Video-Centric Business Growth: Insights and Strategies from Chris Schwager (Episode 183)

[00:00:00] It was our mantra many, many years ago to make sure that we had video everywhere in our business. And that's what I want to gift you guys with in this lunch and learn for the next 25 minutes. We're going to investigate the world of video through my eyes. And we're also going to open up some questions at the end.

[00:00:25] And so please, for the time being. We're going to mute you until then Hugo is going to be our Hugo, Hugo is going to be our man in the hot seat to answer any of those questions. So if you've got questions that pop up, then go ahead, pop them in the chat. Make them nice and clear. Hugo will then screen those and reload those to me at the end of the session at about 25 past 12.

[00:00:53] All good so far? Now, tell me guys, tell me, where are you currently? Do you think you sit, on a scale of 1 to 10, where do you think you sit with regards to exposure of video? in your business right now. Scale of one. So 10 being, yep, you're across a lot of different areas. You feel like you're quite comfortable within the space.

[00:01:16] One, no, you're just starting out. I have no idea what I'm doing. Pop it in the chat. Seven, good. Who is 945405? I'd love to know the, the mystery, the mystery person. Basima. Okay. Very nice. Thank you so much for coming on Basima. I appreciate it. Okay. Five, six, seven. Good. Okay. Well, that's really, that's, that's great. I still believe I'm going to add a hell of a lot of value to this session just by virtue of me our company really focusing in on areas of the business that need video the most. And it's all really by what is the challenge that your business is faced with. That warrants video in the first place.

[00:01:59] I asked this question to so many people and I think that they get defensive. They get back up again. There's no challenge. My business is perfect. There's no problem in my business. I'm okay. And that's really not the point. If you're producing videos, really? It's got to be a line to some sort of challenge.

[00:02:19] You guys are in such a great space here, I gotta say. Because just by virtue of coming here and spending half an hour with me, I think is a great ROI in terms of your learnings out of this. Also, if you're playing around the 5 out of 10, 6 out of 10, 7 out of 10 even, You are probably still in the bracket of the people that are still missing out on demonstrating the basic capabilities of your business.

[00:02:47] And as we have recorded many years ago, probably four or five years ago now, only 6 percent of Australian businesses demonstrate the capabilities of their business in video form. Hugely underutilized. So, you know, it might be that you're producing videos for your social media channels. That's all great.

[00:03:06] Are people facilitated? Are people connecting with you? in those other areas. Are they going in a nonlinear journey to understand you, your business, the product, the service, and what you guys are all about. And as you'll discover as well through this it's just being connected. It was Alex Harmose that Is that the correct name?

[00:03:28] I'm still learning him. Alex Harmozy has talked about mining attention and using touchpoints of video to, to do that. And, you know, we're in a attention deficit world, right? We require a lot of touchpoints and I'm going to expose you to a whole bunch of different applications of videos across sales, across marketing even double a little bit very quickly with some AI generated stuff as well.

[00:03:53] We're mining attention on in virtually free environment for free, right? Just by me really giving you 25 minutes of gold here is, is, is free is, is costing me very little to do this. It's costing you zero, you know? So there's a lot of circulating content out there, but it's important to not, to not Get into this devalued state, right?

[00:04:19] You're, you're wanting to make sure that whatever you're doing is a value to, to your business, to the social interactions that you have with people. The idea of just putting out video for the sake of it is really old school. I think that, that existed many, many years ago video for video sake.

[00:04:37] It's, it's not a great strategy. You know, it's, it's a, it's a costly strategy. It's a wasteful strategy. It's really about you guys making sure that you align whatever it is you're doing, what you're trying to really do in your business, what you're trying to do to sell your product or service, align that to, okay, what challenge do we have?

[00:04:54] Is it lack of leads? Is it lack of inquiries? Do people not know who we do it for? Like these are the [00:05:00] types of marketing related questions that you need to be asking yourself all the time, all the time. It should be backboneing your progression with video. Okay. If we do this video guys. What problem is it solving?

[00:05:14] Okay. So let's have a look at the potency of video. You know, the people are making decisions about your product service business without you being there. And it's happening every day in a very non linear way. They're also making decisions around your face through the facial, facial connections, the eyes, the mouth those nuances to, to, to get connected to you, to get better connected with you.

[00:05:42] And also it's happening very quickly. It's happening almost instantaneously. The people are making decisions. They're getting ideas of visual scenes. Very, very quickly. And if we look at this handshake, you'll notice it's a little house. It might not be that obvious, but this is about property, right?

[00:05:57] They've got a little house in the shot. That's an easy one. Keys behind it. Right? You could get, you could get the idea fairly quickly from just seeing that shot. Now, if we look at why I believe Marketing or video marketing is one of the strongest return on investments around at the moment is your ability to utilize this in a whole multitude of different ways.

[00:06:19] It's not just about one video does everything. You, you produce your polished five to 10 K video and it goes on your homepage. You've really got to look at all the opportunities for video and multipurpose them, reuse them, repurpose them, get them to a point where you can maximize ROI on those. And These couple of suggestions around the outside here should be at the forefront of what you're thinking about when it comes to mass, you know, producing content for the masses.

[00:06:48] You know, something like a company profile video, you definitely want to be looking at how do you take a, you know, a 90 second company profile video and repurpose it in a multitude of different ways. Different channels short clips reuse, repurpose, recycle continuously. Okay. And that's how you're going to maximize your ROI.

[00:07:07] And if we also look at what possible professional style products are around, we really broken those into these three buyer sort of cycles. If you're like aware, educate, convert whole bunch of, you know, these are just some on our product list, but also these are really. Tied into specific challenges, you know, business problem and desired outcome left and right, really at the, at the book ending of, of all this content that gets produced over the year, over the years.

[00:07:35] And just so you know, as well, you know, we're a 22 year old video production company. We've been producing videos like this for so long, and it's now becoming even tougher to to. continually look for ways to entertain and grab attention. It's becoming more and more about entertainment, less and less about, or just getting your corporate company video out there, like entertain first, communicate second is starting to, to come up.

[00:08:02] And I think there's a lot of business starting to adopt that philosophy. Because you've still got to grab their, you've still got to pull them in and sit them down and go, watch. And the way you do that is to try and keep things vibrant and exciting and entertaining. You're seeing it a lot on social media with stop the scrolling and all that type of stuff.

[00:08:21] You know, the attention hacks that stop people just kind of flying past your video. But there's a lot of work to do. And if we're only talking about 6 percent of Australian businesses engaging with professional video, there's a hell of a lot more that can be done. The reason you're hearing this podcast so clearly it's because we've incorporated this.

[00:08:40] If you're on our YouTube channel, go and have a look at the quality that comes out of what we call the desktop video studio and allows professionals, just like yourself, an ability to have. camera, sound, lights, teleprompter, all at a single switch of a button and all at the convenience of your desk. Let's have a listen to a couple of happy clients who are using this system.

[00:09:02] Get people that come to my masterclasses and the first thing they do is they go, wow, and they know I'm here to get good value. It has saved me a day, a month. I now use video more because it's just easier to do. The equipment. It's just incredible. It's easy. You're ready to go. Being able to come in here, turn it on and look down the barrel.

[00:09:20] It's just so good. I can take a little bit more time with the delivery because there is no setup. Coming across more professionally. Gotta have a look at it. You are getting massive value. Oh my god, I'm like wishing that all these years I would have saved myself time. It's just so much better. It was such a great investment.

[00:09:34] I can shoot videos like that. You can switch it on, do a really fast message within two minutes. Having the best tools has taken my business to the next level. If you want more information on how How you can do this for yourself, go to ridgefilms. com. au slash DIY. And it's again about being video centric, about putting video first in all your interactions.

[00:09:58] It's an [00:10:00] unbelievable tool and you don't need to go all in and overproduce the shit out of it. And you know, appoint the video production company or the videographer to come and do it. And with all the scheduling and time and resourcing hassles that come along with that, you could do it. Pick up the bloody webcam, pick up your iPhone, right?

[00:10:18] I'm going to show you some more professional streamlined ways that you can engage with video later as well. But it can be done and it's something that you should, something you can do today. There's no stopping you. From getting on with this and differentiating, by the way, I mean, this is a huge differentiator.

[00:10:37] If you have zero differentiation in the market and you deploy video, it's the differentiator, right? Like just by virtue of you being there and your clients not, it puts you into the point of difference, right? So let's have a quick look at how Charlotte Hall reached out to me. She's She is a particular Good example of someone leading with video, but she had put her initial message together, which I thought was a little bit spammy.

[00:11:06] I was kind of curious to see what she was really wanting from me, but then I realized she was a legitimately wanting to understand more about. how we did things. And it was a legitimate inquiry. So I came back, of course, with a video, right? So this particular example where someone's gone out of their way to produce a little video and I've replied with a video and hey, presto, we were able to get that meeting organized within about five minutes of those interactions.

[00:11:32] I just felt like I knew her far better from those interactions. In a sales sense, what's really exciting, and this is the first time I've ever shared this publicly. This is a little bit of a left to right journey of a inquiry. Okay, so an inquiry comes in on the left. It's pretty hard to see, but it doesn't make a big difference, right?

[00:11:51] I'm going to help you understand what this is all about. But inquiry comes in, I take the phone call. I give them an immediate reply inquiry video. Now that can be personalized. Okay. So good day, Tomo. Thanks so much for your inquiry. Or it could be a generic one, depending on how you go about capturing leads and what the quality of those leads are as well.

[00:12:11] So we're doing a lot of TikTok advertising at the moment. You know, we're fine. It can be quite hit and miss with regards to the inquiry level and therefore We're putting more generic intros together to speed things up. So I'm not recording personalized video for random people that don't even have a YouTube channel or don't have a business yet.

[00:12:30] Do you know what I mean? So then after they've gone through a couple of steps, those, the, the, those two green dots between those circles, I basically illustrate a couple of other touch points. I kind of read it myself. What does it say? So it's like a phone call and a. Yes, phone call and wait, wait a day one.

[00:12:47] Okay. So, so after, so the next day, if I don't hear back from them, when that email video intro has gone together, I'm going to reshare it. I'm going to put it into SMS and I'll show you how that looks in a second, which is really cool because using the same asset, I'm not having to rerecord anything or do anything extra.

[00:13:03] If I don't hear from them. Another day goes by, I give them what's called an LAM, and that's a left a message video. I go, Oh, good day, I left a message on your voicemail, just, you know, just reaching out because you made an inquiry with us, blah, blah, blah, right? So you can see I'm, I'm, I'm hitting them up.

[00:13:21] And the way that this is presented in email as well is like my face. You know, some clever, you know, maybe a sign with their name on it or whatever it is, and a play button, right? Really clear. It's not a hyperlink. It's my, it's my image. It's my face. I want them to acknowledge that they've, and remind them that they've made an inquiry.

[00:13:40] And lots of people, when they do end up reaching out coming, coming to us, it's because they've been busy. It's because they've, you know They've had a problem in the family or something like that. It's a lot of times that people are either they're making that excuse up or they are legitimately just flat chat and they just don't get around to it.

[00:13:57] So the idea of persisting with sales, I think is, is, you know, you got nothing to lose by doing this process. Right. And then finally, in this kind of pre, meeting phase. Well, actually this, this point here is just after we've scored the meeting. Okay. And we've emailed them a, a unique video. It's a, it's still a generic video, but it says, okay, so thanks so much for booking in.

[00:14:20] I can't wait to see you on to, on the, you know, next week or whatever please go and fill in your health assessment and we'll have all the information that we need to progress this further. So it's just. Being present, you know, this is before they've even done anything with us before they're even meeting with us.

[00:14:35] We're, we're applying these now that there's about 10 or 12 touch points there with about two through four videos that we're producing for them. Okay. And, you know, whenever it's never stops there, you know, like that one of those videos can end up in LinkedIn email, for instance. If they go completely stone cold and they don't get in touch with us, it'll end up being dropped into an email, okay, which [00:15:00] is the LinkedIn's messenger.

[00:15:02] It'll also be popped into an SMS and that sequence that you just saw left to right there also involves a whole bunch of different SMS touch points as well, which is super, super cool. And it presents beautifully in SMS. Like it actually plays nicely that you can click on it and it pops up. It's, there's no kind of linking through to your website kind of crap.

[00:15:24] Now, moving forward past the sales process, we're going into a proposal. Now, this here is how we would present our proposal. Now this is through, I think, an application called PandaDoc, I believe, but it gives us An opportunity to not just present a proposal as a PDF with the, you know, where they just flick straight to the bottom and that's the end of it and they go to the prize.

[00:15:46] But this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our capabilities further. So for instance, we would have an overview of the, of what we're offering in a short couple a minute video there. All right. In some cases, we would also just present this. Specifically for the client that we're going after because in some cases what happens is they need to convince decision makers and other stakeholders why and what this is all about and often the contact who we've met with is not aligned to the decision maker.

[00:16:26] So the decision maker goes, what's all this about? 20 grand? What's this? And they're doing their best to try and explain what it's all about. and fucking it up. Right? So what we say in the, in, you know, personalized, say it could even be a five minute video that basically summarizes why the thing is priced the way it is, what value they're getting, and it's your opportunity to really demonstrate why they should choose you and not somebody else.

[00:16:55] So in some cases Use this as a way to say, I know you're not the decision maker, but make sure that Mark sees this video. And the particular example, I first tried this on and not only went to Mark, but Mark signed the deal and it went ahead. And then Mark. Well, the team showed the 10 other people that were involved in the project because it acted like a briefing video, if you like, of what was ahead, what was going to be happening to the business.

[00:17:30] So again, another example of one video, whilst its intent was probably only going to be delivered to one or two people, ended up going to a lot more because. Everybody, it was a useful tool that everybody could utilize and it was coming from the horse's mouth, not through a couple of different like Chinese whispers to get there.

[00:17:50] So as this progresses so somebody would look at the what's in the box. If you like video that could also be getting a. Testimonial style content of others that have also been part of the program and why they what sort of successes that they've had since being in the program. So again, it's this ability, ability to, to make sure you press home, you know, why they absolutely 100 percent cannot go without choosing our business.

[00:18:20] You know, a lot of what you're seeing here is Generic content, so it's the same style content that you'll also see on the website. You gotta ask yourself, are you satisfied with the way that you're presenting yourself and your personal brand to your market? And for four years now, people have been really struggling to clarify the way they look and sound on camera when it comes to doing video calls and recording their own personalized videos.

[00:18:49] And there is a solution. The DIY video program helps you personalize sales, video and emails, record professional marketing videos, look and sound amazing in every video meeting without the tech hassles. And you also get professional video editing and practical training so that you can present like a pro.

[00:19:05] You don't have to do anything in that initial setup because the studio's installed for you. You get your coaching and the training so that you can then go on and be a video professional and wipe out poor quality videos. Forever. Why don't you go to Ridge films.com au slash DIY and check it out for yourself.

[00:19:25] However, in some cases, as I said, I'll be just quickly recording a video and I won't have a full blown script. I'll just be talking as I'm talking now, trying to do my best. To make sure that they can see me, they can hear me clearly. And I'm the best guy for the job that I'm the one that's going to be able to carry this thing through and that the confidence, huge amounts of trust built and confidence built by presenting ourselves in the way that we do.

[00:19:52] And the reason why I'm able to do that is because I've streamlined the gear. I've got the equipment to be able to [00:20:00] facilitate this. And the desktop video studio is a great Way to be able to just click a button and get access to all of this anytime of the day with this consistent look, morning, noon, or night.

[00:20:10] So streamlining the gear is a huge. Value add, because if you've got to go around the room and click on a bloody light and switch on this microphone and that microphone and get connected and do all this other crap, that's a, that's taking you away from what you actually do best, what your business is all about.

[00:20:28] So consolidating a lot of that and getting it organized is really paramount in making sure that you can do this effectively and you can deploy more and more video throughout the business, because it's far easier now. Let's have a look at a couple of wacky ones. This is an out of office video. This, you would never even heard of this because this doesn't exist.

[00:20:50] It's only exists from us. Let's, let's have a quick look. This is so, so somebody, you know, you're boring, crappy, out of office, text based emails not that effective really. They, they just do, they do their, their thing. This is an opportunity to add the culture back into that process. By doing something a little bit creative.

[00:21:09] Let's have a quick look at this. Oh, hi. Thanks for your email. I'm not in the office at the moment, but don't worry. I've made sure there's someone ready to assist you. Hi, I'm Greg. Forward your email through to me and I'll be more than happy to help. Otherwise, I'll get onto it as soon as I get back. We decided.

[00:21:29] Years ago as well that we would also make sure that our 404 error page, you know, when somebody misses a search or the link is broken on our website, that they would get this. This has been around for, for many years. Right. And it's like, yeah, okay. You know, what problem does it really solve? But But again, it's this opportunity for people to see me again, you know, and much like the cultural style video that you just saw from the out of office, it's the same type of thing happening here.

[00:21:56] Like, are you being video centric and leading in every possible instance with video and. There are ways that you can be doing this really effectively. On the top left here is what's called a video brochure. I'll just give you a quick look at this. I've got one here, which is basically like a video card.

[00:22:15] You remember the old cards that used to be able to talk to you when you open it up?

[00:22:22] This is, this is a video version. Which retails for 50 odd dollars or whatever pop, you get 50 of them and you go and insert your own video in there. You can be doing that personalized or you can do a generic way. We always do personalize. We are. How can I tell him? You know, I haven't done business with us yet.

[00:22:39] We noticed that the proposal went cold, but Hey man, go and scan the QR code and we can get connected again and see it. And what happens is they get this, they immediately get a shock because they've got their name personalized at the start and the company and they know it's, It's been designed just for them.

[00:22:53] Also, because it's so lumpy and thick, it basically begs curiosity in the post. Nobody gets post anymore, right? Like we actually just shut down our post box. Cause there's nothing actually going into it. So when they do get it, it's like, Ooh, what's this? Right. And not only does it get opened. It gets shared around the office and in some cases shared across organizations.

[00:23:16] It gets talked about, right? Now you could argue, and I've done tens of thousands of dollars of deals based on this dropping into the right person's hands. You've got to do your follow ups. You've got to do the research. You've got to know that you're sending it to the right person and that you're following up.

[00:23:35] But it's a great tactic again, when it doesn't go off on its own. Okay. So so that was really, really cool thing to do. On the right hand top, right. Okay. Again, reaching out to Charlotte, I think it's really good. Bottom left. We're talking about the hardware and streaming that the streaming that so that you don't have to worry about that.

[00:23:54] And bottom right. We're talking about two real strong applications. I recommend for you. Now I recommend with kind of like a little bit of a disclaimer. Which is no, there is no software that's foolproof. There's no software that's going to do everything. However, these are the two big ones that we're doing.

[00:24:13] Cloud based applications that we're using. One on the left is Riverside, and that allows you to do full HD quality recordings. Much like Zoom, but in higher quality, which is cool. But again, not foolproof. It does have bugs. And on the right hand side, Vidyard, which a lot of what you've seen today with video and email, for instance, through the sales process is using Vidyard to be able to do that.

[00:24:37] It is the most streamlined application for sending video and email, but again, comes with its fair share of bugs. And if you do have any questions. Go and ask Vidyard, because we've kind of, you know it's still, still great, but it it will still, it will be a great first step for you, I'd imagine.

[00:24:58] Now, [00:25:00] just remaining on the bandwagon of AI, if you're sort of wondering why I haven't covered anything around AI, yes, There is AI. Let's have a look at this little clip I put together. Video recording studio. You can deliver personalized professional videos anytime without setting up a single piece of equipment.

[00:25:19] And that was me putting some text together and then getting her to read it in a had no option to say, be more emotional, be more passionate. But that's his quality. That's the quality that, that I get. And also, I just recently played with an application called Opus Clip. And what Opus Clip is doing is to, Transfer effectively in a raw video and turn it into like a social media clip.

[00:25:45] Let's have a look at how OpusClip has interpreted what I've given it. With basically a locked off shot of me presenting on stage. Human brain of that audience member needs to be spoken to in a way that is clear. Otherwise, it's confused. And what happens with confusion, what's the problem? I'm not there for the first like 30 seconds or whatever that video was, I've just shown you a small clip.

[00:26:21] You can see it's just confused, right? That the shot on the top is the video that I gave it. And for some reason, some, someone who's down the bottom out of the audience, you can see the woman in the, in the green shirt, it's picked her out and put her at the bottom and she's not even looking, she's looking out the window or whatever, right?

[00:26:43] So that, those two examples, I just wanted to express my, my opinions about AOI. It's not there yet. Let someone else go through and make the mistakes and figure out the process. And then when they tell you how shit hot it is, and that they figured out how easy and cost effective it all is, and you don't have to do anything.

[00:27:07] That's the time to invest. At the moment, let somebody else grind it out. Now, I'll just wrap up in a sec. Hugo, if you want to prep the, any, any questions. And, and guys, if there aren't that many questions, that's fine as well. I'll, I can open it up because it's only a small group today. But basically the, the, being video centric is, is about getting your team organized, giving them the knowledge and the tools that they need, and you guys need as an organization to progress further.

[00:27:37] It doesn't come naturally. It doesn't come by you guys just buying a ring light and a DSLR camera and going, okay, now we're doing video guys. All right, let's get onto it. That is the quickest way for it to stop. So you've got to deploy some knowledge, some education, get organized. Yep. Yeah. And, and, and you're not alone.

[00:27:57] You know, the, the, this, you know, it's a world pandemic, you know, people trying to understand how to improve this. The, the question is something for you to take away from now. What challenge does video solve? Again, back to my earlier point, knowing that will then govern what you need to be doing. Moving forward.

[00:28:16] Well, I want to attract customers because I've got freelancers who will buy the services, but I don't have the customers who will order the interpreting, translation, research and training services yet. What we've found is one of the most basic ways to start your journey is to communicate in a company style video.

[00:28:36] What we call a company profile video, but it doesn't need to be necessarily overengineered, but something, the most popular product that we sell. And what it does is explains who the company is, why the company exists and how the company helps in a very short period of time, under 90 seconds, really, really concentrated video.

[00:28:52] It's one that you can skin in different areas of your business, across your website, homepage, blog social media on your email signatures, right? So again, diversified, which is really, really great. And should give you, when I say should, We'll give you as long as the business doesn't. change too much long life shelf life.

[00:29:12] It should be something, it will be something that gives you three to five years return on investment. And I think that's worth acknowledging as well.