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Visual Storytelling with Stu McLaren & Dean Rainey

I have a very, very special treat couple of guests and friends that are joining me today in the studio, which is awesome because I get to take a break for the first time in 2.5 days. I'm especially excited for that. But no, this is a really, uh I'm really honored and pleased to have you guys here. I met Stew McClaren. I think I saw you speak a couple of years ago at an event on and he's a great speaker and has a ton of value to share. But I've been fortunate to be able to now mastermind and brainstorm with this guy on a regular basis, and we're in a group of, ah, a couple of smart people, and he's always the one just sharing and giving some of the most ingenious ideas, concepts and strategies that kind of blow all of our minds away. And I think it really is because he comes from such a caring and giving place. And I think you guys are going to see that today for the next hour. Uh, he's been able to help so many other business owners and entrepreneurs out there, and he really is the to ...

me epitomises like the true entrepreneur of today. Uh, he What was it about 65 years ago? You, uh, started wish list? Yeah, it would be five years in October 5 years ago, he created a little piece of software called wish list Member that now powers over 40,000 websites Those their paying customers that use his option to power their membership site. And, uh, he's just unleashed another very cool software that I'm using. My support team is thanking me for it called rhino support, and it's a software system that manages your support. So when you're making all these mill amount sales on, people want to send you awesome feedback. You have a whole support software system in place to manage all of that. Uh, and why this is so exciting. Such a great thing that we're doing like, what is this software guy have to do here? Like I said, stewards stewards the entrepreneur, he has the ideas. He creates great products. But he's known the power of video in the power of storytelling in video to get his message across and attract new customers. And he's looking up tohave a little ace of his sleeve, Dean Rainy. So you big ace, Big ace, the big. But what's so exciting is that you really do have this incredible relationship where you can have the idea, the big picture, or at least the desired result in outcome, and you make it a reality. You make it a true things. So without further ado, Steve McClaren and Dean Rainy Welcome Ronald Plus. So I'm really thrilled to be here with you guys because my relationship with Dean kind of happened by accident. You know, several years ago, a Z James mentioned I was really looking to get creative with my videos. So I was doing a lot of the videos that you guys have been practicing. I had my little flip cam. I have my you know, this ghetto little camera that I was using to create videos, but I kind of wanted to step it up a notch. I wanted toe create more emotion in the video is that I was doing But I was struggling because I'm not a video editor. I, you know, can labor over it. I can struggle through it and figure it out, but it just takes me forever, and it takes me away from what I do best. So I was really looking for somebody to help me up my game. And so I was talking to my mom, of all people. And, you know, I have to imagine I live in a very small town in the middle of nowhere. So a population about 4000 people, you know, thank goodness for the Internet, right? Like it allows us to, you know, reach the world from wherever we live. And so I really didn't think that I'd ever be able to find somebody locally to be able to help me out. But I knew as James was talking about, I needed somebody locally. And my mom, she's English, so be prepared. She said, Well, you should talk to James, Son and I said, Well, whose genes, son? And she's like, Well, he just came back from home. Coleman. He does some video stuff. OK, so long story short. My mom was friends with Jean and Jeanne. Son are not Jean Jan and Jan Sonnanstine. Now, Dean worked in the broadcast world. So Dean has gotten all this experience working for, like National Geographic. He was a video producer, our director and producer for CNN and National Geographic and Fox. Wow, like this guy is like, amazing. And I'm me, you know, like And so anyway, we talked and deems like Yeah, Okay, well, what kinds of things were you looking to do? I So I just want to create cool videos that, like, really connect with people, and he's like, OK, but what do you mean, cool videos? I'm like, just I just wanna have fun creating videos that connect with people that resonate with people that ultimately will help us sell our products and services. And that's how it began. And so it's been an awesome experience because it's introduced me to what goes into producing really great videos. And at the same time, I think Dean would share that. It's been a great experience for him because he's gone from creating videos for the broadcast world, which are very tight and have to be. There's why you could probably I mean, it's an exciting time, right, because for so long I've been in this traditional broadcasting field, but the online world is just flipping it right upside down because, you know, you've got expenses in traditional broadcasting. You've got to make the production of the actual stuff. Then you've got to get it on air. You gotta pay somebody else to show it. And now for the first time, you know you own your own distribution channel. So I learned a lot from him and sort of changed my game, sort of from the online sort of side of things. So it's been a great relationship, and that's kind of what we want to share with you today. We wanna certainly give you some ideas on in ways that you can expand your videos beyond just, I would say, like tips, but creating that emotional connection with your customers. And as James said, we have really a pretty boring type of business. I mean, we're a software company. But as you'll see Throat today's presentations, there's ways that you can incorporate some fun and some entertainment that bonds you with your audience beyond just your products and services and as a business owner, here's why that's important. You will always experience competition always, but if you connect with your customers on a deeper level, if they really love you for who you are, It doesn't matter how much competition you have. They're buying into not just for your products and services, but they're buying into you because they like you and there's, ah deeper connection there is that makes sense. So what we're gonna talk to you about today is how toe build that connection through video. And Dean is a master at Vigil telling stories in the visual format. And so hey, is my He's my big ace in the hole. And so I'm excited. Teoh, get going here with you today. So we just wanted to start with a quote here to sort of reiterate what James was talking about yesterday. The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. Alfred Hitchcock. We just want to reiterate how important choosing your duration for your videos is You know what's do first came to me. Yeah, we wanna make big videos, big long videos. I got lots to say and I was anticipating these, like, feature like, you know, mega videos like 30 40 minute teaching videos and and that kind of brings us to our first slide and first point. The first lesson and I really learned from Dean and James talked about this yesterday. He got to keep it tight, and it's not about keeping it in terms of a short number of minutes. It's about being concise and what you say. Absolutely, You know, like an hour long drama on TV. You know, they spend millions a $1,000,000 to have great stories, beautiful actors, explosions all that just so they can keep your attention for the commercials, Right? Sorry, stew. But who are you to make the same? Showed a minute video and expect, you know, the viewer to stick around. You gotta boil it right down. And so you know the points that we're gonna make care of the e stands for the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurs tendency is to want toe tell every single little detail. So in my products, I was like, Well, it does this and it does this, and we should incorporate this and we should tell him about that. And do all this and Dean's perspective, the p the producer's perspective, pick the top details and emphasize those just really be clear on your messaging. And so it's This is important when we're creating those videos because entrepreneurs are tendency is to want to share everything about what it is that we do. But that is an opportunity to create multiple videos rather than trying to jam it all into one. And I think that was the one of the big, big lessons I've learned from deep. So an example with the very first video that we ever worked together on. As I mentioned, this was like a 30 to 40 minute idea of a video that I wanted to create. And when I shared this with Dean Dean's reaction, Waas Uh, no that because, you know, not only are you asking a lot of your viewer to stick around, attention span there watching on this on YouTube. There's so many distractions, maybe their phones. They're the house, all this stuff. But for 40 minutes of, you know, nice quality production video takes a lot of time. Like you guys just did a couple of minutes 90 seconds a minute. How much work was that? So you really have to find a balance there, you know? And I think one thing we learned was that, you know, Stew is always saying if someone's invested in it, then they'll stick around, and I think that's true. So if you're doing a promo and you're giving away free stuff, you know you don't want to do a lot of effort, you want to just get the message to them and have them watch the whole thing. But if maybe they've bought a product and you're teaching them something, then I think you can go a little longer. They'll stick around. They're invested in your course or whatever you have. This is a really important point. So before the sale, you really want to focus on keeping it tight after the sale after somebody's purchased a product from you, especially if you're delivering a course or information, then you have a little more leniency if you want to go into more detail, because that's what people are paying for. So that's that was a big, important distinction. The other big lesson from Dean was show Don't tell you know, I've heard James talk about the whole B roll concept, right? And we heard yesterday when we were watching from the airport, somebody had the question about what is B roll, and this was a learning lesson for me, and there's a video on YouTube Dean told me about If he searched B roll, you'll see it's a very humorous video about what is B roll. And but the whole concept is you've really gotta show doc tell because my tendency was Show me what you want and I'll tell everybody all the details about it. But Dean's, uh, view on that was a little different. A picture will save you 1000 words, and I've done spots where I don't even have one word of script. I just have the right piece of music that brings out some emotion. Ah, and then I have the right visuals cut in a sequence and I can tell the story in 45 seconds. 30 seconds. And so I was Really. I really leaned on Dean's experience for this because, you know, Dean comes from that broadcast world where he was producing commercials as well, and he was telling me they would set up literally for days like hours and hours and hours capturing, waiting for that perfect shot that would be shown like a second. And this really started to hammer home. To me, the importance of being careful about you know, planning everything and capturing the shots that we need to capture. So we were watching your video earlier with the eyelashes, right? Dean had a great ideas were sitting back there, and, you know, James mentioned that you wanted to show some close ups or B roll later, but you didn't have it. But if you don't have it, you know you could take the camera and do close up. Close ups are very important. And this line of sort of video marketing, because everyone's watching this stuff through a small little box. So if you go in for a close up, that is like, that's big impact. So, like for you with the eyelashes, like doing it close up and then like flicking the sound of that, maybe the side profile a little, and then you can just throw those in. And in that for you, is your product shot right? A lot of you didn't have a product to show. Now we missed the first few videos, but I saw you know your product is eyelashes, so any time you can show the product that's important. So the other one is planning your script, and so when I began, when I was doing my videos, I think I took a lot for granted in the sense that I would go flip on the camera step back and I would just start talking. And so when it came to a script, my reaction was script. What script? And Dean's reaction was a lot different. Well, you've gotta have a script to get the right shots and more than that to have the right messaging to make sure you've got everything covered and that you can answer any potential questions. Your, uh, I guess your customers gonna have by watching that video and sorry. And with filmmaking, you know, Murphy's law is going out of 110%. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, as you could probably experience with your editing and experience making these videos right So the script and the planning will save you. Time will save you money, and that's a big thing. As an entrepreneur, if you're ever working with anybody else and even when you're working with yourself, your time is your money. And so the more you invest up front and planning your script, the more you will save on the back in. And that is, that's proven to be true over and over again. Here's a quick example. Recently I was teaching an online course, and I had hired Dean and his team to help me produce that. And basically I went into a studio and I would record my training. You know, it was seven modules, and so I had planned out to be able to teach the material. I knew the material very easily, so it was easy for me to come in and teach. But Dean was saying, Listen, why don't you teach multiple modules in the same day? Because we're paying for the rental of the facility? We're paying a day rate for the crew, and it's going to save you money so immediately. You know, I was able to literally cut my costs almost in half just because you know of a little insight like that. And I would only tell that because he's a friend, right? I e. But it's really, really important to be up front with that. And I think the more prepared you are, the more creative you could be because it's, you know, you're under a lot of pressure. You show up and somebody's there holding the camera. You're like I was gonna win this, You know, I know as soon as you walk out like I should have done this, I should have that. We would have had that all planned out in pre production so you could go in and you have a lot more room for creativity. So let's talk about storytelling. What goes into telling an effective story visually? Well, that's what we want to cover in this little segment, and it really first starts with a problem or a conflict. And Dean, you want to speak to this a little bit? Yeah, I think that, you know, the typical story is you know, you've got, well, problem or a conflict, right? And so what you want to do with your product is take the viewer on a journey that will show how your product or service whatever is gonna be the solution for this. A story, you know, it needs an arc. It needs It needs change. Transformation. Right. So your product is gonna be the catalyst for this. Okay? And it's not always just your product. Sometimes it's you we can You know a lot of the videos you were making and talking about. Yes, they were very tactical. You're teaching people you're giving them tips, but someone stuff you're gonna want to do is kind kind of more on the branding side. You're gonna want to just be telling the story of you, your connection to your product. What? Your what? Your brand values, you know, people might buy into you. A lot of people buy into branding today, right? I buy this milk, It's organic. It's right from the farm. It's gotta be there telling me I saw the commercial. There was a cow in it, right? And I'm buying into it. So this is also, uh it's also for you guys to take advantage of us. Well, so a good example of this. Very recently we did a video together where it was describing the process that we went through in developing our new service, which is rhino support. And that service came as a result of a frustration that I had with my other software company. You know, we in that scenario we were getting frustrated with the fact that we were paying on a monthly basis on a for every new person that we added to our help desk, and that was getting really expensive. And so that was the problem. That was the conflict. What did we do to resolve that? Well, then that's when we talked about how the idea came for rhino support. And so this was a video where we were basically telling identifying the problem or conflict and telling that story in that video. So an easy way for you guys to do that is to tell your own story of how you came up with your product or why you're interested in why you're so connected to your product. You can do it in an interview form. You know you can have the cameraman shoot you, and you can talk offscreen, pretend that you're being interviewed and just have a person ask you questions that pull out sort of this story and you cut it all together and then you throw on beer. O B Roll B Roll B roll, sort of a documentary kind of feel is one of the ways that you can you can use Now. The other really important point is engaging or relatable characters. Now for most of us as entrepreneurs were gonna be in our own videos. And so my advice here is that when you get feedback from people like especially like we've been getting great feedback from everybody on the interwebs watching your videos, commenting on, you know, different things that they like about you, pay attention to those things. And my advice is emphasized those. So, for example, we have, ah, General that works with us, Ray. He's a great character and you'll see him a little bit later on, but he's very identifiable. He's got, you know, black rimmed glasses. He's got a beard, and so it's He's a character, and we emphasize that in a variety of videos that we do together. So Ray actually plays multiple characters in different costumes many times in the same video, and that's what kind of creates that humor. But people build a connection with him in a relationship with him because he's a really engaging character, because when I came in sort of the picture, these are some of the first videos I did, you know, I saw that their office and who he's working with his team. They're young, they're fun. They don't take themselves too serious. And I thought, Well, what if we did sort of a sitcom around working at your office and working with your product of working with your, you know, your customers and everything, and sort of build exaggerated characters around everybody in the office and then have these little stories. So instead of just getting, you know, tuning in for a video that said, Hey, this month, we've got a new plug in coming out, you're gonna want to get it Sign up. We would do like a little seven minute sitcom based around the theme of Maybe it was Christmas. Or maybe it was the company's anniversary. Whatever. And then we'd have this promo of this new plug in weaved in throat as well. So we were kind of entertaining and then also, uh, and it really it softens any type of sale dramatically, and that's really important. I believe in today's marketplace is that we definitely want to be mindful of selling and the fact that we have products that we're looking to get out to the marketplace. But at the same time, I think that we also want to put value in building that relationship with their audience because it becomes much more than just our products or services. It becomes them, you know, you know, connecting with us on a much deeper level. And that's kind of what I talked about in the beginning. So engaging or relatable characters is really important in the storyline of what you're doing. And I would encourage you to think about not just your own character but other characters that you could incorporate into videos on a regular basis. So, for example, my dad is in multiple videos for us because he's somebody easily accessible to us. Right doesn't cost us a lot of money, and he enjoys being in the videos. You know, we've used our kids multiple times. A so you guys will see later on today. So use what you have, and we'll talk about a little bit about that later to, but your customers to write because that's the relatable part is the viewer. You know, you're the you're the head of your company, you're the spokesperson, but your viewers sometimes want to hear from your customers and so giving them a chance. But we'll get into more of that. But that's a relatable character. But what I want you to do is entrepreneurs. I want you to be mindful of what characters you can develop that you can incorporate into your business. And the other thing about that is what characteristics can you emphasize that really will enable you to connect them or your audience to be able to identify them? Usually, Yeah. I mean, for example, for you. You know, we were talking a little bit about you know what you wear on there and everything, like, you know, let's not forget your entertainment. Still, you're on television. You're trying to get so much content out there, you've got to get attention. So you do need to refine. You can't just be. You know exactly how you are on the street you got Take it up a little bit of a notch or two, right? So you want to figure out what works for you and, uh, and build off of that? Cool. All right, so the next big thing about storytelling is having a satisfied, like a satisfying resolution or transformation. So this is really important. And I'll share with you how we incorporate this on our base. We like to incorporate our customer stories into the whole resolution and transformation piece because we want to show what their life was like before our using our product and what their life is like now using our product. And I will tell you this. There is no easier way to sell your products and services, then your customer sharing their experiences. You know, you just have to tune into late night television and you'll see all the infomercials. What is it? Testimonial, testimonial, testimonial. But I think there's a better way to tell that story, and you can get a little more in depth and a little more personable. And I think that is really, really effective. So we actually do case studies with our customers where we will fly to them if we're going toe to those locations and we will do interviews and we'll get B roll shots of them in their everyday life telling and ask them to tell their story. So I guess just to recap this, I guess, basically, any video you're doing, you want to think about you. What's the problem? What's the conflict here? And then what characters? I'm gonna bring in that are going to tell this story. Either the characters are going to change or their problem is going to be solved, right? They're gonna have a character arc. And then what is that resolution? And it's all got to be connected to your product or service as well. So can you kind of see how this is a little bit different than your regular tip type video? You know, this is more a little lot more storytelling elements that are incorporated. And as we get into being able to show you some examples, I want you toe, keep these three things in mind, and then we'll come back to you. And we want to ask you, like you know, where was who were the main characters and what was the problem or conflict and what was the transformation at the end and just keep that in mind as we as we go through, all right, So let's dive into the types of videos now. There are a lot of different types of videos that you can do, and in fact, James has already shared a bunch with you. What we wanted to do was kind of share an outline of different types of videos that we use on a regular basis in our business. So you can kind of see how we incorporate these into the real world. So the 1st 1 is the about US story, and I mentioned before with our new business Rhino, we just did a video very similar to this than we did. And this was basically me sharing the story behind Rhino and why it was developed. And we had that problem or conflict on. We had the resolution in terms of the service at the end. Did you want to say anything about this one? Well, we've got an example of this one. Um, you know, on your website, pretty much everybody hasn't about us paint because people want to know who are the people behind this product or service. Right? And so a lot of this is just ripped from that. It's like, OK, you've got your bio. You've got this. How can we tell this in a visual way and you throw in some music and you've got an emotional piece? Really? Now, what I will tell you is this when you are developing videos for your business, they're gonna be many different types and especially and we'll talk about this in a second. The purpose behind the video This is what I would call a cornerstone video, meaning this is one of those videos that you do, I believe, want to invest Ah, little bit in because it tells your story and this is something that's going to represent you over and over and over again. So from a production standpoint, my belief is that you want to invest a little more in this type of video because it is so important and integral to your business. In fact, you've got a great story about, um, the gourmet farmer in terms of how important this video was to him waken Bring it up. Okay, this is Stew said. We live in the middle of nowhere, There's farmers, so you get local clients or like farmers. And this is a young farmer and he wanted to, you know, these generations of farming. And he wanted to get into value added products, so making stuff from his crops that he could sell in brand and everything. So he came to me and he wanted a video sort of to sit on his website and Bt about us. So we work together and we said basically the same thing to him was like, Okay, let's build something here. Let's make something that you can use multiple times and like for a long time and have multiple uses. So we came up with this spot and he had results that went beyond just sitting on his website. He was actually able to secure a big distribution deal in the States because he spent some money on this. He's not kicking these out every week, but you know, once a year and you needed a nice spot like this and it just brought his brand up so we can show you that. Yeah. So let's let's show you the example of the gourmet farmer. I grew up in a family of farmers, four generations of fact. So I understand the hard work that goes into growing good, sustainable food. Everything looks great. He's Rome. It's just picked fresh. Today I remember falling my father around, seeing his passion for farming in his respect for the land I knew from an early age. That was something I wanted to share with everyone. After I took over the family farm. I decided that spread the word by launching my own line gourmet products today top chefs around the country using them in their kitchens. That made me realize I could be. The bridge between fork and feel is look full enough. Looks good, but her in the bed. So I'm following the path of some of the best local ingredients. I'm bringing those same chefs out of their kitchens and into the fields to meet the farmers who grow their food on the way. I look at the ingenuity and know how farmers used to grow these amazing ingredients, and we'll show you some fast, delicious ways. Enjoy them. My name's Jason first, all but you can call me Garment Farmer really warm and totally different. So you know what? The script is really basically just ripped from his bio that he would send out to, you know, in print, and I just wrote a script based on that and then did a voice over. And then we spent one day and we just went out. We just grabbed elements that he had his family. Is this dad's old car and you know, this beautiful produce and everything. And then we just film that and put it together and pick the right music. You know, that went with the spot. But I think one thing that's important to emphasize is the character elements that you magnified in this video. So the car, for example, you know, we were talking about this. That's not a car that he's gonna be driving every single day. You know what I was saying? But it's a part of the character that you know, Dean magnified for the purpose of this video, and it really creates that homey feel. So it's branding right. It's like, What is this product all about? And how do I connect to it? And I feel it's really a farm fresh product because I know this farm. Fresh produce is picking it from the field. So good example. Okay, so the next one is the sales video, and this is really the story of your product, and it generally includes an offer and this one. We use all this thing every single time we launch a product, and it is usually the primary piece that somebody sees when they come to our website. So if you were to go toe wishes member dot com You would see that video is right up to the top. If you go to rhino support dot com, same video right at the top, and it represents, um, it's basically communicating the value of what our product or service provides again. This, to me is another cornerstone video. This is a video that is going to be seen by every single person that comes to your website. It is really important that you think through the script on this properly, in terms of what your product us what it will do for people and what you want them to do next. Those are three bullet points that I would write down that you want to include in any type of sales video. What is your product do? What will it do for people and what do you want them to do next? And so there are some fun ways to incorporate this in your videos, and you're going to see an example of the one that we developed for rhino support. Now, the balance here is that I don't like to be a hard core sales person, you know, So I don't like to be, you know? Ah, late night pitch guy that's selling an infomercial. So you've got to find ways to effectively sell but soften it and tell the story as well. And so you're going to see those three important storytelling elements incorporated into this video. Is there anything you want to say before we show it? Okay, so let's show the next one. Since the dawn of time, Man has had to provide customer support fire. Over time, that service has evolved. I trust you will rectify this problem before my company's launch on June 3rd, with new technologies changing the way we interact with their customers and changing the way we do business. Hi, my name's Stew McClaren, co founder of the company that's gonna revolutionize your customer support. Introducing Rhino support the easiest, fastest, most cost effective help this solution available around the office. We've been calling it the game changer. OK, I see running support is intuitive and easy to use, but it's only a couple bucks cheaper than the other guys. How exactly is that game? Other help? Best service providers charge per agent per month. Milk in your business, dry like so many Police Academy movies, siphoning up the best of Steve Gutenberg's film career. But with rhino support, you pay one low fee for unlimited agents pulled on all the support agents I need, and I only pay one low price. Yes, sir. Meaning that is, your business grows your support. Gospel. Wow, that is a game changer. Did you hear that? Competitors. We just freaked with your business model. Everyone else, you're welcome. Now cue the rhinos. Can I help this turn support into something that you actually enjoy? Way. Think so. Sign up today to start your free 30 day trial way. Think you'll find the right I'll support helps you provide better, faster customer support. And don't worry, no rhinos were hurt during the making of this video. Fact. They had a pretty awesome time. So can you see the characters come out in that video? So there's Ray, who's part of our business with the glasses. And the fun thing about that was, you know, Dean wanted to incorporate the glasses through every stage of the support, you know, so even back to the Cave man days when obviously, you know, they're never gonna have glasses back then But it's a way to make that character identifiable, like our problem is. You know, support's been around. Probably since the beginning of time, people have been complaining about what you're selling them. And you know, what can we do to make your job easier? What can we do to help you with that? And that's where Rhino support comes in. And then the other thing that is important. You know, we incorporated our kids. Little girl is my daughter, Marlon. This and the little boy is Dean's son, Zach. To soften the the close, if you will. Right? So it doesn't feel like we're telling people to, you know? Go. Bye, now. Bye now. Bye. Now it softens that, but it does it with visuals, and it's a lot more engaging and entertaining. And, you know, a lot of these ideas were just, you know, just instinct. Just or just like, Hey, this is what you think about this, like your rhino. What if we had a couple of cute kids and Rhino Thank was like, Well, yeah, I guess now they always tell you don't work with kids. And I'll tell you, it wasn't that easy. That was multiple shoots Two days on the first day, his daughter was in a great mood. My son was in a bad mood on the second day it was switched. My daughter is in bad mood. So over the two days we got the shots. We needed a lot of work. But the first character in the cave, man, that was my dad. So you know, again, we're using what we have. And you can imagine Ray and my dad when they were driving to that scene in the cave. Man, you know, costumes. It was pretty pretty entertaining. But that video has gone a long way to helping us develop relationships with our customer base. That represents us a lot more effectively than if I would just give a video telling what the product does that make sense. And once you start establishing your brand, your messaging, your characters, it then becomes much easier to generate new creative ideas as well. Because you're building off of this. Number three is the demo. This is where you're showcasing your product in action. So this is typically done with James mentioned Screen flow or Camp Tasia, where you're actually showing what your product does if it's an online product, if it is a product like the eyelashes, this is where you actually showing the application of the eyelashes and things of that nature, and I think that's important to Would you agree? Especially especially with products where there's an element of unknown where people don't know. They just want to know. How does this work before I buy just to sort of feel comfortable with this with this purchase on this? Okay, so the next one is the promo, and this is where you're highlighting something new about your product. Now it's important to note, cause Dean and I talked about this yesterday. A promo can mean ah, whole wide variety of different things. A promo can be a special offer that you're doing. So you're highlighting the special offer. A promo could be about a new feature set that you're launching. Ah, promo could be really anything where you're trying to draw attention to something specific about your product or service or your business on event Anything. Really. So we do. Prom owes, for example, around every year we do a promo around our business birthday, so this is Ah ah an idea definitely to mark down is every year you want to celebrate your business birthday. So ours is October 23rd. And so every year we have a birthday center celebration or this year we had the whole video because we didn't know whether to call it a birthday or whether to call it an anniversary. So we had, like, this whole little video Siri's to kind of emphasize that, but we have a lot of fun around those we do ones around Christmas time. We'll do promo promo videos around a particular, uh, promotion that we're doing to push our product. So there's a wide variety of different uses for this type of video, and for these, you know the duration. You just want to keep it around 3 to 5 minutes. I think if you're building a story in there with characters, now that you go a little bit longer, I just want to talk a little bit of both durations. You know, you don't need a lot of time, right? Television radio has told us that you can sell anything in 30 seconds, really? So you have to really be tough on yourself, toe, really boil it down and because concise. But I like the seven minute thing, too. If you're gonna tell a story because I think about television and I think how television is broken up in acts, right, you watch 1/2 hour sitcom. It's three acts, right. There's three commercial breaks in there. First Act is probably about 6 to 7 minutes. Second act is a little bigger. It's about nine minutes, and the third acts always short. So I think, as viewers were trained to, like, get ready to take a bathroom break or something at the seven minute mark. So I like seven minutes for longer storytelling stuff for pro Mose and that I like 2 to 3 minutes or in about US video, 2 to 3 minutes. But then, if you really do want to do a hard and fast cell, I would keep it short down to 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds. Cool. So the next one is tips and tricks. So this is what you guys have been doing. I think oh are getting accustomed to is really helping your customers get the most out of your product or service, and we use the's a lot in our business because there are so many ways to use our particular products and services, and I'm sure that you'll find the exact same thing. So with the drug tests, this is a great idea, right? And what you could do is take all the different tips and create shorter, more detailed versions of each. So, you know, I think in the video that we just saw of yours, you had a whole variety of different tips. Maybe take one, and then just do, ah, exclusive video around that one tip on. Then you know, so you can really break him out and use and leverage what it is that you know, and as much as possible, incorporate your customers stories into this. So we have a great customer. Her name, Sally Sue. And, you know, she used the product this way and did this, this, this and this, and tell her story of how she used the product to provide the tip and trick to your customer base. I think the most effective way is to use sort of ah, cross section of all these videos in your portfolio Marketing? Absolutely. Yep. So the next one is the case study. Now we have been doing these extensively. In fact, we've invested quite a lot this year in just this particular type of video, because I believe it's really important to tell our customer stories. I believe that we're going to attract a lot more people into our business because people watching from the outside will relate to customers in different ways. And so I like to tell these different stories, and I like to tell the stories of our customers that are a different levels of their development. So some who are just starting, who are really scared about doing the eyelashes for the first time. And then there's women who have been doing eyelash extensions for years, you know, so telling the different types of stories. You know, somebody who is just learning calculus and, you know, has just watch one of your tutorials and got value from it. Somebody who's been mastering calculus for years but still gets value from the information. So really getting customers at different points in their development and telling those stories because you're outside prospects will relate to people at different points, and I think these you can kind of do Ah documentary style because you want them to be authentic. You want them. Teoh feel really? So that's a nice way of just interview your customer and then get as much B roll as you can to tell the story. Visually, Number seven is the teasers on. This is where you hint at the Who and what of a special offering. So an example of this We have been working with clients and friend Michael Best in New York Times best selling author Michael Hyatt, and we just launched a new membership site for him called Platform University. And so what we do is every single month, Deena's helping us put together a little short teasers that teased the upcoming content for that particular membership site. And so what happens is you create anticipation, and there is nothing more powerful when it comes to generating recurring sales than creating anticipation for what's coming up. And so we use teasers really, really effectively to do that, and it just goes back to, you know, the old days of the show. 24 any any fans of 2040 guys ever watch that show. My wife and I were addicted to that show but we couldn't watch it from a week to week basis because it was too grueling. Toe wait a whole week to see the next episode. So we would buy the DVDs and every inevitably, every time we'd be like, what will Just watch one episode tonight? Well, then, right at the end. You know, Jack Bauer has saved the day and everybody's happy. The red at the end, something catastrophic happens. And now you're like, What's gonna happen, you know? And then they tease like, what's coming up? We're like, Oh, we gotta watch the next episode. So we watch the next episode, and then the same thing happens. And before we know what we've watched four or five. And it's all because of the teaser. Teaser really carries that on and creates an anticipation and the teaser helping. If you're building like subscribers, like if you having regular tips and that you can say, you know, coming up next month, I'm gonna touch on this on this. Is there something you want to see? Me dio, blah, blah, blah. You can sort of talk with your viewers through that, and it builds anticipation even for a promo. We run teasers in front of a promotion. A promo. So, you know, a couple of weeks before something 15 20 seconds to go out and just teases and people, What's going on here? What's happening? Something interesting is happening. I've gotta watch for this promo, and then the problem comes out and they get the payoff there. So the key with this is being organized so that you know what's coming up, U s. So that's really the key. You just have to know what the next step is going to be in your types of in the videos that you're creating so that you can tease the next one. So that's really important. Okay, so just a quickly recap here, the different types of videos again. Number one. The about US video number to the sales video. Three. The demo video for the promo video. Five. The Tip Video six Case Study video and seven. The teaser video. Any questions that we have on that So far we do. We have a lot of questions coming in kind of an overarching question from Shrew me suggestions. His question is suggestions for a start up where you are just pitching the entire company in business model. There's a lot of info that you could include. How do you decide what to include when you can't include it all? So this is a great question, and my advice would be and I'm gonna give Dean a second to think on it. But my advice is that investors are going to be interested in particular types of information, who the team is, what the product does and who it serves in its potential. And so my advice is that you really want to be able to tell that story effectively in a short period of time and again using visuals to tell 1000 words. You know, you don't have to describe every single detail create that emotion. So the investors want to invest in not just the product itself in its potential, but also the people behind it. Yeah, so I mean, this is important thing. So this video would be for investors? I guess so. I mean, it comes down to the brief, right? You have got to sit down and whose my demographic here, who might Targeting what? What did they need to hear? Because it may be something different than what your customers need to hear and then going through and choosing the right videos. Probably you know a lot about us video. And if it's investors, you probably do something slick because they probably see a lot of stuff you want to do something that's gonna make it rise above sort of the rest of the stuff that they're saying. That's great. And we had actually at a specific question to the about us. How long should that film be? That can vary the one that you saw there with the gourmet farmer. I think 90 seconds is nice. I mean, the great thing about the Internet, you're not tied to these 32nd blocks. You can go, you know, seconds if you need to. Whatever it takes to tell that story, you don't want it toe low. And there I thinking about us video. Yeah, I like the 90 seconds. Two minutes for the key there, with the about US video, is that you can effectively tell your about US story without using a lot of words, because you're using the visuals to describe and create that sense in that warm feel that you want to create? All right. All right. Any questions? I know you had a question Case study videos and incorporate testimonials logistically with your customers. Do you incentivize them in some way? Or you like, Hey, we're coming out with a film crew. And they're excited enough to do that. Yes. So, typically, typically, for us, the way we approach it is, Well, um, we'll send out an email to our customer base and will say, Hey, we're gonna be in Nashville next week and we would love to tell some of our customer stories. If you would like to be considered for that, let us know. And and and then we review the testimony because not not all customers are gonna make great case. A So, for example, for us. Like if somebody is using our product for an illegal thing, I don't exactly really want to emphasize that, you know? I mean, so, um, you really want to kind of, uh, screen those primarily because we're also looking for to tell different stories as well. So somebody who's in the beginners, somebody who's intermediate, somebody who's advanced, I want to be able to tell different stories as well. And while they're in this, they're getting the promotion of showing their business because our website is up. We've got B roll of their site, then working behind the scenes. And so they take that and then they use a lot of times our customers will use that footage themselves, so that can also be an incentive. Thanks. Any other questions before we move on? All right, cool. So last section work with what you've got and this, really, you're going to see how this place in the the whole mix of things when it comes to producing videos. So Dean is a master at the very first thing, and that is props. Dean is always looking for props to be able to help tell the story, right? It's visual. So even if you're just doing attempt talking to camera, anything you can have to add to that. It's gonna be great, you know? So, like, James talked to yesterday, right about the one video with Derek Halpern's just even with the little glass where he was listening, you know, with Liz where she was pouring water on herself. Any types of props you can incorporate, so you look at the Rhino Video, there were a bunch of props and that there were the Cave Man costumes. There was the seventies late eighties early eighties era, so we had the wig and the glasses. And if you look closely, there's like a newspaper clipping. I don't know where the heck Dean got this from of like Wayne Gretzky, you know, like right back in his player. But, you know, so really trying to incorporate the props and as much as possible and another good prop in that rhino video. I was like I said to Dino, I should really have, like, a Rhino Support T shirt. And then what we ended up ended up doing as you saw. We just had a plain gray T shirt and I printed off the logo, and we have the hand come in and slap it on. And so there's ways that you can incorporate some fun, even though you you know, you don't have to spend a lot of money. Yeah, we can. Same thing with that. It was just There is just no time to print off a shirt with a logo on it. So we came up with a creative option. Yeah, and and another thing in my business, I'm not wearing it today, but I usually I'm always in T shirts. So this is another thing that we have begun to incorporate in all the T shirts because that's become part of my particular character with Ray. It's his glasses. So he'll change up the color of his glasses, depending on the video, again incorporating different elements in that regard. Casting. You want to talk to this, use who you have, right? You know you're gonna be in it. Or maybe you don't wanna be on camera. You want to use some other people that are in your office that might be good on we do this a lot. We use this a lot. We just use whoever weakened. And sometimes when people are just natural on camera, they can be very funny or engaging in their surprise you. And with that with casting, you'll also get to know the tendencies of certain people. So with us, Ray, with the glasses, he usedto have longer lines in the beginning. But he would freeze as soon as like he would master the line as soon as the camera had played he'd be like, uh, so now, Dean, when he's writing the script, it's very short. One word answers for right, you know, So you just kind of work with what you got, but we incorporate family all the time. Our parents, kids, whatever we have available to us again. Same with locations. Yeah, we We've done videos in our in our street. We've done videos in the local neighborhood, wherever we can. Anything that you could do to just jazz it up. Get out. I mean, the White Wall is great for some things, but then sometimes you want to get out and, uh, you see some different sort of backgrounds behind you. And if they're relevant to your topic of that video as well, right? Always. Each video should have a theme of what you're talking about in that video. What about backgrounds or locations that match that? Okay, now, equipment is really the equipment that you're using to capture all the stuff, and we're gonna show you a video in a minute, and you're going to be a little shocked in terms of the equipment that was used to produce this particular video. So I want to keep these things in mind. I'm going to show you one final video that we use and I'm going to share with you. Why we use that? They say there's a step by step blueprint out there for a successful membership site. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna find I won't get a step by step new print for a successful memberships for blueprints. They're not very blue. No, they're not. Hello. So, Mr McClaren, you found a step by step successful member. What do you intend to do? I'm gonna share it. So originally when we did that video, when he gave me the brief of what he wanted, it was he was going to do this membership course, and he kind of wanted an opening. And it's like what James talks about his his outline of, like, you know, the teaser at the opening of the cold open and then going into your bumper than going in your content. So this right here was just something to grab the viewers attention, get him hyped up for this. And we just kept saying, because he was I just thought it was funny that he said step by step, membership blueprint. So I just said, Well, let's just keep saying that the script, I think that's funny, right? It's such a long sentence. Every character is like saying it and we just sort of, you know, want to grab the viewers attention, get him excited, get him ramped up, and then we go into the teaching. But then it kind of got more uses out of it, right? Yeah, we'll talk about that really quickly here. I want to cover quickly the business owners perspective on unleashing our understanding. The big picture when it comes to video production. First is be really clear about the purpose of the video. So what do you trying to do with the video? Are you trying to build a relationship? Are you trying to sell a product? You're trying to deliver a tip or piece of information that people can use? What's the purpose behind the video? Because that will determine the type of video that you're going to create and certainly the characters that are going to be involved. The second is looking at video production as an investment vs and expense. So when you look at it as an investment, you want to pick your cornerstone videos that are going to serve you for years and years to come. So this video that we just showed I have used that for years now, and I've used it for multiple purposes, not just for that particular course that we launched, but I use it on a regular basis in for speaking engagements. That's my opening. When I go to speak on developing membership sites, that's what I use toe open. And that brings us to the third point, which is finding multiple uses for the exact same video. If you confined multiple uses, your quote expense gets advertised over ah lot mawr things and therefore becomes a NASA set to your business. And then the last thing is really having a long term perspective when it comes to your video development, building those characters looking to use the characters to connect with your audience, build that relationship that's ultimately what we're trying to do. So quick review. Here. Be clear about the purpose of your videos. Look at it as an investment versus an expense, find multiple uses for it and have a long term perspective with your video productions and cut. That's a wrap. Thanks, guys. Thank you