I want you to work with me because I think we can help you get from where you are to where you want to get to be. And we got that out of the way in minute two. And then we got on with just sharing the content and the lessons. Now, statistically, 26 people showed up across two different sessions. A couple of people showed up late and left early. That's fine, that's common. And what I did was I sent a message to everyone after the event just asking for their core takeaway. And literally three or four replied out of 26. Now, let's break this down a bit further. About four or five of those people that showed up to the event were already clients who are curious to learn more because they're always looking for the edge, they're always looking for something extra. So we take them out, they've got 21 people. Out of that 21, two signed up for our elite boardroom off the back of the call, which was great. You know, they felt that it was time to make a change. One of the guys had been a subscriber for 13 years, and he said, I've followed you for years, and you've always been courteous and responded back. And now is the time for me to lean into this and really make a change in my business. And I really honor this person because he had acknowledged that he was fearful, acknowledged that it was kind of um confronting, but he's in now and he shared on the call the other day that it was a really good decision and he already feels more confident as a result. That is what I do. I help you build confidence to understand who exactly you're selling to and to make sure you're getting paid correctly for what you do, and remove yourself from all operational aspects so that you can have some time to develop the business. And if you are a freelancer and you just want to be a freelancer, that is totally fine. But what is interesting is let's call it nine, 18 people who attended that webinar. I sent a personalized email to each and every person after the event to say, hey, thanks for coming. Uh I noticed you stayed till this point here. What was your key takeaway? And uh remember the offers available till Sunday to join the program if you want to. I got about four replies. Well, one said it was boring and it was a pitch fest and he wasn't interested. Interestingly, that person turned up after I'd said, literally, this is something I want you to come and do with me. And I was sharing along the way with members' stories. So that's fine. You can't please everyone. He wasn't interested. Another person reckoned that they were too advanced and they were already billing too much money, so they weren't interested. So that's fine. So that leaves about 16. Another couple wrote back and very honestly said, I know this sounds amazing. I know this is something I should be doing, but honestly, I'm broke. And that struck me really firmly. And I really respect the person who said this to me, because he was being honest. Despite flexing that he was already using AI and he had all these things going on, and there was a lot of talk and rhetoric. When I asked the question, how much of this have you sold? the answer was nothing. And I think that highlights the major issue that many filmmakers experience is that they're actually broke. They spent too much money on gear. They thought the gear and the camera was the flex, was the thing that would get them to work. And it's not. And I say that because I have been there. I have spent money I didn't have on gear I didn't need, thinking it would give me the edge. And it gave me some endorphin rush and a momentary joy of I've now got this 18mm prime lens from Sigma. It's amazing, it's going to look incredible. And once I finished testing it and the eternal testing of your gear, I realized it wasn't making any difference. And there was a key moment in my own business. I had an F5, Sony F5, I had Zeiss lenses, I had a Connor tripod. It was like 50, 60 grand's worth of camera gear. And I thought, this is the best camera that's on the market right now. So I can take any project on. It's going to look incredible, and the clients will be really impressed. And there was a January where it just sat in the corner for an entire month gathering dust and I was really stressing about cash flow. And I thought, what am I doing? So I hired a mentor. And that mentor had me sell all that camera gear and I downsized to a smaller package. And I started working on marketing and I started working on messaging and I started working on who I was helping and what problems I was solving. And so if you were on that webinar and you didn't respond to my email, when did you give up on your dreams? Because what we shared in that webinar was real people solving real problems. And if you turn up to that webinar, got value, and then ignored the email with me asking you what your takeaway was, that tells me everything. And I'm not here to just give you a hard time about that. I want to know when did you give up on your dreams? Because you can't do it alone, and you've been trying to do it alone for a long time, and it's not succeeding. And so what's the real issue here? And I'm going to call it out because as we say in Australia, we're not here to fuck spiders. If you want to build your business, if you want to have consistency, if you want to have the house you dream of, the car you dream of, the camera you dream of, something has to change. And I often hear from people, oh well, well, we're gonna do it later. That's fine, but that means you're delaying success till later. It doesn't make any sense to me. If the problem exists now, let's solve the problem now. I have a phenomenal track record of people doubling their business when they work with me for 12 to 18 months. And my service isn't free. And you should take that as a really good indicator that I'm very confident that if I bring you into my community and I think you're a good fit, it's because I believe there's a good chance you're gonna make that success happen for yourself. But it's not an easy path. We had a call this morning with our Ascend clients, and we talked about the pressures of juggling multiple clients and perhaps not having a good enough handle on post-production. And so people get very stressed when they have multiple deliverables out and they're waiting on feedback. And sometimes that feedback can last weeks or months, and which means they can't invoice the rest of the project. And so we discussed that this morning. And then we had a bigger conversation about just the pressure of running a business and how hard it is to run and build a business. There has definitely been a very constrained market in the last 12 to 24 months. And I'm gonna say this if you follow big players online like Hermosy or Dan Martell and other kind of big key and powerful figures, there's a good chance you're gonna feel shit about yourself because you're never gonna feel like you're doing enough. And these characters work with a mass market of following. And I don't know them personally, so I'm not gonna comment. But I found myself in the past seeing a video, being inspired, running with it, and only to realize later it wasn't relevant to me. And so the thing that I bring to my clients is judgment. I'm lucky enough that I've run a business or been in the industry for 30 years. I've run a business for 15 of those. I've worked with over 200 video production companies personally. They've generated in excess now of 60 million dollars. And I am able to be objective and guide you and see things you cannot see. You are not going to do this alone. It's as simple as that. You're not going to build it alone. No successful company builds alone. So if you want to be in an environment where people will hold you accountable and encourage you to be the best version of you, then you should lean into one of our programs. Now, let me give it real absolute clarity. If you're doing $200,000 a year or above, or have been in business for 10 years plus, maybe your business has declined a little bit, but if you've made that kind of money in the past, then a conversation around the elite boardroom is where we should head. If you go to my website at denlenny.com, you'll find the mentoring. You can click there and make an application. Or find me on Instagram and send me a DM. If you're at 100K plus and under 200k, then ascend is where you will fit. That is a no application process. It's just straightforward, it's a fixed monthly fee. And the bottom line is you will get 10 times the value that you invest if you show up and you do the work. And if you don't, or you've got a story, or you think coaching's bullshit, then ask yourself the question: what does that say about you? What is that mirroring? What are you projecting? Because I have invested in coaches and mentors for the last 15 years. I probably spent in excess of $350,000. And I've 10x'd that money. So I want to leave you with that today. I just wanted to come on and say if you're someone who ghosts and doesn't respond because of fear, how is that showing up in other aspects of your life? Because life is short. You only get one chance. And if you're fucking around going, I'll do it later, then you're never going to win. Have a think about that. I'll see you in the next episode.