With this article, we’re going to be covering 8 more mindsets for growing a crazily successful video business. If you’re looking for filmmaker tips, then you’ve come to the right place.

Everything starts with mindset, so that’s why I plac such great emphasis on mindset when you want to start and grow a video production company.

Continuing where we left off in the previous part of the 16 Mindsets For a Fantastically Successful Video Business, here are the final eight mindsets. But remember that when it comes to filmmaker tips, you can read all the advice in the world, but if you’re not taking action you won’t achieve the level of success that you dream about.

9. Focus On The Future So That You Can Build A Future

Focusing on getting money won’t help you succeed long term. It’s time to learn to build a better future in order to have more money.

Decide where you want to be in 3, 5, 10 years income wise.

This isn’t woo-woo stuff. This is real. We develop our services and, thus, we develop ourselves and the value we can offer people with our video business.

We’re learning all the time. Whether it’s business learning or technical filmmaking learning, we’re learning all the time.

The real game in life is building a better future. You want your moments of ‘now’ to become better and better. So delay gratification and do what’s necessary to set yourself in better shape for the future.

filmmaker tips

I don’t know if this is what the future looks like, but I know it’s bright.

10. Learn To Uncover The Code, Not Just ‘try To Make Money’

Uncovering the Code‘ is about figuring out what your clients want, creating a service they want to buy, and then marketing and selling it to them in a way that makes it very attractive to them.

From there, you can build a system that does this on a larger and larger scale.

You can then invest your time and energy into making the system better and better, in a way tuning the engine, and then ultimately creating an asset that throws off profit that grows and has a value in and of itself that becomes a piece of your overall wealth portfolio.

I just gave you a tried and tested system to creating a scalable video business that is a part of your overall income.

Yes, making videos for people doesn’t necessarily need to be the end-all of your wealth and business endeavours. I understand that for a lot of people reading these guides, they might be happy with their video business being a part time endeavor that they dip into from time to time.

   

For others, they’re going to want to make it their main source of income – their ‘bread winner.’

This can become a piece of the pie (admittedly a large piece), and you can even have different aspects to your video business – i.e., creating promotional videos for local business, wedding films for brides, as well as promotional films for charities.

There’s nothing wrong with thinking big and envisioning where you want your business to go.

Going out and just trying to ‘sell’ people on your video services in order to “just make a bit of money” is an example of trying to unnaturally force a successful business.

Having a target market that you understand better than anyone (Uncovering the Code) and having a service that really meets their needs is key.

From there you start to understand what your target market finds very valuable and you can communicate it in a way to them that is marketed/sold in a way they really get and understand.

filmmaker tips

We’ll discuss more on this later, but knowing how to Uncover the Code (or market to your target audience) is understanding what really keeps them up at night. What are their concerns, their problems, their misunderstandings?

When you think about your target market, think about that. This is the thing that meets their needs and building a business machine that sells a solution to this problem…that is cracking the code.

Aspire to do this in your business. Get into business to crack the code long term in order to have a long term profitable business. This is one of the most important filmmaker tips I’ve ever come across. Use it well!

11. What Exactly Causes Success?

Business success comes when you’re doing many things right all at once

Your major organs working correctly are the building blocks of health. Without them working in harmony, your body would be massively weakened.

A group of systems work together with a core purpose or goal…and ‘business success’ occurs when many things are all working correctly at the same time.

It’s not just one thing, it’s many.

If your marketing is off, you’re missing out on income. If your sales strategy is off, you’re going to lose potential clients.

If a key component isn’t functioning well, it will be as debilitating to your video business as it is when one of your major organs isn’t functioning effectively. You need all the key pieces working at once.

12. Money Is All Around You

You need to focus on having an abundance mindset. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it’s certainly all around you.

Don’t listen to the negative naysayers, there’s enough money out there to stack floor to ceiling in your house many times over.

In order to succeed in business, you need to be confident in your ability to find clients and grow your wealth. For that to happen, you need to absolutely believe that money is in abundance.

It is.

A scarcity mindset is the polar opposite of an abundance mindset. People who focus on lack, on small prices and negative thinking very rarely achieve real wealth, or success of any kind.

Let’s hand over to the always remarkable and watchable Will Smith to describe a successful abundance mindset and how he puts it into action:

By focusing on abundance, you think positively about money and business, and people are naturally attracted to you. People will want to work with you.

   

13. Become 100% Responsible For Everything That Happens In Your Business

Taking full responsibility for your actions is part of becoming a fully functioning adult, right?

Well becoming a full functioning business person is about taking responsibility for everything that happens in your business.

This means:

  • no blaming the economy.
  • no blaming your clients (unless you meet the rare, and infamous, Crazy Client).
  • no blaming your parents/upbringing/bank balance/friends, etc etc etc.

Face up to your responsibilities as a business owner and great things will come your way.

No one will show up on a horse and save you, so you need to use your smarts and focus on making this work. No one else will do it for you, you have to do it. Blaming won’t work.

Lead by example. You’re making the decisions. You’re responsible now.

14. Burn The Boats!

One of the most powerful ideals we can have when embarking on a new journey (and make no mistake, this is a journey) is to decide to ‘Burn the boats.’

What exactly does boat burning have to do with building a video business, I hear you ask.

Well, it’s time for a brief history lesson.

filmmaker tips

Back in the early sixteenth century, Hernan Cortes (noted Spanish conquistador) was forging his way through Mexico in search of treasure, having convinced the Spanish government to order for 700 men and 11 ships.

Months later, far from home, they arrive in Veracruz, where Cortes had his men unload the ships. As his men made their way onto dry land, they turned back towards the sea to witness all 11 ships roaring with flames.

Cortes had ordered his ships burned to ensure that turning back wasn’t possible. Cortes had enacted a swift masterstroke – he had given his mission a sense of “do or die…” quite literally.

Now, I don’t intend for this to be a direct comparison between success in business and marauding sixteenth century barbarians, but the points remains: You have to be committed to the point of burning your metaphorical boats.

No one is going to make you good at business. No one is going to pray for your success; they’re too busy doing it for themselves!

You have to want it for yourself to the point where you make plans to prevent yourself from turning back.

15. Make Changes If Things Aren’t Working

It was the eminent sage, Albert Einstein who pronounced:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

If something is not going right in your business, you owe it to yourself to make a change. You make an adjustment and set your rudder back on course. Recognizing that things aren’t working is bold and takes great insight. The strength to then make a change (even if it might be unpopular) takes even greater wisdom.

One of the primary reasons why people don’t want to make changes is something called Fear of Failure. It’s something that we touched on briefly in Part I of this section on Mindsets when we mentioned failure being feedback.

Here’s Ramit Sethi, a top entrepreneur on Fear of Failure and how it can hold you back from achieving success:

Don’t bang your head against a brick wall. If something’s not working, it’s time to alter how you’re doing it.

This is how progress is made.

16. Success, Action And Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone

It’s not about the perfect solution or talking to people for approval…it’s about taking an idea, putting it into action, and seeing what the result is.

Learning is about changing your behavior.

Take some action and see if it works in the real world, and if not refine it and try again or try something else.

Your success will come from consistent action long term. You may need to overcome fears, but you must get yourself to take consistent daily action.

You’ve probably heard the quote, “Ships are safe harbour, but that’s not what ships are for.” We’re safe in our comfort zone, but if you live your life forever in that warm, safe blanket you won’t truly experience the world.

In order to achieve in business, there will be times when we need to conquer and fears and take difficult times head-on. This is called getting out of your comfort zone. They’ll be times when things are tough, but provided you’re prepared to leap out of your comfort zone, then you have this mindset on your side.

Nothing moves until we take action. A mindset that you should always be Taking Action is one of the most important mindsets you can develop. When I look back at my own business life, the times when I made most progress were the times when I was taking consistent action.

As we’ve discussed earlier, you will make mistakes, but you need to keep pushing forward and keep taking action.

Here’s a brilliant quote to really get you jazzed up about taking action:

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

ACTION STEPS:

1. What kind of business do you envision yourself creating? Focus on it and see it in your mind’s eye. Where do you see yourself and your business in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?

2. What is the part of your mindset that has held you back from success in an area of life?

3. Which mindset shift will create the biggest shift for your future success?

4. How can you remind yourself of the mindset shift that you’re making so you create the success that you want in your video business?

5. Make a list of all the things you won’t put up with in your life anymore. This can be your own bad habits, toxic people, bad choices you want to avoid, etc.

Filmmaker Tips – Summing Up

We hope you’ve gained some inspiration and knowledge from this list of filmmaker tips. As we’ve covered in these two articles on filmmaker mindset, getting your mind right is a key part of the foundation for video business success.

Once we get our mindset sorted, success can come. But you can read all the filmmaker tips in the world, and if you don’t put them into action, you won’t achieve the level of success you dream about.

So read these mindsets through again, really think about them and what you want. And then go out there and take action.

Did we miss out any filmmakers tips on mindset? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.