Gift biz unwrapped,

episode 252 Including a video on a landing page can increase

conversion rates by as much as 80% using video on your

Amazon listing,

increase sales by 20% or more.

At Tinton,

gifters, bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue And welcome to another week of the gift biz

unwrapped podcast.

If you've been a listener for a while,

you know that I talk with a variety of handmade business

owners I've had on chocolate and snack makers,

knitters and jewelry designers,

artists, potters,

makers of all sorts.

The thing that's so interesting is how learning from a maker

outside of your industry can open you up to new ways

of thinking and new approaches to take with your own business.

Sometimes by being too narrow within your field,

ideas become repetitive and well,

almost stale.

Having something new that breaks you out of the mold,

maybe just the thing that speeds up your sales and get

your mojo flowing again.

So I encourage you to listen to every show of course,

but particularly those outside of your product area for enlightenment and

for generating new ideas.

The big thing in common here on the gift biz on

wrapped podcast is we're all makers of a handmade product.

Gifters, bakers,

crafters and makers.

I have a past guest spotlight for you today.

I want to give you an update on Christine Walsh from

alpha graphics.

She was on episode number 207 almost a year ago.

Now, her business is not part of the alpha graphics chain

that you may be familiar with,

even though it has a similar name.

She's an independent woman owned business.

On the move in her podcast we talk about our networking

event called cake and whiskey.

Really interesting and something that you could employ in your area

too, so I really want you to go back and listened

to that episode if you haven't done so before.

Christine is definitely a leader and influencer in her area and

continues to up her game.

This past year she won the nationwide women in print award

and was chosen to be in the leadership program at Roger

Williams university working with CVS pharmacy.

Her business has been recognized in Baltimore magazine as a 47

year old company that keeps getting better and better.

A powerful woman.

That's Christine.

What comes to mind when I think of her is how

she's contributing outside the four walls of her business and her

pursuit of continued learning.

This results in more connections and visibility which then circles back

to further business growth.

Her result sales up 20% and this isn't starting from a

small number either.

Congratulations Christine,

and now onto the show.

Today we're going to be talking to one of the powers

behind big brand names.

I've got a full list to share with you in the

intro, so I'll wait on that,

but here's a fun fact.

Do you know that the foreman grill started out as a

tackle maker?

Talk about how a product transforms to fit a market.

My chat with Rick is enlightening and dramatic when he gets

into one of his lowest moments.

Let's get right into that talk now.

Today it's my pleasure to introduce you to Rick Seseri.

Rick has been a pioneer to the direct to consumer marketing

industry since the early nineties he's used direct response strategies plus

video marketing to help build many iconic brands with products like

the juice man,

Sonicare, the George Foreman grill,

OxiClean, Clarisonic rug doctor momentous golf,

the GoPro camera,

and many,

many others.

Rick strategies helped grow four companies from startups to over a

billion dollars in sales.

These case studies are outlined in his book building billion dollar

brands and his newest book video persuasion both now available on

Amazon. Rick,

welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.

Hey, it's great to be here and thank you for having

me on your show.

I'm thrilled that you're here and when I first got your

intro, I saw all of those amazing names like seriously one

or two of them could have been enough,

but I decided I wanted to say them all because they

all unto themselves are so powerful in terms of being great

brands. I've been very fortunate to get the opportunity to work

with a lot of great products and just so your listeners

know, these weren't all big well known products when I started

working with them.

Most of them were startups are just very early in their

growth or sales cycle and I was able to come in

and use some of the concepts we're going to talk about

today to help them build and create the brands that you

know today.

So it's been really fun to be able to work with

so many great products That is really exciting and cause for

optimism for all of us too.

Because you're right,

you never know exactly when a brand is really gonna make

it big.

Everyone starts from the beginning,

right? Everyone starts small.

Absolutely. Yeah.

I'm glad you pointed that out,

but I am going to backtrack us for a second because

I do have a tradition here on the show,

Rick, and that's around a motivational candle.

So it gives our listeners a little bit of about you

in a creative and different way.

So if you were to close your eyes and picture a

motivational candle that would speak you,

describe it for us.

Okay, well first of all,

it needs to be orange because orange is not only my

favorite color,

it's kind of my good luck color.

And for whatever reason I've just always had success incorporating that

color in logos,

whatever. And the slogan that I would put on that candle

would be one I borrowed from Winston Churchill is really credited

with the first one saying it,

and that's never,

never, never give up.

And he said that during the battle of Britain during world

war II,

but it's also very appropriate for business and my background in

business, because being an entrepreneur,

I'm sure your listeners know this,

it's not always easy going and sometimes you do want to

just give up.

And I've found that if you just stick to it,

a lot of times good things will happen.

Yeah. And sometimes that success is right around the corner.

What if you gave up and then you would never know.

Absolutely. There are times here in our office,

I'll be so frustrated at the end of the day and

I'll say to my assistant,

I'll be like,

why am I even doing this?

And she'll be like,

Sue, it's okay.

Go home,

get some sleep.

I'll see you in the morning.

I'm like,

okay, here we go.

Right. I have another great quote that speaks to that specifically

and that's something that a mentor of mine told me when

I was in my twenties and he said,

things are never as good as they seem.

And they're never as bad as they seem.

So when you're having one of those really bad days in

your business and you think it's the end of the world,

you know it's only going to get better.

So it's really good advice.

Agreed. 100% and it works too.

Cause. Then in the morning I wake up,

I'm like,

all right,

what was I thinking?

Let's go.

I'm excited.

Again, share with us a little bit about your backstory and

how you built into the brands that we talked about to

just give us a little bit of a background here.

Well that's great and other maybe encouraging thing for your listeners.

I don't have a background in marketing.

I studied biology in college and my plan was I was

going to be a Marine biologist,

but after graduating from college in Pennsylvania,

I took a year off because I knew if I was

going to be in Marine bio I would have to go

to graduate school.

So I was looking for things to do and I just

started reading a lot of books about how to be successful,

both motivational books and about how people made money and I

got interested investing in real estate because back then and still

today, many,

many millionaires are made through investing in real estate.

And I started to do that in attending seminars.

And one of the seminars I went to,

I went out and did what he told me and bought

a soul to house and made like $12,000

and again,

this was my early twenties and that seemed like a million

dollars to me.

And so I called a business magazine in Florida and that's

how I started promoting real estate seminars.

And then those were some of the first people to use

direct response television.

And so I got started using direct response television or infomercials

as your listeners might know him very early way back in

mid to late eighties and one of the things that I

did though is that concept and start using it for other

products. And one of the first products that I had a

really big success was called the juice man juice extractor.

to use direct response television to build that up to doing

zero to 75 million in sales in about four years.

And then we sold that to a company actually that was

a headquartered in your area.

Sue, a company called Salton housewares and Salton came back to

me and they said,

Hey, we like this type of marketing,

could you help us out?

We have this other product,

and it turned out the product that they wanted me to

market was a slanted grill and it was developed to be

a taco maker,

but it turned out that we ended up pairing that grill

up with George Foreman and that became the George Foreman grill

and still to date probably one of the largest selling television

products ever.

I think they've done over 120 million units and then just

from there people started coming to me asking me to help

them with their marketing and I was in the direct to

consumer marketing business for the last 25 years,

mainly using television and then more recently switching over and using

all types of video and with the different social platforms now

how video can be used to help build businesses.

Got it.

It's so interesting the evolution.

When I hear everyone's story,

it's so interesting how you'll go in your case biology to

real estate because real estate,

I couldn't really make the connection either yet,

but then when you got to the direct response then I

had it.

It's so interesting.

I think it just plays to the point that when you

see opportunity or you're led to go one way,

even when you think you might be going to another,

you should take advantage of those opportunities because that's what happened

to you.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think it's more just an entrepreneurial mindset.

And I was interested in real estate again because I was

reading, that's how people were making money at the time and

also being young,

not everybody when they're in their late teens or early twenties

know exactly what they want to do in life.

And so kind of trying different things and trying and failing

or trying and succeeding helps you determine what you want to

do with your life as well.

And to your point,

once again,

the brands that you ended up landing on weren't big names

right away.

So you actually got to watch the progression and the evolution

of a lot of these big,

dare I say iconic brands,

right? Yeah,

absolutely. Like Sonic care was doing less than a million dollars

in sales and they were having trouble getting placement on retail

shelves and so we helped them grow.

And then Oxyclean I'm sure a lot of your listeners use

OxiClean in their home.

I know I do.

And we started working with them again when they were doing

less than a million dollars in sale and they were only

selling on the home shopping network.

And I don't know if you remember their spokesperson,

Billy Mays.

Yes, I did.

Billy's very first infomercial and he was a very interesting character

to work with.

He was a great,

great salesman and just a fun guy to know.

Oh that's so cool.

So give biz listeners like all of these larger brands,

you might be saying,

okay, that's not me,

right? But the first thing I want you to think of

is what we were just talking about.

Everyone starts as a smaller brand and grows and we are

going to get into some of those tactics.

So stay tuned for all of that.

But I am curious,

Rick, because now you have been in video for so long.

over the years?

Well, a couple of things.

First of all,

video used to be so expensive to produce that not very

many people could afford to do it.

You had to hire the cameras themselves were usually expensive and

you had to hire professional people that knew how to use

them and lighting people.

And now almost all of that technology with your iPhone you

have a better camera capabilities than some of the early cameras

we used to use.

And then for on Amazon you can buy a simple light

and a simple microphone that you can plug in and all

of a sudden you have the ability to make video as

good as I was doing 10 15 years ago,

really for under a hundred dollars.

And so that part is what's really amazing is to me

is just that technology has really opened up video production and

using video to anybody and on all the social media channels

that video is becoming so prevalent that we're becoming really what

I call a video first society.

That people would almost rather watch a video to learn how

to do something than to read it in text.

That's the biggest changes I've seen,

Sue. Okay.

So true.

And I've heard speculation,

you know,

I follow social media a lot because that's often what I'll

speak on,

but there have been predictions that Facebook within five years will

be all video,

no text posting at all,

which it's hard for me to envision that,

but I could see where that would happen.

Oh absolutely.

And it's just that we get bombarded and you know,

from working in social media,

we get bombarded with so many messages and I don't know

if this is a good thing or a bad thing,

people just don't like to read anymore.

They don't have time to read.

And so if they can get that same information through video,

it's a much easier way to deliver the message.

And there's some really great statistics.

You mentioned my book video persuasion about the power of video

and including a video on a landing page can increase conversion

rates by as much as 80% using video on your Amazon

list can increase sales by 20% or more.

So it's a very powerful medium if used correctly On your

landing page.

So give biz listeners,

we're talking about like product pages where you're going directly for

the sale.

Like you might have some demo videos,

that would be one application,

right Rick?

Absolutely. Or a website where your maybe your about page where

you're introducing yourself and just explaining what your business is all

about or how you happened upon your business so people can

feel comfortable with you.

I mean,

I'm sure there are a million different options.

But one thing I want to say right here really quickly

cause I'm going to forget Rick,

is I also saw a from social media marketing examiner,

their annual report that's showing,

and I'm hesitating a little bit,

but I'm pretty sure the number was only 35 it might've

been 45 but I think it was only 35% of brands

are actually using video yet.

So there's a whole lot of opportunity for all of us

before everyone really starts jumping in.

Oh absolutely.

Again, I hadn't read that,

but that statistic doesn't surprise me at all.

And I think it's a little bit of a carry over

from what I talked about earlier.

The video people feel like they don't have the expertise and

so that's one of the reasons I wrote the book video

persuasion is to really give people the expertise of using video

in their marketing.

And you mentioned something really important.

So for people that have their own website and are selling

their own products,

which I imagine most of your listeners are doing.

There's a couple key videos that you need to have on

there. One you mentioned already,

which is kind of like your overview video,

which is telling the people what you do and why you're

doing it.

People love to know about why you're doing something.

It's a little bit of your origin story too.

It's like why did you decide to sell the product that

you're selling and these are things that set you apart from

the competition.

Then it's always important and I'm a really huge advocate of

having testimonial videos on your website,

and again,

you can have written testimonials,

but as we just talked,

video is a lot more powerful way to deliver the message

and I believe good authentic testimonials from people that have purchased

your product is one of the most powerful marketing tools that

you can have.

And then the other one you just referenced to again was

having a good demonstration video.

And you know I have a free download on my website,

which is dot com which is the three most engaging types

of online video content.

And we've already talked about two of them,

testimonials and demonstration videos.

And the last is a tutorial video,

which is really just a how to video and that would

be how to use your product.

And if you include those videos on your website,

it'll really go a long way towards helping convince people to

purchase your product or service.

Oh, I love that.

And the other thing I'm going to also add to this,

Rick, a lot of times now we're talking about an actually

just a few episodes back with Asana.

We were talking about semi passive income.

So people taking like,

let's say they make jewelry and they're selling beautiful jewelry,

let's just go with that.

A lot of people now are starting to create some passive

income by teaching other people who are DIY,

how to do it themselves.

So they're selling not just tutorials of how to use your

product, but also potentially how to make your product.

Oh, absolutely.

And I'm sure if you and I sat here and chatted

we would think of another million ideas of applications.

Absolutely. But here's the problem Rick,

here's the problem.

I still don't really know how to do it yet.

Like can you give us some ideas of like ways,

because I'm quite sure that a lot of people who are

listening are like,

yeah, I get it.

I buy into it.

Not me.

You know?

Are we talking about the technical aspect of it?

Yeah, I think so And so here's something that I think

should be encouraging to your listeners is I'm about the least

technical guy in the world.

I'm not someone who can pick up a video camera and

know how to use it,

but one of the things that I talk about in the

book is the video production process and the three steps are

pre production,

which is to me,

you have to spend 90% of your time there and that's

really getting organized what you want your video to be about

and just writing kind of a brief outline of what it

is you want to cover.

And then the production process is when you're actually taping it.

And again,

when I say taping,

you can be using your iPhone or Android phone to do

this and then the editing phase.

And I think that's probably a part that's a little bit

more difficult,

but I do have something that would help anybody that is

just getting started.

There's lots and lots of online apps that right now today

that create really nice video for you.

And I'll give your listeners one,

it's called content samurai and basically you could go there and

you can write two paragraphs,

three paragraphs,

a blog,

whatever it is,

and plug it right into the app.

And they'll put pictures and video to it and you can

be on your way to producing video just by using this

online app.

And it's really,

really easy.

And again,

it's just something that I think people should be looking into.

And that the nice thing is technology has made it easier

for anybody to get into video So much easier.

And you bring up a really good point too.

And that's what this content samurai sounds like is,

it doesn't always have to be you face to camera,

Right? Video is,

what do you just call it?

Something in motion,

right? So it could be even your hands making a product.

The about us one was probably you talking and at some

point you should be on camera,

but not everything has to be Right.

That's correct.

And it can have a chapter in my book about being

your own spokesperson and how important that is because people want

to hear from the inventor of the product,

the maker of the product,

the person who's making the jewelry.

It's just the way society is now.

It's a very authentic message and people respond to that.

So those are all really important things.

And I know Sue,

you and I were talking earlier about Facebook live and Amazon

live and Instagram live and things like that.

And so that's something that I think it'd be good to

spend a little bit of time talking about as well.

Okay. Let's definitely do that.

I just want to bring up one other thing about the

production process though.

Sure. I really like,

and these are pretty simplistic,

like you know,

obviously you've pre-production and you're actually producing and filming it and

then you're editing it.

But I so agree with you when you say that the

majority of time should be in your pre production.

And I think that's where,

I know for me that's where a lot of times I

fail initially because I'd be like,

okay, I'm going to produce a video,

it's going to be about this.

And then I start videoing and I'm like,

I don't even know what I'm going to talk about.

Instead of having,

I'm not one for scripting everything out,

but I used to do bullet points and once I figured

that part out,

like here's how it's going to flow,

it's all bulleted.

Then when you get on camera you kind of know where

you're going so it's not so hard.

Yeah, it's just being organized upfront and I'll give you another

good analogy that I use to help people with video production.

I think making a good video is very similar to giving

a speech or a PowerPoint presentation and I use,

one of the books that I recommend in my book is

I read in my early twenties how to win friends and

influence people by Dale Carnegie and he had a formula for

giving a speech,

and you've might've heard of this before.

It's like tell people what you're going to say,

say it and then tell them what you said and believe

it or not,

that's a formula that I've used in creating my videos where

I don't know if this has happened to you or any

of your listeners.

A lot of times you'll be looking at a video and

you have no idea what they're talking about and so you

click away from it or turn the channel or whatever you're

doing, and so I'm a big believer in telling people right

up front,

here's what this video is going to be about.

Then you get into the meat of the video,

the information you want to deliver,

and then you summarize it at the end and it's a

really simple formula that works really well.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

Plus you sometimes need to hear it a couple of times

before it really sinks in.

I mean,

you might've been there right from the beginning,

but by the third time you're not belaboring the point with

each and every phase,

but by the third time that it's like,

okay, now I really got it.

That makes sense.

Absolutely. All right,

well let's move over into live that you were talking about

that you referenced.

Let's talk about that.

Okay. We're going to get right back to Rick and hear

all about live video,

right after a word from our sponsor.

Yes, it's possible increase your sales without adding a single customer.

How you ask by offering personalization with your products,

wrap a cake box with a ribbon saying happy 30th birthday,

Annie, or at a special message and date to wedding or

party favors for an extra meaningful touch.

Where else can you get customization with a creatively spelled name

or find packaging that includes a saying whose meaning is known

to a select to not only are customers willing to pay

for these special touches,

they'll tell their friends and word will spread about your company

and products.

You can create personalized ribbons and labels in seconds.

Make just one or thousands without waiting weeks or having to

spend money to order yards and yards,

print words in any language or font,

add logos,

images, even photos.

Perfect for branding or adding ingredient and flavor labels to for

more information,

go to the ribbon print company.com

Well, let me just tell you that I fall into the

category of someone that was scared to death to do live

video because all my background has always been behind the camera

listening to what someone's saying,

working on the content.

And so about six months ago I was working with a

coach. It had to do with the book launch for my

book video persuasion.

And my coach said,

you need to start doing Facebook live.

And I was like really nervous and to be honest with

you, I didn't even know how to do a Facebook live.

And so she walked me through and it's really very simple

to do that.

And you know what?

It boils down to Sue.

It's like anything else.

If you want to be good at a certain craft,

you're are making jewelry.

We'll use that example.

You don't aren't creating beautiful pieces the first time you do

it. So it really boils down to practice and the fact

that you're going to do a few that probably aren't going

to come out very good.

And the thing is that you can just do it over

and over and eventually you're going to get better at it.

It's no different than anything else,

whether it's a craft or jewelry or speaking or sports.

If you just practice a little bit,

you'll get better and you'll get more comfortable.

And now every Friday I do a Facebook live and it's

a kind of like second nature.

So that's probably one of the best advice I could give

as far as someone that's thinking about doing some type of

live appearance.

Yeah, just let it be.

And you know,

they always say,

if you are cringing at the very first video you did,

you started too late.

Have you heard that before?

I got to remember that.

That's a great thing.

But it's absolutely true because unless you're an actor that gets

paid a lot of money,

your very first ones aren't going to be very good.

And you know there's something appealing to that.

One of the nice things about social media is it's really

brings through an authenticity and I think people respond better to

an honest approach than something that's very,

very, very polished.

And so if they see you're struggling,

I don't think that's a bad thing.

As long as you're communicating good information.

I agree with you.

In fact,

I think it's almost more engaging.

Do you follow Shalene Johnson at all?

I do not know.

She used to be on infomercials and she does just all

of this stuff and apparently she had a very staged video

that she was doing for beach body,

I believe it was promoting whatever she was promoting at the

time and it wasn't working and they were throwing probably knowing

where her status millions of dollars at this campaign and it

wasn't converting.

And so she's like,

forget this,

let me just try something.

She took her phone and recorded something and then they put

that up.

I forgot the whole story and it was converted and it

was just raw casual.

And what it did is it didn't make her look like

someone who was so unattainable that it was fake.

Right. It was believable.

It was believable.

Yeah, And that's something I mentioned to the power of testimonials

before and in the early days we used to sit someone

down in a nice environment and tape them and it got

to the point where you're called it a talking head and

so people don't respond to that.

I'd much rather go to a trade show and say you

have a booth at a flea market or a trade show

and somebody walks up to the booth and you just stick

a microphone in their face and say,

Hey, how do you like this?

And it's genuine.

You can hear the noise in the background.

You can see people walking by and people will buy into

that authenticity because they know it's not staged and it's not

fake. Do you then have to ask them if it's okay

if you use that clip for something?

Yes. That is one thing that I do cover in my

book and that's a good advice that you're bringing up is

if you're going to be using testimonials from other people,

you need to have a release form that gives you permission

to do that.

I have a copy of a standard release form in my

book and or you can Google it online and get a

video release form,

but if you're going to use that somebody's testimonial on your

website and your social media,

you should definitely have their permission before doing so cause otherwise

you could get into trouble.

The other thing that I've done,

cause I have actually used this tactic at trade shows before,

the other thing that I've done is I'll ask them to

record the testimonial.

I'll show it to them on video and then ask them

if I can use it and then of course get the

release. Sometimes I've just like emailed them and said,

is this okay?

I would like to use it on my website.

Do I have your approval?

And then they email me back and I'm like,

okay, I'm not that big.

Like that'll be fine.

That's another important point is I find in working with people

and companies that aren't utilizing video,

that they're almost afraid to ask people for testimonials.

And I've always found that if you do that,

people, if they like your product or like your service or

like your company,

they're more than willing to help you out.

And I think that just a lot of people are just

afraid to ask.

And yet the response that I've always gotten is people really

want to help you out.

And like again,

I said,

if they like the product,

they're more than happy to talk about it.

Yeah, for sure.

And then the other thing that I do as an extension

of that is if they're like,

no, no,

no, I don't like my face on video,

then I'll say,

well, would it be okay if I just used your words?

Then you know,

so then you've still got the testimonial one way or the

other. Absolutely.

And you can have the audio part of it or you

can transcribe it and have a written testimonial that came from

what they said.

Oh, I didn't even think of just audio.

Yeah, that's a great idea cause that's more personable yet.

Yeah, Audio testimonials are great.

It's funny after like 23 years I'm working with George Foreman

again. He's endorsing a product called real time pain relief and

he just got done doing a series of radio shows and

they're very effective.

And you know,

I'm big on video radio and audio like you were just

mentioning. It's still a good way to get testimonials across.

Okay. So would you say whether you do it a little

bit more planned,

right, or you just do it on the cough live,

knowing that there's a little bit of planning behind it before

you push the start button.

Would those both be ways to do any of the video

categories that we talked about?

Like who you are and why you do it?

Testimonials, demos,

tutorials. You could do it either way,

right? Yeah,

absolutely. And I think again,

if you're doing something,

I think you hit the nail on the head,

Sue when you said that you think through it and you

don't script everything out.

Cause if you script it out it's going to sound scripted.

But if you just it through and have Bullet points and

like, well,

I want to talk about this and cover this point and

just, it's almost like a little cheat sheet or something that

you're using to guide you along.

That's the best way of doing it in my experience.

Okay. All right,

so all you guys now is the time you can get

testimonials, you know how to do it.

You know the most powerful ones are video or audio,

video first,

then audio.

So I challenge all of you to start doing that the

next time you're out at a farmer's market craft show,

trade show,

wherever you are.

Think about incorporating this into your day because that is certainly

the place where people will come up and say,

Oh, I found you last year.

I used your product.

I'm so happy about it.

Or whatever the case is.

So get it in real time versus thinking later.

You're going to circle back with them.

Yeah, absolutely.

And again,

use your cell phone to do it.

The camera capabilities are great.

Again, you can buy a little inexpensive microphone for less than

$40 on Amazon that you can plug right into your cell

phone there where you can get good audio and that's the

difference really between bad video and good video is usually just

a little bit of the lighting,

which is usually pretty easy to fix,

especially if you're taping something outdoors,

but it's mainly the audio and as long as you are

recording good audio,

your video will come out really well as well.

Sounds great.

Well I was reading something as I was doing a little

bit of prep and you've peaked my curiosity when you referenced

that old school marketing specially some of those concepts have been

lost. What are you referencing there?

That's a good one.

I think that I'm referring to,

you hear about social media and you have to be on

social media and you have to do the latest technology.

You have to be with Facebook and I agree with all

those, but traditional marketing avenues still work well.

We were just talking about using the radio for the George

Foreman product and I think it's important that you be a

marketing person,

that you try to reach people where they are.

And I know that a lot of people are online,

a lot of people are doing social media,

but traditional ways of marketing,

even print ads,

radio, things like that.

I've always found to be effective and are still effective way

to let people know about your product or service.

Yeah, I agree with you there because social media in all

avenues, you know with the new platforms that come out now

we've got tick tock starting to make some headway here,

but it all seems to be around social media because that

was the newest and greatest thing.

And you're right,

some of the old things are first.

Sometimes it just feels more comfortable to do,

I'm calling them old,

but I think you're right.

The traditional ways that we've always done it,

and TV,

certainly with local cable stations,

you know,

if you're a local brick and mortar shop,

that's still an opportunity for you.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. And even again,

if it's some type of business on a little bit larger

scale, TV's still a fantastic thing to do on national cable.

But then if you go down to the local level,

like you were talking about,

you can get some really amazing deals on local cable channels

that are very,

very, very inexpensive to run some commercials to drive people to

your website.

Yeah, so still video and then are you able to take

then will they give you the video that then you could

put on your website or do you have to link to

their platform?

It depends.

Sometimes they'll give you the video and you can just put

it in there or like you just said,

do a link like that,

but that's something you should talk about upfront with them for

sure. All right,

so all of this sounds so good,

Rick. Like your whole story's good.

You've seen success,

you've had all of these big brands.

Can you share something about video that was,

I want to say a disaster like the worst,

the better.

You don't have to give names,

but some challenging time so that we all feel like when

that happens to us,

we're okay.

We can still do this.

The worst of all of them.

Okay. And I have a lot that fall into that category.

But it's really funny,

and this is more of a business story.

It did incorporate video,

but again,

I was in my early twenties and I was starting a

business and I had left somebody,

I'd helped somebody build their real estate seminar business and I

left to start my own and he sued me.

That wasn't very nice.

No, I know.

And it was more like a strategy to keep me out

of business.

And so anyway,

I ended up spending a lot of money and he had

a lot more resources than me.

And I had to declare bankruptcy.

Not only that,

I had borrowed like $50,000

against my mom's house to help fight this lawsuit.

And I had a friend that was living out in Seattle.

I was living in Florida at the time and I called

them up and I asked him if I could borrow $8,000

because I had this idea to make a television commercial,

and I flew out there.

I had made the commercial in Florida for $8,000

which is a whole story in itself to be able to

do that.

And then he was in the fishing business.

I flew up to Alaska and it turns out we went

out fishing in the Aleutian islands like you see on the

deadliest catch with those crab boats and things.

Oh yeah.

You got caught in a storm and our boat sunk and

we had to be rescued by the coast guard.

And it was a kind of like almost one of the

lowest points in my life that almost dying.

I was in debt,

things couldn't go worst.

And I get back in to the coast guard station in

Alaska in Kodiak,

Alaska, and the TV commercial that we had made,

I had put on the air why we were up fishing

and when I called in to get the results,

we had spent like $3,000

in advertising and we had generated like $12,000

in product sales.

So the moral of that story for me is again,

tying into the candle and the thing is that you know

you're going to hit some low points in life.

Just never give up that the opportunity is always around the

corner. Things aren't going to stay bad forever.

There's always going to be another opportunity.

And so that's kind of a story that's always stuck with

me as far as bad things that can go wrong.

That's a crazy story.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, you really got me at the sinking part.

Oh yeah.

I could go into detail at some point.

It usually takes about a half an hour to tell the

story because I mean literally we had to get into the

suits. The big rubber suits that in case you fall overboard.

It's a good thing you had them.

Yeah, exactly.

So it was a scary time and then it was kind

of like almost going at the range of emotions were like

going from almost losing your life and really low point in

your life to really a high emotional high.

And it was just really amazing.

I just wish we could know that it's coming,

that the good part is around the corner when you're sinking

in the water,

that something good is going to be happening soon.

Yeah, exactly.

But we don't get to know that,

so we have to,

I guess just train ourselves to know that it's not always

as bad as the point that we're in.

Yeah, I guess would be the way to say it.

Yeah. Okay.

Well that Rick,

I wasn't expecting at all.

Okay. So let's get back onto the track of video and

I just want to be super clear for everybody who's listening.

We've talked about the different places that video could be strong

and could add power to a brand.

Can you define for me just really quickly,

once more?

One single concise reason why video's important and maybe the first

two or three steps for somebody brand new,

never done video before so that when they are done listening

it can be super actionable.

Sure. Probably the biggest thing is if you start to use

video on your website,

the biggest thing that's going to happen initially is you're going

to stand out from the competition because a lot of your

competition won't be doing that.

They won't have video on their website and there's all sorts

of statistics that show that people trust websites with video.

It helps build your brand a little bit better.

So the reasons for using it are many fold and the

next step is,

and this is where a lot of people fall down,

you're exactly right,

Sue is the fear of getting started or the fear of

making a mistake and people,

one of the nice things about social media these days is

that you see all sorts of really lousy video and so

I wouldn't be afraid of making a mistake that I think

bad video is to me is better than no video at

all. If that helps your listeners at all.

And I know that sounds funny and everybody wants to be

perfect and polished and everything,

but I'm just talking about even if you're talking into,

again, your cell phone and using that video,

I believe that that puts you a little bit head and

shoulders above what the competition is doing.

So one,

if you're not using video,

you should get started doing it.

It's easier and less expensive now than it's ever been before.

And three,

there's a huge amount of online resources to help you every

step along the way.

Got it.

Love it.

I was just going to say,

I didn't want to interrupt you as you were going through

these three points,

but I've heard people saying you'll this one video performed and

it was like the worst of everything I've like,

why was that the one performing?

Right. Yeah,

that happens all the time.

And it's funny you see these really terrible TV commercials sometimes,

but you keep seeing them over and over again and they

work. And I think it really goes that people,

I think sometimes shy away from something that's too slick,

too overproduced to a refined message.

And it goes back to the story you told before about

creating a video like that that's more just kind of about

that woman,

the host that just off the cuff and really her real

personality coming out.

And I think that's what people are looking for.

Absolutely. And I also think,

correct me if I'm wrong,

Rick, but I'm also pretty sure that video ranks much higher

in search.

It does.

Okay. So if you have a video and then you title

it something and it's on your website,

your website's been scrolled right for content.

Absolutely. So you are more likely to be seen then and

discovered also.

Yeah, and another little trick to tie into that is you

can basically,

there's services really inexpensive online.

They're using artificial intelligence to basically you could send the video

in and they make transcripts of it and one simple one

you can check out is rev.com

rev.com and so you make your video,

then you get a transcript made and you put the transcript

down and all that stuff helps with Google and the search

engines and will help your website rank above.

Other people may be doing the same thing but without video.

Beautiful. Perfect.

Okay, so you guys,

here's the thing,

you have lots of options.

If you don't have any video on your website already,

I'm giving you three options.

This is me telling you that you have to do this.

Okay. Either add to your about me page.

So what you do and why.

So your origin story,

I guess that could also be on the banner to Rick

maybe. Yep.

Maybe a demo video and for sure testimonials.

So pick one of the three as your first thing that

you're going to do.

Pick up your phone.

I don't care if you have a cell phone or an

Android. It doesn't script out a little bit of what you're

going to say unless it's the testimonials because then obviously they're

going to say what they're going to say and just do

it. Don't stand in your own way.

We were just talking about how valuable this can be,

and particularly for your website,

we all know that just because it's up there doesn't mean

that people are going to find you.

So here's an opportunity and you can also put that same

video then up in Facebook on your Facebook page or other

places too.

It can be placed in different areas.

So I want you guys to do this.

Yeah, that's a great point too is that we didn't talk

about a lot,

but you just mentioned it.

Once you make the video,

you can multipurpose it through the other social media channels,

so you're not only making it for your website,

you could all start a YouTube channel.

You could use it through social media channels and then just

those three steps that you told your listeners to do.

If you're going to do that,

you're going to be ahead of 80% of companies that aren't

doing that right now.

So it's something important and people really need to start doing

it. Yeah,

and you know,

once you get comfortable,

you can always replace it with a more upgraded video.

Like if you stumble over your words and you don't quite

edit everything or you don't edit it all,

you just do it free flow and put it up there.

Nothing says that it's going to have to be there forever.

You can always pull it down and replace it later.

But the,

what I don't want any of you guys doing is just

not starting because you get in your own way,

which we do a lot.

I know my audience well.

We do that a lot to ourselves.

Okay. Let's talk a little bit about both your books and

what's included and how those could be valuable for my audience.

Sure. The first book is,

and this was published a year ago called building billion dollar

brands and like I mentioned,

it talks about building products like Oxyclean and Sonicare and GoPro

cameras into billion dollar businesses,

but really it goes to the really the basics of what

you need to build any brand and a unique selling proposition.

How are you different than the other people in the marketplace?

Positioning and creating value,

great customer service,

all the little things that are very basic,

but if you put them all together,

to me that's how you start to build a great brand

and so that's what that book talks about,

how to do it,

but then also the case studies of some of the products

we mentioned and then the one that really covers a lot

of what we've been talking about today is video persuasion and

that was released about a month ago and is doing very

well. It was number one in its category on Amazon.

And that gives you really all the information about if you're

not using video,

how to get started technically what you need to do and

a lot from the standpoint of content.

And one last thing we didn't talk about is just basically

the underlying psychological concepts that make people react to videos in

a certain way is also in there.

So you can hit on those things in your video content

and both of those books,

you can find them on Amazon under my name or just

the name of the book.

Perfect. And that's a little teaser now for us to get

the book to learn about how to get people,

you know,

the whole psychology behind it.

That's made me very curious as well.

Alright, and where would be another place for people to find

you online if they want to know more about you besides

your books?

Oh yeah,

the best place is just my website,

which is Rick says.com

R I,

C, K,

and my last name is C,

E S,

a, R.

I, Rick dot com and I write a blog every single

week that has to do with marketing.

If marketing isn't your strong point,

these blogs will really help you out with lots of great

tips that you can utilize right away.

And then there's also a free download I mentioned earlier the

three most popular types of online video content and how you

can utilize them in your business.

That's a free download you could get at my website,

dot com Perfect.

Wonderful. Rick,

thank you so much.

As we close out,

what are you looking at for your future?

Where do you think you're going from here and don't tell

me another boat in Alaska.

No, no,

definitely staying away from that.

Okay, good.

Although I do enjoy fishing and that type of thing,

but not on a commercial basis.

But you know,

I've made a transition.

I ran a direct response agency for like 25 years and

now I'm just doing more writing and speaking and consulting and

trying to help people,

younger entrepreneurs that are starting a business,

trying to help them in different cases,

grow their businesses and just kind of work with products and

companies and people that I like and just have fun doing

it. So that's kind of what's in the next few years

for me in my future.

Sounds fabulous.

Well thank you so much.

It has been really a joy hearing about direct response marketing

from a pro like you.

So I appreciate your sharing all of your expertise with us

today and let's challenge all our listeners to get some video

ops, shall we?

That's great.

Thanks Sue.

I really appreciate it.

Take care.

Alright, bye.

Bye. I know this show was heavily focused on video and

if you're one of those women out there saying it's okay

for others but not for me,

I am begging you to reconsider.

In fact,

if we were in person right now,

I'd be pulling out my phone and doing a little test

recording to show you how easy this really can be and

if my begging doesn't do it.

Let's go back to the stats.

How can you ignore a potential increase by 20% on Amazon

or an 80% conversion on a landing page of your website?

Think about it.

Next week we're taking it back to product and business development

with a group of women I love to just hang out

with on a Saturday afternoon.

Well, I kind of did.

I'll tell you all about it until then.

Make it a great week and do some video.

I'll see you again next Monday.

Bye for now.

Are you discouraged because your business is not performing as you

had envisioned?

Are you stuck and confused about how to turn things around?

Sue's new best selling book is structured to help you identify

where the holes are in your business and show you exactly

how to fix them.

You'll learn from Sue and owners just like you who are

seeing real growth and are living their dream maker to master

find and fix what's not working in your small business.

Get it on Amazon or through www.

Doug gift biz,