Video, AI, and Outsourcing Strategies for Business Excellence with Dom Procter (Episode 161)

Chris Schwager:

Welcome to the Video Made Simple podcast. This week I'm, I'm in distress, but I, I am with a very dear friend of mine, Don Procter, uh, who invested in the DIY video studio, uh, a couple of years ago, I guess, before we really got our processes set. And I've just spent the last 10 minutes telling him some of the basics of what you're gonna do before you switch on your teleprompter. Your DIY Desktop Studio.

[00:00:31] Dom Procter: That's right, Chris telling me.

[00:00:32] Chris Schwager: Get that, get that light organised. He's got, he, he's come in without his headphones on, so now we've gotta figure it out and yeah, blah, blah, blah. But as soon as he turned off his house lights and closed the, the, the bloody blinds, now I can actually see him clearly and it doesn't look like a bloody mess, which is what it was before. But look, anyway, it's a work in progress with Dom. He's always been such a kind heart helping us not only promote the DIY video studio, but also, uh, implement systems in our business that have been instrumental in our growth. Dom also is specializing in amazing, oh, I'm gonna let you introduce it, but AI and VAs and if, you know, Dom's gonna explain what those acronyms are, to, to give you an insight as to where to where his business is going and where, also the utilization of video in that pro in his processes has helped him with, closing deals. Domo.

[00:01:39] Dom Procter: Not so much VAs, but we definitely love AI and we call our staff AIO assistance. so AIO stands for AI Optimised by a human. so AI is a, AI is amazing. I am officially AI mad, but it's only as good as what you put into it. And how well you know to feed a product such as chatGPT or Midjourney. So as an example mate, for what you do with writing scripts or coming up with headlines, we teach our assistants how to use AI to do that properly. Uh, we also have prompt engineers, so that's someone who knows how to actually prompt, chatGPT properly. And we have prompting or we have, AI developers who know how to actually use AI properly work with large language models, and, and get the best out of what AI's got to offer. There's a stack of apps out there, there's a stack of people, you know, every day there's, you know, 500 new apps and 500 or 499 of them are probably crap. and you gotta find the, the good ones in there.

[00:02:50] Chris Schwager: Well, give us an idea, give us an idea. 'cause lots of people talk about prompts and all that sort of stuff, but give us an idea of what a good prompt is or a bad prompt is.

[00:03:00] Dom Procter: Sure. So, uh, well, GPT's conversational and it's based on context. So if you just say, write me a story about, you know, the red fox jumping over a fence, it'll do, do the best it can. If you, if you say, write me a story, aimed at five year old, female or five year old girls, who want to learn about how the red fox was able to jump over the fence, incorporate, uh, a, a unicorn into the story somewhere and make it less than 600 words and have a, uh, a hook at the end that prompts the kid to, go and buy a red fox.

[00:03:46] Chris Schwager: and where does that end, like where does that end? So it sounds like you, you know, you, it sounds like the prompt is made up of just lots of details. Do, is there an end to it? Like, could you literally be just feeding in that single prompt? Just more and more questions like make it, you know, like you said, make it a certain amount of words. Make the words a particular language, you know, make the words, kick the words to bloody four characters each, like how, you know, how is that, is that pretty much it? Like just keep feeding, feeding, feeding so that you end up with what you are wanting rather than going back and forth, which is kind of what I've been doing. So, And it can be, you know, frustrating. It can take a while. You are saying feed it as much as you can in a single prompt, and you'll get the output, you'll get a clearer output, a clearer thing to what you're wanting, faster.

[00:04:38] Dom Procter: Definitely the, the more you put in, the better your output will be. And now GPT has released, I guess, in a way, profiles. So you can, rather than having to set the scene, you know, in each prompt, you can put your profile information in there.

[00:04:52] So your profile might be, you know, say you're a business, my target audience is small to medium business owners. The industry that they operate in is, I don't know, manufacturing. the, the job title of the people that I'm looking to go after, uh, or that I'm, I'm aiming at is logistics manager. and then GPT already knows about that. so another new feature is, you know, you can put files into GPT as of last week, and then query those. But yeah, definitely it's. It's the old thing. You put rubbish in. You get rubbish out. Yeah.

[00:05:29] Chris Schwager: So what files, so what files are you talking about?

[00:05:32] Dom Procter: so you can put a PDF in. So say you've got a, uh, a PDF document, you can then upload that PDF and then query it.

[00:05:41] another one I saw the other day was, this financial analyst put in a, uh, a spreadsheet, a P and L, and then said, highlight some areas that, could be improved in this business by looking at the P and L. look over the last 12 months figures, and it came back with recommendations as to the areas that were kind of red flags. uh, so yeah, it's, it's definitely changing all the time. chatGPT, is, is really useful when you, when you, when you give it the right information. If you, if you're not looking at learning how to prompt, which isn't really hard, it's just how to have a conversation properly. there are other tools like Jasper. So Jasper's basically got a, you know, a hundred pre-written prompts that are built into a, you know, follow the bouncy ball, kind of interface, which will pump out social media. you know, articles or create Facebook posts or, or, you know, write video scripts or, or, or blog posts or long form content.

[00:06:47] another one might be Content at Scale. you, which is for long form blog posting, you can put in one keyword, it'll generate a 3000 plus word. SEO optimised blog post in about three minutes. and then one click publish to WordPress. One click publish, uh, uh, to Shopify. You know, if you're doing, Uh, uh, pages around, products.

[00:07:15] You know, you could take your podcast, it grabs that transcript, turns that into a, a, an SEO optimised blog post about whatever the, the context of that, that that podcast was. so you really gotta find, it's like anything you find the right tool, for the right purpose. and I have gone through a lot of tools and scaled it back now because I, I, I love prompting to using chatGPT, using Content at Scale and then using MidJourney.

[00:07:44] So as an example, I've got a copywriter in the fills, who, who, who works for me and for, for some of my clients. she uses a combination of chatGPT, uh, Content at Scale and Midjourney. So she'll write the article, based on the brief that I give her and the keyword research that our, our, SEO provider has done. And then after she's finishing finished writing the article, she goes to Midjourney and creates some like custom images based on that article and then sprinkle them through. so it, it's definitely speeding up that output. So, Yeah, a thousand, 2000 word blog post was taking a half a day to a day. Now we're getting three, maybe four out per day. And, and you know,

[00:08:28] Chris Schwager: so out outsource staff is training VAs to specialise in these different AI areas. Is that, is that right?

[00:08:38] Dom Procter: Cor Correct. Yeah. If it's a requirement, yeah. So, you know, if the VA role doesn't involve the need to use AI and it's just data entry, then that's just data entry. Yeah.

[00:08:51] Chris Schwager: So it's not, it's not a threat like somebody's saying, oh, well why wouldn't I just do it myself? It's not really a threat to you at all, is it?

[00:08:58] Dom Procter: No. look, the, the thing with AI, and, and, and without sourcing is that look, uh, there's definitely roles that will become redundant. So like SEO copywriters. You can, you know, five, 10 x your output, by using AI. so if you're a copywriter, and you're not using it, then you, yeah, your job definitely is at risk. so when I, when I went to market, to find myself a copywriter and for another client, uh, an SEO agency in Sydney, my, my brief is, You must be 110% on board with AI, and I want you to respond to this email or to this job interview using AI. Yeah. Good. And if you can do that and you're on board, then talk me if you're not. Probably not a good fit. Cool. so you definitely, stay, staying ahead. So my, my, my wife's Filipino, so I genuinely love the country and the people and, uh, we, we, we are, you know, we are about helping them, you know, not be made redundant, and have more knowledge than, you know, have more knowledge than the Aussies, have more knowledge than than guys in the UK and the US and be that person that says, okay, can we use AI to do this? Or can we use automation? To do this. Mm-hmm. so I kind of preach, outsource, automate, or use AI or, or a combination of all three. So as an example with automation, I get leads from a third party provider that gets sent to me by email. I then use Zapier that grabs that lead, takes it, wax it into HubSpot, then puts that into a sequence, and then sends a series of three emails so I don't have to do it.

[00:10:46] so that that saved me, you know, five or six. And I do a custom video as well along the way, which is a step in the process, which is, which is all automated. Until I need to get involved or someone replies or someone picks up the phone and calls me. but yeah, definitely, training staff on how to use AI or how to, how to spot something that could be automated. Yeah, because there's no, there's no reason in just because a resource is a cheaper, a cheaper value, doesn't mean, you know, you shouldn't automate something just 'cause you're getting it done for $15, not $45 an hour.

[00:11:30] Chris Schwager: Well, you touched on video a little bit and, and, uh, we've always had really interesting conversations around this, and this is a video show, so let's talk about some video stuff. Yeah, yeah. But I, you know, this the recruitments mate, pointment recruitment. Sales stuff. I mean, you and I have talked heaps about it. How are you using your, you know, desktop studio and access accessibility to the tools, to the understanding the processes? Of course, there's a little bit of work to do around that, but we'll keep working through that together. also, you know, improving the video quality and audio quality and all that type of stuff, just, just gimme a snapshot of what your day looks like, for, you know, to include video into your processes, into your business.

[00:12:12] Dom Procter: Sure. So it's all about for, for me, differentiation. so I'm in the outsourcing game. there's thousands of us, a lot of, those companies, uh, originate from people who are in HR, or are just, you know, running an outsourcing business. I, I've run an agency for 20 years, software development, IT. We all kind of have a similar pricing structure. So you've gotta stand out. And people in my opinion, buy from people. You don't get that from, uh, an email response that has a link to your website and has a, you know, has a A PDF brochure. You get it from someone who has taken the time to respond to you via email. So whenever I get a lead, the first thing I do is reply. In that reply, there's a video saying, Hey, I'm Dom, I'm the owner of outsource staff. got your, got your inquiry for, uh, you know, a, a PhD developer. We'd love to talk to you more about you, your business, and how we can make outsourcing your success. The link below is my calendar. Please click on it and, and get in touch.

[00:13:17] Chris Schwager: And so that's personalised, right? Like you make that personalised every single time.

[00:13:21] Dom Procter: We have two, two. so we have some generic ones, but the first one is always personalised. So I've got a generic one which has left you a voicemail. Hey, there, left you a voicemail. Couldn't reach you, calendar's below. Give us a call if you can. but it's definitely using video the whole way through. I had, a friend of mine. you know, did some research for me, reached out to, I, I think it was 20 or 30 different, companies in, in my industry. I was the only one who used video. and that was definitely a point of difference. you know, I also use, video in the recruitment process. I used to do the videos myself. Saying, Hey, I've got a great job. are you interested? And, and great, great uptake had so many comments saying, oh, you're the first person I've seen using video. and then, now what I do is I get my clients to do the video 'cause they're the ones that the people are gonna work with. so, as an example, Sean, she was looking for a. uh, uh, an events, an online events coordinator and a digital marketing coordinator. so I said, cool, well, I want you to sell that role, because she's a lovely lady. do you know what I mean? And you don't get that from a webpage. You get it from listening to Sean say, Hey, I'm a lovely lady. This is an awesome job. Are you awesome? Do you want to join my team? And just the response is just so much better.

[00:14:57] Chris Schwager: Uh, I'm working with an executive leader at the moment who has been able to work for a year and, and we're working on his effectively profile, his personal profile and him in video form to respond to job ads and to also support, to support that process because again, the same type of thing, CVS are just fire. Just may as well sit in a bloody filing cabinet half the time. Because there's nobody leading with video in this way, and it is becoming such a big point of difference for, for people. If you're not doing this and you're not thinking about this and you're are looking for a job, start thinking about it 'cause it really does get cut through. I mean, we did, we actually hired 100. We, we, uh, did a hire recently. Top 100, culled down to 25. Ask those 25 for their video. Just so you know, it was actually asked for in the job ad. And it just gives you an indication of how much bullshit is out there, where people don't even read the job ad, right?

[00:16:01] So there's that going. So flick your bloody cv. Do you know what I mean? Like, where's the bloody love? Where's the care? Right? Where's the time? People, you know, you should be spending this in making sure that you, have some pride in what you're doing. And actually legitimately read the fucking thing in the first place and reply appropriately to that, not just flick your cv, but just give people a reason to look at you. So out of 25, we asked them for videos. 10 submitted, 12 submitted videos, and they were everything from people trying to polish it. 'cause these are video people that were looking for, trying to polish themselves up and whatever to people that just literally pulled out the iPhone and spoke on the beach at why they think they're the best person for the job. And it didn't matter about production value, it didn't matter about trying to fucking polish everything. It was all about just connecting and being human, and giving, giving us a glimpse of who they were. I mean, what it did do really nicely is gave us an ability to shortlist basically, based on what they talked about, gave a certain ability to informally shortlist them. And we had two people that we had our eye on, but then we got 'em to a group interview where we got 'em all there. 'Cause if they submitted the video, they're going to go the extra mile because they're in the top 100. Top what? 10 of 100. Right. So they're excited. And then we group interviewed it, and then we we firmed up our, our two, that, the two that we had predicted were gonna be our top two by, by virtue of watching their video, were the two that we, that we shortlisted from the 10 that had done the group interview, but they were flipped around. So our, our number one became number two, and our number two came, what, number one, right. So that was kinda interesting.

[00:17:47] And then when we made our decision on those, on the one that we wanted, we looked at his CV. Paper document. So our VA team did the whole culling process. You know, funny if there's people in bloody island and fucking interstate, well, I don't even outta Sydney, you're gone. Do you know what I mean? So it was a, it was an, it was a pretty quick culling process, but they did all of that. But they, we weren't looking at details in a CV for that. The only time I looked at a CV was right at the end when I was like, okay, who's this guy's references? You know, and just bit of a browse over his credentials and this, that, and the other, and it's like, good, I made my decision. Right. So that gives you an idea. CVS are fucking gone, man. You know, if, if, and the recruitment industry needs to figure that out. Yeah. Go on.

[00:18:38] Dom Procter: So, so we do our, our internal screening first on, on, on people based on their responses. Uh, and if they've submitted a video, and then our, the interviews that I run, are all recorded. And then the client gets to see that recording prior to meeting them. You know, they can watch it at 1.25 or 1.5. Yeah, I've already asked the major because as part of our process, we say, okay, give us three of the top questions that you want me to ask, the candidate, prior to them getting to you. So they get to see that on, on the video prior to them investing their time to do their one-on-one.

[00:19:15] so by the time it gets to them, they've got everything, and then they watch that video and they're like, I like this person. I can see the attitude, I can hear the voice, I can see the enthusiasm. yep. Organise a meeting, organise a one-on-one. It. Look, it, it does take me more time, but it gets better results.

[00:19:36] Chris Schwager: Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, and, and arguably anyone that's taking more time is not defining their processes as tight as they could. And I'm not saying that to you necessarily, but it would be something that I'd take a look at for you and see how we actually minimise, I mean, just. Just from what I've understood from this, from this recording, it didn't turn off your hairline houselights mate. Number. Step number one, turn off your houselights. Step number two, close your blinds. Step three, turn on your DIY Desktop.

[00:20:02] Dom Procter: I talk too much. That's my problem in interviews. I like to, you know, learn about people. but that's why I tell, you know, I tell my clients, turn it up to 1.5 because you're gonna hear me talking. So you, you, you know, you wanna work with people you like. and that's if they can have a conversation. If you can't have a conversation with them, if they can't make chitchat, then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Depends on the role, but, you know, for creative roles, important.

[00:20:26] Chris Schwager: The executive leader I had, I was, I was, he had his first draft of his script was all just like, here's my cv. And I was like, fuck, I can get this from his fucking LinkedIn profile. Right? And I was like, how, how would I, how would I place this? This guy needs a structure. He needs to understand that the structure is important. No matter what video you do, no matter what presentation or interaction that you do, you need the bloody structure, right? Yeah. So I got him to start considering how he does in a very informal introduction that introduced him and, you know, father of two and blah, blah, blah, like, and he goes, oh, nobody's gonna give, A shit about that. I'm a senior leader and I wouldn't care about that. And in the background. In the background, right? 'Cause his wife's there in the room while I'm coaching him and she's got this big thumb coming up. Big thumbs up behind going. I get it. I get it. Because at the, at the first instance, people need to be able to connect. Then you have all the permission, you like to rattle off your credentials and how fucking good you are, blah, blah, blah. Right. But yeah, it's, it's underestimated, vulnerabilities underestimated the, the cracks in someone and the, that the way that people self-select or, or choose you is not based on what you're, what you're saying is like the person behind it. You know? It's the way that you are presenting yourself and differentiating.

[00:21:47] Dom Procter: Totally agree. I, I had a call the other day with this super bigwig, Dave, you know, he works for a $500 million company in New York and we've both got three daughters. And he, his, his daughter's 14. My daughter's 14. And we, that was our connection. We're like, how are you doing? I'm like, yeah, it's a struggle. I have social media. Yeah. It's a struggle. And, and after 15 minutes of us talking about our daughters and connecting, yes, he said, we can do some business. I like you. People buy from people and you don't get that. You just don't get that in the written form, written. Look, you know, if you can. And, and now, especially with GPT, I can write like David McConaughey 'cause I just tell it to write like David McConaughey or I can write you a poem by the Beatles. or, or, you know, that sort of thing.

[00:22:38] Chris Schwager: Mm-hmm. Look, it's been a great chat. I, I do want to like get on and talk about all the other wonderful things that we're gonna do. But we've got an event coming up and I want you to just, give that a plug, Dom, because. It involves both of us. Yeah. And I think we'd love to get bums on seats for, for that event and get more people talking, uh, using our services, et cetera. And also coming along for some valued information if you are buy, grow, or selling. Buying, growing, or selling, which everybody should be, unless you're dying. Then. Maybe this is the best, the best thing for you if you're dying, just to learn how, how you can, yeah. Go on.

[00:23:22] Dom Procter: Buy, grow, sell, mate.. I love the guys, Simon and Shan, uh, and, and Jess and Joe, who, who are, who are running it. you know, we've got speakers such as Mark Burris, yourself, uh, experts in all areas of, of small and medium businesses. And what's it about buying a business. Growing a business and selling a business and, you know, that's all these guys do all day every day. you know, I, I, I'm there as well talking about how to use outsource to, you know, reduce costs, increase productivity.

[00:23:56] Chris Schwager: Let's go, let's go and get the guys to a link, which will include in the show notes here of the podcast. Uh, Dom's gonna probably, uh, have to go because he's got war, war zones and, and construction going on. So we might pick this up again with you another time, Dom, but we'll, we'll include the link. It's May, sorry, September five and six. It's a virtual event. It's free to join. You will find me and Dom in there. At some point I'll be in. The live speaking and Dom will be in a recorded, we'll be on panels and all that sort of wonderful stuff as well. So keep an eye out for Dom Procter from Outsource Staff. He's going to give you a wealth of knowledge of how you can improve the quality of your outsourcing and as well from a video perspective, differentiating yourself in the market with some of the things that we talked about in this podcast today, which I think the lights turning the lights on, baby. Thanks again, Dom.

[00:24:54] Dom Procter: Oh mate. Video is everything. Love your work.