61 - Brad Powell and How To Make Awesome Videos For Your Business

Our guest today is a business coach and videographer, the founder of awesome video makers and host of the standout CEO show and the livestream show. He teaches business leaders how to reveal their remarkable stories and connect with the right crowd on video. He inspires entrepreneurs to find everyday moments that make great marketing.

He is dedicated to helping small businesses get over the limiting belief. That video marketing is too daunting and too time consuming for them as a former outward bound program director and national geographic contractor, he can show you how to tap into your sense of adventure and be bold and daring.

Like when you need to be, when you're facing your camera. Without further ado. Let me introduce the one and only Brad Powell. . 

Wow, thanks so much. That was a great intro.  like happy to be here. 

Yeah, I'm happy. You're here too. Hopefully we can learn a lot today. Now Brad, can you take a few moments and fill in the gaps from that intro and bring us up to speed with what's going on in your world today?

Okay. Well, Let's see, you mentioned in the intro that I used to work with national geographic and that time was really the time that I was introduced to, and really getting into video for the very first time. And it happened almost by accident in the sense that my previous enterprise to what I'm doing now was a music business.

And what I was doing was I was meeting with and licensing music from international world music artists from all over the place. And typically what I was doing is that I would partner with a media company here in north America who were doing some kind of program, either on radio or a television. And they were looking for this kind of material.

And I was licensing that material from directly from the artists and then relicensing. To these media programs. So for distribution, and it was really connecting the dots between artists who were really talented and actually usually very well known from the country where they lived, but completely unknown here in north America.

And the thing was, is that you'd hear like on a news segment on NPR, or maybe on the radio show, Afro prop worldwide, you'd hear this music and you'd go, wow, that's really cool music. Where can I find it?  and my business was solving that problem. I built a platform. This was pre iTunes where you could literally go on and find this music and download it and buy the download for a dollar.

And then I white labeled that and put it behind these different, you know, NPR, PR I and television websites, so that when you heard something on their channel, you could go to their website and actually find the music. And this was something that was way ahead of its time. And what I discovered really early was that none of these artists had any video and the media companies wanted that.

Like they, there was a demand for music video of this type. And there just wasn't enough supply to meet the demand. And so I found myself investing in a camera  and showing up at, you know, showcases that would be in some part of Europe. Where artists from literally all around the world would converge. And they would be there over a three to four day period, doing all these different showcase concerts to show off their talent and I'd be there and get a backstage pass.

And I could go back and interview the artists and then I would actually shoot a live performance recording, and then I would take that same material and then Relic it to. The media companies that I was partnered with and right in the middle of that, after doing that for about five years, and this is around just a date, this, this is like 2005 that this happened.

National geographic woke up one day and said, Hey, we are interested in doing music. And they, whoever was in charge, went around and was calling all the different media companies that I was already parted with saying, how can we do this? What would be the easy way to start getting catalog together for the thing that we're looking for?

And they all said, well, there's this one guy, his name is Brad. And he has this amazing catalog that no one else has. And so right out of the blue, they, they called me up and said, we hear you've got something that we want. Next thing. I know I'm being flown down to Washington DC. They're saying we want to, we want this, we wanna buy you out.

We wanna bring you in and put you in charge of this project that we're doing. And literally overnight, I became this music guy from national geographic and then like, Amazing doors open. Like I could go to Sao Paulo, Brazil and get into recording studios and meet all the artists who happened to be recording at that period of time.

And then other, you know, music like bands would put on a show simply cuz I was in town. And it was a very easy thing to say yes to, you know, I could say, well, how would you like me to, you know, make a, do a project with you? And I'll put it in front of 2 million people. . And so anyway, all of that, you know, that lasted until about, I think the year 2011 and then N Nachi pulled the plug on their music project.

They're not doing that project anymore. And I realized that I had been successfully connecting the dots between entrepreneurs who were musicians and, and their audience that would want to be loyal fans if they could only meet them and get to know them. And that this was being done over the internet and it was being done with video.

And then I could do this for any business person, any entrepreneur, any person who had. A really cool thing going, and they wanted to grow their audience and, and actually really engage with them. And so gradually, like I was producing video for a while, but now my work is really all about showing people how they can do this for themselves and helping them, like really supporting them in literally becoming the face of their brand and becoming, you know, the most trusted authority and the obvious choice for the thing that they do.

Okay. Now I hadn't planned to ask this and I, I definitely wanna focus more on, on the video aspect, but this, the whole, the, that the whole story begs the question. How did you know how to do that? You were way ahead of your time in 2005. Cause it would be, it might be fairly easy to do today, but this, we have more systems in place or how did you know how.

Get everything set up and then the concept of white labeling , 

you know, well, honestly I had a couple of really good developers who I worked with. I mean, I started this project in the year 2000. This is so early in the in sort of internet timeframe. And it was, if you remember, like this was right@themomentofthe.com first.com bubble bursting mm-hmm

And so the idea of starting. An internet project at that time was kind of crazy, but this is what I wanted to do. The other thing was that the music industry was tanking like the, the traditional industry of selling CDs and all that kind of stuff was going down the tubes and people when they thought about music downloads, most people thought piracy because of Napster  if anybody remembers Napster.

And so it really took. From 2000 to 2003 to develop the platform and to convince enough people in the music industry. And I'm talking, you know, like I made deals and contracts with literally thousands of artists and labels and managers to get license for their material. But it was a matter of traveling around and literally building trust over time in person, you know, doing this all one on one.

And so, yeah, it was. At no point, was there ever a guarantee? I mean, this is pure, leaping off the cliff, risky entrepreneurialism. And when, you know, as I said, when I discovered that one of the big gaps in artists promotions or the artist's ability to promote and also be seen by their audience was this complete lack of video material.

I, you know, I had, I'd been doing some video on the side, but very much, you know, just kind of filling in around the sides, around little things, little projects that I wanna do on my own. And so I just started doing that. Like I literally. Got a camera, picked it up and started making these short music videos.

And because I had access, I was able to get things that other people couldn't, they, they literally couldn't and it was partly of literally being willing to go to locations and. You know, it was very adventurism. I mean, it was late at night, sometimes all night long, sometimes in very sketchy parts of a city  and, and, and using local people to figure out like, where can I go?

And where can I get into? And, you know, what's the real scene here and, and having that kind of access to be able to capture these really cool. Scenes and, and music events that were going on and you often were one of a kind kind of thing. And I wish I really wish that that period coincided with a lot of what's going on now, because if I'd been able to live stream that kind of stuff.

Oh my gosh. You know, it would've been amazing. It would've been just like an explosion of. Of these artists being able to put themselves in front of, you know, fans in the moment and actually have these experience just like you were attending a live concert. 

Do you still have a lot of the archival footage that you haven't released from that period?

Or is it 

all of the material that I made was, you know, was it owned by national geographic? You know, they literally bought me out. It was like, the first thing they wanted to do is like, we wanna, we want to buy this. We want to own it. And so it's all in their hands. I don't know. What they're doing with it.

I don't think they're doing anything with it, which is kind of a shame. I mean, there are pieces here and there that are on the internet scattered around. And you have to also look back at, this was early HD. You know, I was , I was shooting on little mini DV tapes and that quality was just nothing like what you can do today.

So, You know, the, the footage has marginal value. In today's world. So there's that  yeah, 

I was gonna suggest you might, could, you know, approach them about licensing it, but, you know, I understand what you're, what you're talking about with the footage quality compared to today. So now, did, did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all?

Did anybody in your family have their own business or were you kind of the black 

sheep? Not at all. I was, I guess, yeah, completely the black sheep. I mean, my parents were both academics. They both. Taught at universities, both had PhDs. And so, yeah, business was not in their blood. In fact, they were the quintessential opposite of that.

They thought I was kind of crazy for wanting to do my own thing and you know, and actually my first business was creating an outdoor school and nonprofit, you know, environmental education program that after running it for about five years, Got put into the hands of outward bound. And then I became the director of this outward bound program that I literally made for the Pacific crest outward bound school in the Northwest.

And that was, you know, my parents were telling me, you can't, nobody, nobody can make a living doing outward bound. You know, that's just for people who wanna go out for a part of the summer and goof around and then, and then go get a real job. . And I proved them wrong. Like I made it happen and I had this viable business.

And then, you know, literally, I mean was sold to the Pacific, the hour bound school. And, and then they installed me as this full-time director of this program that I had created for them. And so in, in a nonprofit way, in a very modest way, that was this very successful business and similar with the music industry was, you know, I built it up and then I sold it and put in the hands of natural geographic.

Okay. Now, do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? And  go ahead. I'll let you answer. And I've got a follow up question. 

I'm kind of both I, I guess I'm an introvert except that I can turn it on. And so when I need to, I can perform and it's literally a performance and I will be like, I've had lots of, you know, teaching background.

And so I can be very outgoing as an educator and as a group facilitator, which is usually cutting my teeth, doing that when I was working for hour bound. And, and yet when the time came to a close, I absolutely need to recharge, you know, afterwards. And the same when I was doing music. And I was like going out and doing these very intensive periods of time where I'd be on the job.

And then when I was done, I just, I literally had to go off and be by myself for a while just to kind of regroup and chill and charge my batteries.  okay. 

I was 

gonna say, let me say, just say one more thing is that it was very hard for me to go through the transition of going from behind the camera to getting out in front of the camera.

And I, you know, when I first started doing my own content marketing and doing videos on my own and putting things up on YouTube and the other social media sites, it was challenging at the beginning for me to literally start showing up in that way. And I've really had to train and retrain myself. It's really helped me a lot in terms of understanding on a really empathic level, what people are going through when they are choosing to get on camera and they're choosing to speak, you know, whatever is that their message wants to be and how difficult that can be, how challenging that can be.

okay. Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna point out that I I've seen you do keynote presentations and imagine that public speaking and video come easy to you.  And that may, or that may not be, you know, may not be the case. How did you kind of get over, get over that, like, like you alluded to and does somebody have to be an extrovert to be, you know, successful with video?

No, I don't, I don't believe you need to, you don't have to be an extrovert. You can entirely be yourself in, in whatever that ends up looking like. In fact, I believe that the more you are yourself and if you happen to be a little bit shy in retiring, that can be a very endearing quality, even on camera.

And you know, the more that you are leaning into being yourself, rather than trying to be some bigger than life persona. That, that it's, it's key to succeeding at being an on camera, you know, personality of any kind. You really just want to behave the way you behave. And while it's true, you do wanna bring some more energy to the experience because if you're completely flat and if you're completely monotone, that's no good.

But if you are flat and monotone, that's probably not really, you, you know, all of us. We do do things like we, we are in, you know, when we're, when we're saying something that we really believe in and saying something that we, you know, feel like we need to say emphatically, and we have a lot of passion for, well, that comes through naturally, even though you don't necessarily have to get up on a soap soapbox and start shouting, you can lean into your strongest emphasis of, of how you are and how you want to communicate.

And. That comes through, that comes out through, in a very authentic way. And I think, you know, for myself, I am pretty calm for the most part on camera. Like people think, oh, you're so easy going. And you're so calm and relaxed and I can get as nervous as, you know, anyone . I think for me, like I've done a number of things that have really helped me overcome that kind of anxiety.

Like, and it's not a, like it ever goes away. It's just that I know that when things seem unsettled or when something happens, that's out of my control that it goes, oh no, this is, this is not good. I didn't plan for this. I know that it's okay. And that, you know, really, I can still make this go or I can still make something happen.

And you know, all the stuff. When I did that word bound, like that was an outdoor program. You were taking teenagers out into the wilderness for like three weeks at a time. And anything you can imagine with young people going out in the wilderness for three weeks at a time that could happen. That's what happened.

And as the director of the program, that's my, one of my main jaw was dealing with all the misbehavior and the upset and the things that went wrong. And so I learned very quickly that it was okay to have that happen. And yet not actually, you know, emotionally get up to the same level of what seemed like was just an entire mess or chaos.

And the same thing was true with working so much in live music and, and live performance settings, especially when you're trying to actually capture something that's live in the moment. And is only like you can't, re-shoot it like, this is a one time only thing. This, this song is gonna go by and they're not gonna do it again.

You can't say, oh, I didn't like that version. Can we, you know, we'll do it one more time that that's not happening. And so, you know, in these settings, I'm in a foreign country. I don't speak the language. I'm not even sure of like where I am or who I should trust. And like, there's all kinds of factors that add to what could go wrong and having gone.

All of that kind of experience, simply getting down and staring at a lens piece of cake.  

yeah, I think we 

go ahead. I'm sorry. Well, it's just, you know, it's putting into perspective. It's like our, our kittens gonna be drowned when I get in front of this camera, like is, you know, is something really horrible gonna happen?

Just simply, cuz I'm talking to the camera. Probably not, you know? 

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. I know that, you know, a lot of, a lot of people, myself included are definitely afraid of, of public speaking and, you know, the camera just kind of amplifies that in our minds. 

Yeah. Well, it's funny, you know, I can still get triggered.

I mean, I know that whenever I'm in a workshop setting and you're all sitting in a circle and then you're going around one at a time saying who you are and why you're here and that kind of thing. Introducing yourself. If I'm like at the end of the line, by the time my turn comes, I'm like all worked up and nervous.

I don't know why that particular environment gets me, but it always does. And. In those settings. Whenever I have the chance, when people say, well, we're gonna, we're gonna sit here and we're gonna do this. Who wants to go first? I'll go me.  I'll say I wanna get this first. And then the reason is because I wanna get it over with, so I'm not sitting there sweating for, you know, whatever the length of time is.

Yeah, I can understand that. I can, I can definitely relate with that now, as I noticed, as I noted it in your intro, you've got a successful podcast in both the standout CEO show and the live stream show. You've got a video production company and awesome video makers, as well as coach, as you, you offer coaching and courses.

So when do you sleep  and how do you get everything 

done? Well, first of all, I have people who are helping me do some of the things that I do and what I've done for myself is really the same thing that I'm doing for my clients. One of the biggest. Misunderstandings about doing content marketing. And in particular video marketing is people think it's gonna take a lot of time.

And when they look at social media and all the forms of digital marketing that exist, they go, oh my gosh, this just looks like I'm gonna be a, an algorithm slave. And I'm gonna have to, like, I do TikTok. I have to do it. What, two, three times a day. That's just nuts. I mean, I'm not gonna do that. And. And even on a platform, say like LinkedIn or YouTube, you know, once a week, you've gotta produce a piece of content, at least otherwise you're not, you know, you're literally not there.

So I've developed systems for myself and for my clients, which makes the time that. Anyone is putting into creating their own content to be really minimalist. So for example, one of the things that I do for people who are wanting to build their personal brand and have a very large online presence, especially with video, is that I do this service that I call mic drop moments.

And what we do is we meet just for an hour. And in that hour I interview. And I ask them questions that we've, you know, agreed at to ahead of time, but I interview them just the way you're interviewing me, but I do it in a little bit faster pace and I get them to, you know, be succinct with their answers and every answer.

I will edit into a short form video. And then I will change that into different shapes of vertical and horizontal and square. And I will schedule and post that for them all across their various social media channels. So in just one hour of sitting and being interviewed by me, they end up with literally a month's worth of social media, video marketing content.

And so for anyone who is like looking to be more of a thought leader, looking to be more of this trusted authority online, this is a very time efficient and very effective way to accomplish that. 

Okay. Now what makes up the bulk of your business you know, from the different, the different services in courses and everything that you.

Well, there's my main service is I work with people one on one as a, basically a video coach. And those, you know, that that varies between these shorter form pieces of content, or I actually help people produce video podcasts. And so either of those two things work and that. I would say the foundation of my business.

Cuz I have people, you know, clients come in then they'll work for, with me for a long period, you know, a year or more on a monthly basis. And so when they sign up, they sign up for a contract where we work together over a significant period of time. And I am basically, you know, producing and scheduling and distributing their social media content for them ongoing and okay.

That's that's the core of the business. I also do. Have online courses where you can come and learn these things. If, if you want to do the same kind of thing yourself, and that's done in a, in a group setting. Okay. 

Now you started awesome video makers back in September of 20, 20, 20 12. Started say 20, 20 12, 

I believe.

That's right. Yeah. 

What, what made you, what, what prompted you to start that and how has it evolved over 

the years? Well, in the beginning, I was doing basically corporate video production. Right. And so, you know, people would have me come in, you know, like a law firm or whatever would have me come in and I would go around and interview, many of the people who worked there and they would end up with a whole set of videos, which they could put up on their website or they could send out in emails, you know, they could use it in a variety of ways, but it really.

Them really exude the personality of the company and the people who worked there. And that was the, the, the thing that I was offering them was like, look, I'm gonna help you tell your story. I'm gonna help people who work here, tell their own stories, their own personal stories and how they relate to the company, how they relate to their colleagues, how they relate to their customers.

And. That was, that was my work for probably the first three to four years. And then gradually I started shifting, especially when, you know, cell phones and, and social media video and especially live streaming became a thing. It, it just like clear like, oh, well, Lots of people now have access to being able to do this.

The tools are everywhere. Like you, you can either use your laptop or use your phone and there's your camera and there's your internet connection. And you could start making video right away. The trouble was that most people who were doing this, weren't doing a very good job. And I just felt like I had an enormous amount of skill to bring to anyone who wanted to really.

Up their video presence and, and really, you know, come on, not only in just sort of how they look and how they sound, but from a, from a storytelling messaging perspective, how you can really speak to the absolute ideal people that you wanna be speaking to and have them connect, like have them actually engage.

You know what you're up to and what you believe in and what you stand for and the direction that that you're going. 

Okay. Now, why do you think that that generating video content is so hard for people? I mean, like you just noted, we're all walking around with these, you know, these cameras that dwarf anything that, you know, People were using, you know, five years, five years ago.

It should be it, you would think it'd be easier, but we, we make it hard. 

Yeah. Well, I mean, people think a few different things. One is they think it's gonna be too expensive to, you know, like they need to go buy a whole bunch of fancy gear. That's one myth. They, they can, as I said, they think it's gonna take way too much time.

Like, they're gonna have to spend lots of extra time doing this and especially with editing and post production and then trying to upload it and figure that all out. And, and then the third part is there's lots of people who feel daunted by the technology part of video, that the whole thing of like, well, what do I, what is a, you know, what is a video file?

like, how do I deal with, with video and what do I do? You know, this there's a lot of pieces in the technology part. People just look at and go. , I can't deal with this. Like, this is just something I'm never gonna learn. And so those, those three things are, are real roadblocks to many folks. And then the last one, which we've also touched on is people don't like the way they look or sound in front of the camera and they feel like, you know, I've got a face for radio video is like, I gonna do a podcast.

If I do anything, I'm not gonna get on camera. And what I'll say to that is. No one. And I mean, this, no one cares about what you look like except you. And what people care about is if you have something of value for them. So if you get on camera and you start communicating what you're talking about and, and really clearly explain why is this matter to the person who you're trying to talk to?

Why does it really matter to them? And then you demonstrate some thing that will actually help them. So they, they go, oh, I am getting help right now in this moment. That's all you need to do and that they will, they, you could have a paper bag over your head. Like you don't, it does not matter what you look like when you're doing that.

Yeah. I think we're all afraid of being found out, you know, afraid of the afraid of imposter syndrome, basically. 

Yeah. People are afraid of being judged and people are afraid that, you know, this will be out there and. They'll have done something really dumb and they they'll never get over it cuz it'll be out there on the internet for the rest of their lives.

And the truth is if you do something, you know, like if something is happening, when you're on camera, that is a mistake or an error or, you know, your kid comes running in Ave, seen, you know, videos. Like there was a newscaster from the BBC whose little girl came running in the room behind him while he was, you know, doing a news broadcast that video went viral.

And was super popular and you'll find that these things are your most entertaining and most endearing things that Pratt fall is probably one of the best things that you can actually do on camera. And this is actually one of the reasons why I am a real proponent of live streaming, because when you go live, you're actually off the hook of, of being perfect.

Like you cannot. Produce a perfectly polished, you know, excellent recorded. Nothing goes wrong. No mistakes whatsoever. No coffee, no nothing video when you're live because it's live streaming. And the other part about that is the audience does not want you to be perfect when you're live. They want you to show up as a real person.

They want you to just be there with them, for them, engage with them. And. In the moment conversation with them. And so if you achieve a real call and response, and people can comment and you can see their comments in real time, you can respond to them. You can ask them questions, they can answer you. I mean, this can go back and forth.

And when you're in the midst of doing all of this, if it's truly engaging all this stuff about how you feel about what you look like, or is anything gonna go wrong, all that stuff just sort of falls by the voice side. And you're just having this very engaged conversation, just like you would. Normally, if you were sitting across a table, in a cafe with someone.

Yeah, but we talked a little bit before the interview and you know, I stutter, I com I failed to complete sentences. Yeah. When I go back and edit, I use a tool called the script and it's, it's pretty, it's easy, but I know that a, I don't use it to its. A hundred percent, you know, a hundred percent advantage.

And B I don't, I don't even know, you know, how to make some of the jump cuts and stuff look professional, but I go through and I end up editing out the errors and us my own stuttering. How do you get around that? Or, you know, get past that when you're doing a live stream and, and that's just, it's just kind of a.

A qu buyer for 

me. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you a story about a client of mine, who I started working with just at the start of the pandemic. And she's a woman who is a consultant for nonprofits and the nonprofits that she works for are all, you know, social justice, social service kind of organizations.

They do really, really good work in the communities, in the cities where they are located. And she goes in and she's. Somebody who Combs through all their data. She's a real data won and she helps them determine whether they're actually getting the results that their mission says they're supposed to be getting and helps them clearly communicate that with their donors and all the stakeholders that support the organization.

Well at the start of the pandemic, Everybody was going around with their like chicken, with a head cut off in the nonprofit world, because a lot of stuff was going wrong for them. Like their annual fundraiser event, where they raise a huge amount of money. All of those events were canceled. And so she was really worried that all of her contracts were going to be canceled.

And for her, these were valuable. I mean, when she got hired, she wouldn't be making 30 to $50,000 per contract with anyone who decided to hire her. So what we did. Was we, I helped her create a weekly Facebook and no Facebook and LinkedIn. So two locations live stream, a live stream show that what she did was she actually went out and with two of her colleagues, the three of them would get on and they would bring on a guest who was a CEO of a nonprofit.

That they would have, and they would discuss a particular topic and it was very, you know, appropriate to the time like their Johns were dealing with all kinds of challenges. And so they had lots to talk about and they had never done anything like this. None of them, they had never done any video like this.

They'd never done any live streaming, none of it. And so I set them up like over a three month period, I got them set up and running. To put this show together and we created, you know, I mean, certain show elements, like they had a logo, they had a little intro and. And then they started doing a regular format of like, how did this show run?

And, and what were the regular things that they would do each time they went live. And it was really nice for them because, because there were three of them, they could take turns being the main host. And so, and they could take turns, inviting the guest. And so each of them only did these kinds of things.

One out of every three episodes, which made the workload for each of them a lot easier.  and they have been doing this show now for two years, they just recently passed their 100th episode. And in that first year, sh her business grew it, didn't not shrink during that first year of the pandemic. It actually, she got more clients.

And one of the cool things that was happening was that sometimes when she, even when she just reached out to one of these CEOs and invited them on. That person would reach out to her before they even had the interview and said, Hey, I really love what you guys have been talking about what you're doing.

I think I'd like to have you come in and talk with our team and see if you can help us out. And those three women have now become the leading experts on. What nonprofits should be doing in times of crisis. And their network has really grown in terms of they've now met with and gotten to know and build relationship with some of the very best nonprofit leaders in the country.

And now they're writing a book and, you know, it's just been a very successful thing for them to do. And I promise you, like, if you were to go and watch their live stream, you would. This is not perfect.  these people are just, you know, like they're ordinarily being themselves. They're, they're having a good time.

Like they're getting non, like they're, they're having good conversation with each other and they're having good on conversation with the guests, but there are a lot of things that are imperfect and they didn't do any editing. That production is just a live. And so from a production point of view, and from a time point of view, what that meant is that they could get on this show happens on a Friday morning.

So they get on and let's 10 o'clock on Friday stream for let's say 45 minutes. And that would be the entire run of show. And when they were done, they're done. No, post-production no bother with editing. No worry about, did you stutter over your words or did you forget your question or did you drop your notes?

It's not important. 

You you've apparently watched this show before then.  

oh, of course. Yeah. Like I I've watched it and reviewed it quite a bit.  and of course, like you can make it better. And if they were going to do a podcast version, like an audio only version. They would want to take the audio and edit it down.

Like you're talking about, use the script or something like that to make it better and more polished and make it shorter. And so it's more listener friendly, and this is what I do with my show. Like my, my show is produced as a live video podcast, but then I take. The audio and I do edit it down and I make a better version and I add an intro and an outro, and I put in music beds here and there.

Like I, I Polish it up and that's always better. Like, it's an always better product. Once it's turned into that edited version. I. But I it's not necessary. And from a business point of view, this is what I wanna stress here from a business point of view, a lot of people make the mistake when they're thinking of doing anything like this in terms of content marketing, that they need to grow a really big audience in order to be successful.

Then that is not true with a, a model like this. And in the case of this client, her business model was to go out and meet. The 10 to maybe 15 best fit potential clients in terms of the nonprofit world that she would like to work with. And that's who she went after. So that if she ended up with, you know, a portion of those, like four or five of those individuals actually saying yes to, yeah.

We'd like to work together, she was doing really. You know, every four to six months, if she's bringing in new business in that way, that's super successful. And the audience was in fact, the leaders of the nonprofits and their team and their colleagues. That was the audience. And that's not, you know, I don't know, maybe that's a thousand people, like it's not a big number.

And when you're, you know, when you're, when you have a business that's positioned in this way, you can be absolutely the thought leader and most sought after expert in your niche without having to be thinking about, oh yeah, I need to be like Gary Vanner check or any of these other like, or Tom, Tim Ferris or whoever like deaths or Joe Rogan.

Like that is a completely not necessary goal to aim for. Talk, 

speaking of people that don't sleep on any of those  

right, exactly.  so 

what tools do you recommend for some, both somebody starting out as well as somebody a little further along? 

Well, if you're just starting out, the tool of choice is to get a phone  you probably already have one and to use that.

And so if you're wanting to do video, the simplest thing to do is start just with your phone. And get yourself in some good light and that can be just by sitting in front of a window and, and that's it. That's you're ready to go. That's all you need. If you wanna be a little more advanced, you could buy a webcam and sit down in front of your laptop and, and make video that way.

That's a really. Both of those are really easy places to start. And most people already have what they need equipment wise to do that. If you're doing something a little bit more advanced, like live streaming, there are a lot of really helpful platforms that make live streaming really easy. I use a combination of tools.

One is called E cam live. Which I really like, because you can, it's software that you download to your laptop and it's really versatile. Like it's very easy to use, but you can make, you know, you can add logos and play videos and do, you know, lower thirds and create whole scenes with frames around them.

Like you can make it look very fancy. If you choose to, then you can bring on your guests and do split screen or put them on solo and then bring you on solo and all this kind of stuff. Like you, you can change it up so that. As you're doing a, a production, you can make it visually interesting. And you can change the scene from one scene to the next.

So it's not just a constant, just the two of us, two talking heads, you know, as a static thing for your whole production. And so I use that. And then I, then I, what I do is I take the signal from E cam live. And I send it to another platform called restream and restream is a multicasting platform. And so restream lets me, multicast simultaneously to LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube all at the same time.

And that's my distribution. 

Okay. So with the use of E cam E cam live, and restream, I could embarrass myself in multiple platforms at the same time. 

Absolutely. Yeah. , it's not, you know, you don't necessarily wanna start doing that, but it's definitely a place to graduate to. And the thing about live streaming, this is where like, when you think, well, why would I do a live stream as my podcast?

And there, there are some inherent advantages of doing this. Probably the biggest one is. When you are doing an interview show like this one, when you bring on a guest, like if we were live, I could be bearing this stream to all of my channels. In addition to whatever channel you were streaming to. So I could share this stream to LinkedIn.

I could share it to Facebook. I could share it to my profile page and my group page and my, you know, business page on Facebook. So all those different locations and, you know, Every time you do this, you are putting your show, your production in front of new audiences every single week. When you bring on a guest.

And of course, you know, this can happen like LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube all allow you to schedule your stream in advance. So you and your guest can promote. This live event that you're creating in advance, and you can email your people and say, Hey, you know, this week on the show, it's happening at this time.

And of course you wanna be consistent. You know, my show is always Tuesdays and Thursday mornings at 11:00 AM Eastern time. And so at those two times, people can know that that's when I'm gonna go live and they can join me. On whatever platform they prefer. So I'm creating an event where all the people I connect with on Facebook and also my other friends who I connect with on LinkedIn and also my, you know, couple thousand subscribers on YouTube.

I can bring them all together at the singular event and they can be chatting. And when someone puts in a comment or a chat, I can actually bring that comment right up on the screen and shout them out and say, oh, you know, here we are, Greg who's co you know, calling all the way from North Carolina.  has said this comment here, and people love that, you know?

And, and they're also seeing that, oh, this is somebody who's doing this from LinkedIn. And I'm over here on YouTube. Isn't that cool. And so it, it's creating this community that wasn't previously possible, and this is all by way of promoting what you're doing. And you can even use your audience to promote it.

Cuz of course they can be commenting and they can be sharing the content as well. And you can give them incentives to do that. And of course the more that that's happening. The more visibility you're getting on the content that you're creating and the more people are being invited in and et cetera, et cetera.

And these are all things that just aren't possible. If all you're doing is creating an auto audio podcast. 

Yeah. That's, I'm definitely considering this now because you know, the editing alone would, the lack of editing is very attractive. 

Oh yeah. It's amazing. Like you could, if you wanted to, you could just say, okay, well I'm not gonna bother with that anymore.

I'm just gonna go live and call it. Good. 

Yeah, I imagine I would still probably edit the audio portion just a little bit, but you know, you obviously you wouldn't have to, or your audience would've already, you know, noticed that I didn't complete a sentence there just then. And that was not by design. And I just used so you wouldn't have to worry about that.

So that's that, that is intriguing. Yeah. Yeah. Now, do you have any favorite stories of how you've been able to help somebody in their business? 

Well, yeah, of course. Let's see. What would be a good example? Well, there was a woman who. Was her name is Carrie Clark and she lives out in Missouri and she is a speech therapist.

And her work is that she teaches other speech therapists, their curriculum that they can use in their classrooms. And it was a really, and she had a membership site where people could, you know, join and then they would get access to this huge wealth and library of speech therapy. Lessons and curriculum and teaching materials.

And this was a great solution because any speech therapist who's working in public education is really busy and really, you know, working hard overworked doesn't have a lot of time. Certainly doesn't have a lot of money to spend on going to a conference or doing professional development or any of the kind of that.

And here was a $25 a month membership where they could get access to everything they needed. And so she was wanting to, you know, bring this to the world. And, and so at the time we got together, she was, again, this was on Facebook. She started doing a weekly Facebook series and it's a very similar setup where every week she would go on, she'd bring on a guest who was another speech therapist, that person had a specialty and they would teach just one thing.

That was the show. They do a live stream and they would teach one thing together. And then of course, every time there was a new guest. That person would bring and promote the live stream to their audience. And so week after week, her audience grew until she was getting, sometimes she would have like 10,000 views on a single live stream and she would take that content and repurpose it.

Onto her YouTube channel. And she had a, a person help. She had an editor do this for her, but she would edit the video a little bit by adding an, an intro and an outro with a call to action. And then that would be the YouTube video. And over on YouTube, it would get another two to 3000 views. Every time she made a new stream and.

This worked like she has become like the Oprah for speech therapy in terms of being a talk show, host all about speech therapy and her little membership has grown to where she's now earning about 35 to $40,000 per month as recurring revenue from this. You know, $25 a month product. And what's interesting.

I don't know if you know who pat Flyn is. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Okay. So pat Flyn, who's a big podcaster and a big online entrepreneur educator. He wrote a book recently called super fans, which I got. This is, I dunno, some time ago. It was when I first got it and I was reading through it and right in the middle of that book, he mentions Carrie  and how her, she was just a really good example.

Creating a superfan community. And it's really true. Like her people are like absolutely engaged and they're absolutely into it and they really love what's going on. And they're, they're very active with one another and supporting each other in this world of speech therapy. And, but I just thought like, oh look, Carrie's really, you know, getting out there cuz she got her name mentioned in, in pat flyn's book.

That's gotta be a rewarding feeling for you to, to see that you've helped her like that. 

Yeah. Well, it's, it's just an example of what's possible. I mean, again, like Carrie is this very regular, you know, ordinary, you know, at home mom, when, when we started working, she, she had two little kids. One of whom was, I think, only about eight months old.

And so she literally had no time for this. And this is again, like people think, oh, it takes too much time or whatever. All she needed was half an hour, a week of somebody to be watching your kids. And she'd lock herself in this, you know, spare bedroom and go live. And that was it. That's all the time she spent on it.

And I think at the beginning, she just, she went onto a couple different Facebook groups for speech therapy and she literally just posted say, who would like to be on my show. I'm doing this thing who wants to be a guest and in just one, you know, post of that, she got like six months worth of  a guest lined up.

So it was really not hard to get it off the ground. 

Okay. Let's get ready to wrap this up. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you'd like to go over or that you think that we should talk about? 

Well, all I would say is just to be really encouraging. You know, if anyone's out there listening to this and you've been thinking about doing video, but something's been holding you up or especially, maybe you've been doing some video and you're not really getting the results you want.

I just wanna say that. It's really possible. You know, just in this episode, I've given you two examples of people who had never done it before, and they've had tremendous success and been really, really surprised themselves at how well it's worked. And I think the thing that I would bear in mind is that don't think about making video in the way you think about the broadcast media that you're used to, or the commercial media that you're used to.

Making video is not creating a commercial and it's not creating a broadcast. You wanna create a conversation and you wanna create engagement. And if you do that, if you can actually engage the people who you're talking to, that's where the success will come from. 

Okay. What book do you currently recommend to move somebody to either start their, their video production or move it to the next level?

Or do you recommend a book at all? 

There is a good book. That's called go live it's by Jeffrey Gier. Who is a sales guy, really famous from Charlotte, North Carolina. That's right. That's right. So you know of him  I know of 

him. 

I've never met him. Okay. Well, 

he'd have him on the show. He's he lives right down there in your neck of the woods.

And he, he wrote this book during the, during the start of the pandemic. He had never gone live and he started going live every day. And then he wrote this book out of the experience of doing that. And what I really like about it is that not only does it help, like encourage you to do this and sort of kick you in the butt and say, go out and make this happen.

But he really talks about it from a salesperson's perspective in that. You can do this. And by the way, it's really helpful for your business and for actually converting people who are watching your video into becoming customers. 

Okay. Now I know you've already mentioned E cam live and restream. Is there any other piece of software or app that you find indispensable in your business?

It could be, it doesn't necessarily have to be video production even. 

Well, the thing that I have started using recently, which I think is awesome is this tool called riverside.fm. And what Riverside does is it allows you to do remote. Recording. And you will be able to get a high definition, high quality recording from your remote partner that while you're talking and while you're recording their side of the video will be uploaded to the cloud.

And so that when you're done, you can download it and it's just their side. And it's. Really good. Like it's, there's no internet glitch. There's no zoom fuzziness. There's, it's such high quality. It's really great. And this is what I do when I, when I'm doing my mic drop moments and I'm interviewing people and creating video for them.

This is how I'm doing that. And I'm making video even though like I'm, they could be anywhere literally around the world and I can interview them and produce a really, really high quality video of, of their, of their interview. Okay. 

Yeah, I've used Zencaster in the past and it does something similar.

There's just a number of glitches with Zencaster and maybe they've got, 'em worked out. I may have to try Riverside. So thank you for that. 

Yeah, I'm really impressed with it there it's I, I, it's a great tool. 

Lastly, what's the number one piece of advice that you can give for our listeners?  

well, hi, my advice is.

You really need to do whatever it takes to take the risk and be bold and stand out and literally put your face out there. You need to be the face of your brand, which means that in this world, the world of social distancing, the world of the new normal, the world, where we are meeting all the time on zoom.

Virtually in a myriad of ways. And none of that is going away anytime soon, if ever this is just the world we live in now. So you need to step up and if you wanna be outstanding, like if you want your business and your enterprise and your message to out, stand out, you need to up your game and learn how to do this.

Like get into the mode of, you know, it's like riding a bike. You've gotta learn how to balance. And once you get there, It's not nearly as hard as you might have thought it was, but you've gotta jump in and start doing this and you gotta start doing it now. No time like the present, I don't know what you're waiting for.

I think it's the biggest tragedy of the comments is that most super talented people are holding themselves back because they're afraid to be seen on camera. 

To be seen and to be found out  

right. Exactly. 

Well, that's a wrap. Thank you, Brad, for being a guest on entrepreneurs over 40. 

Yeah. Can I can I make a, an offer for these guys in terms of a free gift?

When was talking about when talking about engagement, if you're wanting to get some really good conversation starters I've got this PDF. Three, if you go to 40 video ideas.com and that's the number four video ideas.com, you can download this and it's gotta walk you through all these different prompts for making simple, short form video that will be engaging so that instead of just putting something out there and nobody will respond to it, you'll start getting response.

people will come back to you, which is what you're really looking for in start in starting that conversation. 

All right. Well, that sounds like a great, great deal entrepreneurs over 40. Definitely need to go out and get that. I, I, myself will be doing that as well. Yeah. Maybe, maybe I can embrace live streaming.

Right. So, well, Brad again, thank you for coming on and being a guest. Yeah, 

you're welcome. It's my pleasure entirely. It was really, this is really fun.