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Mr. Biz Radio: Vlogging for the Win!

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

Welcome to Mr. Biz Radio Biz Talk for biz owners during the next half hour, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth, a leading business advisor, and two time bestselling author we'll cover topics that will help business owners run their companies more profitably and more efficiently. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

All right. Welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz radio with me, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth. And I gotta tell you, I got caught off guard a little bit, even though producer on and let me know, we got a new intro there and it's the first time I'd heard it. And I like it. So a good job producer Allen. So this week we've got a topic we're gonna cover kind of an interesting scenario here. So as you guys know, video is King right now, right? You, you just can't get away from it is so important and helps so much in, in marketing. And I know I've been using it. Anyone who follows me knows I do a ton of videos. I do a ton of live streams. In addition to the show here, and it's been, I'll tell you, it was a game changer for me in my business personally about three years ago when I really started diving into the video side of things. And so for that reason, I wanted to have our guests this week, who actually is a, is US-based. But right now I can say I'm a little bit jealous. She's actually coming to us live from the Swiss Alps. So welcome to the show, Nina fro reap who is the founder of clockwise productions. Nina, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me very excited to be here.

Yes. And so we were talking right before we got on started the show here and like I said, Nina is coming to us from the Swiss Alps. So nice and cold there. She was sharing some of the temperatures made me feel a lot warmer based on where I'm at here in Columbus, Ohio, but so Nina, tell us let's start, I guess, a little bit with telling us about your, your sort of entrepreneurial journey.

So it actually started since I, you know, I am Swiss by by birth I needed a visa to stay in the States and the options were get married or start a business. So I thought about it for a hot second and I was like, okay, I'm starting a business. And that was in 1996. I was three years old. And so I've had my company clockwise productions since then. And so what started actually as a necessity to not lose my spot in the New York city amazing film and video industry. I mean, back then mostly film of course is, has now become, you know is now a passion project. So, you know, you're not a business owner for 25 years or 24 years without a lot of changes and pivots and ups and downs. And I certainly have more than what we have time to share here for stories. But yeah, I mean, I've been, I've been around the block many, many times and I was lucky enough to about a year ago, finished getting myself being completely digital. And boy was I lucky when March hit and COVID head and I was, I was basically ready for it.

Well, that's, that's outstanding. I know a lot of people were not that fortunate. I know I, and people have heard me tell the stories as well about with my clients trying to in advance of what happened here. Again, not knowing that a pandemic was coming, but we were sort of preparing all of our clients for an inevitable, you know, economic downturn, you know, just part of the business cycle. And so I think having the foresight to be able to get out in front of that and think I'm sure has been been very fruitful for your business compared to all the others have had. Yep.

Yeah, no, I mean, it wasn't foresight. It was, it was more that I, I wanted a certain lifestyle and I wanted to be able to be flexible and do what I'm doing with you right now, be in Switzerland work from here and it not really making any difference to my clients where I really was in the world. So I got lucky and, and, you know, video has just pivoted so much to, I mean, only 10 years ago, this would have been absolutely unthinkable as a production company, a video production company to not be physically in one place and service your clients in a brick and mortar fashion.

Yeah, definitely. I think it's made a tremendous change in it and obviously even the events of the last, whatever 10, 12 months have really expedited that. So you know, it's just amazing. It's honestly Nina it's, it's funny to me to think back now, now that we see how we can do these things virtually almost anything virtually, it's kind of almost disappointing to me in some ways that even as you mentioned, even just a couple of years ago, we didn't really, most people didn't think of things like this that were even possible or do things virtually like this.

Yeah. I mean, I remember when I started pivoting, so it, wasn't probably in 2000, I want to say 15 when I realized that I needed video for my own business. And it kind of was odd because here I am, I've been a producer all my life. I've worked from features to commercials, to lots and lots of documentary and corporate video all my life. And I didn't know how to create a video for myself. I mean, I, I knew how to do it if I had had a, you know, a hundred thousand dollars budget and a 10 person crew but me alone with my, you know, my little cam that I had at the time, it was a pretty, sorry, pretty sorry story. I must admit. And, but even back then, I was like, okay, there must be a better way to do this. And there must be a faster way to do this. And so I did start, you know, back then already really think about what can I do as a small business owner to stand out, to get ahead of my competition and to showcase who I am and how I work without having to pound the pavement and go to a million zillion networking events and, and shake, you know, sweaty hands you know, and here we are, right. Yeah. Living on zoom basically. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, as you guys can probably tell Nina is a visual storyteller and a much, a very much forward thinker. And so what we're going to do as you guys know, and the third segment, we always have our guests share their expertise with us. So we're going to talk about, she's going to give us some blogging tips. And hopefully you guys have heard of blogging video it's video blogging, basically. But she's going to tell us a little bit more, we're going to dive into why video is so important and why it's really unavoidable right now. Video marketing is so, so important right now, but I guess Nina with all your background and all these different projects you've worked on, you know, what, what would you say is your favorite project you've done?

Oh my God, there's so many you know, w w one of the projects I really enjoyed that sort of just top of mind right now was Emma's about 10 years ago. The big corporations started to use smaller companies sort of as their show horse, and they create a branded entertainment. So they were like, like mini documentaries or mini storytelling projects that were telling the story of their clients. They were servicing documentary style. So for me, it was sort of a collusion where my, my favorite two worlds came together, the documentary and the documentary style of storytelling, plus these massive budgets. So I did for the bank of America, we traveled all around the country and shot these vignettes of the customers that were small businesses of the bank of America. And it was just so fascinating because we got behind the scenes of the stencil company or a bakery or a, a bike mechanic. And we got to know all these people, but we could do it all with a really nice budget. So and I was on the road with a really fabulous production company and a really fabulous crew. So that was just from it was, we make good money. We were very creative and we had fun on the road. So that was sort of,

Yeah, it sounds like it, that sounds like a really cool project. I know we did some things like that when I worked at JP Morgan as well. Oh, not we, but we did it as a company. All right. Well, we're up against a break here. We're going to come back. We're going to give the Mr. Biz tip of the week and continue talking to the of clockwise productions. You can find more at, clockwiseproductions.com

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Thank you for listening to Mr. Biz Radio. Did you know our show airs seven days a week for more than 30 hours. Now, if you are in the B2B space and would like to reach thousands of business owners every week, including our more than 250,000 social media followers are thousands of daily internet radio listeners, our email list fans and Mr. Biz Solutions members email us at info at mrbizsolutions.com to become a sponsor, tap into Mr. Biz nation to help grow your business. Check out both the Mr. Biz's national best-selling books, pathway to profits, and how to be a cashflow pro on Amazon. Now, once again, here's Mr. Bids. All right. Welcome back to the show.

Oh, it is time for the Mr. Biz tip of the week. And this week's tip is one of my top 10, for sure. Maybe top five quotes. I absolutely love this. I honestly preach this to our kids growing up and and actually a funny anecdote to the side. I'll tell you after I gave you the tip here, but the tip this week, this week is a quote from Mr. Steve jobs. If you don't ask the answer is always no. And you know, when I worked at JP Morgan, Jamie diamond, who's a chairman CEO used to talk all the time about him, how he wanted to have people that worked for him that asks for forgiveness, not permission. I E go ahead and take the action, you know, but you gotta, you gotta take that action. Don't be afraid to do that.

And again, as I mentioned, I've been told the biz girls this all the time, you know, you don't be afraid to ask the question. What's the worst someone can do is, you know, ignore you or say no. I mean, that's, you're out, you're out, nothing. Well, the oldest biz girl decided that she was going to ask for permission for something that was absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, and my wife's opinion for a teenage girl. And I said, are you crazy? What, what are you, what the heck are you thinking? She said, dad, if you don't ask the answer's always no, so it can, it can come back to bite you sometimes. But glad I, it gave me proof that she was actually listening to me at some point. So that was good. So that's Mr. Biz, the weekend, let's get back into talking with Nina again, you can find out more about what she does at clockwiseproductions.com and definitely go out and follow her on LinkedIn. She shares a lot of good information out there and has a very strong following. So Nina, tell us a little bit more, I mean, I sort of alluded to this in the first segment, but you know, why is video marketing? I mean, why is it so it's basically unavoidable now.

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's, you know, it's funny when you were saying, why is it so important to me, me Italy, my thought was the discussion is no longer why video is important, because we all know it is important. And that discussion has kind of, you know, the ship has left the Harbor really now is like, how the hell am I gonna, you know, wrap my brain around it and make it work for me. But you know, to, to, to, to answer after all your question is what video does, what no other medium does is it, it, it wraps you in emotionally number one, and I'm not talking about woo emotional, I'm talking about you know, subconsciously and just sort of pulls you in. It gives you a message beyond just what is coming out of your mouth or what the graphics are or what the closed captioning is saying.

It's, it's so much subtexts there that it's a great way for you to sell yourself. And, and I always use the word selling in as in a, in a sense of servicing you know, to sell yourself without having to sell yourself. I mean, video works for you while you're sleeping, cooking, hanging out with your kids or, or, you know, growing your business. So video is a great sort of clone of you. Ideally if you're using video, especially if you're a service provider and you are the service, you are the product, so to speak, and you are on video, let's say talking about, you know, best tips, best practices, whatever it is that you're talking about. People get a sense of you. So people who don't like your nose or don't like your forehead, they're not even going to get on a call with you, they're disqualifying themselves from the get-go.

And I find that to be a very nice sort of side effect of video, that it is a self qualifying tool to a very big degree. And then, you know, lastly if your videos, you know, not all videos are talking videos, that's kind of what my specialty is, but, you know, a video can also explain something that it would be way too cumbersome to explain them words or you know, or to w with graphics. So it's just a very you know, video and, and we have a young generation coming up that, and not so young generation that is just really used to consuming content via video and not in necessarily in, in, in, in written word.

Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. I agree. And it's funny. And especially, I know you mentioned service-based providers and we have a lot of listeners that are in that realm in the, in those industries. And, you know, I've had clients to where, I mean, I have been encouraging again, since I saw the powerful effect that it had on my businesses of encouraging them. And, you know, so I had a, for example, I had a client who has a plumbing business and he said, you know, what, what can I do videos on? You know, people don't want to listen to things. And I said, well, you know, what are the top five start with this? What are the top five questions that people call in that you can help them with over the phone and create those videos? And it could be three, four or five minutes. They don't have to be an hour long video, whatever it takes, and then, you know, start a YouTube channel.

So when people Google that they'll find you, and now all of a sudden you become the source. And as you mentioned, not the thing I found very profound is, you know, I use a silly example all the time. You know, if there's someone in Idaho that maybe I could help, but they don't know who the heck I am, I could never help them. But if they see a video of me, all of a sudden, and, and really the aha moment for me was some of the entrepreneur gurus and everything that I follow. People like grant Cardone and people like that, that produce a ton of video content. Like, I feel like I knew him. I've never met the guy, but I've seen him on video. I know his personality. I know some of his mannerisms, I know typical things he said, so you, it really gives you that sense of really like, you kind of know,

Okay. Yeah.

That can, well, I can trust you to do business with you typically or for you better help them. And so I think video is by far the most powerful way to do that. So let's so let's talk a little bit more at what are some of the biggest mistakes you see people make with videos?

I think the single biggest mistake is that they're not consistent. And when I say consistent, I'm talking about, about several several things actually. So, you know, two videos do not make a video strategy. We've you want to really engage and get people to notice you you have to put out video on a consistent schedule, be it once a week, we had twice a week be a daily. You know, social media is very fleeting. People see things, they don't see things. So you really want to make sure that you are out there in front and center of mind all the time, basically. It depends a little bit on your sale selling cycle. If you have a very long selling cycle meaning that you, it takes a couple of months to sell somebody on something, then you might get away with once a week or twice a week, a video.

If you have a very short selling cycle, you need more content. And then when I say consistency, it's not just consistency in producing your videos. It's consistency in your posting habits. So try, you know, same day, same time. So there is a consistency. So when people go online, even if it's not exactly at that time where you're posting, but they always are seeing something new when they are looking for you, because most human beings are creatures of habit. So they're looking at their social media at the same, same time every day, or same time every other day, whatever it is. And then, you know, also be consistent with your production habits. So have a day a week or a day, a month where you shoot your stuff, I would always say batch produce. It makes it very much more time efficient, much cheaper if you're hiring, for instance, in editor, when you can give them five videos, rather than just one.

And so I think the single biggest thing that I harp on all the time is consistency. And in order to have consistency, be a reality, I think you need to also be creating your videos within the community. So have somebody who or a group that holds you accountable that supports you where you can share ideas, be it content ideas, or be a technical ideas, or just somebody to vent with. So I think those are sort of the two big things where it's like, don't try to do it alone. It, it really is something that also changes constantly. There's always new apps, new ways of doing things, new things that are in, in quotation marks on social media. So you want to make sure that you have a support group, so consistency and community. Those are sort of my two main, main pointers that I would.

Yeah, no, I think those are great. I think those are great. All right, we're gonna hit a break or come back and talk with Dean and get her tips. Are you looking for ways to streamline your business? If so, can help. Poles is the CRM and marketing automation platform with many features such as email and text message marketing, project boards, quoting, and invoicing, and so much more. If you're a franchise, we also have a franchise specific version with robust franchise management capabilities request your demo today at thepullspot.com. Again, that's thepullspot.com. If you find listening to Mr. Biz radio is helpful. Imagine having live access to not only Mr Biz, but also five other trusted business experts. It's true. You can have live access to your very own CFO plus a business attorney at website and digital marketing expert, a sales and growth guru, a financing professional, and a customer experience master visit mrbizsolutions.com to learn more. Join Mr. Biz nation at mrbizsolutions.com to submit questions to the show, email them to info at mrbizsolutions.com. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz. All right. Welcome back to the show. And again, this week we're talking with Nina

Who is the founder of clockwise productions. You can find out more at clockwiseproductions.com. And as I mentioned earlier, definitely go out onto LinkedIn and follow her there to get a lot of insightful content that she creates and provides for all of us on that platform. So fascinating stuff. So give us I guess Nina in the, I know we've only got about nine minutes here, so I'm sure you could go on for days of how this give us you know, give us those out there who either, you know, maybe already are doing some video or they're just saying, know what I get it now, I'm going to start doing video. What are some tips you would give it, give that?

So I think first of all, just do so you know, don't, don't go nuts on, I need to order this equipment. I need to spend all this money. We all have smart phones in our back pocket or, you know, the laptops that we are or desktops that we are on zoom with for, you know, hours and hours every day, those are all recording devices. So I would say, just get started, shoot some videos, see how, how you feel being on camera. And again my clients are mostly service providers, so I do do mostly, or basically exclusively talking head videos. And you know, but if you have a bakery or you, you are that plumber, I mean, shoot one of your, or film one of your you know, workers or colleagues fixing something, you know, I mean, it can be as simple as that.

I mean, the quality of the video that we get with our smartphones nowadays is fantastic. No need to get a fancy microphone microphones like I'm right now, I'm not on a microphone. I'm just on my laptop microphone. And it's a newer model, a 19 models, a 2019 model that microphones are going to buy for four 30, 50, 60 bucks on Amazon are not going to be, they're going to be worse than the one that you have built in into your device. When you do create video for your social media, make sure you keep it really short and succinct. A big mistake I see people do is like, make it a three or four or five minute video, and they're packing everything in thoughts plus the kitchen sink. And it really is one video, one point. So I always tell people if you have a lead magnet, for instance, you know, your top 10 tips for XYZ, each tip is a fabulous videos.

So right there, you have 10 videos that is one a week. You can attach your lead magnet to it and boom it's, that's a great way to create your like sort of the first content until you get some ease with being on camera. And then I think, you know, the biggest sort of my pet peeve that I have is like the way people set themselves up. So pay attention to your background. I've had, I've been on zoom calls with people where their husbands slept in the bed behind them. I thought that was not the greatest background to choose. Make sure that if you have a window that is in front of you and lights up your face, it's not behind you and makes you look like a mass murder was about to kill somebody because y'all all you see is the outline of a head then make sure that your eyeline is on par with the lens.

So you know, whether it's your sh, whether you're on a zoom or shooting with your camera or your phone, or with your laptop, make sure that you and whatever, the little green light that lights up, that, that your eyes in that are on the same height nothing more annoying than looking up someone's nostrils or looking down on somebody which will make you not look very advantageous or the people who are sit on zoom and have the bottom of their nose at the bottom of the frame. That's not a good way to present yourself in video or on zoom for that matter. And then so good lighting that be clear where your eyeline is, and then especially for video look at that, look at that camera come hell and high water. It's a very intimate relationship. You're creating you a very close to the camera because we're sitting right in front of it.

And the person watching you has you probably in the Palm of their hand, because 80% of all video is being watched on mobile 80%. So that means that person is looking at you really closely. So you want to make sure that if you're like have a cheat sheet right next to the little green light on your laptop or your phone, or if you are, you know, looking away for some notes, people will immediately see that. And they might not know why, because they're not a trained, you know, Looker like somebody like me is for instance, but they will potentially think that you're shifty because your eyes are darting all over the place. So my advice is always look at that lens, come hell and high water. And, and make sure that you give a little smile or a little smile on the pause in the beginning and at the end.

So you can edit the piece, like trim it, make sure that it's like a clean, nice piece. Yeah, and I mean, that's sort of the really top of the line. Oh, and then another piece of advice never, ever, ever, ever, ever host your videos on your website from YouTube, you watch a video and then the video is done. And the next thing I see as a dog fan is two immensely hated dogs that were saved from a kennel. That's not what you want to happen on your website. So YouTube is great for many things, but it's not great for hosting video to a controlled environment like your website. So use a free account on Vimeo, for instance, on Vimeo, you can remove all the bells and whistles so people can just focus on you and your video. And after it is done playing, it just sits there. And there's no, you know, cat dog or worse videos showing off to that.

Yeah, I think that's huge. I learned a couple. So first of all, fantastic tips, because these are things that people can do. Don't cost you a dime, everything, everything you mentioned is free. And some of those things that you mentioned are key. And I learned them through the school of hard knocks. When I started doing video, the simple act of looking directly into the lens, I'll tell you, I cannot emphasize that enough either. If I back at videos that I did, when I first started doing videos and where again, I was not looking directly in that lens and you're right. It be somehow becomes a little bit, almost feels a little inauthentic or maybe even a little disingenuous. And it wasn't intended to be that way, but that's how it looks. Even me watching myself. I see that and think, Oh my gosh, that that's terrible.

So definitely a really, really good tip there. And I, you know, I know you're a big fan of this. I know as I was doing some research before the show of creating a content calendar, I mean, that's it. I would encourage you to do that. That's when I really figured out that video was the way to go. I literally sat down and with an Excel spreadsheet and typed out a hundred topics. And I said, I'm going to do a hundred videos in the next five months. And I calendar, I, I calendar them out. I got to do 20 a month and here's what I'm going to do them. And I just stuck to it. And I knew every day, what topic I was going to cover. Cause I already had my a hundred topics. It wasn't like, Oh, it's Wednesday now, what am I going to cover today? So it made it a lot more efficient for me. I knew exactly what I had to cover each day. And I think that's a, a way to make sure that you are, don't make the biggest mistake that Nina talked about was not being consistent. That's an easy way to stay consistent.

Yeah. And I would even take it a step further and say, make, you know, depending on how proficient you are in the beginning, it's maybe once a week and you shoot the, the five videos or the three videos of however many you need for that week, because I cannot tell you how many often, you know, whatever some of these throws up or somebody is sick or some client has an emergency. And then the video doesn't happen if you're batch producing and you're putting it into your calendar and you're putting it into your calendar a week or even two weeks in advance, then there is no excuse not to.

Yeah. Great stuff. Great stuff. Again, Nina fro re founder of clockwise productions, find out more at clockwiseproductions.com. Nina. I really appreciate you coming on the show, especially from the Swiss Alps shared some great information. Thanks very much for coming on. The show

Of course, was my pleasure.

And definitely, as I mentioned, guys, go out and follow her on LinkedIn. I should actually mentioned her last name is spelled F R O R I E P E for a reap. So go out and follow her out there again, check out our website, clockwiseproductions.com. And don't forget to follow us as well. On social media, you can find Mr. Biz out on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube got their YouTube channel. We've got speaking of video go out and follow our YouTube channel. We've got, I don't know, hundreds of videos out there now on topics that are pertinent to small business owners, et cetera. So anyway, thanks for listening guys. Have a great week and don't forget as always cash flow is King.

This has been Mr. Biz radio to learn how to become part of Mr. Biz nation. Visit mrbizsolutions.com for access free weekly content, subscribe to the Mr. Biz YouTube channel and follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, to listen to archive shows. You can find them on the Mr. Biz solutions website.