How Should a Law Firm Use Video? A Principal Explains

Auto-transcribed and lightly corrected for names. [unclear] marks audio the transcription couldn't resolve. [...] marks a passage removed.

[00:00] Cold open (Mark)

That human interaction and that yearning for coming back and saying, well, everything has just become robotic and I want to interact and engage because humans need that emotional connection. So I think it's inevitable that people are going to start using video more and more in order to be able to connect and particularly when your audience expands to areas, you know, to international or to global, I can use the setup that you've given me to broadcast my messaging, my expertise to the USA, which is a huge market. I think it's inevitable. If you don't do it, you will [unclear].

[00:32] Chris (show intro)

Hi, I'm Chris Schwager, video coach and founder of the Complete Video Success System. And I've spent decades helping professionals create high impact videos that build trust, generate leads and drive business success. And if you've ever felt unsure or underprepared or just plain awkward with video, this is for you. I'll give you the mindset and strategies to take control, build video confidence so that you show up like a pro. It's time to make your videos work for you.

[00:58] Chris

Welcome back to the Video Confidence Collective podcast. Today I'm with Mark Lazarus, principal at Lazarus Legal in Bondi Junction. Mark's been part of the VCC, the Video Confidence Collective, if you didn't know about it, since June, and in that time he's built a genuine habit, four videos every single Saturday, scripts written straight off his real client conversations, and he's now ranking organically for commercial and business lawyer searches in Sydney with zero ad spend, which is fascinating. I'm keen to pick that apart in more detail, but the interesting part of Mark's story isn't the camera. It's what it takes to keep showing up when everything else in the business is pulling at you, and he's even graciously given us moments of his time right now, knowing that he's got a full day ahead of him. So we'll keep this short and sweet, but welcome to the show, Mark.

[01:48] Mark

Chris, thanks for having me, much appreciated as always.

[01:51] Chris

Take me back, man. Before you started with us, what was actually stopping Lazarus Legal putting video out there, and what's changed?

[01:59] Mark

I think video is something that everybody needs to do or thinks they need to do, particularly in a world of social media and seeing so many influencers and ambassadors, but I think the hardest thing with video is knowing what to say and what to do and then how to do it and when to do it. And we've all had marketing teams and you go through changes in your business, and I ended up having an external marketing company and they would always say to me, Mark, you've got to do video content. We need you to do video consistently. And it was like, ah, right. So I'd be walking my dog on a Saturday and I'd be all sweaty and hot and I'd pull up my phone and I'd try to say, hey, you know, and try to speak about something, and then the dog would be pulling me off in the wrong direction. And then I'd look back at myself and I'm like, oh my God, I look so old and grey and, you know, there's lines under my eyes.

I think that the whole idea of video just became prohibitive because it wasn't easy, and you see people doing video content in all different aspects of their lives. Because your first several videos are probably not going to get viewed. It's probably only once you've done 20, 30, 50, even 100 videos that you do. But I think most people don't stick it out that long, just like podcasts. So the issue that I found was that every time I tried to do video, I stopped after a few because it was so bad that it just became prohibitive for me. And I stumbled across Ridge and that was a game changer for me.

[03:41] Chris

So you've turned this into a genuine Saturday ritual, which I think is fascinating, four videos every week, no exceptions. Walk me through that and how that works.

[03:51] Mark

Yeah, look, in an ideal world, I would like to be able to stay back after work when everyone from my team has left and I can just get content done. That becomes increasingly difficult with family commitments and late projects that I'm working on, and then trying to get home to get stuff done as well as be with the family. So at this point in time, I've committed somewhere between an hour and two hours to come into the office every Saturday. I have my scripts ready and try to roll out at least, you know, somewhere between three and six scripts and see how, you know, they go, because even with prompting, etc., the first script is not always the best, and sometimes I can do three or four or five or ten takes of one script, and 30 minutes becomes an hour and a half very, very quickly. But I've become pretty rigid, and I've got some specific commitment, I've become pretty rigid to coming in every Saturday to shoot the content and get it out, and so far I've delivered, other than when I've had certain things that have prohibited me from coming in.

[05:08] Chris

I don't know if you're okay to talk about getting thrown down the stairs, but Mark still turned up, no excuses, to our Video Confidence Collective, bruised and battered, you know, which I thought was a commitment. So well done. You know, you're writing your own scripts off the back of real meetings using AI. We've worked through a couple of different ways of getting your videos recorded as well. Talk me through what you see is working, you know, the best at the moment, and I guess what's still the hard part.

[05:45] Mark

The hard part, Chris, is that I haven't really refined a lot of the scripts that I'm working on at the moment, and there was a session that we did in August, late August, 24th of August, and one of the things that I need to do on my to-do list this week is to put some of the key learnings from that meeting into, you know, into AI and into my scripts and to rewrite them.

But generally what I've been doing, for the audience, is I take client meetings or topics from client meetings or, you know, things that I generally talk about day to day. I get a lot of inbound leads through AI, through Claude or ChatGPT or Grok. And then I have a lot of clients that will call me during the day via telephone or through referrals, and I'll end up having a chat with them about specific legal matters, and it's those legal matters that I then document, almost like an FAQ, and get, with the use of AI, etc., short 30 to 50 second scripts made with a hook that basically deals with and talks about the issues. I guess I try to make it a bit more exciting. What's the issue? What's the problem? How's it dealt with? And what's the solution?

And then what I'm doing is, once I get those snippets, they are then chopped up, edited, the text is written, and then we use it across socials. Primarily what we've been doing is building our landing pages that have specific video content linked to those landing pages. So when people are typing up employee stock option plans or, you know, shareholder dispute or whatever it might be, they'll come to a specific landing page with an actual video that deals with it. And we're starting to get some traction. We've still got a long way to go in respect to what we're doing and refinement, and I'm still trying to figure out how to do that better.

You taught me, Chris, a lot about delivery and about getting into it, and with commas and full stops, the ups and the downs. And so a lot of it happens to revolve around delivery and expression and getting the audience excited about what you're talking about. And I'm still learning that, I'm only three months in, but the video content is definitely getting done, and I definitely believe in shit getting done, right? So you've got to set your mind to something, create a habit and just keep doing it.

[08:40] Chris

Well, you've said it better than anyone else. You're getting eight videos out imperfect rather than chasing polish, it's high on your priority. Why does that belief matter so much for a lawyer specifically, where the instinct is to usually be conservative?

[08:58] Mark

I think lawyers are generally conservative in advice and the way we do things and run business. I have a Monster hat behind me because I used to run Monster Energy's legal department across Europe for six years. And I often talk to clients and say, do you want the advice wearing the commercial hat or the legal hat? And there's a difference sometimes between acting really commercial and acting legal.

But I genuinely, when it comes to content or video content, believe that getting stuff out there, even if it's imperfect, is more important than having something that's absolutely perfect that you never get out. Because you keep refining and refining and refining, and then you might end up getting one piece of video content out. I actually went off the cuff last Saturday and decided on a topic area to do with trademarks and IP that I know so well. I was trying to get a script out for my business development and marketing manager to work on. And what had been produced, I didn't have enough time to kind of refine and look at, and I just wasn't happy with the content of that script. And so I was like, you know what? Stuff it. I'm just gonna ad lib and just go for gold. And I literally shot three videos, first take, just with what I said, as opposed to an actual script.

You can read it and read it and read it, and it's like, no, I can do better, I can do better, I can do better. And then you end up spending two, three hours of your day trying to get a script perfect. So to answer your question, sometimes even not having a script to some points, or, you know, just going off the cuff on a topic that you know, the quality might be better than even reading a script.

[11:07] Chris

That's right. And you've identified what's really powerful there, is identified where you need to break the rules. And, you know, not that a script every time is the rule, but often people think that that's, you know, the only thing that you can do, and there's no other option, and therefore, you know, follow that or you won't get a result. But in your case, you've demonstrated that by virtue of knowing the content so, so well, it's just far quicker for you to just fire away. And the reason why I recorded today's session within the Video Confidence Collective too, because I knew going into that that I was going to get three main videos out of it, and most likely podcasts and YouTube channel and short vignettes of content, because again, know the information so well, but also can take those and snip those and leverage those for really years to come.

And the same thing is happening right now on this podcast, where Mark and I both have set an agenda for this session whereby we end up with a podcast and Mark gets some leverage and exposure that way. But he also gets the recording from today's session to enable him to leverage what he's got. So he hasn't talked much about Lazarus Legal yet, but we'll get to that in a sec. But how he then can go and snip that up when he starts talking about things that are relevant to his market. Now, the interesting thing about this is it's the same half hour that we're both spending together in order to make this happen. Okay, and by virtue of us, you know, getting through this and riffing and going off the rails, I don't have a predefined script right now, I'm just talking, as you can probably tell, looking around. Okay. This is fine, right, particularly good, and, you know, a long form piece like a half an hour, 40 minutes. Hey, if you get a couple of short little 30 second, 60 second, 120 second clips out of it, hey, that's a good day's work.

The trick is how you get that done. You know, when I send the file, it's like, all right, then what happens? So much to do with workflow and making sure that those things take place and they're not just always forgotten about or revisited. [unclear] sent me a, here's the podcast you were on from a year ago. I was like, oh, at least he's found a way to, like, repurpose. On Riverside you get both video and audio, and it has this kind of edit out the ums and ahs and pauses. Well, he probably just took that and went there, yeah, published on YouTube, wherever it was. But that's the smart way to do it. Okay.

Well, while Mark does have no predefined thing that he needs to try and perfect and get right, with his eyes dialled in and locked right on that teleprompter for every single thing, you'll notice, if you're on the YouTube channel, that by Mark coming up with those responses on the fly, it's meant he's moving around. His eyes are moving. He's going to thinking spaces and the various points of his eye contact. And if you really want to cheat the teleprompter, you'll actually build that into your read. So read the question and occasionally just casually look down and look up, and it disguises it quite well. That's something for the pros. So if you get to that point, realise that if it's coming off a little bit scary, because you're reading for five minutes and you've got this kind of googly eyes, just realise if you just squint those eyes and look away every once in a while, it'll then disguise it even further that you're reading. So just a little tip there.

We will get onto Lazarus Legal, I promise. But what's it actually done for the business? So you said leads, SEO, the way clients are finding you now. But what are they? What's happening in only a very short period of time? But what's happening? What are you hearing?

[14:58] Mark

I'm definitely findable on the socials, and particularly the likes of AI tools. But that was happening for a while, because I've been building up my thought leadership in the legal space over time. So I do a lot of podcasts now. I do a lot of video content. I do a lot of appearances. I've written a lot of content and articles and publications for the Law Society, LegalWise, etc. But it's definitely, from what I can say without giving you data, is that if I am trying to pick up a new client and they send me a lead and I respond via an email without getting them on a call or a video conference via Teams or Zoom, for example, the rate of closure is way less than if people actually get to know who I am.

And so by creating video content that is going to be published on my website and various platforms, people will start to associate me with the brand. And when it comes to choosing me as a lawyer or firm, as opposed to somebody else that doesn't have that awareness or presence, I feel like I'm going to be more, I might have a heads up or a leg up, because they feel like they kind of know me even if they don't. So I'm doing my part to keep showing up, keep putting that content out there, you know, having a video introduction on my website, etc., so people know exactly who I am. I've added a Mark Lazarus page that has a lot of the video content that I deliver, also a lot of the presentations or panel discussions or whatever that I'm on. And then that just adds credibility to who you are and to your business.

And Ridge Films is certainly, you know, something that has been a game changer for me in the setup and what have you. And long may it continue, and I just need to keep showing up, because you can have all this fancy equipment as well, and teleprompters, but if you don't actually do anything about it, then it's all down the toilet anyway. So I look at it as like I've committed to an investment, both in terms of cost and my time. And so I owe it to myself to see that through.

It's like going to the gym, Chris, right? Some people absolutely love going to the gym. Others don't. I've been going to the gym my entire life, or since I was in my teens. And there are days, particularly during winter, that the alarm goes off at 5am after going to bed at midnight, which is not good, me having five hours sleep a night, that's another story. But the alarm goes off at 5am, and then to think, shit, I've got to get up and go to a spin class today or whatever. Like, nobody wants to do that if you're weighing up that or, you know, sleeping in for another hour. But you do it because you've got that mindset and it's become habit. And so that video content for me is something that is becoming habit. And just to keep showing up and keep doing and keep pushing, because if you keep going to the gym, you get results. Right? If you keep showing up, you keep doing the video content, you're going to get results. You're not going to get the results overnight. But you keep doing it over a couple of months and more, it's inevitable.

[18:59] Chris

As De Niro says in the movie Heat, that's the discipline. Do my best De Niro face. But that's what you've demonstrated today, that not only you're looking at it from an investment and time that you're pouring in, but also keeping your foot on the throttle with it, right? And leaning into discomfort, leaning into the new things and new ways of doing things, and some stuff's unusual and some stuff that works and some doesn't, right? And understanding that it's kind of like owning a house for the first time and walking in and not knowing where the light switch is and then beating yourself up about it, right? It's ridiculous, because you're in a new home. Why would you think any different? Now, over time, what you do is become more familiar with the light switch and where it's located each time. And that then is just second nature, because it's like, yeah, I know where the light switch is, fine, I know how to control the lighting now. And so this is much the same.

And I think you're an exception in some cases to a lot of people out there that dabble in this and go off and, quick, quick fix sort of flash video, "I did it, it didn't work, did it? Oh, it's too hard, you know, I've got all the gear and nothing seemed to connect together and work" and all this other stuff. So by you committing, and also just from what you've shown me in terms of your commitment every Saturday, getting in there, doing the yards and then sending that stuff, is commendable, man. So well done.

And I also just, back on to what you're saying about the feeling of video and the rollout that's happening for you across the site and various other places. What do you feel when you see yourself on the homepage in that portrait aspect video right at the top above the fold, versus the old version had no video on there? What do you feel?

[20:49] Mark

Like, I feel like pride and satisfaction.

[20:53] Chris

It's, don't give me the corporate version. Give me the Mark Lazarus version.

[20:58] Mark

I'm still a bit cringe worthy. I still sometimes look at it and be like, oh my God, like my face looks too big there on that video, et cetera. And like, you're such a salesperson, and you're a lawyer and you're just, you know, trying to sell yourself. But when you get over that, it's like, oh, this is pretty cool, because I'm the only one that's really doing this in my space that I can see, no one else is. And what you start to realise now is just how many people are trying to jump on that bandwagon of social media. And so many people are really bad at it, but they just do it. And you can actually see the difference on social media between people that do it as a chore and people that are passionate about it.

And I've seen some, I mean, I won't mention names, but there's like somebody I came across on the Instagram the other day in the fashion space, and this person is batshit crazy, but they just don't care. Like, they just don't care, and they say and do whatever they want on, you know, when they're shooting. And it's kind of infectious in a way. It makes you want to watch them more, because they just speak their mind. They're good at what they do. But the way they deliver it is like, I don't care who is watching me, and if you don't like it, don't watch me, but I'm going to do it anyway.

So I think if the video content comes across as being really cringe worthy, and I don't mean cringe worthy in what you say or do, I mean cringe worthy in that, like, you just don't want to be doing it and you're forcing yourself to do it and you're thinking, maybe I'll just do one piece and then I'll stop, I don't think it'll work. But over time, I think as you build your own persona or profile, and it's consistent and you show up and you deliver the same, people come to know what you want and who you are. Then it becomes, you know, a lot more powerful. And so seeing myself, you know, is empowering in a way as well as being cringe worthy. It's a bit of both.

[23:21] Chris (mid-roll)

Just quickly, if you're ready to take control of your video production but feel stuck, check out the Video Confidence Collective. It's live coaching in a supportive community that's got your back. We cover four essentials, tech, messaging, on-camera presence and implementing what you learn, so you can create consistent, confident content that truly connects. Links in the show notes. Now back to the episode.

[23:38] Chris

And, you know, what we're talking about is like the old fashioned advertising in the papers, right? Those that go for a six month campaign are likely to, and I know this happens, versus those that do three weeks and then go, didn't work, right? It's a very similar thing. You know, you're building touch points of video visibility for yourself. And one of the very first instances I ever came across where I knew this was a real thing was about 15 years ago, when I sat down to a meeting, or it was a video meeting, and I was at a boardroom, and the owner of this demolition business came in and he came straight up to me and he goes, "G'day Chris," and held out his hand for a shake. And then I stood up and I was like, I've never seen this guy in my life, but he had met me in his mind through the video content that he had consumed.

And this was nothing compared to what we have now. Like, we've got a video on our footer, Mark, on the footer of our website. You've got to go check it out. I haven't told anyone about it. I've [unclear] it, right? So it's, you know, as a video company, that's easy for us, but as a company, as a legal firm, man, it's just as fucking easy. Do it, right? Be everywhere, right? That cringe will fade because you become more and more confident at the quality of the information that you're getting. Because everybody wants to go out and be a guru and have the perfect thing coming out of their mouth, right? But the reality is that takes time. Takes time. More situations like this, more hours in spontaneous environments, synchronous environments like this, where you're pressure tested on stuff continually, seeing how you adapt and seeing how much of the consistent messaging you can recall and regurgitate as well, which we talked about today. Much of that.

And you talked about Monster, right? For me, Monster is one of the most consistent things that you've talked about since we've known each other, right? And so it's very top of mind. If someone said Mark Lazarus, I'd go, yeah, you used to work for Monster Energy, because that is at the forefront of my thinking around you, because you've exposed me so much to that. Okay, so that's really powerful, man. I just wanted to, like, yeah, just say you're on the trajectory, you're on the right path. I think you believe it already. Now it's just the case of keep finding pockets and holes and areas in the business to plug with video, even more and more and more. So well done. And I'm really excited for you. I can't wait to see what you continually do, because in a very short period of time, just seeing such a big growth in your confidence, and also just in the visibility of the stuff that I'm actually seeing out of what you've put together.

Now, that aside, let's talk a little bit about Lazarus Legal, because I guess in situ of the video content that you're creating, you know, how does that change the legal environment, really? Because there's not many lawyers that would go out of their way to go on camera confidently and say, yeah, man, like, did my video or went on my podcast. Like, there's very few. It's not much. It's a great, you know, what is it? Shoot the fish, shotgun, whatever it is. It's like shooting fish in a pond. Tell me, tell me, like, where did you first come up with that? Yeah, video is it, you know, and I guess what does that do from a professional point of view in a conservative legal landscape?

[27:12] Mark

Look, the landscape is conservative, but I think it's changing with AI and with the world that we live in, and with everybody wanting to be an influencer or an ambassador these days. And I have always, I never really wanted to be a lawyer. I kind of stumbled into it. And the reason I loved Monster so much was because it was a very successful fast-moving consumer good brand, still is, you know, the CEO was an ex-[unclear]. And it was such a, everything that Monster stands for about being below-the-line advertising, you know, working almost as a cult brand with athletes and brands, and, you know, snowboarding, wakeboarding back in the day, skiing, you know, motocross, MotoGP, was all really exciting.

And so my career has always taken a path of being more entrepreneurial than legal, and I've always wanted to work with and be exposed to business owners and entrepreneurs that have gone on to do things and make things. But legal is what I know. And so I started, when I left Monster, you know, on really good terms, I wanted to work with the kinds of clients that Monster is, you know, fast-moving consumer good brands, food, beverage, health, wellness, beauty, leisure, and then also tech. I wanted to work with those types of clients on my terms. So a lot of my clients these days are in that space, and I kind of act as their external in-house counsel, or advisor on tap, or their external general counsel. Got a team of around 10. And, you know, I kind of do everything that looks, smells and tastes like legal, so that they can do what they do best, which is build and grow their business.

But as I've started to get busier in my career, and I've now got a team to support, I'm still in the weeds all the time, Chris. And that's one of the biggest challenges, is working out how to, you know, even, you know, in your videos today, I'm multitasking and stuff and my head's not right in it, because I'm dealing with so many other things. And that's probably due to my ADHD, which is another separate topic in itself. But the thing that I, when I take everything aside, for 15 to 20 years I've been sitting behind a desk, drafting documents, looking at contracts, reviewing, et cetera. And I've kind of got to a point where the juices flow, where the creative juices flow, is when I'm strategising with clients that I've got, drinks brands or supplement brands or health brands, and I'm helping them on a commercial and legal basis, not just on the legals. And that kind of led me to being a lot more involved as an entrepreneurial lawyer, working with startups and scale-up brands. And then it started leading me towards doing more pitches and winning the work and bringing it in and being involved with clients.

And then in a world where we moved from telephone to video conference, and then you had Zoom and Teams and everything, Google Meet, et cetera, most of the times that I close clients is when I'm actually having a face-to-face coffee or lunch with them, or I'm actually on a Teams meeting. If I have an inbound and they just leave a message for me to call them, it's just much harder to close them than when I actually eyeball them and chat. And so I've really started to work the circuit [unclear], doing a lot of podcasts, a lot of panel discussions, a lot of events that I participate in, and sometimes guest speaking. And that's what really makes me come home with a big smile on my face. The sitting and winning a big piece of work and then having to sit down all day and get it done, that doesn't really excite me anymore. And I need the right processes and teams to be able to get that out.

But for me, if I get a really big project in, most people would be content with, oh, great, we've got this great project, now we can go ahead and do it, and we're right for the month. For me, I'll get the project in, and then two days later, if there's not a new piece of work that I've closed or a new client that I've closed, I'm like, what's going on? What's wrong? What's going on here? I start to panic. So things are changing so much. And that's why I really love the video content, going back to video, because it allows me to express myself, talk about things in the law that I'm passionate about, and get it across to multiple people rather than just one person. Because doing a pitch to the different clients, you're going to have an hour long conversation, you'll only do eight in a day if you're lucky. And if you're getting up and you're presenting at a five to six hundred person event or whatever, and you're speaking on stage, you've got all these eyeballs looking at you [unclear]. And again, the more video, the more you get yourself out there, the more people start to come to you, or when you get your team, my marketing team, et cetera, to reach out and say, you know, Mark would love to be on your podcast, they know who I am already, almost. And they say, yeah, we'd love to have him, rather than that fight to get on.

[32:31] Chris

Yes, dialling up the visibility. So what's the plan for the future there, and say in 12 months' time, where do you see this on the trajectory that you're currently going on?

[32:41] Mark

I'm just looking to continue to grow and get bigger and better and do more, see more. I'm in that kind of funny revenue stage of my business where I'm still in the weeds, but I'm trying not to be in the weeds. I want to take on more people, but then can I afford to take on more people?

Chris

Yes. Yes.

Mark

You know, that's a challenge a lot of small businesses face. There's things I want to do overseas with the business as well. I want to take on more general counsel roles and gigs. And I really want to start moving away from being so actively involved in the day to day running of the business, insofar as the legal work is concerned, and become much more of a, almost a global legal thought leader in this space. That's what I'd love to do. I'd love to be, you know, the lawyer that people just know, particularly in Australia, they know that Mark's the guy that they've seen on XYZ podcast or, you know, this panel or that event, or this video or that video.

So I want to keep doing more video content. The Saturday content, I want to continue to do. I want to grow and change. I don't just want to keep doing the same thing either. So I want to come up with other ideas of how to deliver and use this amazing setup that I have in my office. I want to be able to work out how best to use and change and pivot and do other things, because I will start to get stale with some of the stuff that I do every Saturday. And then it's a case of, all right, so how do we move to the next thing? Because I've got this here. I could bring somebody in. I could have an interview with two people. There's so many different things I could do. And I'll probably start to lean on you, Chris, for some more advice or support on when to change to the next thing or whatever. Because I do send you some video content on a Saturday or Sunday after I've shot it, to get some of your feedback. And then there'll come a point where it's like, okay, let's try something different.

[34:41] Chris

So if you're another business owner sitting exactly where you are, or where you were, say a year ago, what's the one thing you'd tell them?

[34:51] Mark

I would do it if you're passionate about doing it and you want to do it. If you're not and it's not something for you, then you shouldn't waste your time, because you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. So you've got to want to do it, and you've got to want to build and grow. One of the things I've always found difficult to grasp is that some staff, some employees, et cetera, come in and they just want to work a nine to five. Others want to come in and work nine to five and then go home and do stuff on their own and build their own content and build their own profiles and work out how to bring work into the firm and really boost their own kind of personas and mindsets and practice. You've got to work out who you are as a person, or your audiences, et cetera, and whether you've got that drive to want to keep pushing to do more.

I do. I want to, I'm never really content with anything in my life, except my marriage and my kids. Thank God. That's going strong. But from a work perspective, when I hit, you know, this goal, right, it's, I was like, I will never get to here. And then when I get to here, it's like, well, now I want to get to here. And when I get to here, I want to get to here. So for me, I just want to keep pushing, keep growing, keep learning, keep exploring, keep doing, keep showing up.

[36:19] Chris

I get a lot of clients who, when I ask them why, you know, why they come to me and all that, often say, well, video's everywhere, video's the next thing, competitors are doing it. It's inevitable. So your comment earlier about where you've got to be, you know, you've got to want to do it, and I, you know, agree with that. But is it inevitable that people will need to be present to show up in this way? If they want to grow, and I think that was your point, like, if you want to grow, this is how you're going to, this is one of the tools to get there.

[36:56] Mark

To some extent, I think it's inevitable. I think using and learning AI is inevitable, right? If you don't, then you're going to be left behind. But if you look at all the successful businesses out there, et cetera, they're using and exploiting social media more than ever. And I think with AI coming so, so, like, you know, it's hit us all so quickly, right? That I think people are actually starting to yearn for human interaction, [...] They won't see the confidence that you, you know, or in your commentary, or in an email or whatever it might be, unless they meet you face to face. AI, when you type something in and you get something that's spat out, AI cannot read you as a person.

And so, you know, unless you're physically present, the way to read you as a person is through video, is to look you in the eye and see that you're responding to me a certain way, because I can see this pain or emotion behind it, because maybe you're having a really bad day, or, you know, you might look at me today and be like, oh, he's not smiling as much. And maybe it's just because I had a really stressful matter that I was dealing with before, or I'm worked up or whatever. And you can see that by interacting with me.

So I think that human interaction and that yearning for coming back and saying, like, well, everything has just become robotic and so, you know, formulaic, that I actually want a real, I want to interact and engage, because humans need that interaction. They need that emotional connection. And so video content gives you that. So I think it's inevitable that people are going to start using video more and more in order to be able to connect. And particularly when your audience expands to areas, you know, to international or to global, where you want to, Australia's such a small market. If you want to get out there, I can use video. I can use the setup that you've given me to broadcast my messaging, my expertise to the USA, which is a huge market. So I think it's inevitable. I think if you don't do it, then you will fall behind those that do.

[39:44] Chris (outro)

Thank you for jumping on. I appreciate it. Congrats on what you've built off the back of just showing up every Saturday. Keep it up. If you're in Sydney and need commercial or business legal advice, Mark's link is below. Go and check out Lazarus Legal. You'll start to see some of the rollout of the videos that he's doing. And that's it for this episode. Thank you, Mark, for joining us.

[40:03] Mark

Thank you, Chris. Much appreciated and always a pleasure.

[40:06] Chris

And I'll see you next time on the Video Confidence Collective podcast.

[40:09] Chris (show outro)

Thanks for listening to the Video Confidence Collective podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and subscribe to us on YouTube so you never miss an episode. For more resources, check out the show notes, and follow me at Chris Schwager or Ridge Films, and see you on the next episode.