Building Trust in the Construction Industry Using Videos with Brian Mobbs (Episode 1)

Chris Schwager (00:05): Hey. Thank you so much. While waiting for the show to start, if you're a decision maker or marketer of a small to medium size business with little to no knowledge of video and would like your questions answered in-person, then join me at the next video marketing workshop. It would mean the world to me to have you register. Go to www.ridgefilms.com.au/events and I look forward to seeing you.

Chris Schwager (00:37): I'm Chris Schwager and welcome to our show live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favourite podcast. I believe one of the most valuable mediums in business is video. Videos that lead your audience and inspire. Your journey to show a more purposeful and connected you, starts now.

Chris Schwager (01:05): Well! Well! Well! Where ever you are in the world. Thank you for joining us on tonight's show. We're going to take you behind the scenes of the construction industry and discuss new trends, insights, and show you ways you can get your business visible to the world. Tonight we're joined with industry expert Brian Mobbs from Everclad with his perspective on how he's creating a more humanised construction business. And how he's leading the way with video marketing and my favorite video marketing expert and cohost Brendan Southall. Say hi Brendan.

Chris Schwager (01:39): . Brendan, we'll connect you on tonight show and weed you out so that you take the leap of faith and actually ask your questions live in video form. But first let's learn about our special guests. Brian Mobbs is the CEO of Everclad and father of two. He's had a long career in the construction industry dating back to 2010 and before that the Royal Australian Navy. Everclad is a leading supplier of aluminium and glass facades to the construction industry. They design and build custom solutions for the residential and commercial sectors across New South Wales. Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian Mobbs (02:19): Thanks for having me, mate.

Chris Schwager (02:21): Let's start simple. What is a facade?

Brian Mobbs (02:26): So the facade is effectively the external skin of a building. So we primarily deal with anything on the external facade of the building. That's aluminium and glass.

Chris Schwager (02:41): Okay. Thank you for clarifying that, Brian. I was just going to show you a couple of images there so that people understand, but look, you've been operating for three years. You're 15 staff in 40 contractors. I'm curious to know what challenges does the construction industry face and with all the marketing options that you, that any business, any startup business has today. Why video?

Brian Mobbs (03:06): Yeah, sure. That's a great question. The main challenges I think that we're experiencing as a new business in the construction space is credibility. As you're probably aware there's a lot of issues right now are being portrayed in the media due to, you know, some issues with regulation. You've got issues with Opal tower and the like, you've got the Grenfell fire, which has caused issues with the cladding. So there's a real issue with credibility, right? Which is what leads us into the marketing side of things. So what do we typically do with the marketing side of things when we're struggling with credibility? Right? So you have to weigh up you have to weigh out the different mediums of marketing to establish the most amount of credibility in the shortest period of time. So how do you do that? Well, my belief is through video.

Chris Schwager (03:59): Very nice. And before we watch your video, we've gotten a little 30 second grab. Tell us a little bit about it.

Brian Mobbs (04:06): Yeah. So it's actually really, really exciting. The video we went through this whole process. We vetted a number of different video marketing companies and what we wanted to do was we wanted to portray our I guess credibility through the video or showing authenticity. That's the thing that we really liked about working with you guys is you really enabled us to show authenticity by the way that you structured the videos. So a full day of filming multiple locations, the team were heavily involved. So it was a really exciting day for everyone.

Chris Schwager (04:45): Well, let's have a quick look. There's your team now is just a showing some of the shots from behind the scenes or some of the shots of the video. But let's have a quick look and have a bit of a chat.

Chris Schwager (04:59): Everclad is a leading supplier of aluminium and glass facades to the construction industry. We design and build custom solutions for the residential and commercial sectors across New South Wales. We understand that budget is a major consideration when choosing a facade contractor. That's why you need a solution that is reliable and works every time. Everclad is built on strong relationships with both local and overseas partners to keep costs low and quality high.

Chris Schwager (05:32): Well, thanks for joining us. We're here with Brian Mobbs talking about his experience using video within the construction industry. Brian, I'm curious, what was it like presenting on camera?

Brian Mobbs (05:44): Yeah, it's exciting to watch that back and it's a funny story. I mean, when you look at that you know, those of you in the audience that are thinking, Oh, that looks really professional and you, Brian, you look like you know what you're doing and you seem to be a natural, it was the absolute opposite of that. The first time we stood in front of the camera. So naturally I'm an extroverted person. I like being around people. I enjoy a conversation. It was terrifying for the first few takes and it was extremely awkward. But you know, your ability to walk me through that really shows with the end result. Yeah. It's good to watch.

Chris Schwager (06:26): So with, there's a lot of skepticism often in our industry around, you know, to personalise or not to personalise. So there's a lot of businesses that are investing will have done investing things like explain the videos and animation to deter having to go through the awkward presenting on camera mode on camera activity. But I'm more interested in your perspective. Like, why is it, is humanising your business so important?

Brian Mobbs (07:02): Yeah, sure. Look. I think it's really relevant to point out that typically people do business with people they trust. It's very hard to trust someone through animated video series. It's much easier to be able to portray who you are and what you're about, your values through a medium like video. So that's, that's why I believe it's just such a powerful tool.

Chris Schwager (07:25): Well, I'm really curious to see whether there's any questions coming in at this stage. Brendan, do you have anything from our audience?

Brendan Southall (07:34): I can't see any questions coming in yet. Actually, Chris, sorry. Hopefully, people jump on in and contribute to the discussion. Be great.

Chris Schwager (07:44): Hi. Sorry to interrupt the show with this very important message. But you know what LinkedIn live is meant to help you develop authentic connections with your network. And what better way to do that than through video. So listen out. We've included a link in the post in this post or this live broadcast. If you want to be on the live show right now in video form and click the link, follow the instructions, have your question ready, and we'll do our best to connect you so that you can ask your question in video form. Live!

Chris Schwager (08:13): We're back. We're with Brian, the man Mobbs. I'm curious, Brian, tell me what do you think this video really solves for your business?

Brian Mobbs (08:27): Yeah, so I guess I'll just talk a little bit about my experience since putting the video up. So we did the video initially, what was it? It'd be the third quarter of last year. And at that stage we really had no one on presence. So we had, yes, we had our website which had some static images, right? It had some about us and who we are and what we've done. But it's pretty standardised, right? Like everyone in the industry has a website and it says what they do and, and what they've done and who they are. For us, what I think was sort of magical, it really gave us, it really gave us an edge of a bit of a presence in the industry that sort of was quite unique. So over the course of the last couple of months, I've had a significant amount of feedback from, you know, I guess various people across various different industries, not just the construction space itself, about the quality of the video that the, you know, how professional the organisation looks. And for me that was a, that was a real shock because you know, I personally thought that having, I guess having the website and having the social media pages that it was enough, but you really need something, some type of anchor to drive traffic to those, their social media pages because otherwise you're just another social media page in a sea of millions of social media pages. So, I guess for me, having that video receiving the feedback that I've received really solidified for me the I guess the ROI from doing that one particular video, which has led us to then, you know, I guess they come up with a strategy to continue on with video marketing as a primary means of marketing for our business.

Chris Schwager (10:15): Where does the video live? Where are you getting it? How are you getting out there?

Brian Mobbs (10:19): Yeah. So this is the thing, it's so important to get it absolutely everywhere, right? So initially when we had it, we had it on the landing page of our website and that was it. Zero feedback, right? So the amount of people, I think that visit your website compared to the amount of people that would visit your LinkedIn, your social media pages that would see it in your email signature. For us, we....

Chris Schwager (10:48): I just want to hit this button, right? I just got to hit this button.

Brian Mobbs (10:58): I'm having some technical difficulties here. So for us, I guess I ran a bit of an experiment, right? I said, all right, well, yes, people might get annoyed by seeing this thing over and over and over again, but I think, assume that they haven't seen it, right? So just because it's on your website, just because you put it up once on LinkedIn, it doesn't mean that they've seen it. Right? So to get real ROI on the video, you need to get it absolutely everywhere. So it's in every one of my staff members email signatures, right? It's a big bold video link and it is a video link. It's a picture of an image. It's got a big play button, right? We've followed Ridge Films , you know, strategy instruction all the way to the T. It's now on YouTube with their own YouTube channel. It is a sole video on there, but obviously there's going to be more videos as we progress along this marketing. We've also got it on all our socials, right? So, you know it's at the top of all of our pages. It's on Instagram, it's on LinkedIn, it's on Facebook, it's everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And the feedback's fantastic, right? So it's just so encouraging.

Chris Schwager (12:06): Look awesome to hear. I'm always fascinated to hear stories from our clients, but I think what fascinates me even more is the psychological benefits of video. You know, like people are hype on about the technical all the time and absolutely there is a process around that and you need to be able to get all the ducks lined up so to speak, not only in the production process but in the implementation process as you have outlined. I have a listen to a podcast this morning of a video marketer in the States, Todd Hartley who interviewed David Meerman Scott. And I'm just gonna read a little excerpt here cause it definitely poses some discussion. Here it is. When you are in close proximity with somebody within a foot and a half to a foot to four foot of one another where the most powerful human connections and emotions are happening. So it's like having a personal meeting with that individual. So with video, it's incredibly powerful. When we're in this close proximity is like we're in the same personal space. Our brains are firing and it's the same for our audience. It's the same for you. What can this LinkedIn live right now as if we're, it's as if we're in this physical proximity with one another. And that's why we feel like we know movie stars and television presenters because our brains are firing as if we know them personally. In the workshop I talk about a 10th of a second to get the idea of a scene and there's also another really great quote, which is something like 90% of your audience has already made a decision about you before they've picked up the phone and called you. You know, it's interesting. All of these things that are happening and there's a lot of businesses that are saying, Oh, we're looking at our website doesn't do anything, this, that and the other. But people are intrinsically snoops. They are looking for faces in that recognition process. They'll, people still buy from people. And so humanising businesses in this landscape is even more prevalent, is even more important too, to make sure that you're engaging them at every different step in a learning environment that they're accustomed to. So not all people are going to read, not all people are going to watch video, but if you can have a diversified approach to, to your marketing, hopefully you attract right people along the way. I'm just curious, Brian, to get your feedback on that and just your understanding of it. So you've just done one video. I'm sure there's more to come, but you know, the way that you think about executing on that, on that video and actually getting it to market, the buck hasn't just stopped with posting the video. You've realised the importance of amplification and recycling and continually putting it in front of people in a multitude of different ways.

Brian Mobbs (15:02): Sure.

Chris Schwager (15:02): What, what's, what's your thoughts on that?

Brian Mobbs (15:05): Well, one thing that I think you raised, one point that you raised, which was, which was really important to mention now these touch points, right? These touch points where by people start to become your, your audience, become familiar with you and your brand. You know, before the age of social media. I think the average touch point was 8x. So a touch point being , you know an introduction to that person by face, by voice, right? By brand. It doesn't have to be much. It could be a, it could be a post, it could be an image on social media. It could be a video, right? It could be audio. But the, I think the average a touch point I figure was somewhere around eight before you're known by that particular person of that in that particular audience with the introduction of social media and all of the, all of this you know, this vying for your attention now that's more like 20 touch points now. So it's just, it's so important to understand that you need to continue to distribute this material on an ongoing basis. You need to continue to recycle your material on an ongoing basis so that you can continually get those touch points to a stage where you become known to that particular person in that particular audience. Does that make sense?

Chris Schwager (16:20): Absolutely. 100%. So Brendan, let's, let's have a listen to some questions from, from the audience.

Chris Schwager (16:36): He hasn't figured out how to unmute his mic. Okay, we're back. All right, Brendan?

Brendan Southall (16:45): I found the button. So as far as I can tell, we've got one comment from Chris's wife, Susan. She's saying hi Chris,

Chris Schwager (17:03): Well look, you know what it's been absolutely great talking to you, Brian. If you want to check out Brian's video, , the company profile that we've, we've shown you and I've talked about tonight, go to every everclad.com.au and see the way that it's presented. We've only shown you a short excerpt of it, but it's probably only double the length of what you're saying tonight. But it is absolutely great at demonstrating the capabilities of Everclad. And if you think of your video marketing as a micro touch point of information,ufor Brian it's about having that as a video asset that will live on in perpetuity for at least three years plus or until he gets gray. So as we don't have a lot of questions and we don't have anybody taking the leap of faith to submit the video question, we're going to wrap up and say thank you so much for joining us. This was intended to be a 20 minute episode and we're pretty much bang on. Brian, thank you so much. As father of two, I realise that you've probably got kids to tuck in, so I'm going to leave you there, but please this videos going to be broadcast via LinkedIn and YouTube as well as podcast, which will be uploaded tomorrow. And please share and write this video and, and also podcasts and we'd love to get your feedback on how tonight's going for you and whether it's answered all your questions, please submit any questions at the time and we'll do our best to, to answer that. And Brian can get in there and facilitate that as well. I hope that's okay with you, Brian.

Brian Mobbs (18:45): Of course.

Chris Schwager (18:47): Guys, thank you so much for joining us. It's been great and good night.

Brian Mobbs (18:53): Cheers. Thanks gents.