Improving Sales Conversion During Lockdown

Improving Sales Conversion During Lockdown (Episode 74)

video marketing podcast Sep 20, 2021

Now more than ever, the world is demanding that you appear on camera. Access to sales people is often denied and businesses need to find new ways to adapt to their market. But if video is part of the solution, how do you implement it into your sales process, so it actually works?

Welcome to 'Video Made Simple' an easy listen video marketing & production podcast featuring marketers, entrepreneurs & clients who help take the mystery out of video and break through the monotony of day-to-day communication.

In this episode, Chris Schwager is joined by the Co-Founder and Video Marketing Specialist of Ridge Films, Brendan Southall as they talk about how they've been improving sales conversion during lockdown.

Learn how Ridge Films use professional DIY videos that leave better impressions to prospects and clients. Listen to expert Video Marketer, Christian McNally from Grand Stand Events as he shows the care and love he gives his clients and how that yields a greater result even during the lockdown..

Get all the professional support, resources and practical training. Check out Ridge Films DIY Video Program.

Links and Resources:

 

Video Transcription:

Chris Schwager 0:01

How do we differentiate as early as possible to make sure that people sit up and pay attention but they also do what we're asking them to do? They ultimately control the sales process. It's up to us to make them feel loved early, and that they are going to be guided correctly through the process.

Hello video marketers. Welcome to the podcast that takes the mystery out of video this week we talk about improving sales conversions during lockdown. So by the end of this episode, you won't only be inspired but ready to take action. I'm your host, Chris Schwager joined this week with co host Brendan Southall. Hello, Brendan.

Brendan Southall 0:49

Hello, Chris, How are you this week?

Chris Schwager 0:51

I'm great. Just finished Father's Day, mate. What a beautiful day it was.

Brendan Southall 0:55

That sounds like you're very grateful. Good on you, mate. That's a good way to be on a father's day. I think.

In 2019, we had a long and lengthy process of going out to meet clients face to face. And we had been doing that for probably a year or 18 months and going out face to face lots of travel, lots of downtime in commuting and booking meetings and all that type of stuff to the point where we were just exhausted. Right?

Yeah. Well, I was seeing you book these meetings in and looking at your calendar going, Oh, my gosh, there's like, up to 50%. Just in travel time? Yeah, you travel an hour for 15 to 20 minute meeting. Yes. And that was just such a high waste of time, just extremely inefficient.

Bad business. I just couldn't justify it, you know, in some cases, the possibility I understand rapport building, I understand how important that is. I understand the importance of being face to face, but we just couldn't do it and be sustainable as a small micro-sized business. And so when the business coach stepped in, he was like, Alright, well, let's look at your sales process game. Let's reassess it. Let's see what we can do. Let's change it up. And literally overnight, we had decided that zoom was going to be our replacement.

And then that was the hurdle of educating people on how to use zoom. Turn the camera on get the microphone.

Chris Schwager 2:26

Well, this is Yeah, this is 2019. Remember, right. So this is before people start to get a bit tech savvy. But yeah, you're right. And what could we do at that early stage to kind of educate people prior to booking the meeting, or prior to the meeting itself, as to make sure that they ironed out all their technical hassles early so that we didn't have those while we go through the meeting? Right?

Brendan Southall 2:47

Well, we had a lot of email templates that went out prior to the meeting, just making sure that you know, people would go on test the link the cameras, right, make sure there's, you know that they're not in a complete silhouette, you can actually see that when they did come on the zoom.

Fast track to two years, nothing's really changed. But we got we'll get to that. We'll get to that in a second. When we looked at our image as a video company, and the first impression that prospective buyers got to see of us was the shitty door in the background and the crappy lighting and the crappy webcam, and you know, the printer and all of that. And it was like, Oh, wow. But we've upgraded to a Logitech webcam Isn't that enough? And, you know, the realisation that no, it's actually not enough. Particularly as, particularly when we're trying to do everything we can to build rapport and razzle dazzle these people. And it's just you know, boring webcam, just like everybody else's webcam. So we tested the desktop studio, this idea of this kind of like semi mobile thing, and it had a teleprompter and a camera and lights and a long camera microphone. And let's just see inadequate.

Yeah, I mean, in theory, it was great, because it was it was everything you needed in this one little box. And it was a case of you know, pulling it out, putting it on your desk, plugging it in, switching it on, and then hitting the record. But those, you know, simple two to three steps that maybe took no more than three to four minutes. Yeah, that was enough of a barrier just not to use it

Chris Schwager 4:27

It's bang on You're so bang on right? So it really got us thinking well, what is the actual problem that people have with their current situation, right that they've either got a webcam, where they can get access to a lazy belt looks like crap and it sounds like crap, or they have some kind of like little hack job that they've tried to knock out where we've heard so many stories of people that say, Well, you know, I've got all this pro gear but it literally sits in the garage for most of the time collecting dust and every time they want to use it. It's like a real pain in the ass to have to go through that whole setup process. It's like, well, we need to be able to solve this problem.

Brendan Southall 5:04

But yeah, that main barrier was always, oh my gosh, you know, I've got to set this up again, you know, in a week's time or a month's time when I have to do another batch of videos. And they never did it, you know, the novelty of it wore off very quickly.

And then it's like, well, now what, you know, like, the realisation that the gear is kind of one thing, but then it's like, Alright, what do I do with it? You know, like, how do I stream it through zoom? How do I come up with scripts? How do I present on camera? How do I edit the videos once produced?

Chris Schwager 5:32

Like so many barriers to understanding how to do this just for the purpose of like improving sales conversion, I mean, it just seemed like too much effort to go through. When we looked into the problem associated with people trying to reach their market better, we discovered a couple of different things.

When the pandemic hit in 2020 reported by Vidyard, there was an increase of 87% of people doing video conferences, the actual percentage of the entire workforce is still quite low. But there's so many of people particularly in a lockdown, that have no choice, but to appear on camera, there was a 55% increase in recorded on demand content as well. And also 52% of people feel even now uncomfortable about returning to the workplace because of the pandemic.

They've got no other choice but to look for technical solutions to still appear in front of their market and appear in front of their colleagues, their team and their prospective buyers, right. The technical issues were just astounding, when we looked into it, people's cameras were switched off all the time, they had noisy interruptions, the workplace in the background, was just not on brand not reflective of who they are. You know, at first people were literally sitting up in bed, and here I see the bed head in their pyjamas, like literally wiping their eyes waking up, opening up their laptop.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I think there's probably some situations where they did do that. Obviously, the camera angle from laptops is not very good, because it kind of looks like shooting up the nose. And all this kind of nothing's really considered in the camera quality, or the audio or the lighting, right? And then you've got internet speed. And that's, you know, if it's not right, then it's a complete waste of time, right drop outs, just kill meetings. Then on top of that, you've got the performance issues associated with the technical hassles of the pandemic, right. COVID caught everyone off guard now video is everything. And if you've got no camera confidence, then you get a missed opportunities, right? So lack of preparation and effort, can be a big barrier to people getting the correct message across. Casual wardrobe in some cases, like you don't look like you've made an effort can be a big problem as well. And what we also realise is 84% of Australians believe that the way people present on camera, could be better?

Brendan Southall 8:09

Yeah, that's right. And even body language, you know, a lot of that needs to be transferred and how other way you're going to do it then being able to be seen on camera properly. With the right. Yeah, not like we said before, not in silhouette.

Yes, we've had a year of dodgy webcams in our own sales process. And there had been some beta testing of the new DIY program and the desktop studio and the kit and everything else. And it was no better time to push that to market but during a period of time where the average salesperson really was denied face to face contact with their market and was looking for other opportunities to impress the people that really mattered, right, hence, was born the DIY video program.

Chris Schwager 8:58

It was just to be able to help and have a better impression, you know, zoom was to video calls, what fax was to telecommunications, it just looked and sounded ugly. And you know, this is not just with, you know, micro size business. This is everybody. Even in like professional video conferencing, it typically looked pretty crappy, right? Think of the way we were even like the start of 2020. You know, we had been pushing this product out. But it was also us understanding how we could use it within our business. And so we'd come from this, you know, going out face to face travelling, long trips, lots of downtime, very unproductive half the week, booked out through commuting and really not seeing the results of that, you know, just getting burnt out and exhausted to now looking for new ways to integrate these videos at appropriate moments within the sales process. So we actually have a really good sales process right but it has weak areas and this area is where rapport needs to be built, you know, we don't go from, you know, inquiry to closing them in one meeting, for instance, you know, we take our time. I mean, Brendan, you would have a better you'd be more familiar about the steps of our sales process, can you just go over those?

Brendan Southall 10:17

Sure. Okay. So starting from the first inquiry, when that comes in, you actually send a nice short 15 second message out just to say thank you for your enquiry, here's what the next step is going to be. Alright, so you're immediately taken care of, of their inquiry, and you're informing them that there is a process in place, and that they're going to be looked after. So that's the first step and then it once essentially, you qualify them, then it comes over to me, we go through a few steps, further qualifying and understanding what the needs are, and then come to proposal time, it's not a case of emailing the proposal out and keeping your fingers crossed, and hopefully they understand it.

It's actually supporting that proposal with a an embedded video of basically me just walking through all the key points of that proposal so that everyone, whether the decision makers in that room or not. Anyone can understand exactly what the contents of that proposal is. So no longer do they scroll to the to the price and not have any scope of understanding what any of that means. They get the full picture, they really get clear on what's included, why it's included, why it's valued the way it is, and then what that next step is going to be, which is, in most cases, signed the proposal. So yeah, it's really clear and it's really human, very personalised. That's exactly what they need at that point in time to to progress the sale.

Chris Schwager 11:53

We'll be back in a short moment with ways to improve sales conversions during lockdown. Video is everything and because the world now is demanding that you appear on camera in some shape or form, it's time to get the skills of a professional presenter, and make life easier when it comes to producing your own video content. Go to ridgefilms.com.au/diy because Do It Yourself videos should be easy, and they should work. The DIY video program helps you personalise sales, video emails and convert prospects faster, you can record professionally produced video updates regularly. And of course look and sound amazing in every video meeting without any tech hassles and get all the professional support resources and practical training to help you start your video marketing journey and present like a pro. So un-boring your videos to improve sales and marketing results and go to ridgefilms.com.au/diy.

So what we're talking about is two major videos here. One is the reply inquiry video. And the other one is the proposal walkthrough video.

Brendan Southall 13:01

Yes, yeah, exactly. Right.

Chris Schwager 13:03

So to give this a little bit more context. Now the reply inquiry video, the pain point for us was if an inquiry comes in, usually via email, how do we differentiate as early as possible to make sure that people sit up and pay attention, but they also do what we're asking them to do? They ultimately control the sales process, right? So they can stop, they can not reply, they can switch off, they can tell us to piss off whatever, right? So they have that control, they have that power, it's up to us to make them feel loved early, and that they are going to be guided correctly through the process.

I'm honestly blown away at how this works. And look, I'm in the game. So theoretically, I shouldn't be but like, I think it's just rewarding to see the conversion rate of this video. I sent one today. I sent one on Friday, you know, lunchtime. It was basically Hi, thanks for your inquiry, just about to go into meeting thought I quickly sending this message and it's personalised. Right. So it's Hey, Tom, thanks for your inquiry. Yeah, I really love to do your virtual event videos, drop his company name in there. Look, the best thing you can do is book a quick 15 minute video chat, using the link in this email. And we'd love to be able to help you and have a great day sort of thing, right? So they do what I'm asking today, I sent one this morning, for instance, I was kind of packing up, you know, and going off and minding the kids and this guide already booked in the turnaround is a direct result of the amount of attention and love and consideration that we give them in reply to their initial inquiry, because most of the time they're inquiries oh really made a video for my company or it's like it's not a brief right? we formulate that breakthrough the following communication but this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate how video can work for them right so it's just like

Brendan Southall 14:56

How good is that? Getting video to work when you're not

Correct. Yeah. And you know what he's actually booking in at a time that's convenient

for both of us. I'm not calling this person back. Oh, yeah. You were inquiring about a video? Yeah, you know, you've got half an hour. Like, right now we can go through this. Yeah, like, No, I'm giving him doesn't work that way. I'm giving him 15 minutes, just qualify. That's all I'm gonna do. I'm just going to ask him questions, understand the pain point, understand a bit more about the business, just getting the basic details and determining whether we can help them and pushing them through down further through our sales process.

Chris Schwager 15:31

So just that first step is just fundamental in us making your sales process work, because they almost have this aha moment. All right. Okay. Wow. And that's the biggest differentiator for our business is to be able to use video in that way to get the maximum eyeballs and the maximum opportunity for people to actually continue the conversation with us when we go through the following steps of our sales process. And they've understood all the bits and pieces and we've nurtured them hand held them through it, that tail end is then making sure they close so how do you make sure they close Brendan?

Brendan Southall 16:07

Personalising a very clear message about what is included? Now? What are they actually getting? We were making it clear that we understand what their needs are. And we're also making it clear that the solution that we're putting in front of them is exactly what they need for that problem.

Gone are the days of the shitty PDF attachment with the wordy text based email, right? I mean, how many of those you sending?

Yeah, good question. How about None? Right? Really? It's literally zero. Yeah, it's an online document now. So everything's integrated into the one document. So they essentially get the link in an email. It's an image of me waving, saying, Yeah, hello, click on me open mean it yeah, that gets their attention to then go and open the proposal, and everything is included in that proposal that they need to engage with, and and take action on.

It's amazing. What's been the result of that, by the way?

Massive. It's been a huge difference, because it's gone from, you know, keeping our fingers crossed, do we? Do we get the deal? Or don't we got a feeling it's about a 70% increase on conversion rate?

The reply inquiry would be about the same. It's probably more than that. I mean, it's just it blows me away, how quickly people respond and act. From that one personalised video that takes me five minutes to produce. And it's just so quick and easy. But you know, like with filling in the gaps here, too, you know, from end to end, we're kind of bookmarking our sales process. It also has a video meeting with me and a video meeting with Brendan in there, right. So the getting like, major amounts of video, through this process. And also when Brendan submits the proposal, and this is why I love everything that you do at that tail end of the sales process, this video samples that play inside the document, so they can actually see what they're getting. And that is golden. Like, it's just so good to you know, from a buying perspective for them to go. Alright, it's not like, you know, some kind of creative imagination that we need to kind of come up with he's examples that we've done for others in the past that will be directly related to what you'll get as part of this project.

That's exactly right. Can I just ask you a quick question. I mentioned that.

Chris Schwager 18:32

Please, Brendan.

Brendan Southall 18:34

Here it comes. Are you ready? You mentioned that you take five minutes to produce a video. How in the world do you do that so quickly?

Well, this is becoming an infomercial. Well, Brendan. Well, how do I do it? Now? It's good question. Here's the thing, right? It didn't happen overnight. Okay, but it did happen. Yeah. So the thing I needed to do is, first of all, we work together on the script to make sure it's right. So it's a 30second script, it's actually less than 30 seconds. I think it's more like 20 to 25 seconds long, right? And it's just like, just enough for them to go, Ah, this guy's legit. Hey, he's just put some effort into this and whatever, right? And so all I do is pull up my laptop, open my laptop, it's got the teleprompter or ready to go, I changed their name, I changed their company and I changed the inquiry that they've asked about throughout the teleprompter. I boot up the DIY desktop studio. It's live and ready I I open up the email it's going into and it gets recorded directly into the email. So there's also a template email as well. So it's not like I'm knocking out writing on I don't know, typing. You know, like it's all copy and paste. Yeah.

And then how to get how did you get the video in an email does it actually play in the email

So the video typically doesn't play in email. It's a thumbnail generated and when the user clicks on that thumbnail image, by the way, which is me and their name written on a whiteboard, so it's pretty clever, right? It's basic, it's simple, but it draws attention. When they click on that they go through a third party opens up a browser and applies the video from that automatically. Then that's, that's part of the streamline and the process. I think, if it was like oh, click here, click there, click everywhere, that would slow the whole process down. It's pretty easy company name and details to remember, I'll just kind of get it out. And that speeds up the process even further. Because I'm not typing anything. teleprompter. I'm not even opening up the teleprompter, I'm just going for it, which is cool. To get familiar with the process, you got to make sure that everything streamlined, but it is that easy to have your desktop studio up and running, ready to go with replies. And I try and get in as quickly as I can. So as soon as I see an inquiry come in, if I'm firing it off within the hour, that's golden, statistically, you increase your rate of conversion by being responsive like that. So I that's, that's a little rule I have

We've spoken about a couple of different applications of how we use personalised video in our sales process, but that's too many. So yeah, other opportunities for your business could be a follow up over the sales opportunity. Or if your lead has gone a little bit colder than than what you'd like then might be an opportunity to reach out with a personalised video. So to warm it back up again. Meeting no shows everyone's busy and or may have missed a meeting . So it could be just a case of doing a quick little hey, yeah, I was I was on zoom. I waited for you know, Miss meetings happen that that's okay. That's no problem. Let's look to reschedule. So you fire off those from time to time as well. Yeah, Yeah, I do. Actually. Yeah, it's just a way to soften the blow. Yeah. There are times when people are busy, and I just genuinely had forgotten to turn up for the meeting. And instead of doing the whole, why didn't you turn out what was wrong with you? Why what's what's going wrong? Is that something I did? Yeah, it's a case of guy. Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, that happens. Yes. Let's look to reschedule. If this is still something that you're interested in, I'm still here to help. Yeah, it's that kind of humanise message.

Chris Schwager 21:08

You know, these are just some of the examples is not all of the examples, but they're just some of the ways we've used it and how others can use it. And we think that if you implement this today, you will improve the way that you meeting with prospective clients or even your existing clients. It'll just show a more professional side to you than ever before.

Brendan Southall 22:35

That's right, help you stand out and ultimately make more money.

Chris Schwager 22:46

Our Ridge Films clients, the best video marketers in the world and know how to get a huge return on their investment for this week's video marketing tip Brendan, you have a event industry client who you've been helping, and they're really struggling with some stuff, when you started working with them what was going on with them?

Brendan Southall 23:02

Yes, thank you, Chris. So we were working with Christian a good friend of ours and is the director of a company called Grand Stand events, and Christian was spending 1000s of dollars on a videographer every month. Using the Ridge Films DIY video program, Christian was able to shoot on demand and distribute purposeful videos to his channels faster than before. The results were were outstanding. Instead of adding to the daily noise, he was able to clearly communicate to prospects, clients and his market. Within a couple of hours, he had hundreds of clients watch his videos and connect with his organisation. He's a little interview we had with Christian McNally from Grand Stand events.

Chris Schwager 25:38

It's just so good. I mean, it's not he's just such a great guy.

Brendan Southall 25:42

And he comes across on camera really well, because of that, you know, he's very natural, very authentic.

Chris Schwager 25:46

He's humble. He knows where to spend his money, spend his time and he knows the value of video in building his relationships of his business and what video can do for him in the long run. So if you need help, fixing the problem of not being there in front of your clients because of this pandemic and being locked down, then you need to start thinking about ways that you can improve that experience for your prospective buyers for your clients. So that it's not only easy for you, it's systematic for you, but also you shine. You personalise you humanise the experience and really give this whole pandemic a facelift a shift and overcome some of those limiting beliefs, those barriers that so many of your competitors are going through and are holding them back, overcome those higher video marketing specialists like Brendan Southall today at ridgefilms.com.au and that's all from this week. See you next week. Thank you so much. Mr. Southall.

Brendan Southall 26:52

Oh, thank you very much Mr. Schwager. I love our formal closes. They're great.

Chris Schwager 26:57

Bye for now.

 

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