Dramatic Leverage Newsletter #7
Laying the Right Foundation
How to dig deeper into your WHY and make it 3-dimensional
The Secret Ingredient
After burning out in 2020, the most important goal for me was to rethink how I worked.
This included rethinking how I attracted and closed new clients. Plus deciding what projects I wanted to work on moving forward.
One thing I always wanted to do more of is Roadmapping.
I only take on five documentary projects a year, but I could take on far more consulting clients through Roadmapping.
Roadmapping is the secret ingredient behind the success of my past projects. Video happens to be the tool I use to bring these projects to life, but without Roadmapping, the videos would not have been as successful.
Going all the way back to 2011 with Keyshia Dior (who made $1mm from a docuseries I produced for her), and to the most recent success story with Darnyelle being able to close a $36,000 mastermind client by using her docuseries.
Roadmapping made it possible.
But there was one main thing standing in the way of getting more Roadmapping clients.
Although I had a series of video testimonials from clients who have been through Roadmapping, I didn't have anything that documented behind the scenes of what it was like to go through Roadmapping or that explained why Roadmapping was in fact the secret sauce.
Pattern Recognition
In 2016, I remember sitting in a meeting with a prospective client named David.
David was the CEO of a IT firm in South Florida, getting ready to celebrate 40 years in business. This company was doing 8-figures in revenue.
In our meeting, I explained the entire process to him about what it would be like to work together. He was nodding his head as he listened to the success other clients had working with me. And finally, I laid the vision for his project, but told him we would first need to go through Roadmapping.
He said this to me:
"I’d like to see how you did the whole implementation. Whether they tied it into a funnel or they just posted these as educational items on their website. That’s how I would think about doing it.I see it conceptually, but I can’t see it in execution. I’d like to see what you’re doing so that I can get a better picture of it."
In other words, what he was really saying to me is:
"I have a really big problem.And although I get what you're saying in theory - "video storytelling is powerful" - I don't think I can see how a video that tells our story would actually convince people to work with me."
There was something incredibly important about what David was saying to me. And if I'm honest, it took another 4 years to truly understand what he was saying.
In DLN 03, I mentioned the power of paying attention to patterns.
Success leaves clues and there are always patterns to pay attention to.
This is a key principle to learn: perspective is a superpower.
If you can understand how patterns work, you’ll be able to emulate them in your own business.
It really doesn’t matter if you‘re a creative freelancer or the CEO of an 8 figure company, pattern recognition is a superpower that helps you leapfrog, instead of hop, to the next level.
I have always been able to get new clients through referrals. Some of this I orchestrated, others happened organically.
For example, Darnyelle became a client through a referral from Andy Henriquez. I worked with him from 2018-2019.
When I first met Darnyelle, she mentioned she was on Andy's email list, so she saw and experienced the emails Andy was sending out every week.
Attached to each new email was a link to watch a video. It was an email sequence I helped Andy set up to get readers to sign up for his storytelling workshop.
There was a very intentional strategy behind the email sequence and Darnyelle saw it play out in her inbox.
In other words, because Darnyelle saw the implementation for Andy, she saw the power of what I was creating for him. For her, it was a no-brainer to work with me.
But what happens to a person who isn't coming by way of referral. What happens if they don't get to see the implementation first hand?
Well, the short answer is nothing. I didn't have any content or presentation to show the behind the scenes of how I work with my clients.
So in thinking about redeveloping how I work, I knew this was incredibly crucial to create. And it's why in 2020, I worked with an agency to produce 2 case studies. One about my work with Darnyelle Jervey Harmon and another with my work with Stefan Georgi.
Consider this.
What's the first step in knowing which client stories will actually lead you towards your goals?
How do you know if you're telling the right story?
You have to start with asking yourself one question over and over, at least 5 times, until you get to the root of the answer.
That question is "Why?"
Start With Why
Popularized by Simon Sinek’s book Start With Why, your WHY is the first step in getting started with leveraging client stories in your business.
Just like I laid out at the beginning of this letter, I explained that because of burnout I wanted to switch from producing documentary projects to taking on more consulting clients through Roadmapping.
Your WHY — also known as your mission, your purpose, your calling — is what brings you a deep sense of fulfillment in your work. The only problem is almost no one knows what their WHY is when they get started.
When you’re in the early stages of building a business, you’re not focused on your WHY, or on defining your core values and philosophies you bring to your business. You’re more concerned with staying ahead of your car payments, your mortgage, and maybe, if you can possibly manage it, hire an assistant to take care of the insanity of your schedule and inbox.
Understanding your WHY will help you see your work, and every decision you make from now on, through a new lens.
For me, my WHY for focusing on Roadmapping was because I needed to slow down in my workload. But also because I really come alive when I'm leading a Roadmapping session. Roadmapping - and digging deeper into an entrepreneurs story - is what fuels me and gives me life. It's the reason why I could do a 6-8 hour session and not feel tired afterwards.
While I enjoy filmmaking, and the amount of money it brings in, filmmaking was always a means to an ends. I wanted to get back to doing the work I absolutely love to do and nothing else.
WHY Influences What
Being clear about your WHY will bring clarity about what you should do next.
It frees you up from chasing shiny objects, because you can quickly decide if a particular course of action is right for your business, or if it just looks cool when someone else is doing it.
For example, Gary Vaynerchuk puts out new content every day — often multiple pieces every day. He has a blog post on his site called ‘How To Create 64 Pieces of Content In A Day.’
I don’t know about you, but creating 64 pieces of content in a day sounds horrible to me.
Vaynerchuk has built his brand around this high-volume content output. He wants to be everywhere, wants to be constantly top of mind, wants all the eyeballs he can get on his online properties. His life’s ambition is to buy the New York Jets. In order to be considered a realistic potential owner — and to have the money to make that kind of purchase — the notoriety, high-visibility clients and very public success helps.
It would be very easy for other entrepreneurs to think that in order to be successful like Gary Vaynerchuk they have to emulate his content model. But if you know your WHY, you can think critically about whether that’s the highest and best use of your time.
As you’re reading this, I understand some of this may feel a bit overwhelming for you. Overwhelming to dig this deep, but also overwhelming because you can’t immediately think of a deeper WHY. This is ok. Seriously. It’s rare that I land on a very specific WHY within the Roadmapping session with clients. This level of depth requires you to sit with it for a while.
You've read about me sharing the moment Jason discovered his WHY.
I met with my good friend Jason, going over new goals in our respective businesses for the year ahead. Jason and I both run video production companies, in very different ways, and once a month we sit down together to hold each other accountable towards our goals. (Jason is also the Head of Production for my company).
In one mastermind session, I asked him for his personal goals and why he wanted to accomplish said goals. Naturally, he gave me surface level answers. Naturally, I pushed him to go deeper. He couldn’t.
Here’s a raw accounting of our conversation.
Jude: The most important question we need to leave here with today is what is your big dream?
Jason: Truthfully, my big dream is to not have to do this alone.
Jude: It has to be bigger than that.
Jason: Having you as a part of my projects or consulting allows me to be more emotionally connected to the moment.
Jude: Ok, but why is that important? What are you able to do now that you have an extra partner with you?
Jason: I want to continue to charge more per project. At least double what I’m charging now. I don’t want to do a single thing differently but I want to have the confidence to charge more. You give me that confidence.
Jude: Why does confidence matter for you?
Jason: I'm taking more of a CEO role now than I've ever taken in my life. There are people who are charging what I'm charging, but only working a third of the time. That's exactly what I'm transitioning to. You’ve already helped me charge more than what I was charging, but if I can double that again? That would be my big dream.
Jude: I get it. You feel more empowered. But what I think I’m missing is how that empowerment affects the rest of your life.
At this point, Jason is lost for words. He’s trying to find the words but he’s not able to get to the real transformation.
Two hours later, after our meeting, Jason calls me on the phone.
Jason: I never want to feel like I’m hustling. I never want to feel like I’m trying to convince someone to work with me. If I am able to double what I’m doing now and sustain it, truthfully it means I don’t have to stress about college for my girls. (Jason has 2 teen-age daughters.)
Jude: Hmm, wow. I think you’re onto something there.
Jason: If my girls want to go to an ivy league school, I want to be able to not only support them in wanting to follow that dream but I want to be able to say my wife and I can afford to send them to an ivy league school.
BOOM. There it was.
He landed on what was really driving his decisions and the purpose behind his business. Sometimes it’s not always as deep as saving the world. Sometimes you simply want the freedom to have a choice.
TAKE ACTION: WHAT IS YOUR WHY?
There are many different challenges you could be having in your business.
Such as:
Getting clients to see your unique value
Consistently attracting the right clients to work with
A roller coaster of unpredictable revenue
Reaching more potential clients quicker, faster, with a consistent pitch
In order to solve any of these problems, you must first answer the deeper question.
Why does this even matter to you?
Or in other words, what's the deeper motivation for solving the problem?
When you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
Join the Dramatic Leverage Newsletter — every week I share strategies and frameworks for implementing storytelling in your business. This can help you double (or even triple) the income in your business like it has for so many others.
Buy the Dramatic Demonstration book — this book takes you behind the scenes with three entrepreneurs and shows you how they leverage storytelling. There are also 33 questions on page 67 that helps you create the Roadmap for yourself so you can do this too.
Work with me 1-on-1 — whether you’re looking for help to refine your story so that you can close your next big project OR you’re looking to elevate your brand with a documentary series, let’s work together to help you reach your goals.