From Story to Success: Video Marketing Strategies for Growth with Greg Gladman (Episode 185)

[00:00:00] Chris Schwager: G'day legends, welcome to the DIY Video for Professionals podcast, where we unravel the secrets behind crafting videos that screen professional without the hassle. I'm your host, Chris Schwager, the DIY maestro here to guide you through the mesmerizing world of DIY video production. We take you beyond the lens from the latest in DIY video, optimizing your tech setup, and even to candid chats with clients sharing personal stories that transcend the realm of video.

[00:00:27] Chris Schwager: This is your all access pass to mastering the video game and living a life filled with action and decisions. Get ready to transform, not just your videos, but your approach to life one episode at a time. Welcome to DIY video for professionals.

[00:00:41] Chris Schwager: So Greg Gladman joins us today. He's a client who has come on board recently. From a great deal that we put on last year, originally was struggling to see the full potential of what having a system like this would bring to his business. And after looking at one of his clients and our clients, Jason Howes, is able to actually see and acknowledge that there was a full, a lot more room to be had with regards to having a kind of a one button switch right at your desk in your home.

[00:01:11] Chris Schwager: And welcome aboard.

[00:01:13] Greg Gladman: Thanks Chris. Thanks for inviting me along today. It certainly has been a game changer for us.

[00:01:17] Chris Schwager: Yeah, man. And this is how we roll, right? Like we like to interview our clients because we share similar things. We're all small business owners and most of the time we have a lot of stories around either parenting or business or video that we can share with one another.

[00:01:33] Chris Schwager: And it's a great way to document. Video rather than constantly looking for video creation. Video creation can take lots of time as you and I both know. And so where clients have benefited from recording in this way allows me to just go and share the video files with them. And then they pick it up at their end and they maybe give it to their edit team and they go off and cut some little highlights out of it as well.

[00:01:57] Chris Schwager: And then they, Share it with us and we share it with them and it's a nice way to, to increase visibility for all parties. And you seem like a nice bloke and a very knowledgeable bloke as well, and hence why I have you on the show today. So Greg, tell me about, first of all, I'll go down the case study route, you had your Usage for video where you thought, video was going to play a role in your business at the time for our audience, take them through a little bit about your business and I guess where you were pre DIY video studio.

[00:02:30] Greg Gladman: For sure. Yeah. So look. Chris look, we run a sales training and coaching business. Not too dissimilar to Jason. I actually work closely with Jason, so that's how we got to meet you. I would say I, we always make a bit of a joke that we were ahead of the Covid curve. We had set up our business, so from about 2018 that we do some intensive face-to-face work and everything after that.

[00:02:52] Greg Gladman: Myself and our coaches are on video. So the fortnightly coaching of sales team and sales managers, even quarterly reviews all were done via video. And as you would have seen from our first phone conversation that was done very poorly from a computer. Surface pro like camera on top of a computer.

[00:03:13] Greg Gladman: And was very, grainy and pixelated and looks terrible, but I didn't really know any better. And so starting to have some chats with Jason and seeing the screen and seeing how well he presented and how poorly I looked, that sort of prompted me to reach out and have a chat now. When we first spoke, when you said that, Hey, I thought you thought I was a lost cause, I probably wasn't thinking about the potential of what else we could do with it.

[00:03:38] Greg Gladman: I was more thinking about, do I really need to have a better quality video just to do coaching? But we started to have a look at different ways that we could utilize video. Jason was kind enough to share what he was doing and some of the stuff that he was, how he was utilizing it. And and yeah, I went into his studio, had a play around loved it.

[00:03:58] Greg Gladman: And then coinciding with your sale that you had on at the time and the rest is history. Yeah we were using very low quality grainy, pixelated laptop images.

[00:04:10] Chris Schwager: What is it about video, in this way? That has drawn you closer to investing. It's not a, it's not just a little pissy amount, right?

[00:04:19] Chris Schwager: It's a decent investment. What was the penny drop moment for you?

[00:04:22] Greg Gladman: Look, I think when one day when I was having a catch up with Jason, he was using his DIY studio and and I was just on my laptop and just looking at his picture quality versus mine. And if we have a look at the. How long I'm sitting in front of a computer and a camera every day, it would be a minimum of four hours up to eight hours a day, sometimes longer.

[00:04:45] Greg Gladman: We were doing, strategy sessions, coaching sales calls. And I just thought if I'm spending so much time in front of the computer, in front of the camera it just seems silly to have a little crappy one that's linked to the top of a laptop. So that [00:05:00] was probably the catalyst.

[00:05:02] Greg Gladman: Look, also what we've found is that. More and more of our little short videos and content creation was being done again via poor quality cameras. So it just was the right timing and and obviously seeing Jason using it and then your little Christmas promo that you did was just enough to get it across the line and say, yeah, let's just do it.

[00:05:23] Chris Schwager: How much of it is like you, you charge thousands of dollars. We had a client of ours, financial planner report back and say, look, he just wasn't comfortable, doing. Deals thousands of dollars at a time with his clients and showing up on a crap webcam. And it was all spawning from the early sort of 2020, everybody else was, everyone's doing poor quality.

[00:05:44] Chris Schwager: It's let's call it video pandemic, right? It was just a lot of crap. And so it was an ability in some regard to differentiate what was it for you, was it that feeling like got to improve it. Cause, cause that certainly, if I recollect back to say 2018, 19, where we went all in on sales via zoom, which was pre 2020, which meant not a lot of people were using it. We had to educate them on how they could do this. But we weren't moving cause we were just sick of traveling everywhere. And then for us, it was like, Oh shit, we're a video company. Is this it, is this what we're projecting in the first impression of our call, so I guess. Again, back to the point, it's a decent investment. Where do you draw the line and saying, no, I need to show up better.

[00:06:35] Greg Gladman: I think I probably wasn't even aware that it was a problem until I started to see someone else using it and the quality of the video. And if I look at the the, the hourly rates that clients are paying for our executive coaching or consulting and, and how the videos were turning out where we started also to get a lot of clients wanting to record the videos that we were doing with them to show, to put in a library and to be able to show to new salespeople joining the team down the track.

[00:07:03] Greg Gladman: So that they weren't having to try to remember my version of, The event and all the situation and then try to repeat it. They can just literally pull the video up and show it. So I think, there was a number of different factors that came into play, but I think just having a better quality presentation was one I think customers wanting to record and keep some of this stuff on file was another, I think the third one too, was that we are.

[00:07:26] Greg Gladman: We started playing around with a software called video where we're actually just doing some, even doing presentations of proposals. Sometimes we might be presenting to a CEO who can give a verbal sign off subject to board approval. And what we found is that guess what the sale, the CEO is not going to sell us in our service offering as well as we can, but we had no way of getting in front of the board.

[00:07:47] Greg Gladman: Again, if we've got the ability to use this great piece of software to be able to do a virtual walkthrough of proposal and shoot it off, I wanted to make sure that if my face is in front of a board making a decision, are we going to invest, 40, 50, 60, a hundred grand with this company that, that my visual presentations coming off to be, spot on.

[00:08:05] Chris Schwager: It's just such a great tool, right? Like I had a conversation with somebody this morning around video coaching. I'm got to the point where I understood more about. The opportunity and he was sold. He said, Oh, I've scoured your site. I know what you're capable of. I know how good it all is. I just need to convince my boss to spend a little bit of money on making this happen.

[00:08:26] Chris Schwager: And I get a bit of benefit out of it cause I get the training and everything. And I was like, you know what, why don't I just give you the proposal with the price. And I'll record a little four or five minute video for you. And I'll explain to them why it is that you're going to invest in this. And it's Oh, would you, that'd be awesome.

[00:08:43] Chris Schwager: That'd be so great. And just that ease. I would go in completely unrehearsed going with the intent that my primary. Objective is to build, have them build confidence with a complete stranger, in five minutes, a shorter period of time and, correlating the benefits of why, this is going to be great investment for them.

[00:09:01] Chris Schwager: But the primary thing here is he openly admitted I, need, would need a lot of effort and not a lot of work and preparation to try and pitch this to them. So I'm like don't bother. Just send them the proposal with a video on it. And you're hearing it firsthand from me. And that's worked in many occasions for decent deals for 25, 30, 000 deals as well.

[00:09:22] Chris Schwager: And I know firsthand that. Video has not only been presented to the decision maker but has also been presented to the people involved in the project. So the first time we ever tried it there's 10 others involved in the operational side of the project from their end and they all got to see it. the scope of works is included.

[00:09:41] Chris Schwager: So here it is, here's the scope, here's why you need it. Here's the guy that's going to present it and help you. And it was just like just a very streamlined approach to to closing a deal that could have probably been pretty long winded and lots of back and forths and whatnot. So how do you find the ability?[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] Chris Schwager: to just get on and I guess go off the cuff like that. I'm finding for me, it's now just a race against the clock. I've got to be able to spit this out with all of the inconsistencies and all of the little human errors that are fucking a human, right? Big whoop. I'm starting to drop my guard a lot and let those roll with it all in the interest of time and not getting too bogged down in the process.

[00:10:25] Chris Schwager: How have you found it?

[00:10:26] Greg Gladman: If I rewind, two years ago, if we wanted to record a video on a topic that would be, anywhere between a four to 6, 000 investment to get a day in a studio. And it was a race against the clock, trying to get as many things filmed in the day as you can. And you're trying to get it all perfect and have everything all spot on.

[00:10:44] Greg Gladman: Whereas now I can just do a video at the click of a finger on any topic on anything. And it's literally turn on the camera and it's good to go. So it's a lot more agile, for me that I'm not having to try and think of what are the 20 topics I want to talk about in a month's time and then start building everything out.

[00:11:02] Greg Gladman: And I think too I've also learned just through, from the work I've done with you, but just with, just getting the understanding that it doesn't matter if you, say something wrong or do something that's not exactly right because it just makes it more original. It's more, being a bit vulnerable around, Hey, I said a wrong word and I recovered from it.

[00:11:19] Greg Gladman: Doesn't matter. Yeah. Whereas I used to be a perfectionist around, Oh, I said the wrong word. I have to start that whole 10 minute video again. Whereas if I was presenting to that board, Myself, I probably would have had the same little whoops or comment or thing that was different. Doesn't matter. It's looking at the big picture around, do they feel comfortable with me?

[00:11:39] Greg Gladman: Do they feel confident on the right person? Did they feel that the solution is the right solution for them and their business? And, if that's presented by me and I have the odd little slip up or I say something that's, correct my, It's still going to be 10 times better than a CEO trying to present that for the first time after hearing me talk for 20 minutes.

[00:11:59] Chris Schwager: The reason you're hearing this podcast so clearly, it's because we've incorporated this. If you're on our YouTube channel, go and have a look at the quality that comes out of it. 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.

[00:12:22] Chris Schwager: Let's have a listen to a couple of happy clients who are using this system. I

[00:12:26] Speaker 3: 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.

[00:12:32] Speaker 4: It has saved me a day, a month. They are now use video more. Because it's just easier to do. The equipment is just incredible.

[00:12:39] Speaker 4: It's easy. You're ready to go.

[00:12:41] Chris Schwager: Being able to come in here, turn it on and look down the

[00:12:43] Greg Gladman: barrel. 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.

[00:12:52] Speaker 5: Oh my God, I'm like wishing that all these years I would have saved myself time.

[00:12:55] Speaker 5: It's just so much. Better. It was such a great investment. I can shoot videos like that.

[00:12:59] Speaker 4: 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.

[00:13:07] Chris Schwager: If you want more information on how you can do this for yourself, go to ridgefilms. com.

[00:13:12] Chris Schwager: au slash DIY. I did a full reply to inquiry and I'm loosening up my reply inquiries Recently now going from 30 seconds contrived 30 seconds to a much looser one minute. Hey, really casual. And I'm trying to ease them in and use that, drop their name in and drop a lot of value in there and stuff at the same time.

[00:13:33] Chris Schwager: Anyway, I got through this, we only have 50 seconds through this video and the guy's name was Will. And I got to the end and I went, Oh, thanks Bill. And then I went, Oh, I fucked it. I've got to, I've got to go again. And I kept my composure, but I had a laugh and I put my head down and then I pulled back out and went, sorry, we'll, and just kept going and finished it.

[00:13:56] Chris Schwager: And then I got the meeting and I actually made a note of it and I said, Oh, did did you like the way I recovered and he's I saw that you'd recovered from it. And it was just, it was a talking point. It was just like it's completely human. And I think, I don't know if I was a startup or someone new to the game, maybe my perspective would be different, but because there's so much more skin in the game and maturity and the expertise is high and I, I.

[00:14:24] Chris Schwager: Speak for you as well. Time is like so important now. It's like just making sure that you know what you're going to do and you get it off your desk as quickly as you possibly can. And if that means making a couple of little adjustments on the fly, so to speak, then yeah. Then, what difference does it make?

[00:14:42] Chris Schwager: And I think that's the, one of the key things here is if I make this mistake to, for one video, for one person, what difference does it make? Will it be better if I rerecord it? Yeah, that's. That's where I'm at the

[00:14:54] Greg Gladman: moment, I think. Definitely have have learnt that just from, some of the, I think one of the, one of [00:15:00] the webinars I jumped on and one of the conversations I had with you is, sometimes, just having a bit more, vulnerability or just leaving something in there.

[00:15:08] Greg Gladman: It doesn't do any harm. If anything, it just shows you're human and it's not a robotic. Response that's been pre recorded and redone 15 times. It's raw, it's live and it is what it is.

[00:15:18] Chris Schwager: So you've had your kit for four months now, still working through applications and different ways you can use it.

[00:15:24] Chris Schwager: You've been traveling here, there and everywhere off overseas, recovering your business and whatnot. What, yeah, what are clients saying, with what you've shown them so far?

[00:15:34] Greg Gladman: Yeah. So that's really interesting. In the first, Cause our clients where we, myself or one of the team is coaching them usually fortnightly or monthly.

[00:15:44] Greg Gladman: And within the first month, every, I'm not like, every single client, every single client made a comment about, where are you? Are you in a studio? Are you in a, that's not your, I said, it's the same office. It's I haven't moved. I'm in the same office. I just have better lighting and I don't have all the shadows and things coming in from outside and I'm just set up, to be able to do these video conversations.

[00:16:10] Greg Gladman: And, people one, one person said he didn't believe me and he got me to take a video with my phone and send it to him. So I showed him what I've got and he goes, no, that's, but yeah, the, yeah, the and I've had I've had comments all, all quite, fun and jovial, but I've had, I had one CEO tell me that he watching me on the video, he feels less than, that was his comment. He feels less than, and I said, less than what? And he goes. You look amazing and I look terrible,

[00:16:40] Chris Schwager: It's still yeah,

[00:16:42] Greg Gladman: It's all positive and I think if people are actively making the comment around how amazing it looks. Just from doing a, a zoom call or a team's call and, and most of these people who are making these comments have known me for years and have seen me in, different, webcam slash computer camera slash me on the fly traveling in hotels and all of a sudden they just go, wow, what have you done?

[00:17:06] Greg Gladman: That for me was a confirmation that I'd made the right decision.

[00:17:09] Chris Schwager: It's like the suit of the modern world now, isn't it? It's like you show up dressed for the job that you want type of analogy, but it's the same now. If you're showing up in video, good video good audio, then you respect what you're sending out as in terms of visual visuals to the market.

[00:17:27] Chris Schwager: So you have a sense of pride, would you say sense of pride in your appearance? And I think with that, I guess not to necessarily show people up, but it's just you can see the whites of my eyes clearer than you could ever say anybody else probably at this point. You think there's impact on like impression or what people, Like what people think, I guess the real question I'm looking for here is is it a case of the visuals have to match the thing that you bring, the service that you provide, if you were showing up great looking amazing, but then had a shit service, it would probably wouldn't matter.

[00:17:58] Chris Schwager: But because you're complimenting an already great coaching business.

[00:18:02] Greg Gladman: Yeah. Yeah, look it's if we were budget basement and dealing with the bottom end of town, I probably wouldn't have made this sort of investment. But the reality is that we're dealing with professional business people, CEOs boards.

[00:18:15] Greg Gladman: We have clients that are small family businesses right through to global giants. Like our biggest client has over 10, 000 salespeople scattered around the world. When I'm hopping on a call with those guys, there might be 10 CEOs from all around the world, Germany, Asia, USA, Canada, Australia.

[00:18:32] Greg Gladman: It's the audience is a fairly distinguished audience. Presenting well definitely helps my personal brand as well as the brand of the business. But the other thing that I haven't even mentioned yet is that as we're starting to build out more, video content around some of the, the, I'll say the basics around what we do I now have the confidence that I can do a short five minute video or 10 minute video upload it into a ecosystem and put it into our learning management system.

[00:19:01] Greg Gladman: So it means that I never actually have to. redo that piece of work again. So it's enabling us to do some more systemization where, you know, instead of, I said, look, Hey, before you jump on the call, watch this 10 minute video so that we don't actually spend the first 10 minutes of the phone conversation, talking about the theory around what we're going to be doing, we're just talking about, okay, we've, you've done the theory, how do we bring that to life in your business?

[00:19:25] Greg Gladman: So it's also allowing me to be more effective with the time that I'm having with them. So it's less knowledge transfer and more bringing that to life in their business. So indirectly, it's going to give me more time to add value in the coaching call, as opposed to talking through. Now, there's certain principles around any topic that I say the same thing for the first 10 or 15 minutes of every call around that topic.

[00:19:52] Chris Schwager: You gotta ask yourself, are you satisfied with the way that you're presenting yourself and your personal brand to your market? [00:20:00] 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.

[00:20:11] Chris Schwager: 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.

[00:20:27] Chris Schwager: You don't have to do anything in that initial setup because you The studio's installed for you, you get your coaching and 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 ridgefilms. com. au and check it out for yourself. It's so good man, like that's such a strong piece.

[00:20:49] Chris Schwager: That you gave and I don't think people are really understanding the full capabilities of, systematization. Notoriously thought of as some kind of boring old document and drafting a bloody procedure manual and all that sort of bullshit. And that's not the modern systematization now.

[00:21:07] Chris Schwager: It's it's video content because it's record once and distribute forever really. And we started doing that when we were onboarding our Filipino team and it's man what a difference it made to from a, the directive perspective of clearing your mind Of that thing now, with the right team, of course, you've got to have the right team that adapts quickly and understands and takes direction well, but the fact that I remember going, onboarding new people, going through, a couple of the first couple of weeks and just recording so many videos.

[00:21:37] Chris Schwager: And there could have been one minute, or there could have been 20 minutes, half an hour in some cases, and just going, boom, done, clear, send them the link. That's it. It's and then it was actually up to them to. Put it into its proper order. So not only were we actually getting the recording stunt of the tasks that needed to be handled, but also then it was getting sorted properly for the next person.

[00:22:00] Chris Schwager: Such a great way to, to go. It's not exclusive to the desktop studio, but it certainly does help when you've got nice clear.

[00:22:07] Greg Gladman: Yeah, I think it's, I think you're coming around to confidence. Yeah. When the quality of the video is high. You have no issues with directing someone to spend 10 minutes of their life to watch it knowing that they're going to come away from that going that was really clear and concise.

[00:22:22] Greg Gladman: I can hear it well. I can see it well. Yes. Often there's a slide deck that might be going with that. And that's nice and crisp and clear.

[00:22:29] Chris Schwager: Yeah.

[00:22:29] Greg Gladman: Yeah.

[00:22:30] Chris Schwager: When it came to coaching and then just a little bit of coaching that we've done so far, what's been the main thing that you've taken away from that?

[00:22:36] Chris Schwager: I think

[00:22:37] Greg Gladman: it's probably a couple of things. What one is and it's just been a constant battle with me whenever I have even done professional videography before, is that when you think you're over exaggerating like expressions and emotions. You're not and just putting a lot more energy and a smile into the conversation.

[00:22:53] Greg Gladman: That was probably just a really good reminder. The other one I think is just is not being two phased. If you say a wrong word or if you mumble something I really found that I was a real perfectionist beforehand. But now having people saying that you're a human being and that, you make mistakes, it's not, and I'm not talking about that wrong, total wrong comments or things off the wall, but like just a little fumble or what you would do in a normal conversation.

[00:23:21] Greg Gladman: Why wouldn't that go on a video to go to one client? Who cares?

[00:23:24] Chris Schwager: Where to next, man? Where are you going? What's the future for video and where do you see all this?

[00:23:28] Greg Gladman: Next step for us is that we're starting to really build out our learning management system.

[00:23:33] Greg Gladman: So all of our content is being slowly being built out. It's happening a little slower than I would have liked just because we've been so busy coming into this end of financial year. I think we're starting to see some some companies that have been sitting on the edge wanting to really, get into doing some, sales strategy and coaching to, to grow sales.

[00:23:51] Greg Gladman: So it's been a little slower than I'd hoped, but I'm still banging away and getting a few decent, quality videos going up into the platform every week. And the intention is to try to keep systematizing to be able to. Give more value to our clients, but also have a library there that we can actually send people to, that if someone's got a quick question, rather than having to charge them for, a piece of time I can actually just say, Hey, look do you want me to talk through that?

[00:24:18] Greg Gladman: Or can I just send you a video and off you go? And And it makes my business a lot more scalable if I've got the ability to do that. And I think if I look back to, when we've done any little short little video takes in the past, it's probably a bit embarrassing. If you send them a really poor quality video, poor quality sound and say, Hey, watch this.

[00:24:42] Greg Gladman: I think it's not a very good, just give a very professional, View of your business. Whereas now I don't have any hesitation with this recording, a short little video, shooting it off. And if it's generic and it's not talking about anything that's industry specific, or it's not specific to their business, I can then just save that up and up to the cloud.

[00:24:59] Chris Schwager: [00:25:00] Greg Gladman's business is sales and leadership performance. Runs it out of Queensland, but he's worldwide global, got plenty of staff and crew on board. And you should go definitely check out his. business because he is really ripping it and looking and sounding like a million dollars. And you can also check this out on our YouTube channel as well.

[00:25:22] Chris Schwager: Greg, I want to just say to you, thank you so much. This whole podcast appears to be being very centered around The desktop studio and the coaching and all the other stuff that we've been able to do. So I do appreciate you taking the time. I don't know how much value is here from a video from a recording perspective to give to you for your own use, but more than happy to do that.

[00:25:44] Chris Schwager: But as a case study for us to actually be able to use this across our marketing, it's a great resource. So I thank you very much for the last half hour that you've given me.

[00:25:53] Greg Gladman: My pleasure. And I wouldn't be giving you my time today if I wasn't very comfortable for you to share this with any of your audience.

[00:26:01] Greg Gladman: And yeah, I'm very grateful that we came across each other's paths and we're able to put this into play. So thank you as well.